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“I wish we were alive together at the same time,” he continued. “That I could—that we could—”

“I know,” I echoed. “Me too.”

“I would still be yours to command.” He brought my fingers to his mouth and ran his lips over my knuckles. I could barely feel it and the lack of him—the lack of warmth—broke my heart. “Even if I were alive. You could call my name and I would come running. No matter where I was.”

“Wolfe—”

“Let it be enough between us,” he said against my skin. “For now.”

My chest ached. “All right.”

“Good.” He shifted, an air of excitement settling over him. He raised a long arm to the sky, his index finger circling around a cluster of stars. “Ah, look there. See that star cluster there? That’s Pleiades. In Irish, it’s called an Phléadach. Once, it was said that time was tracked by using that constellation. When it began to sink, it was meant to signal that it was time to return home. Oh, and there,” he said pointing. “Orion’s Belt. The Irish believe…”

He told me story after story, pointing out the night sky to me.

For every star, for every cluster, I turned my attention to him.

He was brighter than all of them.

I wanted to tell him that, but the words didn’t come.

When the sun began to rise and night faded, he pointed to two more stars on the horizon, their colors faint but still visible.

“And those two right there? They only meet at dawn.” His voice was rough. “Separated by the moon, they find each other in the sun.” He brought me close, arm wrapped around my shoulder. “Just like us.”

I fell asleep like that, curled into the shape of him.

Chapter 17

There was a new energy to us as the following days unfolded.

An awareness I hadn’t felt before.

When I read, I felt his eyes on me.

When I laughed, he looked like he was starving.

When I curled into the couch each night, eyes drifting shut, his hands clenched into fists.

I noticed him, too.

Noticed the freckle right at the base of his throat like some sort of adornment. Noticed how much bigger his hands were than mine and when he reached for me, my body rose up on its own. The full mouth, the sharp angle of his jaw, the unruly nature of his hair that made me think of fingers twisted inside it.

Confessing everything on the hillside changed things. I learned more and more about him and it was becoming hard to remember that whatever this was wasn’t real. I would leave. He would be forced to stay behind and we were…we were an impossibility. A painful one, at that.

You command me.

I reminded myself that he was from a different time and place. Maybe they were more declarative back then. Now it was difficult to even get someone to admit that they liked you and were interested in you. Wolfe made it seem so easy—and really, maybe it was.

I found myself wishing every night before bed that we could have found each other under different circumstances. That there was a world where I could… Well. Did it really even matter?

We shared breakfast together and quiet nights by the fire. He left a thistle for me on my bedside table each morning so that when I opened my eyes it was the first thing I saw. I had an entire collection of them now. He’d leave them on the saucer of my teacup or drop one into my lap as he passed by, purple blooms sharp. When I looked at him, he was already looking at me, a trace of sadness in his eyes.

At night, I read more of Moira’s book.

The steamy scenes now carried a heaviness I couldn’t name or linger over for too long. The heat in the room became stifling because I imagined him—touching me, lifting me, dragging his mouth down the curve of my hip. Even for a ghost, his eyes went dark whenever I tripped over my words, blush burning hot against my cheeks.

It was an impossibility. How could he be real and not real all at the same time?