Page 129 of When Death Whispers

“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 towitnessas 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.

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