Page 23

Twenty-Three

I stared down at the wreckage.

Porcelain littered the hardwood like bone fragments, glittering in the late afternoon light. The head of the golden one had landed upright, cracked diagonally down the temple, but its painted smile still held. Still watched.

A shiver ran through me. I couldn’t look away.

And then the air changed.

The shift was slow at first—like gravity thickening. Like the room was sinking while my body stayed still. Warmth bloomed behind me, creeping up my spine like sunlight through a windowpane, but too close. Too aware. At the same time, something cold brushed my ankles. I looked down and saw nothing—just shadow where shadow shouldn’t be.

My mouth opened.

No sound came out.

Then—hands.

Real. Human. Here.

One pair slid around my waist from behind, searing-hot palms flattening over my stomach like they were claiming it. Claiming me. A hum purred against the back of my neck, warm breath feathering across my skin.

“Sunshine…” a voice sighed, blissful and drunk on devotion. “You broke it. You set us free.”

I gasped.

Spun around.

And saw him.

Tall. Golden. Too golden. His skin gleamed like sunlight had been baked into it, his hair tousled like he’d just woken up from the sweetest dream—and I was the dream.

He grinned. Wide. Gleaming. Too wide.

“You touched us. You saw us. You chose us,” he said, glowing as he took a step closer. His hands twitched, like it physically pained him not to touch me again. “And now we can touch you back.”

A flicker of movement behind him—colder. Slower.

Another figure stepped out from the corner of the room where the light refused to touch.

This one was silver.

Pale, fractured. Skin like moonlight fractured across still water. His expression was calm—too calm. Like the eye of a storm that only spun inward.

“You see us now,” he said softly, voice low, rich, and chilling . “No more porcelain. No more dreaming. We’re here.”

I stumbled back.

Hit the dresser. Hard.

My knees shook. My body felt light and wrong and wrong ?—

“This isn’t real,” I choked out. “This—this can’t be real?—”

The golden one’s grin lit up even brighter. His whole body seemed to vibrate with joy, like the sheer fact that I was panicking was proof he existed.

“But I’m right here, Sunshine,” he whispered, taking another step forward. “Don’t you feel me?”

He reached for me again—and this time, I didn’t move.

Because the other one— the shadow —had stepped to my side. He didn’t smile. He didn’t move quickly. He just was.

“You look like you’re about to run,” he murmured, tilting his head. “But where would you go?”

He lifted a hand, brushing a cool knuckle down the side of my face.

“You let us in,” he said. “You invited us. You fed us. And now you belong to us.”

“You always did,” the golden one added, his voice honey-warm and too eager.

His hand slipped into mine like it belonged there.

“Dawn,” he breathed with reverence. “Oh love, your name fits so perfectly. ”

He pressed our joined hands over his heart. I could feel the heat there. The desperate rhythm.

“Sunrise. Sunset. You were made to be caught between us.”

The silver one moved in close behind me. His breath tickled the back of my neck.

“Dawn,” he echoed, voice soft as falling ash. “That trembling hour where night and day meet. Where we meet.”

“Where you belong,” Sun whispered, beaming like I’d written poetry about him just by existing.

I tried to say something.

Anything.

But all that came out was a broken sound.

They moved as one—Sun cradling my hips, Moon pressing his fingers against my jaw, tilting my head up like I was some small, sacred thing they’d been dying to look at properly.

“You gave us form,” Moon said, his tone unreadable. “Now we’ll give you everything.”

“We’re never leaving you again,” Sun promised, his voice cracking with joy.

“And no one else will touch you,” Moon added. “Not your ex. Not your past. Not even fear.”

“You’re safe now.”

“You’re ours now.”

My knees buckled.

Sun caught me.

He beamed.

Moon brushed my hair from my eyes with ghostlight fingers.

And all I could do was stare at them, wide-eyed and trembling, as the world I thought I knew melted around me like candlewax.

Because for the first time— They were real.

And they loved me.

In a way no human ever could.