Nocticadia

by Keri Lake

I couldn’t fucking do it, because all I could think about, all that mattered to me, was the girl. The beautiful girl with her autumn hair, and eyes that reminded me of both the sea and the sky. And she was everything. The earth, the sun, the moon. The air I breathed, and the tenacious beat that kept my eroded heart pumping.

“Lilia,” he said, his voice like a dark angel’s. My avenging angel. Was I dead? I had to be.

“You were brave to fight him. My brave Little Moth.”

The problem was, there was too much at once, so much that I couldn’t feel anything, at all.

“I don’t feel safe anywhere anymore.” “You’re safe with me, Lilia.”

He’d hurt Angelo for hurting me.

“That was the first time I truly felt that something could hurt me. That I could be brought to my knees. I don’t ever want to feel that again, Lilia.”

“Don’t hide from me, Lilia. You are no less beautiful than that day you walked into my classroom and stole my fucking breath.”

You’re stronger than you realize.”

“If you’re planning to kill him, know that I’ll kill you first,”

My brazen little moth.

because there was no fucking way she was going to be killed on my watch. I’d burn the whole damned project down and walk away with a smile. Fuck the consequences.

“The research belongs to her.”

They needed to know just how much I was willing to place on the line for her.

Bold little shit.

I had to hide the smile itching to escape, the pride that was damned near beaming out of me.

I’d carry that information to the grave on the promise that Lilia and I would reunite in the afterlife.

“If they would’ve hurt you, I’d have found myself in a very dangerous place.”

“You’re a sick man, Doctor Death.”

“I am. Crazy enough to admit that I would’ve killed every person in that room a moment ago. I’d have killed Lippincott, Gilchrist—my own brother, if he’d laid a hand on you.”

“I’ve staked my claim on you, Lilia. God help you.” “I’ve done just fine without God’s help,”

and he planted a kiss on my forehead.

“He just said that I was too beautiful to fret over this scar. And that I should look out for you because you’re all he has left.”

“He’s right. You’re far too beautiful.”

“What if I need help?” “You know I’m always available to you.”

“Why does the forbidden have to be so fucking sweet?”

“Do you need a proper fucking, Miss Vespertine?” “Yes, Professor,”

Little Moth. You were made for me,”

I focused on the foreign pressure blooming in my chest. The way he held me. The freedom and security, and our heated bodies entwined together like two flames. Soulmates.

“I feel it, too,” he said, as if reading my mind. “It’s inside of me. Burning like a fever I can’t shake. It’s a spiteful, prideful anger that refuses to admit the truth.”

“That I would kill for you without a beat of hesitation, or remorse. And yet, at the same time, I could be reduced to nothing more than a pile of ash without you. I’m weak for you, Lilia.”

“That the universe will hear it, too! And it’ll steal you away.” The wobble of tears broke, skating down my cheek. “I wanted to say it to you so badly that day at the ocean, when you were slipping away from me. I was screaming inside my head. Tell him! Tell him before it’s too late. But I couldn’t, because I knew if I did, you’d be gone forever.

“I’m not going anywhere. You and I? This? There’s no escaping it. Doesn’t matter how fast you run, or how far you get, I will always be inside you just like this. In your bones and in your blood and in your head. It doesn’t matter what you tell the universe–what secrets you spill. Nothing can change what we are, what we’ve become.”

And in some ways, I’m glad, because the harder I am, the less I feel, and the less I feel, the less everything hurts.”

Little Moth.

I will bleed out every one of your demons until you feel safe.”

“I don’t see them when I’m with you. I think they’re afraid of you.” “As they should be.”

“I love you. And I don’t think I can stop loving you.”

“I will never reject you, or turn you away.” Lips pressed to mine, he held my face so delicately in his hands, as if I were something too precious to grasp tightly. “I have lived a lifetime in death–a cold existence in an endless void. Never feeling. Never knowing the warmth of touch. Every unfulfilling breath a suffocating reminder of how hollow I’d become. It wasn’t until you came along and cast the first ray of light that I felt a pulse of life. A pull that I couldn’t resist.”

“Don’t ever hesitate to touch me, Lilia. You’re the only one who can. It was you who dragged my heart from this insensate slumber. And it’s you for whom it beats now.”

“It’s a fucking wreckage, though. Scarred and caged by ravaged bones. But i...

“You’re mine, Lilia.”

“And I am yours.”

“Mine,”

I rested my scarred cheek against his scarred shoulder, the malicious marks where both of us had been branded monsters.

I believed him when he said he belonged to me. Like a vast ocean claimed by a single grain of sand. My dark sea. The mystifying depths that both captivated and terrified me.

pain was an inevitable consequence of love.

Love was also a sickness. An incurable disease. The kind that crawled inside the muscles and bones, and persisted long after death.

Sometimes, the pain was too much to bear. But sometimes it felt good, because it meant that I was capable of feeling something.

I hadn’t come to Dracadia with any notion of falling in love with my professor, or Death, as some had referred to him.