Chapter 6-Amrin
“That’s fine. I have class in half an hour anyway,” he said, interrupting my train of thought.
I frowned, trying to drag my mind somewhere safer.
Somewhere other than the forbidden desires currently vying to take hold of my sanity.
“You take night classes?”
“Well,” he said, voice dry, “I am mostly nocturnal.”
My curiosity sharpened immediately.
That was the most personal thing he’d volunteered since we met.
A tiny crack in the armor.
A glimpse at something beneath all the sharp edges and sarcasm.
“Really?” I asked as he reached for my bag before I could stop him.
The simple gesture nearly melted my spine.
It wasn’t the first time he did it, but still, it moved me.
No man had ever casually carried my things before.
Certainly not someone who looked like Sten.
Men, or even Monsters, who looked like Sten usually wanted women who were elegant and impossible.
Tiny waists. Effortless confidence.
Witches who floated through rooms wrapped in power and beauty.
Not Witches with no power who had spent most of their adult lives feeling too loud in the wrong places and invisible everywhere else.
And yet, there he was.
Holding my bag without hesitation like it belonged there in his hand.
Like helping me was natural.
Like I was something other than a freak.
“I can’t sleep at night either,” I admitted quietly as we stepped outside.
The night air of Asgarheim wrapped around us immediately—cool, damp, heavy with magic.
Above the Institute, the skies shimmered with shifting auroras where ley lines crossed through the multiverse itself, ribbons of silver-green light threading between stars.
Beautiful.
Lonely.
The kind of beauty that made you ache a little when you looked at it too long.
“I was actually thinking about asking Professor Kenna if I could switch to more nocturnal classes next semester.”
Sten glanced at me.
“Why?”
Such a simple question.
With such an ugly answer.
Because anxiety kept me awake.
Because failure kept me awake.
Because every time I closed my eyes, I heard my mother’s voice asking what exactly I planned to do with my life.
As if I hadn’t been asking myself the same question for years.
I shrugged instead.
“My brain doesn’t shut off.”
His gaze flicked toward me briefly.
Something understanding flashed there.
Recognition.
And gods help me—that felt intimate.
Like maybe he knew, maybe he understood what it was to exist inside your own head too much.
We walked quietly for several moments, boots crunching softly against damp stone pathways.
Wind moved through the dark trees surrounding the Institute grounds, carrying the distant hum of ley line energy beneath the earth.
Beside me, Sten moved like he belonged to this world in a way I never would.
Quiet power.
Danger held carefully in check.
Everything about him fascinated me.
The mystery of him.
The loneliness of him.
The way he always seemed halfway between staying and disappearing.
Curiosity finally won.
“So,” I hesitated, knowing this kind of question wasn’t exactly proper. “What exactly are you?”
Smooth, Amrin.
Very subtle.
His responding snort did nothing to calm my embarrassment. I mean, it was rude of me, but I just had to know.
“Gunner called you a Hobgoblin,” I rushed onward. “Which was supposed to be an insult. So I’m guessing he was probably wrong. But it made me wonder. And, of course, now I sound insane,” I rambled, because that was what I did when I got nervous.
Rambled without reservation, my cheeks burning with embarrassment.
“Is that what you think I am, Luna?”
Sten’s voice was deep and rough, but he didn’t sound angry. That was encouraging.
So I continued as if the Monster beside me couldn’t destroy me with a flick of his might.
“I don’t know,” I admitted softly. “You hardly talk about yourself.”
“Do you want me to?” Sten asked.
The question hit me square in the chest.
Because yes.
Gods, yes.
I wanted him to tell me about himself.
In fact, I wanted to know everything about him.
What he looked like when he laughed for real.
What his room smelled like after rain.
What made him angry.
What made him lonely.
What made someone as beautiful and powerful as him look at the world like he expected it to leave far too soon.
“Yes,” I whispered before I could stop myself.
His expression changed instantly.
Darkened.
“What do you really want, sweet Luna?” he asked, voice dropping lower. “You want my secrets?”
The way he said Luna should have been illegal.
Soft and rough all at once, like the word belonged in his mouth.
Like maybe I belonged there too.
“I just…” I swallowed hard. “I want to know you.”
The truth sat exposed between us.
Terrifying.
Because wanting someone meant vulnerability.
