And we will become one in the eyes of Nightfall.
Then, well, then the bond is sealed in the only way this realm understands.
With sex.
The word lands oddly in my head.
Clinical. Detached.
Like I can file it away under procedure and be done with it.
It’s perfunctory, I tell myself.
Ritual. Magic. Part of the deal.
And, okay—after kissing him, I have to admit that sleeping with Thorne will not be a hardship.
The man is impossible to ignore.
All muscle and heat and presence.
Dark tattoos tracing his shoulders and back like stories written in flame.
Tawny skin.
Sharp, devastating features.
Eyes that glow like firelight catching at the edge of night.
He is intensity made flesh.
But that’s the problem.
For me, sex has never been just physical.
I tried that once. Friends with benefits. Clear rules. No expectations.
I fell.
He didn’t.
And I was the one who had to walk away with my heart bruised and my pride in tatters.
So the idea of giving myself to Thorne—of letting magic and fire and fate bind us through something so intimate—it terrifies me in a way I don’t know how to explain.
Because what if I can’t keep my heart out of it?
What if I don’t want to?
I press my palms together, breathing through the swirl of fear and resolve and something dangerously close to longing.
If this is the price of saving his people and the worlds they sustain, I’ll pay it.
I just hope there’s something left of me afterward.
I just have to remember what he told me.
Nothing is as it seems in Nightfall.
