Page 94 of Pareidolia

A thump. A thrum.

Not in Aspen’s chest, but mine. I groan, gasping in a breath… and Aspen’s chest rises with it.

I breathe again, and the bubbling liquid at the center of him starts to take shape.

A shadow of the heart in my chest. A heart that beats.

Once. Twice. My wings shift behind me, catching rhythm in a slow, pulsing hum as my body mends itself—my chest closes over the injuries, bones snapping back into place to keep his stolen heart safe.

Safe and beating.

When I glance down, Aspen’s chest is slowly knitting closed too. The black thread between us has a pulse, a beat—it flicks a warm, dark red. Red to black, like the pulse that used to live beneath Aspen’s skin.

He gasps, and that painful breath is the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard as the light floods back into his eyes.

Life.

“Little monster…” I press a palm to his chest. There’s no heartbeat there. As his eyes come into focus, Aspen raises a hand and gently presses his fingers to the center of me.

They widen at the feel of a soft thump thump thump that belongs to him, the silver of moonlight in them not fading away this time.

“Never alone,” he murmurs, the words half slurred… but he’s healing. The shadowed pieces of me spill and work through both of us, along the line of that red and black connection. I don’t have to concentrate on it now—healing him is as simple as dragging another breath in slowly… and Aspen breathes with lungs that don’t sound wet.

He lives, and I feel more emotions I didn’t know I was capable of.

Joy. Relief.

Love.

“Never without,” I whisper, and the glow in Aspen’s eyes pulls me in as I press my lips to his and drink down the taste of the one creature I’m willing to give up a part of myself to keep.

CHAPTER 38

ASPEN

Nox’s mouth feels… warm… pressed against mine.

I was pretty sure I was dead. I didn’t go to a light, but I could have sworn a pale hand was reaching for me, beckoning me to the edge of some great body of water…

But then there were shadows, and a voice.

A beat.

A burst of red, of white and black.

There was Nox and his demand that I not leave him. Nox, the great shadow that covered the world brought to his knees by one dead human.

I pull back with a low groan, half expecting it to hurt when I push into a sitting position. I ache… but…

My eyes glance down and my fingers brush against my chest.

My perfect, pale fingers.

There’s no more squirming, no more red light.

My tattoo has a strange glow to it… but…

“What happened?” I look up at Nox. He’s staring at me like he’s never seen me before, as if I’m a light giving him vision for the first time.