“You know me as well as you know yourself, my star. The heart that beats inside your chest is mine. The soul that resides within your body has been mine for longer than you have existed,” I said, keeping my voice soft and gentle as I took another half-step toward her. “Everything you have felt is real. Everything you will continue to feel for me is real. You were made to be mine.”
Estrella dropped her eyes to my feet and the cautious path I carved through the distance she’d put between us in her frantic need to escape my truth. She watched them for only a moment, glaring when I ceased moving.
Her panic was tangible, her body twitching as if she were an animal trapped in the corner, in desperate need of escape. She scurried to her hands and knees suddenly, ducking between the leg bones of the closest skeleton and emerging on the other side of the protective circle they’d formed. It reached for her as she slipped past, its movements too sluggish to catch her.
“Estrella!” I shouted, leaping to my feet and following after her. Halting on her hands and knees in the middle of the road as soon as she was free, she struggled to find her bearings. She couldn’t seem to get her legs under her. The shock of her discovery rendered her body sluggish as her brain fought to process all that she’d willfully ignored in her pursuit of the happiness she wanted so desperately. Someone like Estrella, or someone like me, who’d never known joy or even contentment, would do anything to preserve it when we discovered it.
We’d even ignore the half-truths.
Shoving one of the mangled skeletons out of the way, I prowled toward where she turned to face me. Scurrying backwards on her hands with her feet slipping in the blood that soaked the ground, she flinched back from me when I stood over her. I kept my face gentle as I stared down at her, making sure to channel all the love I felt for her in place of my fury over the rejection she showed me by running.
Her fear pulsed through the air anyway, striking me in the chest like a blow as she stared up at me. Her fingers curled into the dusty earth beneath her, her full bottom lip trembling in a way that made me want to soothe it with my own. I longed to give her the comfort a mate was destined for, if only she would accept me into her heart—if only she would allow me into her mind and recognize the other half of her soul.
“Min asteren,” I said, the Old Tongue coming out instinctively. With nothing left to hide, I could speak her namesake in my native language, even if it wasn’t one I used often.
“I am not your anything,” she said, her top lip peeling back to reveal her teeth as she glared at me. All traces of the affection she’d grown to show me over our time spent together was gone, hatred hardening her gaze as she forced her quivering bottom lip to still. I inched closer, determined to prove to her, no matter where The Fates took us, she always had been and always would be mine.
Whether she was mine in the realm of the living or the afterlife, I would follow her wherever she went. Should the day come when she died her true death without me, I would accompany her to the Void to await the final judgment of The Father and The Mother. I would never return to a life without Estrella, without the warmth of her burning light shining around me.
Where she went, I would follow—immortality be damned.
I held out a hand, waiting for her to take it so I could help her up from the ground. My stubborn star ignored it, choosing to remain on the blood-soaked earth rather than accept anything from me. Her body twitched, tensing for the flight the predator in me recognized before she’d even made the conscious choice.
“Don’t do it,” I warned, knowing the outcome of my instinct to chase her wouldn’t be one she’d enjoy while real fear coursed through her veins. There was no doubt in my mind that she’d come to enjoy such games one day—but not this day. “I mean it, Little One. I will not be held responsible for what I do if I have to hunt you down.”
She scrambled to her feet anyway, turning and running with speed that she shouldn’t have possessed. Even for a Fae Marked female, Estrella was unthinkably quick compared to what I’d seen of the others like her, centuries ago. She was stronger and more agile, her body seeming to struggle to adjust to the changes the mark had wrought on her, like a newborn fawn walking on new legs.
I moved, leaping forward. Tackling her to the ground, I rolled myself beneath her to take the brunt of the fall. My body struck the ruined ash and rock of Calfalls, Estrella landing on top of me as I wrapped my arms around her, holding her tightly to my chest.
“Let go!” she screamed, her hand moving quickly as I fought to restrain her. Grains of sand flew into my eyes as she flung them at my face, blinding me for a moment until I raised a hand to wipe them clean.
Estrella slipped free from the cage of my other arm, wriggling through my grasp like an eel and turning to straddle my thighs. She took the opening to punch my stomach three times in quick succession, knocking the wind from my lungs as a chuckle rose despite my better instincts.
Fuck.
My lungs heaved with my shocked laughter, my stomach cramping against the pain of the punches that she’d thrown her entire weight behind. She jumped to her feet, angling past me to try to escape down the ruined streets of Calfalls.
I turned onto my stomach, throwing out a hand and wrapping it around her ankle—dragging her to the ground alongside me and hoping her instinct would drive her to protect her face. She twisted as she fell, catching herself with palms that struck against the jagged stone with a loud slap as the side of her hip crashed to the ground. Curling her knee up with the momentum of that fall, she viciously aimed for my nose in the same motion with a vindictiveness that stole the breath from my lungs.
Flinching back from the strike of her knee so the fabric of her pants barely skimmed across my face, I kept my grip tight on her ankle as she fought to shake it off and pushed to her hands and knees.
I got up from my place sprawled on my stomach, crawling toward her and slipping my legs around her hips. To stop her from rising any farther when I finally released her ankle, I covered her with my weight and used it to trap her. I couldn’t fight the amusement surging within the twisted part of me that found it greatly entertaining how this tiny slip of a human girl dared to fight a male many Fae ran from. “Are you finished?” I asked, chuckling lightly.
She slammed her head back so suddenly she caught me in the face. My nose cracked, pressing into my skull as my lip split beneath the force of it. She fell forward, hanging her head as if she were dazed as I lifted a hand and wiped it along the moisture under my nose.
My hand pulled away stained with red, and I sniffled back the remaining blood.
“Just so we are clear,” she said, her breath coming in deep gasps as I quickly slid my hands beneath her body and flipped her to her back. Laying my upper body over hers, I pinned her beneath me and held her as still as I could. There was no telling what stunt she’d pull next in her desperation, and every strike like that would only risk greater injury to herself. “That was meant to fucking hurt.”
She raised a fist, quickly jabbing for my temple in a move I had no doubt she’d intended to knock me out. I caught it out of the air, slamming her hand against the ground beside her head as I wrestled her other wrist into my grip and wrapped my fingers around it. Mirroring the posture on the other side, I pressed all my weight onto her wrists and shifted my weight forward, leaning over her.