Chapter 5-Amrin
Day five of being tutored by Sten in Astronomy, and somehow I was actually getting better.
Not good.
Definitely not good.
But better.
Which honestly said more about how catastrophically lost I’d been when we started than it did about any sudden academic breakthrough on my part.
The truth was, before Sten, I’d spent most of Professor Franco’s lectures sitting in stunned silence while everyone else seemed to understand concepts that sounded like another language entirely.
Celestial drift theory.
Realm overlap calculations.
Ley line convergence mapping.
Most graduate students at the Asgarheim Runevald Institute absorbed those things easily.
They’d been raised around magic, trained from childhood to understand energies that shaped worlds.
Meanwhile, I’d spent most of my twenties trying to convince my mother and sisters that I wasn’t switched at birth.
But seriously. I was getting better.
Truly.
I mean, when we’d started, I’d stared at celestial equations the way normal people stared at ancient torture devices—with fear, confusion, and the certainty that I was moments away from public humiliation.
Now I hardly flinched at all—well, maybe I still did, but just a little.
“Use the calculations I showed you,” Sten grumbled behind me.
I jumped slightly at the sound of his voice so close to my ear.
Gods.
Why does his voice make goosebumps break out across my skin?
Because he’s hot. Duh.
My inner voice was such a bitch sometimes.
Focus, Amrin.
I sat at the massive obsidian desk in Sten’s private study quarters, trying very hard not to think about the fact that he was looming over my shoulder close enough for me to smell him.
Which was unfortunately impossible.
Lavender.
Cold night air.
Spice.
And something darker beneath it.
Something masculine and rich that made my stomach tighten in ways completely unrelated to astronomy.
“I am using them,” I muttered defensively, typing another string of coordinates into the program.
“No, Luna, you’re improvising.” His voice dipped lower. “Again.”
“I am not improvising,” I replied, refusing to react to the nickname he’d given me.
Luna.
“You absolutely are.”
His long, blue-tinted arm reached around me suddenly, broad hand bracing against the desk beside my keyboard as he leaned over my shoulder.
My brain promptly stopped functioning.
His chest brushed my back for half a second.
Half.
A.
Second.
And my entire nervous system caught fire.
“This number,” he said, tapping the screen. “Three decimal points off.”
“Oh my gods,” I groaned dramatically, dropping my forehead onto the desk. “This is torture.”
“You are so dramatic.”
“I am overwhelmed.”
“You are lazy.”
I lifted my head to glare at him.
Big mistake.
Because he was right there.
Close.
Too close.
His laser like focus was on me and I squirmed in my seat.
Oh wow.
How was it even legal for him to look like that?
His skin still startled me sometimes—not because it was blue, though objectively that should have been the most distracting thing about him—but because it somehow made him more beautiful instead of strange.
Like moonlit marble.
That was the only comparison my brain ever landed on.
Like some ancient sculptor had carved a celestial gargoyle from living stone and then cruelly given it eyes capable of reducing women to complete idiots.
His inky black hair was streaked with cerulean. The front was long, shaggy, but the back stopped before it touched his shoulders.
It looked thick and lush tonight, spilling across his forehead in soft waves that contrasted sharply with the harsh perfection of his features.
Sten was a beautiful Monster.
Sharp jaw.
High cheekbones.
Broad shoulders barely contained by the black hoodie stretched across them.
Nothing could disguise the musculature beneath his clothes. Every movement shifted with restrained strength, controlled power, like he existed in a constant state of held-back violence.
Beautiful.
Terrifying.
And completely out of my league.
Which, of course, did nothing to deter me from being attracted to him, making the way my body reacted to him deeply unfortunate.
“You’re staring again,” he murmured.
Heat flooded my face.
“I was thinking.”
“Dangerous hobby.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“And yet you keep coming back.”
Gods.
The way he said things like that.
Quiet.
Rough.
Almost teasing.
Like he knew exactly what he was doing to me.
I looked away first.
Obviously.
Because if I didn’t, I was going to embarrass myself catastrophically.
Like I always did.
“I’m trying,” I muttered more quietly, staring back at the glowing screen. “I just, look numbers just aren’t intuitive for me.”
Sten was silent for a moment.
Then—I swear his chest rumbled with a purr.
“I know.”
Not judgmental.
Not impatient.
Just understanding.
And somehow that was worse.
Because nobody ever understood.
Not really.
Not when it came to me.
My sisters certainly hadn’t.
Neither had my mother.
Especially my mother.
A powerful Witch from the Cordoza Coven did not tolerate mediocrity well.
And I had been mediocre at almost everything.
Too emotional.
Too distracted.
Too soft.
Too late.
My magic had manifested years after everyone else’s.
By the time I’d shown even the faintest signs of power, my sisters were already celebrated within the Coven for their gifts.
Me?
I got concerned looks.
Whispers.
Questions about whether something was wrong with me.
Then came the years of failed careers.
Failed magical apprenticeships.
Failed relationships.
Failed expectations.
