Page 58 of Ashen Souls

“Selene and Endymion, right?” She snickered, folding her arms. “The moon goddess who puts her mortal lover into an eternal sleep so she can keep him forever. Tragic, non-consensual eternal devotion. Very on brand. Try not to traumatize anyone at the library.”

“I'll do my best.”

The morning air was a biting cold that stripped the lingering warmth of the apartment from my skin. As I slid behind the wheel of my car, I told myself I was headed to campus to study.

But I wasn’t really chasing focus. I was chasing distraction. From Ethan’s voice. From the silk sheets. From the stifling dissonance between the entity in the darkness and a man who could shatter me in daylight.

The library smelled of old paper, binding glue, and dust, a scent that usually stabilized my thoughts, drawing me into the fluid cadence of research. Today, the stillness only left me unmoored.

I spread my notes across the wide oak table, opened a blank document on my laptop, and stared at the blinking cursor.

Selene and Endymion. Eternal sleep. Eternal desire. A love story, or a prison.

After all, what was love if not the quiet hunger to keep someone forever?

Every time I tried to focus, my thoughts slipped away from the page.

Eventually, I shut my laptop, ignoring the curious glance from the student at the next table. The essay was a lost cause. What I wanted couldn’t be typed into a sterile document. I gathered my things and stepped outside. The strap of my bag dug into my shoulder as I wandered without much direction. Every face I passed felt plain. And still, some treacherous part of me kept scanning the shadows. Just around the corner. Just past the alleyway.

Outside one of my favorite coffee shops, I paused. The bell chimed as I pushed inside, the air thick with the rich, scorched scent of arabica and cinnamon. Couples bent close across small tables, their voices low and easy.

I took a corner table and wrapped my cold hands around an americano. I opened a book. I took notes. I did everything I could to pretend I wasn't just sitting there, waiting for him to walk through the door.

My gaze drifted across the room, landing on a man sitting alone by the window, a book in one hand, coffee in the other.

My pulse spiked, letting me pretend, just for a fraction of a second, that it was him. That Daeren had somehow followed me into the waking world.

The man shifted, turning a page, the light catching on a face that was painfully human. Painfully ordinary.

No, Daeren didn’t belong here. He wasn’t the kind of man who idled over cappuccinos beneath fairy lights. He belonged to fire, to ash, to places that burned.

If anyone fit into this scene, it was Ethan. I could picture him here far too easily: tie loosened, glasses slipping down his nose as he scribbled notes in the margins of some leather-bound text, the steam from his cup curling lazily upward.

Draining the last of my cup, I stood, pulling my coat tighter around my shoulders.

A voice behind me cut through the low clatter of the café.

Deep, steady, and familiar enough to steal the breath from my lungs.

“Ms. Hart?”

16

♫ DA TI—TAKE ME THERE

“Ms. Hart?”

I turned so fast my elbow clipped the edge of the table, rattling the empty ceramic cup.

Ethan Hale stood a few feet away, framed by the muted afternoon light slanting through the frosted windows. He wore a dark coat over a shirt open at the throat, a thick hardcover tucked casually under one arm. He didn't fidget or check his watch; he simply anchored the room, untouched by the frantic clatter of the café.

“Professor Hale,” I managed.

My fingers tightened around the strap of my bag. Suddenly, I was acutely aware of the space between us: how easily it could disappear, and how deliberately he maintained it.

His mouth curved into a faint smile. “Escaping the chaos of campus?” His eyes flicked to the notebook peeking from my bag, then back to my face, lingering for a second on the dark circles I hadn't quite managed to conceal. “Or trying to?”

“Trying,” I admitted.