Page 77 of Rebirth

My heart stutters a little. Gazing at him, the rain powering down around us, I realize I don’t want to be anywhere else. Just here. Right now.

It’s just me and this being from another world. Out here. Alone in the wilderness. Just me and him. No masks. No pretenses.

And for some stupid reason, this is the moment that it all comes crashing down.

Leaving my bunker. Walking outside for the first time and seeing all the destruction. The stench of death and decay that hung on the breeze. Feeling utterly and completely alone. And then seeing that flyer and thinking that maybe, maybe there’s still a place for me here on this planet. A purpose. Something to do. That I wouldn’t live my last days in a dark little hole while the world ended around me. That life could go on.

The tears slip from my eyes without me being able to hold them back and I’m happy the rain is still pouring down on us. Happy He’rox can’t see this lapse in my constitution.

“Waters come from your eyes,” he says and I stare at him, stunned. “You feel sorrow.” That icy gaze slides down my frame with a slow movement that makes me feel his attention almost as if he was touching me there, right until his focus ends at the center of my thighs. “Because of what we just did?”

I swallow a sob and a laugh together, shaking my head, my wet hair plastering to the sides of my face as my expression crumples. Somehow, him realizing I’m crying has made it worse.

I don’t know why, but I turn into him even more, wrapping my arms around his neck as I plaster myself against him. It’s a hug I didn’t think I’d need and one I don’t expect to be reciprocated.

It’s pathetic, seeking warmth from a stranger, and yet I do it all the same. He’rox hesitates. Stiffens. I don’t expect he understands what I’m doing. So when his arms envelop me like two thick tree trunks that plaster me to him, another sob slips through my frame.

“I have harmed you in some way,” he says.

“No,” I croak, unsure if he can even hear me over the rain. “You’ve done the opposite.” I sniff. “You’ve healed a part of me I didn’t even realize was broken.”

He’s warm and I plaster my face into his neck. He isn’t human. All this must be strange to him and I know I should pull away. Give him some space. And yet, I can’t.

I take from him all that he’s willing to give.

“Sophie…”

I snuggle deeper against him, hiding my face from the rain.

“You have not shunned me.”

I shake my head against him. “Why would I?”

“You saw what I have become…” He pauses and I sense he has more to say. Something that’s weighing on the air around us. “Many of my people have not seen that side of me.”

I want to lift my head so I can look into his eyes while he tells me this, but I remain where I am, listening.

“The monster I have become…and yet, you have not asked what I am.”

I lift my head at that, facing him. Through the haze of the rain, he is even more beautiful than before.

“You are a hybrid.”

His ears flick off the side of his head in a way that makes him look almost like a cute, harmless animal and not like the vicious killer that protected me in the forest.

“A monster.”

“I wouldn’t call a hybrid—”

“I am no hybrid.” His sudden growl makes me freeze, and at my reaction, his ears flatten to the sides of his head. “I am no hybrid,” he repeats, his voice more even, and for the first time, He’rox’s gaze moves away from me to look out into the forest beyond.

“What I am,” he continues, “is unnatural. An aberrant being.”

I don’t know what to say and a breath shudders from him, making the water pebble and fall off his shoulders in large drops.

“I was not always like this.” His gaze shifts to mine. “Possibly…if I had not done what I did…sacrificed what I did to save my people…you would have found a worthy mate in me. But now…”

I search his gaze, desperate to fill in the blanks he’s leaving unfilled. “But…” I lift a hand, clasping his jaw, and he stiffens underneath my touch. “Who says you’re not worthy?”

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