The Immortal was outside my bedroom window again.

I knew little about him but I knew he came every night after the moonrise, stalking silently from the shadows of gray forests, and he always carried the perfumed salt of the dead sea. His figure was broad – easily outweighing the oldest oak in our village – yet he was lanky in a way that suggested malnutrition for his race. 

Somehow I knew he was hungry. Hungry for me.

Why else would he wait here, night after night? 

I had never seen his face clearly but there was something familiar with the cruel way the moonlight cut into those sharp cheekbones. Even under those robes, I could see wiry muscle and a golden scarred back. He had caught me looking once and I could swear a sharp smile had whipped across those shadowy lips. An overlord; he certainly acted the part.

I had seen that visage somewhere before. Even outside of his species, it would be impossible to forget someone like him. A barbarous beauty.

But I knew better than to leave the confines of my home. Even if it was exactly that – confines. It was more out of fear than wisdom. Father would tan my hide. My mother and sisters would laugh. I could only hear their cackles in my ears, mocking the idea of anyone wanting me. Even a monstrous ruling species like an Immortal.

I wasn’t afraid of the Immortal. Cruelty had an odd way of shaping one’s neuroses. My world had long turned insular and claustrophobic; the only true fear was leaving this familiar prison. Funny how the thought of freedom brought on a wave of panic when I never really had it.

The first night, the Immortal had only watched from the forest with those cold, gleaming eyes as Father shoved me into my bedroom – a pantry above the barn that smelled of hay and sugary rotten apples. The Immortal had stayed the entire night, and despite my uncertainty, I had not called out to Father in warning. 

I had never been watched this way before. I couldn’t decipher the intensity in his gaze, so I had only watched him back. 

Stolen novel; please report.

Perhaps the Immortal would leave if he truly saw me. I was nothing more than a patchwork of old scars; you couldn’t find an inch of me that wasn’t mottled with bad memories. 

Such was the life of a pearl miner. My earliest memory was a collapsing cave. My small hands had been full of gray pearls, their slippery gleam hypnotizing, and I had fallen behind Father on the way out. The cave ceiling had looked so soft like the crumbly sand next to the dead sea. It had been anything but.  

It had taken me weeks to recuperate, not only from the cave collapse, but from the sound beating that Father had given me. At the loss of those pearls, Father had been furious. 

He would be even more enraged if I let the Immortal in.

My toes suddenly lost their foothold on the windowsill. I blinked, then lost the air in my lungs. I was halfway out of the window, looking down at the Immortal, and hazy out of my mind. My last memory had been my fingers compressed against the window. Had he compelled me to move without even knowing?

Even from the second story, the Immortal nearly reached me. He was taller than anyone I had ever seen, easily grazing the branches of a nearby ancient grove. Their kind was born for war and they were nigh indestructible. His fingers grazed my feet as he gestured towards me. 

“Come.”

The deep words reverberated through me. I sucked in a breath. He had come every night for the past fortnight, but he had never spoken. It took everything in me to resist but I pulled my feet back into the safety of my bedroom. I leaned out to grasp the open window in an attempt to pull it closed.

It was a mistake. From this angle, I could see him. All of him. 

Those dark lashes and crooked lips. He had allowed his tattered robes to fall back into the wintry chill. Frost had crept across a broad chest, its bluish tint spreading across endlessly wide shoulders and thick muscles and far below… My stomach clenched; I was jealous of those tiny snowflakes that clung to that rigid, scarred skin. 

There was an unfamiliar ache growing deep in my bones. Desire twisted under my skin, hot and uncomfortable. 

Touch him. Taste him. 

He tilted his head, assessing, then moved. His speed was a feline grace with a predatory instinct that made a tingle of fear race across my neck. In a blink, he was directly below me, suddenly close enough for me to hear his hushed order. 

“Come to me, alba.”

The window slammed closed with a wooden squeal. I was violently pulled inside before I could hear more.