The night felt wrong.
Not colder than usual.
Not quieter.
Just… hollow.
Elara stood on the rooftop, looking out at a city that no longer reached her.
“I don’t feel anything,” she said.
Kael didn’t move.
“I know.”
There was no distance in his voice tonight.
No restraint left to hold it together.
“You said you’d lose control.”
“I did.”
“You said you’d hurt me.”
A pause.
“I have.”
She turned her head slightly, studying him.
Not carefully. Not curiously.
Just… looking.
“And yet,” she said, “you’re the only thing that still feels real.”
Something in him tightened.
“Don’t say that.”
“Why?”
“Because it means I’ve already taken too much.”
She stepped closer.
There was no hesitation left in her.
No instinct pulling her back.
“Then take the rest.”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
Rough. Unsteady.
“Why not?”
His jaw tightened.
“Because there’s nothing left to take.”
She tilted her head.
“Then why am I still here?”
He didn’t answer.
Because he knew—
She wasn’t. Not really.
Not in the way she had been.
Elara closed the remaining distance between them.
And for the first time, she reached for him.
Her fingers touched his face.
Cold met cold.
Kael froze.
He had touched her before.
Taken from her.
But this—
This was different.
This was a choice.
“You’re cold,” she murmured.
“I’m not human.”
“I know.”
Her hand lingered.
As if remembering something, it no longer understood.
“I think…” she said slowly, “I loved you.”
The words didn’t land the way they should have.
No weight.
No warmth.
Just something remembered.
Kael’s breath caught anyway.
“Don’t say it like that.”
“I don’t know how else to say it.”
That was worse.
Because she wasn’t holding anything back—
There was just nothing left to hold.
“You should hate me,” he said.
“I don’t think I can.”
Silence.
The kind that doesn’t pass.
Then—
She leaned forward.
And kissed him.
It wasn’t desperate.
It wasn’t searching.
It was quiet.
Like the last page of something already finished.
And for the first time—
Kael felt something break through the hunger.
Not need.
Not instinct.
Fear.
Because as her lips touched his—
He could feel it.
What little remained.
Fading.
His hands moved, pulling her closer.
Not to take.
To hold.
As if pressure alone could keep her from slipping away.
“Elara—”
Her grip on him weakened.
Just slightly.
“Kael…”
Her voice brushed against him—
faint.
“…I can’t feel anything.”
The words settled into him.
Deep. Final.
“Then stay,” he said, the control in his voice finally gone. “Just—stay.”
“I’m tired.”
Simple.
Certain.
And then, she gave way.
Her body went slack in his arms.
Kael caught her before she could fall.
“Elara.”
No response.
He held her tighter.
“Elara.”
Nothing.
The stillness answered for her.
For a long moment, he didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe.
Didn’t think.
Because this—
This wasn’t something he understood.
He had taken it before.
Countless times.
But this… this was absence in its purest form.
“You weren’t supposed to disappear,” he said, his voice unsteady.
His forehead rested against hers.
“I was supposed to take the pain.”
His grip tightened.
“Not you.”
The truth settled in slowly.
Not loud.
Not violent.
Just certain.
He had never learned where to stop.
The wind moved around them, distant and irrelevant.
Time passed.
He didn’t feel it.
Because in his arms—
was the only person who had ever looked at him
and seen something other than what he was.
And he had reduced her to nothing.
Not all at once.
Not violently.
But piece by piece.
Carefully.
Until there was nothing left to take.
“I chose not to feed that night,” he whispered.
The memory felt like something cruel now.
“I should have kept choosing it.”
But he hadn’t.
And now, there was no choice left.
The hunger inside him was gone.
Not satisfied.
Not silenced.
Gone.
As if it had taken something with it when she did.
And for the first time—
the thing that fed on loneliness
understood it.
Not as something to consume.
But as something that stayed.
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