Page 39 of The Alien in the Archive

I lift her hand to my mouth and close my lips over the wound.

Page’s breath catches, a sound that’s less surprised than pleasured, and a rush of satisfaction pours into me, through me. Her taste floods my senses—hot, intoxicating, unbearably sweet and surprisingly complex. This isn’t like when we drank Elixir on Borealis, no…it’s a full-body experience.

A connection that suddenly makes sense to me.

Mine, mine, mine.

Page takes a step closer, now nearly flush against me. My tongue darts out to lap at the cut, both of us breathing heavily. I don’t even care about the Elixir anymore, nor about her blood; I’m going to take her, undress her, make her filthiest fantasies real?—

No. I can’t.

I stumble back, the taste of her still on my tongue, the sweetness of her blood searing through me. I know I’ve crossed a line—one that could force her to tell someone about me—but all I care about is the prospect that she won’t want to see me again. And even as I think that, I feel this horrible guilt, because sheshouldn’twant to see me again. When I finally dare to look at her, I expect fear, disgust.

Instead…I see desire.

“Thorne,” she says, quiet. Her cheeks are flushed pink, red lips swollen and exquisitely kissable. “What…what was that?—”

I turn away from her, clenching my fists. Even that taste enhanced my powers, and I can hear her thoughts racing:what does this mean? I liked it, I want more, come back, I need?—

“I’m sorry,” I rasp. “I shouldn’t have–”

“You’re shaking.” Her voice is barely a whisper, and when I glance back at her, she’s moved closer.

“I’m fine,” I snap, sharper than I intend. My fists clench tighter as I force myself to look away from her. The scent of her blood lingers in the air, in my mouth, on my tongue—a dangerous, maddening allure.

But she doesn’t flinch. If anything, she softens, her fear ebbing away, replaced by something more curious, more dangerous.

“You’re not fine,” she says. Her hand comes up, tentative, hovering just near my arm as if she’s afraid to touch me. “What just happened? Thorne, please.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, swallowing the lump in my throat. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.” Her voice wavers now, a crack in her resolve. Page is normally so supremely confident that this hesitancy makes me hate myself even more than I alreadydid. “I need to understand what’s happening to me—and what just happened with you.”

“You don’t want to understand this.” I whirl on her, the movement too fast, too close, but she doesn’t step back. Her wide, silver-grey eyes hold mine, steady despite the blush on her cheeks.

“I do,” she insists, her chin lifting defiantly. “You don’t get to decide that for me.”

For a moment, I’m silent, the fight draining out of me. She’s right; I don’t get to decide for her. But if I tell her the truth, if she realizes what I’ve just discovered…

Mine.

“It’s the Elixir,” I say finally, my voice low and strained. “It’s in your blood. It’s why your powers are evolving, why they’re getting stronger. I…need to drink Elixir to survive. I’ve outlived my given time.”

“So you’re…” she trails off as she puts the pieces together. “You…you literally need to drink my blood to survive?”

“Not specifically, but it’s the only source of Elixir I’ve encountered here in the Obscuary,” I nod, shame tying knots around my heart. I want her to understand that I’m a monster…I can’t tell her there was more. That for some reason, fate sent her to me, and I’m still trying to understand what that means. “I swear on the old gods that is not why I spoke to you in the first place, though. What happened just now…it was an accident.”

She’s quiet for a moment, and I brace myself for her to recoil, to pull away in disgust.

But she doesn’t.

Her lips part slightly, her breath hitching as the space between us seems to shrink. She doesn’t recoil, doesn’t flinch—and that makes it worse. I want her to run, to put as much distance as she can between herself and the monster I am. But she doesn’t.

And her voice is small and afraid as she asks, “Thorne…are you dying?”

I can’t look at her, not when the answer would change everything. I close my eyes, swallow hard, and the taste of her nearly overwhelms me again.

“Thorne, answer me.”

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