Page 45 of What Lies Beyond the Veil

“Get some sleep, Estrella,” Caelum murmured, laying on his back on the cave floor. He tossed his arms over his head, forming a pillow with his forearms. I lay on my side and huddled in on myself, facing the cave opening with the fire between me and whatever might come for me.

There wasn’t much that had frightened me in my life—I knew that was a lie as soon as I thought it. There wasn’t much that frightened me enough that I didn’t do exactly what I wanted anyway. There were perks to being stubborn, advantages to digging my boots into the ground at my feet and risking everything for a single moment of freedom.

But survival was different. The image of death at the jowls of a beast three times my size would torment me to the point that I couldn’t sleep.

“I can hear your thoughts from here, Little One,” Caelum murmured, his lips tipping up into a smile as I rolled over to look at him. He opened his eyes slowly, peering at me as I sighed.

“Do tell,” I said, using the distraction as I snuggled deeper into his cloak. “I would absolutely love to hear how you think my mind is filled with thoughts of you yet again.” The sarcasm dripped from my words with mocking condescension.

“Come here, and I can distract you from such wasteful thoughts. Why think of things that you could have if you only reached out a hand?” he asked, the playful smirk at his lips drawing my attention down to the vivid white of his teeth.

“We’re supposed to be sleeping,” I argued, turning my head way from the striking features of his face to look at the cave ceiling. He was so disarming, so unrealistically handsome. None of the men in Mistfell had such perfect features. His eyes were darker than I’d ever seen, like shadows painted into his lightly tanned, even golden, skin. His nose was straight and the perfect size over his generous lips. His jaw was square, and his brow strong and stern, despite the playful expression he so often wore.

“So why aren’t we?” he asked, drawing my attention back to him. He leaned forward, grasping one of my hands in his. His thumbs ran over my palm, caressing it lightly. “Talk to me.”

I sighed, letting my head thump against the stone as shame heated my face. He seemed so fearless, so unconcerned with any of the dangers around us. “I’m afraid,” I mumbled, keeping my eyes off of his purposefully.

“What could a star be afraid of?” he asked, the teasing lilt to his voice reassuring me slightly. He squeezed my hand tighter in his, encouraging me to continue.

“It seems like I’m afraid of many things lately,” I said, shaking my head as I thought of the way I feared him more than Lord Byron. It made no sense, but Byron had been able to touch my body. He hadn’t been able to reach inside me and toy with my soul the way Caelum could.

“And yet you continue on anyway, my brave little star. You burn so bright I sometimes fear the Wild Hunt will sense you from miles away,” he said, making the breath hitch in my lungs.

“Then why stay with me? Surely you want to be as far away from me as possible if you genuinely fear that?” I asked, my mind trying to work around the possible reasons he would endanger himself for me.

He ignored the question, smiling gently as he tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “What are you afraid of?” he asked again.

I sighed, brushing off the moment between us and knowing it was for the best. “The cave beasts,” I answered, nodding my head down to the fork in the tunnel where it veered into the network within the mountains.

He followed my gaze, his head nodding as if he understood. “Do you truly believe that I would ever allow anything to harm you? Cave beast, Fae, or human, they’ll have to go through me to get to you.”

“I don’t understand why you would risk so much for me. You hardly know me,” I whispered, the words hovering between us.

His face shifted, a heavy sigh escaping between his parted lips. His hand cupped my cheek, and he sank his teeth into his bottom lip. “I don’t feel so alone when I’m with you,” he murmured, tipping forward to touch his forehead to mine. He dropped his hand to the Mark on my neck, the swirling and writhing ink of his skin brushing against mine and causing a shock to roll through me. “I’ve spent my entire life feeling alone, even when I’m surrounded by others. I’d do just about anything not to feel that again. You and I are the same.” He squeezed his hand at my neck, tightening around the Fae Mark. “This ties us together in ways none of us understand. So you can be scared all you want, Little One, but do it knowing that you’ll have my swords at your side until the end.”

He retreated suddenly, severing the stifling moment between us as my eyes burned. Settling himself back down to sleep, he stretched his legs with a groan. “What are you doing?” I asked, watching as he patted his stomach with a hand.

“Come here,” he said, a chuckle transforming his face and all traces of his seriousness from only a moment before faded away. I didn’t linger, letting his good mood wash away the intensity. I suspected men like Caelum didn’t want to be vulnerable, and those moments where I saw beneath the arrogance and posturing were something rare, to be treasured.

I quirked my brow at him, glancing down to his trousers pointedly. I’d made my thoughts on his cock known already.

“It’s not going to jump out and bite you, Estrella,” he laughed. “Rest your head on me, and I’ll tell you a story until you fall asleep.”

That gave me pause. The only part of Lord Byron’s manor I would miss was the library full of books and the stories they contained. Theadventures people had lived. “What kind of story?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “Is this a sex thing? Because I’m not above punching you in the dick.”

“Estrella, I promise; you will know when it’s a sex thing,” he said, patting his stomach again. “This is the oldest story I know.” I shifted forward, turning to put my back to him as I lowered myself down. The side of my face pressed against his shirt, drawing in a deep breath of the distinct scent I’d come to associate with Caelum.

He always smelled like wintergreen, like fresh snow falling in the meadow at night. Like drawing an essence sharp and cold into your lungs and letting it burn you from the inside.

He draped his cloak around me, enveloping me in warmth. I didn’t have it in me to protest that he’d be cold, knowing from experience that it was as futile as trying not to breathe him in.

He raised a hand, running it through the waves of my hair gently as he hummed softly. “In the beginning, there was nothing.” He paused as the strands of my hair fell through his fingers. His voice dropped lower, murmuring the words of his story as he continued on with a lyrical cadence. There was no doubt in my mind the story he wove was one he knew well, one that he’d been told repeatedly throughout his life, perhaps by the father who’d taught him all about things we weren’t meant to know.

“The world was an empty void, a place without light or substance or shadows. The world was nothing but Khaos, but he eventually grew tired of being alone and he used the darkness surrounding him to create Ilta. He fell in love with the Primordial of Night, and with the way she shimmered in the shadows she created. They came together and eventually created a son, Edrus, the Primordial of Darkness. Ilta and Edrus grew close, closer than she felt with Khaos, and she jilted her previous lover in favor of her son,” he said.

“She what?” I asked, outrage rising in my gut. Thiswasa sex thing.

“There were only three beings in all of the world, Estrella. Is it so surprising that familial boundaries as we know them today didn’t exist when they were creating, well, everything?” he asked, tapping his finger against my nose pointedly. “Together, Ilta and Edrus had two children, and on and on creation went until there were seven generations of Primordials and the world as we know it came to be. They created the dirt beneath our feet and the mountains that rise into the sky, the sea at the edges of the Kingdom and everything around us. From those Primordials came the last generation of Gods, the ones humans once worshiped, until they learned the truth.”

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