Page 41 of Where the Light No Longer Follows

“What dares to worry you at night?”

Hugging her knees to her chest, she whispered, “Memories.”

“Shall I take them? Shall I wrench them away and gut them apart one by one?”

“I don’t know what I am without them,” she admitted. “I don’t know what I am without the violence.”

“You’re Silene. My beautiful Silene with the gentlest, kindest hands. It wasn’t the violence that made you gentle, my ruin, it wasn’t the violence that softened you. You were kind and soft and gentle despite it. You won over all. In spite of all, you won. They could not change you, nor your heart—your kind, gentle heart. What they could not change they hurt. So let me take it away. Let me rip apart those memories for you.”

Silene held onto that offer and his words like the most precious thing she owned. “Maybe, maybe I will let you take them away.”

“You called for me,” he said.

Her trembling lips parted as she confessed, “I did. But you were already here, weren’t you?” She could smell the air scented with lavender, it had been what had dragged out of nightmares.

“I was.”

“For how long.”

“Since you fell asleep.”

She bit into her smile. “That is disturbing.”

A faint chuckle seeped into the darkness.

She sat up a little more, pulling the sheet to her chest when an unusual breeze swept from her open window, causing her to shiver and finally notice how very little she wore. “What were you doing in my room?”

“I had a question for you.”

“Couldn’t it wait?”

“The question could, but I couldn’t,” he said, dropping something on the table from the sound of it. “I had to see you.”

“I can take a picture, so you don’t have to come all the way here next time.”

Though the room was in absolute darkness and Silene couldn’t even see down her nose, she was entirely too sure he was grinning at her. “Of what kind?” he asked.

Her hand moved on its own volition as she grabbed the nearest pillow and threw it in his direction, another faint chuckle following. “You can’t stay here for this long.”

“What’s the worst that can happen?”

“The universe could crumble. You’re the greatest paradox in this land.”

“Death sleeps. Fates sleep. Every existence there is sleeps. Only you and I are awake tonight.” Silene jerked back when Gabriel’s voice spoke directly in her ear instead of where he was supposed to be across the room. She had not imagined it. Because the moment she drew a deep breath, her lungs filled with his warm scent of lavender. “Do you know what I’ve done tonight, my ruin, to have just one moment with you, like this? The waters I’ve poisoned, the air I’ve stolen, the stars I’ve bewitched, the Gods I’ve lied?”

“Gabriel—”

His name stuck to her lips when he pressed his own over them in a harsh kiss.

She was sure the whole universe had frozen. That time had vanished entirely. Maybe she was still in a cruel, cruel dream.

Especially when nothing happened. There was no pain. Not at all.

There was no pain when she kissed him back, not when her hands grasped his shirt to pull him to her, nor when one of his hands cupped the back of her neck and the other banded around her waist to plaster her against him entirely. Seconds passed; minutes passed. Maybe none at all. Their limbs had tangled with one another's, her fingers grasping his hair and his grasping hers as they kissed like two stars merging. She could not touch him enough and nor could he.

Gabriel pulled away only to ask, “Why did you kiss me?”

“Why did you?”