I stretched out on my bed in my student room, hearing my back crack in at least three different places. We had saved a lot of time by returning through the Citadel’s Northern gate, but we still only had time to hand in our ingredients and sit through one final lecture and Q&A activity before dusk fell and the doors were locked.

Nightfall had disappeared, saying he needed to attend to his research, and I promptly went straight to bed for a nap.

Even though these ‘degrees’ were ridiculously easy, I had a sense of satisfaction from completing them. When my little pop-up box announcing my Intelligence was now 9/20, I savoured it as long as I could until I couldn’t help but blink and it disappeared. I was still lagging behind Nightfall, and only had half Brick and Bruiser’s stats, but by the time I was out of here I’d be ahead of them as well.

I smiled to myself. I loved them both to pieces, but it was hard at times, feeling like such an idiot. There was so little I knew about this world, and they had been terrific guides, but when I’d been talking to Nightfall, revealing the crazy truths about the universe, he’d looked at me in a way that no one ever really had before.

Like I was smart.

It was nice. I turned onto my pillow and let out a muffled groan. I was crushing on him way too hard. But it was hard not to. He was like all those sexy fictional emo characters rolled into one.

I sighed, thinking about all the thirsty Stardew Valley fangirls who obsessed over Sebastian. Or the Tumblr girls with Edward Cullen shrines. If I had a laptop, I’d totally be joining them. Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on James for spending all that time writing his fanfiction world in hindsight. I’d felt neglected and unloved at the time, but if it was possible to create something like this… maybe it was worth the time spent doing it. Brick, Bastion, Bruiser, and Nightfall… They were worth a lot more to me than I’d ever expected.

A knock on the door disrupted my thoughts, and I got up to answer it. There was only one person it could be.

“Hey Nightfall,” I greeted him with a smile. “What’s up? I thought you were going to be busy all night.”

Nightfall gripped my hand, and I looked back at him in surprise.

“Emma…” His icy grip sent chills up my arm.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said, but his expression spoke otherwise. “For the first time in my life I feel like nothing is wrong with me. It is not I who does not fit into the world, but the world which is not fit for me. A wonderful and dreadful revelation.”

I squeezed his hand and sat down next to him, giving him my full attention.

“You have opened my eyes to so many things,” he said heavily. “Taken a burden off my shoulders that had been weighing me down for longer than I can remember. But I feel as though it has been replaced by an even larger one.”

“Nightfall,” I began softly, but he hushed me.

“Since meeting you, I have felt things I have never felt before. It is like you have altered the very makeup of my body. My very programming, if your theory is to be believed. And I am fearful… I’m afraid that my destiny has shifted and become so much worse than being a detestable outcast…”

“What do you mean?” I asked, placing my free hand on his shoulder, but it did not seem to soothe his agitation.

“What do you know about necromancers, Emma?”

“Not much,” I admitted. “They’re evil guys who raise the dead, do experiments on people and killed most of the succubi and dark elves.”

“They seek to order the world according to their whims,” Nightfall said, a chill in his voice. “They respect no boundary around life or death or pain. They are the ultimate alchemists. The ones who decide how the world should be and then make it so through force and magic. But to wield such power… They are heartless monsters, Emma, with no respect for life.”

A shiver went down my spine and I pulled Nightfall into a fierce hug, wishing I could squeeze the fear out of him. I pulled him into my room, kicking the door shut behind him. His arms wrapped hesitantly around my shoulders as well, his hands clenching my clothing.

“I have never wanted to be like the monsters who slaughtered my people, but with the world falling into chaos, I fear it needs a guiding hand lest it falls apart… and I fear it must be me,” he gave me a look of utter hopelessness. “I don’t want to be heartless, Emma.”

He took several long, shuddering breaths, and I held him tightly.

“What do you need from me, Nightfall?” I asked him gently. “How can I help you?"

“I cannot make my own sunshine,” he whispered. “Let me bask in yours while I still can.”

I smoothed my hand over his beautiful, pale cheek and pulled him towards the foot of my bed. He sat, and I perched on my knees next to him. Our height difference was reversed, and he looked up at me pleadingly.

I searched his expression for any sign of resistance and slowly lowered my lips to his, giving him plenty of opportunity to back away. His breath trembled against mine, but I kept my kiss gentle and innocent.

His lips were cold, but it wasn’t unpleasant. It was like drinking a cool glass of water on a summer’s day.

