When I reached the library, I shut the heavy doors with a trembling hand, my breaths now coming in gasps. My gaze immediately sought out a little alcove in the wall, a rounded arch that at one time might’ve been filled with a shelf or a bookcase. Now it lay empty and I sat on the floor, my hands coming away dusty when I positioned myself against the wall. It helped block out the sounds, and when I closed my eyes, I tried not to see the memory of my mother, dancing and screaming and laughing in the wind. That night.

During the storms in the Collis, I’d always taken on the role of protector for my sisters. My father would steadily drink himself into a stupor during the worst of them, locked in his office, his veins filled with thick liquor. But with my sisters, we would bury ourselves under mounds of blankets in Mira’s room and distract ourselves with ridiculous stories or giggling over videos on the Halo orb, in languages we couldn’t even speak.

I’d always been so focused on making sure my sisters were watched over during a storm that I’d never truly noticed my own deep, deep fear of them. Until now. Right now. In this place, in this keep.

The library’s alcove helped shield some of the sounds, but when a particularly strong gust seemed to whistle straight through the keep, I couldn’t stop the whimper that escaped from my throat.

My heart was throbbing like a wound in my chest. I was so focused on trying to calm my breaths that I didn’t hear the door creak open.

“Gemma,” came Azur’s voice. “What are you doing in here?”

To my mortification, my eyes were blurry with tears when I looked across the room, watching as Azur began to step toward me.

“How did you know I was in here?” I couldn’t help but ask, trying to hide the wobbliness in my voice.

“I tracked your scent here. You smelled strange,” he murmured, his red eyes furrowed as he studied me. He paused at the alcove, his wings flaring behind him briefly, and he frowned. “Different.”

I wanted to laugh, but another gust of wind slammed into the large, arching windows that overlooked the village of Laras below.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I repeated softly, “Different.”

He could smell my fear.

It always amazed me how sensitive other alien species’ senses were compared to humans’. We’d gotten the short end of the stick.

There was a creak of stiff leather as Azur crouched in front of me. When I moved my legs so that my knees were drawn up my chest, I hated that I could still feel the tenderness of his bites along my thighs. Loved and hated it.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice oddly soft. Gentle.

My eyes snapped open, saw he was closer than I’d realized. The bulk of him cut out the view of the library behind him. I hadn’t turned on the orb lights when I’d come in. I’d only wanted darkness to hide in.

Then his wings spread, nothing more than a whisper as they stretched. Completely encasing us within the alcove, his wings were like a barrier, a door, that allowed nothing else in. Even the wind outside seemed to soften, as if it didn’t dare to disobey him.

My shoulders relaxed. I might’ve been wary of my husband and disliked him when he was cruel…but it seemed that my body trusted him to protect me from the storm.

My eyes caught on his fangs, sharp and glinting. I didn’t even care that I was supposed to still be mad at him. I knew that those fangs could offer a much needed distraction.

“You want to feed, don’t you?” I asked, my voice coming out breathless. I reached for his hand. “Come here.”

Azur’s eyes glowed brighter. Twin embers nestled among the smokiness of his skin.

He shook his head. Even though he allowed me to pull him deeper into the dark alcove, he resisted when I tilted back my neck, wrapping my hand around his shoulder and tugging.

“Gemma,” Azur said, his voice smooth. Full of want and need, but his tone was endlessly patient. It set my teeth on edge. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

I bit my lip, suddenly on the verge of tears. “Just feed from me already.”

“No,” he answered, the word softened by his gentleness as he slid his hands beneath me, lifting me until I was settled in his lap. He turned us until his spine was pressed firmly to the alcove wall.

I blinked in astonishment but my hands delved into his vest, clutching tight, when I thought the next gust of wind would blow the glass windows right in.

“You don’t like the storm?” Azur guessed. I felt the rumble in his chest before I heard the words.

“I’m still mad at you,” I whispered, lowering my face to press my cheek into his chest. His warmth, his strength against me—which I felt in the ropes of his arms, and his scent wrapped all around me.

“I know,” he replied. With his back to the alcove and me in his lap, he stretched his wings around us. Cocooning us in.

Quiet. There was quiet. Only the steady, reassuring thud of his heartbeat beneath my cheek and my own shuddering breaths as I fought for control.

I was still upset with him—what he’d said to me had been cruel and cutting, and he knew it—but I was thankful he was here. He was…comforting me. And Azur had been the last person on this entire planet that I’d thought would do that for me.

Slowly, I began to relax.

“Tell me,” he murmured gently.

“So you can use it against me?” I couldn’t help but ask. Then I immediately felt guilty, a strange unhappy mess tangling in my chest, making me even more miserable.

“You have every reason to believe that,” he told me, sliding his arms around me until one bracketed my lower back and the other rested along the stretch of my legs across him, a heavy palm cupping my outer thigh. “But I won’t.”

A soft huff left my lips. Azur was telling me the truth. Because if there was one thing he wasn’t, it was a liar. He’d only been honest, even if his honesty made me want to fight against him.

“I don’t like storms.”

“These are the moon winds,” he informed me. Moon winds. Ludayn had mentioned something about them before, hadn’t she? “Every full moon, they come. When the barriers between our realms are thinned.”

My brow furrowed, my mind catching on that phrase. Realms?

“And Kylorr take to the skies and the winds carry us wherever it pleases. We go with it, letting it guide our wings,” he continued. “There’s no description that seems appropriate for the sensation of it. I had hoped to show you instead.”

I tensed. “What?”

“I promised you I would take you flying again,” Azur said softly.

“In this storm?” I asked, my stomach bottoming out at the implication.

I was shocked when a small chuckle left him. The sound was soft but gruff, as if the laugh had to be pulled from him. All the same, the back of my neck tingled at hearing it.

“Perhaps next month,” he told me.

“This happens every month?”

“Yes,” Azur answered. “Rest assured, wife, the keep has withstood the moon winds for generations. And it will be strong for many, many more. Tonight, it will not fall.”

I licked my dry lips. The confidence in his voice made my shoulders relax.

“Really?”

“Yes,” he answered, dipping his head.

“What did you mean when you said the barriers between the realms are thin tonight?”

He was a wealth of information I so desperately craved, wasn’t he? He was the heir to the Kaalium, one of the oldest families living on Krynn, or so Kalia had proclaimed one afternoon.

He had the answers to questions I didn’t even know to ask yet.

“Our souls live in different realms here on Krynn,” he told me. “The living realm. This realm. We call it the Nyaan.”

The Nyaan?

“Where we are all born into this universe, the common realm we all share,” Azur said. His voice was just as pleasing as when I’d first heard it. Deep and gruff, it felt almost sinful to listen to. “When we leave this realm, in death, we pass into the next. We call that realm the Alara. The after realm. You might have already felt it. There are places in the keep where it feels tangible, at certain times through the month.”