Page 3

Moonlight struggled to reach its way through the canopy, and the forest felt colder than it was in its absence. But I knew the path I needed to take, and I’d been assured I wouldn’t be harmed, so long as I didn’t stray from it.

A break in the dense foliage allowed the sky to illuminate the altar, stained reddish brown and with its own macabre shrine of bones atop it. I knelt, even though he’d always told me I didn’t need to.

I placed my offering, the flight feather from a crow, and unfastened my knife from its leather sheath. Then I carved into my wrist, watching as the blood that dripped appeared black in the low light. I ran my fingers through it, tracing patterns etched into my memory by hands much larger than mine.

The blood answered. Rippled. Seeping into stone as shadow swallowed the altar.

“My Jem.” A voice like smooth thunder echoed around me, and I breathed in deeply, the way I only could when I was here. With him.

2

JEREMIAH

A large clawed hand wrapped around my wrist as Khorli raised it to his mouth, the way he always did after I’d summoned him. A tongue the color of forest shadows slithered between perfect, full lips and the protruding tusks on either side. I exhaled as the heat of it smoothed over my palm, lower, his long tongue wrapping around my wrist.

Golden pupils expanded in the glowing red pools of his eyes as he tasted my blood, savoring it as his saliva did what it always did and mended my wounds.

I could see better now that he was here. The light that poured from the golden diamond on his chest was a stark contrast to the black of his skin. As was the orb of light floating between towering antlers and the small glowing golden flowers that grew from them.

It was just bright enough to see him in all his glory. Obsidian skin met a jagged red line that circled his neck, and a similar pattern cut over his firm biceps, circling completely around them like bloodied scars. Different from his blood, though, because Khorli bled gold—the veins that pumped close to the surface of his skin were aureate and as ethereal as the rest of him.

“What have you brought me, my Jem?” he asked, a purr in his tone as he turned his attention to the altar at my back.

He didn’t release me to retrieve my offering. His long tail swiped it up for his other hand to collect.

“How wonderful. Will you place it for me?”

I nodded as he offered the feather back to me and, with a small pause of hesitation, released my wrist, healed and free of any trace of a wound or scar.

Khorli had such beautiful hair, almost like a mane, wild and thick, an even darker black than his skin. It was longer in parts, reaching down to his stomach, and shorter in others, curling out around his face. It matched the color of the dark fur on his elk-like legs.

I chose one of the longer sections, taking the surprisingly soft strands between my fingers to braid as I weaved in the feather for him.

“How does it look?” he asked, his lips pulling up at the corners.

“Perfect,” I assured him. “You always look perfect.”

“As do you, my Jem,” he purred, lowering his face the considerable distance between us until his flat nose pressed against mine. “Though I wouldn’t mind there being more of you to admire.”

I rolled my eyes. Khorli was all muscle and strength. And while I had muscle from working my fields, I did not consume enough to gain any bulk. He’d often speak of fattening me up. He’d given it his best attempts with the wild turkeys, rabbits, and grouse he would hunt for me and leave on the wall. But those were things we weren’t supposed to have, and had Tobias or any of the villagers seen them, it may have raised suspicion. It was easier now, with my brother gone, but I didn’t wish to tempt fate.

What I had with Khorli could never be known by another. Not by humans, and not by the Others. He wasn’t supposed to be here either. We were mad to choose this—each other. Though I had admittedly much more to lose. I’d asked him before, what the Others might do should they ever discover our bond. The fear that filled his eyes was not a fear for his own well-being. He looked at me like something he’d already lost, and I’d firmly decided it was best not to ask him questions like that again.

When I’d found him in this very forest, so close to where we now stood, he’d been bathed in gold. I’d thought him a god until I realized he’d been bleeding. Sometimes I still wondered if he might be. Khorli had escaped a feud with one of his own kind, and came to our world to recover. My walks in the forest in those days were one of my many secrets. Rare. Only when Tobias was deeply asleep. But fate had caused us to cross paths. I’d feared Khorli then, but he was injured, too weak to hunt me, and I’d left him and returned with what I needed to patch him up. Khorli had been hostile, unsure of my intentions, but when he realized I was helping him, he’d let me. I brought him food and tended to his wounds until he healed, and then he was gone.

After that, I visited the forest far more frequently. It was sheer luck that nothing worse ever found me. Until my luck ran out, and a creature with my own face stood in my path. It would surely have killed me, then perhaps taken my form back to the village and killed my brother and many others. But it hadn’t the chance, because Khorli had stopped it. Disposed of it like it was nothing but an insect.

Then his tongue healed my wounds for the first time, and I’d thought he planned to eat me instead. Oddly, I was more at peace with that fate.

Khorli hadn’t spoken English then. I’d had to teach him. In turn, he’d attempted to teach me his own language, though most of the sounds were impossible for the human mouth and tongue. But Khorli was so incredibly smart, and he’d taken to English quickly, even though I must have been a lousy teacher.

I’d gotten bolder, sneaking out near every night to look for him. Sometimes he wouldn’t come. And sometimes he would, but refused to show himself to me. I could feel his eyes on me, though. I knew they were his. Being watched by him felt different from anyone or anything else. There was a weight to it I’d tried not to acknowledge, even as we grew closer.

But I never had any hope of fighting against Khorli. Not with violence, and not against love.

The more I saw him, the more I wanted to, until my nights were sleepless, my days filled with dreams, and my heart infected with a sickness I couldn’t purge. My damnation, I’d thought. And then he kissed me, and he tasted so much like salvation that I unleashed my heart upon him. My first real offering. One he’d gladly accepted. Then he’d shown me how to summon him, and another altar that lay far outside the one used by the village, so that I might call to him whenever I desired.

I didn’t need the world to know what we had. I didn’t need them to accept it. Though for the first time in my life, I hadn’t felt like I was wrong. How could I be? When a being so perfect as him had chosen me in return, and my chest was filled with such warmth. Everything about Khorli was right, and good. I was sure I could make Tobias see that. Instead, he’d reminded me of my reality. That a love like mine was best kept to the shadows. I lost my brother that day, long before he’d drowned in the lake.