Page 56 of Bonds of Starfall

Rin tugged her feet up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. Her back was stiff, and she eyed the plush, grey throw neatly folded in a basket near the coffee table. Lucien followed her gaze, grabbing it and gently draping it over her lap. Her fingers rubbed against its softness.

"Thank you," Rin said, feeling like she had too much to offer her thanks for—more than just a blanket.

There were only a few inches of space between them, but it seemed like a chasm.

Would you mind,she wanted to ask,if I rest my head on your shoulder? Can you keep me safe? Can you chase away the nightmares?

Lucien’s arm landed on the back of the couch behind her. "You never have to thank me, Vesperin." Behind his glasses, his green eyes darkened.

The singular weight of his attention was too much to bear, so she turned her face to the screen, eyes unfocused. Her lids drooped, the settling weight of the food in her usually empty stomach making her drowsy.

She was so exhausted, she never even knew when she fell asleep.

Lucien held his breath,so afraid to disturb Vesperin as her head fell against his shoulder, nestled in the crook of his arm.

God, he cared so deeply for her. All the years of holding himself away, keeping his distance, it never mattered. It had accomplished nothing except pain.

The soft light of the television flickered over her sleeping face. She needed the rest. He had seen the bruising on her arms, knew the pattern could only be caused by needles. He had seen the report of her bloodwork the other day. Somnocept.

It had already started. Sabine and Talor were experimenting on her again. Kiton had helped Lucien to see the signs, but now he was not here to keep her safe from them, so the responsibility fell to Lucien alone—the weight of it made his shoulders curve inward.

They had been threatening him, too. A week ago, Lucien had found an unmarked envelope slipped under the door to his office. Inside was a detailed list of the documents he had forged and manipulated for them. Changing Vesperin’s Stella level, clearing any documentation of Somnocept in her bloodwork report, and the gravest offense:

Aiding in their illegal experimentation on Aetherborns.

In years past, Lucien had been forced to run simple tests on collected samples, supply Sabine and Talor with Vesperin’sdata, and compare it to the tests they gave him, from nameless subjects, all of whom eventually disappeared, replaced by new subjects.

Blackfall Industries was killing the Aetherborns. And Lucien still truly didn’t know why they wanted to study them so desperately. Besides being the rarest Stella type…

When Vesperin’s breaths evened out and his arm grew numb from how long she had lain on it, Lucien carefully picked her up, cradling her in his arms as he walked to the guest bedroom. She smelled like cherries, even though he knew she used Kiton’s body wash, which she had packed away in her small overnight bag, stuffed under a pile of worn shirts. Lucien wished he could turn back time and make it so Kiton never got on that ship…

Lying her down, he gently tugged the soft, cream comforter over her body, hands stilling against her.

"I will keep you safe, Vesperin," Lucien uttered in the quiet of the room. "I swear it."

Rin’sdreams had been dark and filled with flashing lights. Red and black and specks of white. It made her feel strange, as though, even now, she was wading through the thick fog still clinging to her. A pit was slowly forming in her stomach, curling dread and heavy melancholy.

But after a week of staying with Lucien, her head cleared…

In the space of days spent curling up on the man’s once-untouched couch and sitting at the kitchen island in the early morning hours, the sleeve of her large shirt slipping off her shoulder as he pressed a cup of freshly brewed coffee and a plate of fluffy eggs and lightly buttered toast into her hands, along with a glass of water and her medication. Watching him don hiswhite coat and grab his car keys, something in the fragile, broken pieces of her heart began to mend. Not completely—she didn’t think it ever would.

But Luciencaredfor her, in a way that no one ever had besides Kit.

Now, sitting among the rumpled sheets in his guest bedroom, warm sunlight and the glinting glass of the high-rises filtering in through the slats of the blinds, Rin realized what she must do.

A soft beep made her fumble in the mess of sheets for her phone, unlocking it to find a message from Sabine:

Will you be coming home today?

Rin blew out a breath. Sabine and Talor both had been pestering her to come home. She knew they were grieving, too, but god, Rin couldn’t be in that place anymore. Especially after how well rested she was after staying with Lucien. She was just lucky Xara was helping to cover for her since Rin had told them both she was staying at the dorm.

Her fingers paused over the keyboard.

She wasn’t going home, but she wasn’t going to stay with Lucien anymore. She had to do something different, or she would never change, and always spiral. Rock bottom loomed, and if she kept falling, she would shatter.

She hadn’t come this far to let herself succumb to grief. She would die—soon. Her bones would rot in a casket underground—maybe even next to Kit’s plot.

For the time she had left in this life, Rin was going to make a change.