By the time I received acceptance into Runevald, I was already way older than expected and desperate enough to treat the Institute like my final lifeline.
Because it was.
If I failed here? There was nowhere left for me to go. My mother had made that abundantly clear.
“Oh my gods,” I suddenly whispered, rereading the assignment instructions. “I have to do these calculations for all the realms?”
“Well,” Sten said dryly, “you would have to if I wasn’t letting you use my Celestial Mapping program.”
I blinked slowly.
Then looked back at the screen.
Then at him.
Then back again.
“Wait.”
He raised one brow.
“What do you mean your program?”
He looked confused by the question.
“It’s mine. I wrote the code.”
I stared.
“You wrote this?”
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“Yes, Luna, all of it.”
My jaw literally dropped.
Because the program in front of me wasn’t simple.
It was extraordinary.
Multiple layered celestial maps moved across the screen simultaneously, charting stars and ley line activity across overlapping realms in real time.
It was beautiful.
Elegant.
Brilliant.
And suddenly the little icon in the corner made sense—a tiny blue moon-creature with curling horns and a tail.
A cartoon version of Sten.
“Oh my shit,” I breathed.
His mouth twitched slightly.
“Your surprise means either you doubt me or didn’t think I was capable.”
“No! Neither of those things. But seriously, Sten,” I said, turning fully toward him now. “This is incredible.”
He looked away almost immediately.
And that? That fascinated me.
Because Sten clearly knew he was powerful.
He carried himself like someone born dangerous.
But compliments?
Recognition?
Those unsettled him.
Interesting.
“You built something capable of mapping the skies of the multiverse simultaneously,” I continued. “Do you realize how insane that is?”
“Not insane. Useful, though. No?”
“Uh, yeah. Way useful. But why are you here? You should be heading your own Multiversal company! How are you acting like this is mundane?”
“It is mundane for me.”
He rolled his shoulders, and lust hit me square in the belly.
Fact: I want to climb him.
That was such an inappropriate thought.
And yet there it was.
Unavoidable.
Persistent.
Sten leaned over again, typing several commands into the program with broad strokes of his fingers.
I tried very hard not to stare at his hands.
Failed immediately.
Long fingers.
Strong knuckles.
Silver rings glinting beneath the dim study lights.
Hands capable of genius. Of violence.
Hands I desperately wanted touching me.
This was problematic.
Very problematic.
“Okay,” he murmured, voice lower now as he pointed toward the calculations. “Once these are entered, the program overlays realm movement with numerical astrology and resonance theory to chart a path toward, well…” He paused slightly. “…toward your true love.”
That last part almost sounded hostile.
I blinked.
“Well,” I said carefully, “I don’t think Professor Franco actually expects us to find true love.”
Silence.
Heavy silence.
“Right?”
Sten’s jaw tightened.
“You’re still going to come with me to the festival when it’s time to turn this in, aren’t you?” I added weakly when he remained silent.
A beat passed.
My stomach tightened.
“I said I’d attend the Equinox Festival with you,” he said finally.
Not exactly the answer I was looking for.
And somehow, it was worse.
Because I realized suddenly that I needed him to say he was going with me. That he wanted to attend with me.
I needed his reassurance.
Needed to know he wasn’t pulling away.
Okay.
This was getting out of hand.
And fast.
“Okay,” I said quickly, standing before he noticed how flustered I was becoming. “Great. Wonderful. Um, I think I’ll finish entering the rest back in my room.”
Good idea, Amrin. Put some distance between us.
Yeah, I desperately needed distance.
Because spending hours alone with Sten every night was destroying my ability to think rationally.
This truce? This fake relationship we’d agreed upon for the assignment no longer felt so fake to me.
And that was a huge fucking problem.
At first, I’d told myself it was harmless.
Practical.
Temporary.
A mutually beneficial arrangement between a struggling Witch and a grumpy celestial Monster with terrifyingly good Astronomy grades.
That should have been all it was.
Instead, somewhere between late-night tutoring sessions and him silently carrying my bag like it weighed nothing as he walked me home at night, something inside me had shifted.
And now?
Now I was starting to forget this arrangement had an expiration date.
Starting to forget that people like Sten did not fall for women like me.
Women who arrived at graduate school way after most people started with a history full of unfinished careers, magical failures, and family disappointment trailing behind them like ghosts.
Women who still flinched when their mothers called.
Women who spent their lives being tolerated instead of chosen.
Logic should have protected me.
It should have reminded me that this wasn’t real.
That he was helping me because he’d agreed to.
Because he pitied me.
Because maybe he was lonely too.
Not because he looked at me and saw something worth wanting.
And yet—every night I spent with him chipped away at that logic a little more.
The way he remembered things I said.
The way he adjusted his pace when we walked together.
The way his attention sharpened whenever I entered a room, as if some hidden part of him became instantly aware of me.
No one had ever noticed me like that before.
Not really.
Not without judgment attached.
But Sten looked at me like I mattered.
And gods help me—I was beginning to crave it.