What Blooms From Death (What Blooms From Death, #1)

by S.M. Gaither

“You’d be surprised how quickly knowledge can erode when the wrong people manage to put themselves in charge.”

“Well, I think sometimes traumatic things look different from the inside, when you’re trying to endure them.”

People were complex, after all—paintings made up of all different shades, strokes of light and dark that created depth on a canvas.

“I’ve barely eaten. Or slept. All I’ve really done is think about how badly I wanted to follow you into your room last night and make you forget everything outside of it. How badly I wanted to make you forget everything except me, to bury myself so deeply inside of you that my name would be the only thing left for you to gasp out. To fall asleep, still inside of you, and then wake up and do it all over again.”

The smile that crossed his face was nearly my complete, instant undoing.

I knew the plans Zayn and I had made. I knew the mess I was headed toward, should I choose to go the other way. But I would let both worlds fall to ruin before I left Nova here alone.

“There is nothing tragic about the fact that I met you here in this world,” he said, taking my face in his hands. “Or about the way I feel when I kiss you, or when your body curves next to mine when we sleep. Nothing I could possibly regret about the way I find calm in your chaos and solace in your shadows, and if we end up ripped apart and ruined, it will still have been worth it all.” He gripped me tighter and bowed his head against mine, as if in prayer. “And so no—no, I don’t consider us a tragedy. At all.”

I lifted my head, fluttering my lashes at him. “Both your salvation and damnation, rolled into one?” He smiled, trailing his fingers over the warm spot his mouth had left on my throat. “We’ve been a contradiction from the start, haven’t we?”

“Oh, Chaos.” He spun me around, pulling me flush against his bare chest. His fingers snaked along my throat and then higher, gripping my jaw, tilting my face so his mouth brushed my ear as he said, “The pleading is unnecessary. Because it will be a privilege to fuck you into a state of oblivion.”

“I’m sorry I attacked you.” Aleks glanced up at me, giving me that slight, sly smile of his—the one that accented his dimples. “It wouldn’t have been the first time you’d stabbed me.” I exhaled a deep breath. “Yes, but I thought we were past that stage in our relationship.” “Me too.” He shrugged. “I do love that you’re full of surprises, though.”

Because the way into that circular, suspended room was clear, with both Grimnor and Luminor balanced on either side of its open door.

Some things bloom brighter in the dark.