“Wow.”
“I know.”
He grinned as the elevator rose. “It’s a lot like the other place. Same layout and all. Just two bedrooms.”
I leaned against the opposite wall as I tipped my head back. “Is two bedrooms really necessary now?” I teased.
“I hope not.” He stalked toward me, placing his hands on either side of my head. “But two bathrooms will be amazing.”
“True.”
“Because I’m tired of you using my body wash.”
“It’s accidental.”
“Uh-huh.” He lowered his head. “I think you just like to smell like me.”
I continued to grin. “The second bedroom is probably a good idea, because I’m sure I’m going to get annoyed and kick you out of the bed at some point.”
“Sooner rather than later,” he agreed. “Just don’t kick me out entirely.”
“You don’t have to worry about that.” The elevator came to a stop, and I stretched up to kiss him. Then I dipped under his arm and stepped into our new apartment. “You joining me?”
As Zayne pushed off the wall and followed, I turned back around. The apartment was virtually the same, except it was flipped. The kitchen was to the left and the living room to the right. The windows faced a different street, but the couch and furniture were set up just as before. Except...when I narrowed my eyes, I realized there was a short hallway where the door to the bedroom had been in the other apartment.
Zayne strode forward, turning so that he was walking backward. “Can I give you a tour?”
“Of course.”
He grinned, taking my hand. “I think you can figure out the kitchen and living room.”
“Yeah, I got that covered.”
Chuckling as he turned, he tugged me into the hall. “The interesting parts are over here. To the right is a half bath, and the double doors next to that is laundry.”
“Real exciting stuff,” I teased.
“Just wait.” He led me farther down, opening the door on the left. Reaching in, he flipped on the light. “This is bedroom number two. Through there is a bathroom.”
I looked around. “The room is...completely empty.”
“Observant.”
I shot him a look.
“I only have one bed,” he explained. “Had to order another, plus furniture.”
“Wait.” I tugged on his hand. “I should be ordering the furniture—paying for it.”
“This isn’t your room, though. It’s mine, for whenever you’re annoyed with me.”
“But—”
“This is your room,” he said, opening the other door.
Zayne didn’t turn on the lights, but there was a soft white glow coming from something. Not the bathroom, which I assumed was somewhere in the shadows, or a bedside lamp. It was too faint for that. Confused, I looked up—
“Oh my God,” I whispered, not believing what I was seeing.
Slipping my hand free, I walked into the bedroom, my head cranked back as far as it could go as I stared at the ceiling.
The ceiling that glowed a soft white from the glow-in-the-dark stars scattered all over it.
There were stars on the ceiling.
Stars.
“How?” I whispered, lifting my hands and then curling them against my chest. “When did you do this, Zayne?” I couldn’t figure out when he’d have had time.
“The day you told Stacey about Sam,” he answered. “I came back here and put these up. I tried to put them into a constellation, but that was harder than anticipated. Decided to make one up myself. So, it’s Constellation Zayne.”
My mouth opened and I couldn’t find words as I stared at them. They started to blur, and I realized that was because my eyes were damp. “You did this when you were mad at me? Before we...before we made up?”
“Yeah. I guess so.” He sounded confused. “Is that bad?”
Slowly, I turned to him. I could make out his outline in the doorway. My heart was pounding, and my hands were trembling. “You did this when we weren’t talking? When I thought you might’ve hated me?”
“I never hated you, Trin. Mad? Sure. But I never—”
Running full speed, I launched myself at him. He caught me with a grunt that turned into a laugh as I threw my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. I squeezed him as tight as my chest was squeezing and planted my face against his neck.
“I guess you like it.” His arms came around me.
“Like it?” My voice was muffled against his neck. “Like it? It’s perfect and amazing. It’s beautiful. I love it. It’s more.”
Zayne replied, but I don’t know what he said, because something happened. Something cracked inside me, splintered wide open, and a rush of emotion poured through so fast and so unexpectedly that I couldn’t stop it all from swelling up inside me.
It broke free in a sob that was part laugh. There were no walls. No stupid file cabinets. Nothing between me and everything I felt. Nothing between me and all that Zayne was.
Which was more.
So much more.
