Page 128 of When Death Whispers

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 toreverence.

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.

Sheunmademe 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 tosee.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 placeispretty 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.

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