It was unlike the first kiss I gave to Brick in many ways. Brick was strong, Nightfall was like glass. Brick needed affection and passion, but Nightfall needed gentleness and patience.

He slackened in my grip and his breathing evened out. He leaned up into me and began to kiss me back, slowly, and shyly.

“What is this feeling?” he whispered against me.

“I can’t tell you that,” I whispered back. “Is it a good feeling?”

“Yes.”

“Then kiss me again.”

He obeyed, tentatively at first. His thin lips moved against mine and I responded back with equal gentleness. Every movement he made, I matched. Every kiss, every stroke, every taste.

He reached a hand up to my hair and ran his fingers through it, scraping my scalp in a delightful way with his manicured nails. I shivered against him, my breath catching.

He paused and pulled back to look at me in a mix of concern and awe.

“Are you cold?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Very much the opposite.”

The hand he’d tangled in my hair trailed down to my chin, and he gave me a look of utter confusion.

“I did not think I had the capacity to feel things like this,” he said, sounding utterly puzzled.

“Like what?”

“Like I want you. I want to hold you close to me and never let you go,” he gave me another soft, experimental kiss. “This relationship you have with Bruiser and Brick… Tell me, do you need to consult with them before I take you to my bed? I am not familiar with the etiquette of relationships, having never desired one until now.”

I exhaled in a puff of laughter and shook my head. “We actually already discussed you. It’s fine. If you want to be with me, I… I want to be with you too. I care about you very deeply, Nightfall.”

“Good,” he gave me a self-satisfied smile. “Come, I have something to show you first. I would not want to do this in your bedroom.”

Nightfall took my hand and tugged me to my feet, opened the door and pulled me out into the hallway. I had to jog to keep up, as we weaved in and out of endless corridors and staircases until he brought me to a tall tower with a large panoramic window that looked over the city.

“It’s beautiful up here,” I gasped, looking out over the sleeping buildings. There was no movement, everyone having gone to bed long ago, but there were still flickering lights in the occasional window.

“Yes,” he agreed, but when I turned to look at him, he wasn’t looking out at the view.

“You are something special, Emma,” he said, his voice as deep and sensual as velvet. “You’re something different.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

I swallowed, not knowing what to make of such a declaration, but my heart was hammering in my chest.

“I have something to tell you, but first I want to show you something,” he said. “Something you may not have seen yet, if the only ones you have been associating with are the rest of my party.”

He lifted his hands, his sleeves dropping to his elbows to reveal his pale, slender forearms. His hands curved and his fingers twisted and with a rush of air a small flame about the size of a tennis ball burst into existence in his hand.

I gasped in surprise and stared at it in wonder. I’d been in this world for weeks now, but this was the first real magic I’d seen other than healing or sleep spells. A fire spell was far more exciting!

He was studying my reaction carefully as I watched the flames flickering. I offered him a shy smile.

“It’s beautiful.”

He seemed satisfied with my response but held the flame a little longer while he spoke.

“You are special, Emma,” he repeated. “And I hope that I can trust you with this, considering I want us to… to be together. I want to tell you… I made a breakthrough in my research this afternoon.”

“You have?” I forced my eyes away from the magic fireball to look at him.

“It’s because of you. The answer was there all along in one of those spiral notebooks. I went back to the library looking for them and found several more. One had the secret to my heritage.”

I inhaled sharply. He had found another.

“I want you to promise your view of me will not change,” he demanded. “I want you to swear it. You will not think me an abomination.”

“Of course I won’t,” I said in surprise.

He dismissed the flame and approached me, laying his hands on either side of my face. The one that had held the flame was still warm to the touch.

His face was only inches from me, and I felt a pull towards him, but I knew I couldn’t interrupt this moment. He seemed to be practically vibrating with tension.

“I’ve always thought it strange that I could not generate my own body heat,” he spoke softly, his hands sliding down to my shoulders. “In order to feel warm, there needs to be an external heat source. Otherwise, I am only as warm as the temperature in the room.”

That sounded decidedly unpleasant. It suddenly made sese why he didn’t like going into water, and why he preferred to sit in the sunshine even though his complexion was glaringly pale.

“It makes sense since I read what I read… My people were a failed experiment by the necromancers, and when they realized they had failed they destroyed us.”

