“I think...maybe you should find another Death Fae to kiss on Xishlon,” she suggests, attempting to sound wry as she staves off his mounting allure.

“Death Fae do not pair with other Death Fae,” he croons, leaning closer, his deep voice a sensual lure. “There is no balance in it.”

“You know what, Viger?” Tierney says, unable to hold herself back from his hypnotic, compelling thrall. “I’m drawn to you. I find that confusing, but...there’s something about you that’s beautiful.”

Viger’s claw tips thread through her hair. He leans in, waiting, so close...

This is my night to kiss all the dangerous boys, Tierney marvels as she sighs and gives in, angling her mouth toward Viger.

“Let me show you,” he whispers, his dark lips brushing hers. “Let me show you what we really are.”

“I want you to,” Tierney whispers back.

Her lips meet his in a swirl of darkness, the purple light muting.

Tierney spirals into his embrace, into his delicious darkness. It’s like she’s being pulled to the ocean’s deepest floor and below, down, down, down, his arms wrapped around her, hers around him, clutching tightly to each other as their kiss deepens in hunger and she finds herself pressed against his hard body and swept into the longing to merge completely with his thrall.

And then the world disappears.

Panic overtakes Tierney as she’s suspended in nothingness for a long, breathless moment.

Viger is gone. Everything is gone. No color. No sensation. No sense of anything or anyone at all.

Like she’s been pulled to the very center of Erthia.

And then, she has a sense of Viger’s lips pulling away from hers, his grip on her loosening, and she spirals and spirals back up into the world of sights and smells and kisses and Viger and the purple forest.

Everything.

Pulsing with glorious, overwhelming, spectacular life.

Tierney grasps Viger’s arms, unsteady on her feet, gasping as her gaze darts around.

Viger watches her with deeply serious eyes, his strong embrace supporting her. The purple wash of moonlight on the rustling leaves is so beautiful it’s almost too much to bear. The loamy scent of the Forest. Her intrinsic sense of the network of rivers and streams all over this land, enhanced. And this beautiful, young Fae man standing before her. Waiting. Waiting for her to fully see. It’s like she’s returned to a whole new world, every sense heightened. Every glorious, living sensation flooding in. Life everywhere. Life fed by natural death.

She meets Viger’s ardent gaze, stunned.

“Now, do you see?” he asks, uncharacteristically emotional.

Tierney nods, overcome. “You’re the pause.” She breathes out. “You’re not the end. You’re the beginning. The seed.”

Viger’s dark eyes are suddenly brimming with tears. “Now you see.”