We’re just doing our best to live in this world, Davy.” Sean’s voice stretches into the fading dark. “We’re not perfect, but we’re not monsters, either. We’re just human.

The world was a merciless place. Hard and cruel. Except when you found someone to trust and love. Life, however fleeting, possessed meaning then.

Cassian looks at me intently, his eyes more black than purple right then. The purple only shows itself when he’s feeling emotion. A rarity it seems.

I want you,” he said starkly, the barest quiver in his hoarse voice. “Me and you. Together.” He drew in a deep breath, his broad chest lifting. “But I can’t chase you forever.

He couldn’t live without being a draki, and I couldn’t live without him.

I only know that I can’t live without flight. Without sky and moist, breathing earth.

I thought you were gone, Pepper. It was bad enough to lose you the first time, but to lose you like that? I couldn’t have dealt with that.

I felt her heart pounding against her ribs and directly into me. Or maybe it was my heart. Curled against each other like two locked pieces of a puzzle, I could not tell where I ended and she began. There was just this. Us. One shared heart.

Exactly what he wanted me to do. Exactly what they all thought I would do. Everyone in here. Everyone out there in the world. A world so afraid of carriers, it makes killers out of the innocent.

For some reason I hesitate to tell him where I live. I don’t want to come across as the spoiled little rich girl that’s fallen low. Even if I am.