Page 79 of Bonds of Starfall

She paced away from him, setting the gun down next to those delicate blue flowers. "If we’re Soulbonds"—she scoffed the term—"then why don’t I remember anything?"

She had him there.

"I don’t know." Cyrus rose from her bed, walking tentatively toward her. "My guess is it has to do with your appearance."

"What’s wrong with my appearance?"

Unbidden, he raised a hand toward her. She jolted into action, but it was still too slow for a Hunter in training, sluggish almost. His fingers caught the ends of her hair. The white strands drifted through his palm like silk. Her lids fluttered at the touch. He wanted to trace her eyes too, to recall the memory of their soft brown depths, so different from the pale grey that stared at him with mistrust.

"Were you born like this?" he murmured, as her hair slipped from his hands completely.

Her back bumped into the dresser, rocking the downturned frame. "I—no, I was born with…"

"Brown hair that turned amber when it caught the sun and brown eyes with darker flecks around the edges," Cyrus finished.

Vesperin stilled. "How do you know that?" she breathed.

"Because I know you."

She was so still that he was able to touch her. His fingertips drifted to the curve of her cheek, and the delicate line of her throat worked with a swallow. Her skin was so supple. Dainty.How was this soft girl a Hunter? The sweet, traumatized girl from his memories—imprinted onto the backs of his lids every time he blinked, haunting his dreams—who cried with ease and loved fiercely, once the demons that had hurt and used her had been chased away with his touches.

Vesperin looked up at him, head shaking as if to dispel the truth she felt imbued within his words. Silently, she reached for her dresser, brushing past the flowers, petals fluttering from her proximity, as she lifted the downturned frame, hands shaking as she held it between them.

Frozen in time, a young girl with soft brown hair, falling around her slim shoulders in the slightest of waves. Soulful brown eyes—ones that he would know in every lifetime. She looked to be in her early teens in the photo. Surrounded by a man and a woman, both with dim smiles. Her parents? And on her other side, a boy, a couple of years older than her, Cyrus guessed. His body was turned toward hers, brown eyes dull, freckles scattered over the bridge of his nose.

"That’s you," Cyrus said softly.

She nodded, turning to place the photo back on the dresser, face down. She didn’t even spare it a glance.

"I wasn’t born… like this." She waved a hand toward her face and body, as if she wasn’t the most gorgeous thing ever.

"What happened? Why did you change?"

Vesperin hugged herself, arms wrapping around her small waist. "There was an accident. Five years ago. There was a Nova explosion in my neighborhood, and Rogues attacked. I was the only survivor. Just barely. The scientists and doctors still aren’t sure what happened, but the Nova infected my heart. Combined with my Stella, they think it was an anomaly, giving me a… cushion against the Nova. And a bit more time to live," she said bitterly.

Cyrus studied her. "Aether." He had a point to prove.

At the word, Vesperin seemed to deflate further, sagging against the dresser. "It’s true, then? We really are Soulbonds. How could you know my Stella, otherwise?" She ran her hands through her hair, fingers curling in the strands and tugging slightly as if she wanted to wake herself up from some nightmare. "God." She shoved past him, cherry scent teasing him, as she sat heavily on her bed.

"We’re Soulbonds, Vesperin Vox." Cyrus tasted her name as it rolled off his tongue. Another piece of evidence. "And I’ve been waiting for you for three hundred years, and when I saw you under those flashing multi-hued lights, it was like time stopped, and the world is spinning all out of order, and won’t go back to normal unless you’re in my arms." He wanted to fall to his knees before her again, but he was on thin ice with her. No, shewas the one on thin ice, feet slipping as she fought to gain traction, one quaking step away from shattering and drowning. Hefelther unease, tasted the flavor of it as it burst across his tongue.

"Three hundred years," she echoed, blinking up at him. He watched her pulse thunder at the delicate skin under her jaw. "L-look, I don’t know why, but from the moment I saw you inForget You Not, I felt like I knew you. A part of me feels like you’re telling the truth. Even if the accident is why I don’t remember, and we truly are Soulbonds, that doesn’t change anything for me, Cy." Vesperin stood, and as Cyrus stared at her, he saw hundreds of memories; a different girl in a different time, but still the same Soul. "I’m not someone you want to be tied to."

Cyrus dared to take her hands. "You’re the only person I want to be tied to."

To love.

Her hands were clammy in his own, pulse fast as he stroked over her wrist. The air sparkled with glimmers of red as he sipped at her emotions, but they were changing too fast for him to keep track. Fear, elation, grief, sadness, desperation…want.

"Don’t you get it?" Vesperin jerked her hands away, slapping her chest. "There is Nova inside of me, and I could die before I hit thirty. Not to mention, you’re immortal. You won’t die, but I will. Soon. Do you still want me now?" she spat.

Understanding washed over him like frozen water. "Nova… There’s Nova inside you," he repeated. She had told him, but he had been too swept up in making her understand to put the pieces together. "You’ll die?"

She nodded.

"Then I’ll follow." It was Cyrus’s only option.

"You’d kill yourself for me?" she asked bluntly.