Anguish pushes away from the balcony railing, shaking his head. He won’t meet my gaze. ‘Tell me again what you remember of the ritual.’
I wrack my brain. I remember shadow, darkness, and light; I remember heat lapping at my naked flesh, the sisters’ haunting chants all around me. ‘Just feelings. Sensations.’
He moves toward me and takes my face in his hands. ‘What feelings? What sensations?’
‘I don’t –’
‘I must know.’ His expression is tight with something like pain.
I lean into his touch. His hands are cold like the night, and he smells of smoke and the vacuum of space. ‘Fear,’ I admit. ‘But also … I feltpowerful. And I think I …’ Why lie? Why hide the truth from him, as if in this impossible castle, speaking to this impossible being, there is any reason for propriety, any reason to hide the truth? ‘They didn’t really force me,’ I admit. ‘I wanted to. I wantedyou.’Badly.
He lets out a slow, shaking breath. He’s never seemed more human than in this moment. He leans down and presses his forehead to mine. ‘Midonia. I’ve been waiting for so long.’
‘Is that why you called to me? Why you came to me in dreams?’
‘Yes.’
‘But … why? How?’ He still hasn’t answered my question. ‘What do you mean that we are meant for each other?’
‘It means that I am hungry. And you were born to sate me.’
The words ring a thousand warning bells and I rear back, putting distance between us. My heart speeds. My gaze darts. Immediately I’m a trapped animal, looking for an escape route. ‘I wasn’tbornfor you.’
He watches me for a moment, his eyes flickering like candle flames. ‘No,’ he says at last. ‘But youwereborn under the right star. The same star under which I was born, a powerful celestial object imbued with meaning. In that way, we were born for each other.’ He moves toward me, closing the distance I put between us. ‘Tell me. Are you hungry, Midonia?’
How am I supposed to respond? I can hardly wrap my mind around him, this being, this godlike creature that stands before me. How am I meant to absorb this, that we are connected across worlds? That we are touched by the samestar? It’s insane.
He lowers his gaze to rake over my body. His shadows coil around me, flickering against my body. ‘You’re not like anyone else, Midonia. There is powerin your blood, in your very cells, that sets you apart from any other creature in this universe. Except for me.’
‘What?’ My voice is harsh, frustrated, impatient. ‘I’m sure plenty of people were born under … whatever star. I’m no different than anyone else.’
But even as I speak, I doubt myself. Why would he lie to me? Why should any of this be any less real, just because I don’t understand it? I’m standing here in a castle on a remote planet with a man made of shadow, a man who says he was born in a nebula.
‘But youaredifferent,’ he says softly. ‘Haven’t you ever felt it? That you are unlike every other person you’ve met? You and I are the same. We share the same urges. Just like you were born to sate me, I was born to sateyou. Haven’t you ever felt a pull toward something better?’
I hesitate. Have I? My life has been nothing but mediocrity. The same thing over and over, working dead-end jobs and existing rather than truly living. But isn’t that how it’s supposed to be? Isn’t that what lifeis?
‘Think,’ he insists, his presence all-consuming. ‘You must have sensed who you really are.’
I close my eyes. I remember … six weeks ago; the accident. I remember the terror, the rage. I remember the blood, the ripe smell of bodies cracked open. Gore in my hair, on my hands. I remember … but I slam the door of my memories closed. I don’t want to remember.That day was a black hole, a horror that threatens to draw in my very soul, every part of me.
The Midonia who woke up that morning and went to bed that night are not the same.
I don’t know who I am. Maybe I never have.
I shake my head. ‘I can’t remember.’
‘It’s all right,’ he murmurs. ‘It’s all right.’ He pulls me to him, and I don’t resist. I don’t want to resist. Every part of me is drawn to him, every cell of me wants him. He feels, inexplicably, safe. He kisses me, and I melt into his arms. I kiss him back, fervent and hot. Desire arcs through me. I gasp into his mouth. He tastes like winter night. He tastes like eternity.
When he breaks the kiss, I’m limp with pleasure, vibrating with want.
‘Midonia,’ he says, and each time he speaks my name, it sends a shock of need through me. ‘Are you hungry?’
‘Yes.’ I have been ever since I saw his ruin piercing the sky above the trees, since he reached for me with hands of clawed shadow.
‘Then let me sate you.’
14
