Chapter 36 In the Dark
Lana's POV
Our room was exactly as I'd left it. The bed neatly made, the candles unlit, the windows overlooking the courtyard. Everything unchanged, as if I hadn't spent three weeks searching for a mother who didn't want to be found.
I stood in the doorway, unable to summon the energy to actually enter. Kian was behind me, still present, still patient. I could feel him there, solid and real.
"You should rest," he said gently.
"I can't," I said. "My mind won't stop. Everything Nyx said, everything about the Hunger, about what I'm supposed to do... I can't sleep with that in my head."
"Then don't sleep," Kian said. He stepped past me and lit the candles on the nightstand. The room filled with soft, golden light. "But you should at least sit down before you fall down. You look like you're about to collapse."
He was right. My legs felt weak, my body heavy with exhaustion and emotional upheaval. I walked to the bed and sat, and Kian sat beside me.
"I don't know how to do this," I said. "I don't know how to fight something I can't see or touch. I don't know how to break an imprisonment that's been in place for thousands of years."
"You don't have to figure that out tonight," Kian said. "Tonight, you just have to exist. You have to breathe and be present."
I looked at him then. Really looked at him. He looked tired too, his dark eyes shadowed with exhaustion. I wondered how long he'd been sleeping poorly, how much he'd been carrying while I was gone.
"I missed you," I said. The words felt small and inadequate, but they were true.
"I missed you too," he said. "More than I thought it was possible to miss someone."
He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers gentle against my skin. I'd forgotten how much I craved his touch, how stabilizing it was to have him near.
"I'm scared," I admitted. "I'm scared of what I'm supposed to become. I'm scared that I won't be strong enough. I'm scared that my mother was right to stay away, that being near me really will bring danger to everyone I care about."
"You won't be strong enough alone," Kian said. "But you're not alone. You have Nyx, you have Alexander, you have me. We're going to carry this with you."
"That's not fair to you," I said. "Any of you. This isn't your burden."
"Neither of us gets to choose what burdens we carry," Kian said. "We only get to choose whether we carry them alone or together. And I choose together."
He kissed me then, his lips soft against mine. It was gentle, unhurried, a promise rather than a demand. I leaned into it, letting myself feel something other than fear and disappointment. Letting myself feel wanted, needed, chosen.
When he pulled back, I chased his lips, needing more of that contact, that reminder that I wasn't alone in this.
"Lana," he said, his voice rough. "Are you sure? You need to rest…"
I didn't answer with words. I pulled my shirt over my head and tossed it aside. Kian's breath caught, his eyes darkening as they traced over my skin. He reached for me, his hands careful and reverent, like I was something precious and fragile.
"You're beautiful," he said. "Do you know that? You're beautiful and brave and impossible, and I love …"
I kissed him again, cutting off whatever confession was coming. I wasn't ready to hear it, wasn't ready for the weight of that kind of honesty. But I was ready for this, the physical reminder that I was alive, that I was here, that someone wanted me.
We moved together without fumbling, finding a rhythm that felt natural and right. His hands mapped the planes of my back, my shoulders, his lips finding the sensitive curve where my neck met my shoulder. I gasped at the sensation, my fingers digging into the muscles of his back.
There was tenderness in it, but there was also urgency. Three weeks of separation had created a hunger that couldn't be satisfied slowly. We shed the rest of our clothes in a tangle of limbs and reached for each other again, closer now, skin to skin.
"I love you," Kian said, the words whispered against my collarbone. "I have to tell you. I love you, Lana. I have for weeks. Maybe since the beginning."
This time I didn't silence him. I lifted his face to mine and kissed him, letting my own feelings pour into the contact. I loved him too, had loved him for longer than I wanted to admit. Loving him terrified me; another person to lose, another person who could be hurt because of me, but I couldn't deny it anymore.
We moved together with increasing intensity, finding release and comfort and connection in the same moment. Afterward, we lay tangled in the sheets, my head on his chest, his arm around me, his heartbeat gradually slowing against my ear.
"What happens now?" I asked a few minutes later. .
"Now we sleep," Kian said. "Or try to. And in the morning, we continue planning. We continue preparing. We continue fighting."
"And the Hunger? And the Council?"
"Tomorrow," Kian said. His fingers traced lazy patterns on my shoulder. "Tonight is just for us. Tonight is for remembering why we're fighting in the first place."
I didn't have the energy to argue. I closed my eyes and let myself exist in this moment; held and wanted and safe, even if the safety was temporary, even if the danger was still coming.
Outside the window, the castle was quiet. The guards were at their posts, the servants were sleeping, the allies were preparing for the battle that would inevitably come. But in this room, for this night, there was just us. Just two people trying to hold onto something real in a world that was growing increasingly complicated and dangerous.
It would have to be enough. It would have to sustain me through what was coming.
And somehow, holding Kian in the darkness, feeling him hold me back, I thought it might.