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I knew she was different the moment I first felt her soul call to mine. I knew she was meant for me—created for me. But for years, I believed she was meant to die by my hand. I believed I was meant to consume her. To devour her last breath, drink in her fear. I thought I’d been waiting for her end.

But that was never the truth.

She wasn’t meant to be devoured.

She was meant to stay.

The Evergloom recognizes her. Accepts her. Bends for her. The roots cradle her like they’ve known her all along, and the very walls of my burrow thrum when she speaks.

And when she said my name…

Everything in me halted. Stilled. Listened.

Names hold power. And now it binds us.

I do not laugh. I do not know joy. But something twists in my chest when I think of her lips forming my name like it belongs to her. Something that feels dangerously close to reverence.

Her scent clings to everything in the burrow—richer than anything I’ve known. It winds through the air, curling into my lungs, feeding shadows that have never known restraint. They respond to her without command. They linger near her without orders. As if she called them herself.

She doesn’t understand what she’s done.

She doesn’t know that speaking my name aloud gave her weight here. Influence. That the Evergloom listens to her now—not just me.

She unmade me with a whisper.

And still, she stands before me like none of this matters. Like she’s simply a girl who stumbled into a storm. Cold. Small. Mortal. Her hand warming my cold one.

But her presence sways the dark like a queen.

“You smell of doomed beginnings,” I murmur, taking a step forward—not to corner, not to trap. Just to see. To feel the shift of the air between us. “Imbued with violent ends. You compel my greed.”

She blinks up at me, confusion shadowing her features. “I… what?”

Ah. Yes. Perhaps not the most effective of mortal courtship rituals.

But I’ve never needed charm.

Only hunger.

Still… the look on her face makes something sour twist behind my ribs. As if I’ve failed at something I didn’t realize I wanted to get right.

She doesn’t understand what she is.

Not yet.

Not her strength. Not the weight of my name in her mouth. Not the sway she already holds in this realm. Or over me.

And maybe that’s for the best.

There’s a terrible beauty in her not knowing what she’s become.

It allows me to observe her freely. To admire the way her breath fogs in the chill of the burrow. The way the shadows—my shadows—drift toward her without command, hovering like they belong to her now.

Parker shivers and rubs at her arm with her free hand. I haven’t let go of the other one. I’m not entirely sure I want to.

“My shadows would warm you, if you let them,” I say, quieter this time.

Her eyes flick to mine. She doesn’t answer.

But she doesn’t say no.

A single tendril unfurls from the floor, approaching her slowly, carefully. It curls around her wrist, featherlight. She exhales softly—not in fear. In relief.

“This place is pretty cold,” she says softly.

My shadows hear it not as a complaint, but a command.

Another tendril joins the first, then a third—curling around her shoulders, her waist. They wrap her in a careful embrace, warmer than they should be, tighter than I’d permit under any other circumstance.

She gasps, and everything in me stills.

“Steorfan,” she whispers, her voice breathy. “Not so hard.”

The shadows pause immediately.

They don’t retreat. Don’t resist.

They listen.

Obedience.

My chest pulls tight. Not from pride. Not from power.

From something worse.

Something… tender.

“Yes,” she murmurs, barely audible. “Like that. Soft. Gentle. That’s better. I’m warmer now.”

Soft. Gentle. Warm.

I am none of those things.

And yet, my shadows comply like they were born from her breath instead of mine.

Before I can process it, she lets go of my hand, stepping forward… and presses herself against me. Her arms wrap around my waist. My shadows rise—not to protect, not to bind—but to witness as she lays her head against my chest like I’m a place to rest.

And I freeze.

Centuries of hunger. Centuries of death. Of silence and endings and rot.

No one has ever dared to touch me like this.

Not even in fear.

But she does.

She sighs—soft, content, exhausted—and the sound breaks something ancient inside me.

“I thought you’d be cold,” she murmurs into my chest. “Like a corpse or something.” Her fingers flex gently against my back. “But you’re warm,” she breathes. “And you smell like the ground after it rains.”

A pause. A slower breath.

“It’s… nice.”

And just like that… I unravel.

Everything in me, everything rigid and unyielding, melts all at once. My very essence liquefies. Bones to water. Shadows to wax. I melt for her as her warmth seeps into me, sinking past everything I have ever been. It spreads through my core, burning hotter, wilder—not a flickering ember, but a wildfire consuming everything in its wake.

Everything I am—everything I’ve ever been—dissolves beneath her touch.

I have never known the sun. Never seen its light. Never felt its warmth on my skin.

But this?

This is what I imagine it feels like.

Parker is the sun rising in a place that was never meant to bloom.

And I want to bask in it even if it burns me alive.

She exhales against me, and something in her folds inward.

Her body loses its tension, her strength softening like petals wilting beneath frost. The glow in her eyes dims, the heat I soaked in just moments ago beginning to slip away.

“I’m starving,” she whispers.

I inhale sharply, and the truth escapes before I can catch it. “The feeling’s mutual.”

She laughs.

And it unravels me.

The sound is light—unguarded. Not cruel. Not sarcastic. Just… real. It echoes through the burrow like something sacred, something the Gloom has never known. The veins of light pulse brighter in response, like they too are drawn to her.

She doesn’t notice.

She only looks up at me, eyes heavy and tired, blue dulled to frost.

“I’m tired,” she murmurs. “And hungry. And…” Her voice softens. “…I don’t know how much more I can take.”

The last of her light fades.

And my shadows move without waiting for me.

They rise not to claim, not to bind—but to hold.

They slip past my command like a whisper forgotten.

Not mine anymore.

Hers.

They wrap around her slowly, tenderly—one curling beneath her knees, another bracing her back, lifting her weight where she sags. One brushes her jaw, pausing at her cheek like it aches to learn the shape of her sorrow.

They hold her together because she can’t right now.

I do not understand them.

I do not fight them.

She leans into my chest, small and quiet, her breath fogging against my skin.

She’s not broken. Not fragile.

She’s simply spent.

And something inside me—a thing I never named, never dared to feed—blooms.

I curl one hand around the back of her head, cradling her gently.

And I tell her the truth.

“I no longer crave your death, Snow Pea,” I murmur, my voice low and certain. “I want something far more potent.”

Her lashes flutter.

She doesn’t speak. Just waits.

So I give her more.

“All of you,” I whisper. “Your body wrapped in my shadows. Your voice whispering my name. Your soul surrendered freely.”

Another beat of silence. Her eyes drift shut.

“And in return,” I say, “I will give you everything. Warmth. Rest. Sustenance. Protection. I will feed you. Clothe you. Keep you from pain. You will want for nothing while you are mine.”

Her eyes open again—slowly. Searching.

She doesn't flinch.

She doesn’t run.

She simply tilts her head, considers me, and whispers,

“…Is that all?”

A smile tugs at my lips—slow, reverent.

“Yes.”

She steps closer.

“Deal,” she murmurs.

Then, a flicker of fire in her gaze. Something deliciously sharp.

“But, Steorfan—Steo?”

She meets my eyes, determination making hers glow brighter, and a foreign warmth spreads throughout my chest at the familiarity with which she gives me a nickname.

“We play by my rules.”

My shadows ripple outward like a pulse, bending toward her without hesitation—answering her before I can even find the words.

And I am completely, gloriously undone.