I sucked in a breath and pulled him closer, wrapping him in a hug, feeling it was what he needed. His hands hesitated, then slowly wrapped around me. It felt not only like he was accepting my embrace but claiming me as his own. I fisted my hands in his robes, and pressed my body up against his, wanting to give him my warmth if nothing else.

“I learned how to cast flames when I was a young street wretch,” he murmured, resting his cool cheek against mine. “I longed for warmth. For life. To feel my blood pumping hot in my veins. I never knew why, and fire gave me the closest feeling I could muster. I’ve always felt like a shadow of a living creature.”

He took a long breath, holding me to him even tighter, and I realized with a start that he was truly afraid. Whatever he was about to tell me, he was terrified it would drive me away from him. That he would lose what had been growing between us forever.

“Tell me, Nightfall. I’m not going anywhere,” I promised him.

He released me and stepped back so I could see his full figure. His usually calm facade was painted with concern, heartbreak, and grief.

“They were trying to discover the secret to eternal life,” he whispered. “It is why my people don’t die of old age. Why we cannot reproduce like the other races. Why we are as cold as the corpses our DNA was taken from. Emma, they were trying to make vampires.”

I blinked, looking him up and down. Whatever I expected, it wasn’t this. But on the vampiric scale of Bram Stoker to Edward Cullen, Nightfall was definitely on the sweet and sexy side than the scary horror show side.

His eyes were wide in his pale, miserable face and I realized in my silence he was waiting for my rejection. Of course, he wasn’t to know that in my original world there were countless romance novels featuring cold-blooded vampires falling for young human women.

To him, there was only one way of looking at the very concept of a vampire: as though it was an abomination.

I closed the distance between us again and pulled him down into a kiss. He returned it briefly, but then jerked back to search my eyes for a hidden lie.

“I don’t understand,” he whispered.

“You’re still just Nightfall to me,” I said. “So, you were a test-tube baby, and you didn’t get the parents you wanted. You’re not a vampire. You’re a dark elf. And more than that, you’re my dark elf.”

He returned the kiss then, claiming my mouth with his, pulling me into his embrace. He sucked my lip between his teeth, as though trying to drink me in, and buried one of his hands in my hair while the other found the small of my back, crushing me to him.

“Emma,” he whispered my name like an incantation. “I am yours. I belong to you from this day forth.”

I reluctantly pulled away from him, panting for breath. I felt electricity coursing through my veins, a desire that demanded to be seated. But this was important. I wasn’t in the business of breaking hearts.

“Nightfall. We need to talk first,” I said.

“Whatever your demands, my answer will be yes,” he swore.

“I need you to understand. I’m already with Bruiser and Brick… And while they approve of you, I need you to know that if we are together, it won’t be at the cost of them."

“I know,” he said. “I don’t care, so long as I can have you.”

“And you’ve… You’ve done this before?”

“I’ve had sex if that is what you are asking. Many times,” he watched me, his eyes determined and his expression serious. He was laying his cards on the table, bearing everything for me to see. “Sometimes I enjoyed it. But I have never ever felt like this. You, my succubus paradox, breathe life into me. You make me feel like a living being. You have stripped off my blindfold and made me see the world for the mirage it is… and yet, with you, I have felt more real than I had ever thought possible.”

I gave him a relieved smile. He understood, and even better, he loved me. Even if he didn’t know what it was just yet, I could recognize the feeling in his eyes. He was capable of so much more than what was written in notebooks. And tonight, I wanted to make him feel alive.

“Take me back to the student halls. There’s something I want to do with you,” I instructed him, and he obeyed immediately. He led me through the maze with finesse and grace, and before I knew it, we were nearing our rooms.

I took him to the end of the hall where the bathrooms were and tugged him inside. I started the tap, threw some logs underneath the bath and asked Nightfall to light it with his magic flame.

The water started to steam as it heated, and I stepped forward and began to undress him. Nightfall arched an eyebrow curiously but didn’t interfere as I disrobed him.

His heavily embroidered robe pooled to the floor, and he was left in his tailored undershirt and pants. I ran my hands over the ruffles at his collar, wondering how I’d never noticed the vampiresque fashion before. There had been hints all along, but I’d been blinded to them because to me he was just Nightfall.

I tugged the hem of his silken shirt out of his pants, revealing his smooth, lithe abdomen, and lifted it over his head. It too fell into a puddle of clothing, and I began to work the fastening on his pants.