“Hey. Hey. Trin.” His hand curved around the nape of my neck, tangling in the loose braid. “It’s okay.”
It was.
It wasn’t.
Zayne carried me over to the bed and sat down with me in his lap, still clinging to him like a deranged spider monkey. My fingers curled along the edges of his hair, crushing the soft strands in my hands.
“Damn, Trin, I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he murmured against the side of my head. “You just said that you missed the stars from your bedroom back home, and I wanted... I wanted to give you stars that you could see every night.”
Oh God. Oh God.
That made me cry harder, so much so that Zayne started rocking us as he rubbed a hand up and down my back, murmuring nonsensical words until I pulled it together, shifting so that my forehead rested on his shoulder.
“I know. I know you didn’t mean to make me cry. This isn’t your fault. I love the stars. I love that you did this. It’s just...” It was just that what he’d done was kind, sweet, thoughtful, beautiful and as meaningful as he was.
And it was just that I’d known he cared for me—that he liked me as more than just a friend—and I’d known he’d begun to feel all of that before the bond. And I’d known I cared for him, and that I had already been falling for him long before the previous night...but this was so much more.
“Trin?” He guided my head back, sliding his thumb along my bottom lip. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
“I’m... I’m scared,” I admitted in a whisper.
His pale blue eyes sharpened. “Scared of what? Of me?”
“No. Never.” I drew in a shallow breath. “I’m scared of... I’m scared of us. I’m scared of what this means. I’m scared we’re not supposed to be this. I’m scared that I’ll lose you. I’m scared of how much I...how much I feel for you. I’m scared.”
Zayne’s chest rose with a deep breath against mine and then those thick lashes swept down, shielding his eyes. His fingers splayed against my cheek. “So am I.”
My body jerked. “You are?”
His hand curled around the back of my head, fingers tangling in my hair. “You want to know the truth?”
Yes? No?
He took my silence as a yes. “It terrifies me. Every aspect of it, Trin. Feeling what I do for you, wanting what I want from you?” His voice was deep and rough, and it made me shiver. “There have been moments when I wished I felt this way about anyone other than you.”
Wait.
What?
I blinked. “Okay. I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Hear me out.” His fingers tightened around my braid. “What I feel terrifies me, because I’m not supposed to feel this way and God knows I’ve already been down that road. Wasn’t exactly looking to repeat history.”
I clamped my mouth shut.
“But it’s more than that, Trin. It goes way beyond my past,” he went on, his gaze holding mine. “It’s because of who you are. You go out there every night and put your life on the line. You’re hunting the kind of demons that skilled Wardens dread. You’re looking for something that can kill demons and Wardens in seconds. I’m terrified of something happening to you, and that has nothing to do with what that means for me.”
Okay. I totally understood that. “You’re doing the same thing, Zayne. I can’t even think if something happened—” I cut myself off, not wanting to go down that road. “I wish you were a human who went to college and was studying to be a veterinarian.”
His brows lifted.
“Okay, maybe I don’t want you to be a human. Humans are too easy to kill, but you get my point.”
A slow curl tipped up his lips. “I do.” His head tilted to the side. “So, I’m scared, but what I feel—what I want is still there. It’s always there, and when I’m not with you, all I want to do is get back to you. At first I thought it was the bond, but it’s not. It’s something entirely different.” His mouth grazed my cheekbone, drawing closer to my lips. “And knowing that—knowing you feel...feel right—I’ll be damned if I’ll walk away from that, even though it terrifies me.
“I need you to understand something.” His gaze caught mine, held it. “I know that what I feel for you is nothing like what I felt for Layla. Nothing. And I realized something the night Stacey and I talked.”
That was the night he and I had gone to the next level. It had been only, what, two days ago, but it felt like weeks. “What?” I whispered.
“I...don’t know if I was ever in love with her,” he said. “I loved her. I know that, but I think I was in love with the idea of her and us. And I think...no, I know that the hardest part, what I’ve been dealing with since then, is realizing it would’ve never worked out between us, and how I couldn’t see that.” The hand around my braid slipped to my lower back. “I will always love that girl. There won’t be a time that I don’t, but I’m not in love with her.”