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Still, his mind went back there, and recounted how it all happened, the parts he understood at least, the parts that still felt true after all this time.

Nick kicked his foot into the stone.

He and Brick vanished through the portal.

Brick had been holding him tightly around the chest.

Nick had seen shocking stars, flashing comets, nebulae, exploding planets. He’d seen himself shooting through that darkness as if pushed by an invisible hand.

At some point, Brick had been torn away.

Brick had been separated from him as Nick hurtled through space.

Nick had seen him leave, an arc of light streaking in a different direction through the inky darkness, pulled by some resonance or disturbance in another part of the weave. Nick had felt clearly, then, how their pathshadto diverge, how they were not the same, did not align to the same frequency or song.

That sky was all light, all song, all frequency, and in that space, like called to like. That which was different could not be pulled to the same place and time.

Nick had felt the rightness of that.

He’d felt the rightness in where he, Nick, went.

He’d felt the weave of time and space, and how it contained its own truth, its own logic.

He’d tried to explain that to Dalejem, too, over the years.

It was part of what reassured him about where they’d both ended up.

He explained it to him that first night, as they’d stretched out under the stars, much like they were now, with Nick giving Jem his long coat for warmth, and his gloves and even his hat, which he’d stuffed into a pocket, while Nick stretched out next to his mate with none of that, not needing it with his vampire blood and skin.

In the end, after those brilliant lights and darkness, Nick had been brought here.

Not long after, Dalejem had joined him in this place and time.

No one else had followed.

Even after all these years, no one else had ever joined them in this place.

Jem and Nick both wondered if anyone else had followed them through the portal, though. Had theytriedto find them, only to fail?

Nick hoped, aloud and to himself, that they hadn’t.

He really, really hoped that.

Selfishly, if he couldn’t have them here, he preferred to think of them back on his home world, waiting for him, like he waited for them.

At the same time, in looking back at his life here, he questioned whether it would really be all that bad for them if they had come after him.

Maybe they would have ended up in a place that nourished them just as much.

Maybe they would have been happier, even.

After all, Nick had no complaints about this strange life he’d been given.

His life was good.

Gaos,his life had been so very, very good.

CHAPTER2