Page 91 of Stormvein

“Our connection stabilizes it.” His voice is lower than before, rougher at the edges. “Use that. Focus on it.”

I stare down at our joined hands, transfixed by the dance of energy between us. Silver meets shadow where his fingers are wrapped around my wrist. The storm pressure in my head gradually subsides, replaced by a different kind of tension. One centered on the points where our skin meets.

The air between us thickens. His thumb moves slightly against my inner wrist, tracing the pulse point there.

“Tell me what happened that night?” I ask, trying to distract myself from how warm his hand is against mine. “During the healing.”

His fingers tighten slightly. “Your storm reached for my shadows, and what was broken became whole.”

“Broken became whole. What does that even mean? Could you please answer me without riddles?”

“My connection to shadow. Everything inside me.” His voice is soft. “I wasn’t coming back, Ellie. The torture had broken toomuch. I was dying. Not only my body, but everything I am. I wouldn’t have survived that night. I’d accepted my fate. I was preparing to let it all go. I’d stopped fighting, and was waiting for the void to come for me.”

He looks down at our joined hands. “And then you invaded like a conquering force. Your power crashed through every barrier I had left. Your light found me in that final darkness.”

The vulnerability in these words steals my breath. This is a lowering of boundaries he’s never permitted before, more honesty about that night than he’s ever revealed.

“It changed you, though, didn’t it? You’re not the same man I met in that tower. You’re not even the same man they captured at River Crossing.”

“I’m not changed. Not in the way you think. Acceptance of death strips away pretense, Mel’shira. Reaching that state, accepting the end, and then being given another chance … It made things clear. It burned away everything that was no longer important.”

“And what remained?”

“Purpose.” His eyes lock with mine. “And you.”

I should be afraid of this answer—of this harder, clearer version of the man I first met. The old Ellie from Chicago would have backed away from the intensity in his eyes, from the power that radiates from him like heat.

Instead, I find myself leaning slightly toward him, drawn by the undeniable gravity that’s been between us since the tower. A pull that’s only grown stronger since I brought him back from death’s edge.

Something has broken open between us, some final barrier demolished by what we’ve been through together. The deception we’re maintaining, the trust we’ve built, the way we’ve become almost-partners in this dangerous game, it gives me the courageto ask the question that’s been stuck in my head since his healing.

“Is that all I am now? A power source? A convenient weapon for your cause?” I gesture between us with my free hand. “Or is this something more?”

His expression shifts, eyelashes lowering to veil his eyes. The fingers around my wrist move, thumb stroking over my pulse point again. When he lifts his gaze, I’m shocked to see the control has gone, replaced by something I’ve never seen before … uncertainty.

“You are something I didn’t account for.”

The admission surprises me. That he’s admitting I might be something he hadn’t foreseen feels strangely significant.

He steps closer, still holding my wrist, his other hand rises to brush a strand of hair away from my face. The touch is unexpected, at odds with the fierceness that’s defined him since his healing.

“The connection between us has changed everything.”

Before I can process his admission, he closes the distance between us. His hands frame my face, thumbs tracing the curve of my cheekbones with surprising gentleness. Our eyes lock for a heartbeat, then his lips find mine.

The kiss is neither tentative nor gentle. It’s heat and hunger and a need that’s been building beneath the surface since the desert. Since the tower. Maybe even since before we ever met.

My hand pulls free of his and lifts, fingers fisting into the front of his shirt as I lean into him, erasing what little space remains between us. The silver light flares, responding to the pressure of his mouth against mine, to the taste of him—something dark and electric, like the air before lightning strikes.

My power surges outward, reaching for his shadows. They rise to meet it, tangling and twining in patterns as they wrap around us. The sensation is overwhelming. This isn’tjust a physical connection, but a magical one. I can feel him everywhere, his presence seeping beneath my skin, echoing through every pulse of silver light. It’s intoxicating and terrifying and somehow exactly right.

His arm slides around my waist, pulling me to my feet until I’m flush against him. There’s no space left to think. No room to pretend this doesn’t mean something. I match his intensity with my own, letting the weeks of tension, of believing him dead, ofwatchinghim die, bleed through.

Power hums between us, wild and alive. Familiar and foreign all at once.

His hand slides to my jaw, tilting my head back. He kisses like he wants to devour me, like he needs to feel every inch, every breath, every sound I make and burn it into memory. I gasp, and his tongue pushes between my lips. The heat between us spikes, and I push up on my toes, needing more, needing him closer, deeper,anything.

I lose track of everything except the taste of him. His teeth graze my lip, just enough to sting, and I answer with a bite of my own. The sound that leaves his throat vibrates through me.