Vesperin’s fingertips drifted over his thigh as he redressed in his uniform.
"I want you to make love to me when you return. I’ll be here, waiting for you," she said softly.
His brown eyes darkened. "I’ll always come back to you, Rin."
She watched him leave. And long after he left, she lay there, staring at the dark ceiling until her exhaustion grew to be too much and she fell back asleep.
She awoke to thick smoke in the air, choking her.
Vesperin ripped away from the bed, sheets tangling around her legs and tripping her in her haste to stand. Dark smokefilled the room. The window was cracked, the fog outside seeping within. It was not harmless like the normal fog that filled the city, but thick and burning with every inhale. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth.
She coughed, something wet and hot shoving past her lips and splattering on her palm. When she pulled her hand away, it was coated in blood.
Vesperin stumbled toward the door, panic setting in. A chemical bomb. This was an attack.
She fell to her knees before she reached the door. Her head thumped on the floor, and her bleary eyes traveled to the large window—beyond, all she saw was fog. Dark and cloying, it seeped over the closed window and blotted everything out.
Iron coated her tongue as blood began to bubble past her lips in earnest.
Her eyes watered, filling with red as blood began to slide from the corners of her eyes. With every breath, it felt like she was being burned from the inside out.
Vesperin dimly realized she would die here, all while Kiton was out there, thinking he would come home to her in bed, waiting for her.
Her lips formed the weak shape of a plea.
A voice reached her through the darkness. A man’s.
"Close your eyes."
It was soothing to her when she should’ve been beyond the point of being comforted.
Vesperin’s eyes slipped closed. Darkness blanketed her.
"This will be over before you know it."
The voice sounded like it was coming right by her side, but when her eyes opened, all she saw was darkness still. Something warm settled over her eyes, as if a soft cloth was being laid, to blot out the smoke. The cloth smelled nice. Shetipped her chin up, desperate to replace the chemical scent of the fog with the faint mineral scent that clung to the material.
It reminded her of home. Some distant place she could only find in her dreams.
A bloody tear slipped from her eye and disappeared into her hairline.
"Breathe it in, Star of mine, and let go."
She took a deep breath, seizing as the smoke filled her lungs. The life drained out of her.
"I’m so sorry. Forgive me for letting this happen, but it had to, so in the far, far future, it can all align just as it needs to. If you suffer this now, you will be so happy later. Trust me."
The words grew distant; she struggled to hold onto them.
Vesperin faded into nothing as her organs shut down.
Lucien’s handsshook as he deposited a low dose of benzodiazepine into the IV line, hooked to a bag that hung by the bedside. Vesperin’s breathing pattern was calm—for now. But he knew from experience that it was only a lull.
He set the empty syringe down on the bedside table, fingers trembling as his thumb rubbed over Vesperin’s pulse point. He counted the beats under his breath. The thudding of her heart was fainter than it had been minutes ago, as a seizing fit had gripped her. She’d stuttered incoherently. He’d been able to understand only a few words.
"Out," Vesperin had gasped. "Free?—"
Echoed memories of Tarz, where they first recognized each other as Soulbonds.
