Star Side

Chapter 16

She was wholly strange and mostly hidden in blankets, but he only need to see her face to know, to his core, that not only was she indeed female, but also the source of the scent. She slept beneath the threat of never ending falling with earthy hair spread about her head, glimmering with the many colors of the stars. Her skin was impossibly white, her mouth soft, her eyes lined with lashes females rarely had. She had not a speck of rock-scar on that beautiful, unreal face.

He couldn't breathe for a new reason.

She could only be one of the heavenly beings. No female like her existed in the depths. None looked so soft, so unblemished, so strange or unreal.

Without recalling how, he crossed the space between them, the threat above forgotten.

Only for his heart to break as he drew near enough for her mind's touch to brush across his. Emptiness, sadness, loneliness, hopelessness, nothing a maiden so fearless and beautiful should ever feel. Even as he sat, flummoxed by these surprisingly mortal feelings, he caught sight of water on her cheeks. It shimmered with motion as more leaked out from beneath her eyes.

She cries water?

There was one rule every child learned before leaving the nest: touch was reserved for the most intimate of relationships. Soul brothers and mates, and only family if the relationship was good. And never, ever, without the other's consent.

But he couldn't help himself. He was possessed by that face, drowning in her scent, breaking beneath the mournful cry of her mind's touch.

Her tears were wet. Her skin soft and pliant as a hatchlings.

He crooned to her, calling her with his own mind's touch.

'Don't be sad. I am here. You're not alone.'

The ribbons of her thoughts twined about his as natural as roots in dirt, making him flinch. He shouldn't be doing this while she was asleep. She was too open like this, too trusting, like a child.

But then her lonely despair thrummed back and he softened. Instead of pulling away, he drew closer, hunching his body over her. Even so close, he only let his fingertips touch her. Her cheeks. The rim of rare lashes. Her brow. Her silk-spun hair.

'I am here,' he sent back.

Then, at last, those ribbons of thought about his own clenched, like intertwined fingers, and he felt her shuddering relief. She turned her head towards his touch. When the bridge of her nose and soft lips nuzzled into his fingertips, his heart stopped. The croon in his chest turned to a bone rumbling purr. His energized, strengthened body weakened to goo.

Perhaps his instincts knew the moment they caught her scent that this was a being he'd never be able to part from. There could be no other for him.

Having found the only comfort in this realm full of death, he lowered himself beside her, never letting his touch leave her face. His body ached with renewed vigor and his bones seemed to crackle as they hardened. A prickling, needle like pain replaced the dull heat in his back, centering between his shoulder blades.

But it would be okay now. She was here. And he was with her.

'Don't cry.' He continued to croon, ignoring the taste of venom in his mouth. He'd ignored when his fangs had lengthened, readying for claiming, and he always would until the day she asked for them. And the day would come, for surely, he would prove himself worthy. She would have no other.

'It will all be okay.'

Exhaustion swept over him. He let his eyes close only when he was sure his claws had tangled themselves in her hair.

Nothing would happen to her as long as he was here.