When he was totally naked before me, I took a moment to appreciate his form. He was beautiful with his long hair cascading down his shoulders like a waterfall. He looked like a gothic prince.

A prince of darkness. My mouth quirked up in pleasure, and I told him to get in the bath.

He paused before obeying. “Will you be joining me?”

I smiled and nodded, so he climbed in the tub and slid beneath the water, his pale skin tingling pink with the heat. I undressed just as slowly as I’d disrobed him, knowing he was watching me.

I was in no hurry. I had all the time I could ask for, and I was going to take my time with him. By the end of the night, I’d crack that cool facade of his and make him feel things he’d never dreamed of. I wanted to explore every facet of him and see what reactions I could get.

The water sloshed over the side and sizzled in the fire below before rushing down the grated drains as I stepped into the bath.

I kissed him slowly, lazily. I wanted him to know we had all night as well.

“Are you warm?” I asked him, nibbling the lobe of his pointed ear.

“Very much so,” he breathed in sharply as my teeth grazed his flesh. “In more ways than one.”

“Good,” I murmured, kissing a trail down his pulse points, and sucking his neck like I was the vampire.

He hummed in pleasure. It wasn’t a moan, but it was early for that, and I’d get there yet.

“Emma,” he whispered. “What is this? What are you doing?”

I pulled back and planted a gentle kiss on his lips. “Does it feel good, Nightfall?”

“Very good,” he whispered. “But I don’t understand.”

“You’re more than a tumble in the sheets to me, Nightfall. I want you to feel good, darling. I want you to feel loved. Valued. Treasured. Tell me what feels good and if anything doesn’t. I’m not here just for sex, sweetheart, I’m here for you.”

Then before he could reply, I kissed him again, deeper than before. He reciprocated, matching my vigour with his own, running his hands up and down my back. Finally, he pulled away, gasping for breath.

“Emma,” he panted. “My Emma.”

He was struggling to regain his composure, but I wasn’t about to let him have it, settling myself into his lap and kissing his neck again.

“Oh, Emma…”

“Is that good, Nightfall?” I whispered to him.

“Yes! Oh yes!”

More water sloshed out of the bath in a wave and shifted me off his lap, but he reached around and placed a hand above my tail, pressing me back in place.

“Emma,” he moaned, rolling his mouth off my skin, and resting his head against my breastbone. “Emma…”

I cupped his face gently and tilted his chin up to look at me so I could plant several long kisses on his lips.

“Do you want to stay here?” I asked him. “Or do you want to take me to your bed? What happens next is up to you.”

“So long as I’m with you, it hardly matters where I am or what I do,” he answered me with a kiss of his own. “All I want is you.”

“Then come, let’s go to bed.” I pulled him out of the bath and wrapped his robe loosely over his shoulders, bundling the rest of our clothes under my arm.

“You don’t want to get dressed first?”

“It’s a short distance,” I gave him a devilish grin. “Come, run with me. I want to get you to bed fast. I plan to keep you warm until morning.”

He laughed, a delightful sound to my ears. It seemed to almost startle him, but then he laughed again, his mouth curling up into a smile as he streaked with me through the halls. I could tell he felt as alive as I did, and I felt like a teenager again; naughty and mischievous.

I found his door and opened it, pushing him inside and onto his bed, stripping him of his robe again and dumping our clothes on his desk chair. I climbed atop him again, pulling his thick blanket over us, determined not to let him cool down. He wanted heat, and I was going to deliver.

His hands explored me in entirely new ways, tracing my contours, taking in every inch of me. Every time our lips parted, I saw his eyes dancing and heard my name on his lips.

When I was confident he wasn’t going to cool down anytime soon, I caught his hands in mine and brought them to my lips.

“What is it?” he asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Of course not,” I said, peppering his cheeks with little kisses, showering him with affection. “I want to do something for you, and I want to know if you’re okay with it.”

“Anything, my Emma.”

“Let me tell you what it is first,” I insisted and murmured my plans for him in his ear.

“Are you sure?” Nightfall asked, his breath heavy and his eyes dilated so much they were almost completely black. “I would… I would like to reciprocate.”

“Let me start first,” I said, pushing him back on his pillows. “I want you to just enjoy yourself. When you want to, you can as well, but just be aware I will need a blood pact for secrecy in the morning.”

“Emma,” he whispered. “My Emma. I feel awakened. I feel alive.”

“I’m glad,” I murmured back, stroking his hair out of his face. “I love you too.”