Page 52 of The Stars

In the past few nights together, they’d explored one another until there was an invisible connection holding them together. Cosmic strings that defied time and space bound them together.

Tonight, somehow, everything was different. The knowledge that this might be the last night of peace they would have had their movements slowing. The passion built until an urgency spilled over and the speed fed their desires.

“My god,” Dante whispered as he hovered over her. “Where have you been my entire life,” he said with a grin.

She ran her fingers through his thick hair. “Right in front of you.”

“Amy, I know I’ve said this to you a few times now, but”—his eyes locked with hers—“I love you.”

Her smile was quick. “You have said it a few times and I know it’s true. Each time, we’ve loved like this.”

He shook his head. “No, this time is different.”

She frowned slightly. Could it be different this time?

The thousands of times he had told her how he’d felt in past lives played in her mind. He’d told her that he loved her more times as she’d watched him die.

This did, however, feel different. Maybe because she was here, now. Or maybe because she wanted it to be different.

“I hadn’t expected the frown and that sexy little crease right here.” He touched her forehead. “Not the response I’d hoped for.”

She relaxed her face. “Just remembering all the other times we said those words to each other in our past lives.” She shook her head. “I love you. And most importantly, I would love to hear you say it a million times again.”

He chuckled. “I suppose for someone like you, who remembers all those times we’ve said it to one another, this isn’t the most romantic time.”

She cupped his face and brought it down to hers until his lips were inches from her own.

“This is the most important one to me,” she whispered before they kissed.

Amy woke a few hours later, her heart pounding in the stillness of the night. The soft rise and fall of Dante’s breathing beside her was the only sound in the room, a steady rhythm that grounded her amidst the whirl of emotions swirling inside her. She blinked, slightly disoriented, and glanced towards the window. The moonlight filtered in through the open balcony doors, casting a soft glow over the temple’s stone walls.

For a moment, she stayed still, listening to the quiet, but something pulled at her—a deep sense that this was not just another sleepless night. Quietly, she slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Dante. His arm slid off her waist as she moved, his warmth lingering on her skin.

She grabbed her long gown from the floor and pulled it on as she padded barefoot across the cool stone floor towards the balcony. The soft night breeze carried the scent of the ocean, and the horizon was a dark, endless stretch beyond the cliffs. She leaned against the railing, her fingers gripping the cool stone, and gazed out at the sea. The world felt so still, but her mind was racing.

How did we even get here?

The last few days had been a blur of ancient gods, powers she never imagined, and the discovery that she and Dante were bound together in ways deeper than anything she could have anticipated. And now, as they prepared to return to the future, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something crucial was missing—something she needed to do before they left this ancient world behind.

Suddenly, her vision blurred, and the world around her shifted. It was as though time itself was bending. Amy gasped, gripping the balcony as her mind was pulled into another place, another moment.

She was back in Hidden Creek. The familiar scent of pine and earth filled her senses as she stood on the edge of town, watching herself from the future—her other self. The one who had been left in the hotel room after Ryan had broken things off suddenly. After which, she’d returned home, broken, but had decided to stay in Hidden Creek, and because of that, she’d ultimately found her way to Dante.

However, in this vision, Ryan didn’t break things off and they returned to town together as planned. They had stayed at her parents’ place for less than a night and had fought the entire time before returning to the city together. She hadn’t met Mia. Hadn’t rented the little cabin, flirted with Dante, or gone to Xtina and Michael’s place that fateful night. Which meant… she glanced back at Dante’s sleeping form and returned to the vision quickly when the entire world exploded without her even fighting for the chance to save it. She’d been at work in Atlanta, blissfully unaware of what was about to happen.

Then, the vision changed, and this time she stood outside the hotel room—the one she and Ryan had stayed in just before everything changed. She was wearing the long nightgown that she was currently in. She watched herself move over to where Ryan was sitting on the stairs, smoking. As she sat next to him, she reached out, touched his hand, and knew that if she didn’t break things off with him, none of what she’d just gone through in the past few months would ever happen.

She had a choice.

To live in ignorance with Ryan, a man she didn’t love, until the world was destroyed or to love Dante and fight with him to the very end.

I have to do this.

If she hadn’t made this choice—if she hadn’t traveled forward and broken up with Ryan—none of what had happened would come to pass. She and Dante would never have been reunited. The future would shift, their bond severed by a choice not made.

Amy’s heart clenched, and she closed her eyes and willed her body back to that fateful night at the hotel when she felt the power surge through her like electricity.

When she opened her eyes, she smiled as she stood just outside her hotel door.