Page 118 of Bonds of Starfall

"Level one?" Cyrus asked.

"Yeah, there’s testing when we reach a certain age. To gauge Stella levels. Higher levels mean higher power." Rin exhaled. "My levels are abysmal. I’ve never been able to use my Stella. Everyone’s always told me I’m a level one. I’ve always assumed this was my first life." Her chest was tight—not from her heart, but from the cold grip of anxiety. Like staring down a dark tunnel, with no way out. "But it’s…not. I’ve had more than this life, and you both know things about me that I never will." Her words were a vulnerable expulsion of fear.

Cyrus hushed her, but even he seemed at a loss for words.

She had experienced so much grief. Her every breath was a ticking clock, counting down until she succumbed to the Nova ravaging her body.

Rin didn’t want to spend it despondent in grief over what could’ve been. She could be strong, couldn’t she?

She swiped an angry hand under her eyes, finding crystalline tears on the tips of her fingers. Her neck tugged at the rough movement, and the bite of pain grounded her.

"You bit me," she said to Valkar.

"And you stabbed me. I think, in this, we’re even," the vampire replied.

Her nose twitched in indignation, and his eyes dipped to it, then lower, as if he were staring at her lips. But that couldn’t be right. He hated her.

Valkar crossed his arms and sat back in his chair. "Why are you here, Vesperin Vox?" He said her name like a curse.

"Cyrus didn’t tell you?" Rin’s head swiveled to the incubus.

"He told me a lot—about your heart, your past together. But not why you decided to come to Lunar City. Just the two of you. You both might as well have been asking to be taken and sold in the flesh markets."

"I told her it was a bad idea, but I wasn’t going to let her come alone," Cyrus interjected, taking her hand and runninghis fingers over her outstretched palm absently, like he couldn’t stand not touching her for more than a few seconds at a time.

Rin shivered from Cyrus’s touch. "I got a lead. A tip. From a… source." She winced when Valkar’s brows drew low over his red eyes.

"I’ll need a lot fucking more than that. A tip from asource," he mocked, "isn’t grounds to risk being chopped up and sold to the highest bidder."

"Told you we’d fetch more in pieces," Cyrus mumbled.

Rin untangled her hand from Cyrus’s, pinching the back of his hand.

Valkar watched them together without faltering, growing more and more perplexed every time Rin met his eyes.

Her lip curled. How much could she tell him? Their start had been rocky. He had drugged her, kidnapped her, and tied her to his bed.

Rin was out of options. Valkar had the upper hand, and the smug fucker knew it, too.

Her wandering eyes found a table tucked in the corner, filled with a glass of water and a familiar white bottle—her pills.

Rin gasped, eyes widening as she shot forward. "My phone! Do you have it?" Her fingers curled in the blankets near Valkar’s knees, which pressed against the side of the bed. He jerked away from her like he had been burned.

"Maybe." His eyes narrowed. "Why?"

"I need it. I have to contact someone." It was a fool’s wish to think that the leader of Noctis, who held her in this strange limbo of not-captivity, would let her have her phone.

But he poked his tongue in his cheek, the action drawing her attention to his lips, surprisingly full compared to his severe, masculine features. "I’ll let you have it—monitored—if you tell me why you’re here."

More than she’d hoped for. "Fine. Let me see that you have it first."

Valkar laughed, and the sound skittered over her flesh. "Smart, little wife," he said, shifting to reach for his back pocket of his blood-stained jeans. The silver rings on his fingers glinted as he tugged her phone free, the sparkly case flecked with blood. He dangled it before him. "Your passcode was easy to crack. 0513. What’s that? The date of your first kiss?"

The blood drained from her face at the four numbers, seemingly insignificant. She swallowed. "No."

May thirteenth. Kit’s birthday.

Valkar arched a brow. "So?"