And vulnerability had never ended well for me.
Still, something about Sten felt different.
Wrong in every logical way.
Right in every instinctive one.
Like some hidden part of me had recognized him long before my brain caught up.
And before I could think better of it—before fear or anxiety could stop me—I reached toward him.
Wanted him.
Needed him.
I had to feel him beneath my fingers.
Just one touch.
To know if his skin was as warm as I imagined.
To prove he was real.
To satisfy the aching curiosity growing sharper every second I spent near him.
Because the more I learned about Sten, the more impossible it became not to want him.
Not just physically.
Though gods, there was certainly that.
But emotionally, too.
I wanted inside the walls he kept around himself.
Wanted the truths he guarded.
Wanted the version of him no one else got to see.
And maybe that was foolish.
Maybe it was pathetic to hope for something more from a man like him.
But for the first time in years—hope existed anyway.
I held my breath, hand outstretched—and Sten stepped back instantly.
Pain sliced through me before I could stop it.
“Shit,” I whispered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disgust you—”
“Disgust me?”
The raw disbelief in his voice startled me.
“No, Luna,” he growled harshly. “You do not disgust me. That is not the problem.”
He ran his hands over his face and I felt power rolling off him in waves.
“Then what is?”
His eyes locked on my hand—the one that had reached for him moments ago.
“Why did you try to touch me?”
The answer escaped before pride could stop it.
“Because I wanted to.”
Silence.
Dangerous silence.
“I wanted to know what you felt like. If your skin would be warm or cool beneath my fingers.”
His growl vibrated through the night air.
Then he turned abruptly and stalked ahead.
I hurried after him toward the nearly empty courtyard behind the cafeteria, thighs chafing painfully beneath my shorts.
“Sten! Look, I’m sorry!”
He spun suddenly.
His eyes glowed silver-blue beneath the aurora-lit sky.
Inhuman.
Beautiful.
Fuck. Me. He is so beautiful.
I wanted him so badly that it physically hurt.
“I-I’m sorry. Do you—do you want to call this off?” I asked quietly, my heart beating me to death.
“Call what off?”
“The tutoring. The festival. Us. All this pretending.”
His expression hardened instantly.
“No.”
The force behind the word made my pulse jump.
“I don’t want that. It’s just, you can’t touch me, Luna,” he said roughly. “Not when I feel so—”
“So what?”
He looked away.
Tormented.
And suddenly—terrifyingly—I understood.
Something about him, or maybe it was me, but something made physical contact between us impossible.
The realization hit like lightning.
Real.
Raw.
Violent.
And it hurt—more than I cared to admit.
“Tomorrow,” he said finally, handing me my bag carefully without touching my skin. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Like he needed to hear I’d come back.
“Okay,” I whispered.
He exhaled slowly. As if he were somehow relieved by my acquiescence. I exhaled softly, and he disappeared into shadow.
I stood there for a moment beneath the night skies of Asgarheim Runevald Institute, and I realized I was already doomed.
Because somewhere between failing Astronomy and fake dating a celestial Monster, I had done something rash and idiotic—even for me.
I’d fallen for him completely.
And now I had to figure out how to pass my class and survive the fallout of my impossible feelings for Sten.
Piece of cake.
Shivering with the sudden chill—whether from the night breeze or his departure, I didn’t know—I pulled my sweater tighter around my shoulders and turned toward the winding path that would lead back to the graduate dormitories.
The night air of Asgarheim seemed to bite deeper now.
Or maybe that was just me.
Everything felt sharper after being around Sten.
The cold.
The magic.
My own body.
My pulse still hadn’t settled from the way he’d looked at me before disappearing into shadow like some cursed celestial fever dream.
Gods.
I was in trouble.
Real trouble.
The kind no amount of rational thinking was going to save me from.
Because somewhere along the way, this had stopped being an assignment.
Stopped being pretend.
And started becoming something dangerously real inside me.
I exhaled shakily and stepped forward—only to stop dead.
I wasn’t alone anymore.
Professor Kenna Runevald stood at the edge of the stone pathway as though she’d always been there, dark robes shifting softly in the wind beneath the silver-green auroras overhead.
The professor never seemed surprised by anything.
She simply existed in a state of eternal awareness, as though the Institute itself whispered its secrets directly into her ear.
“It’s a little late for an unsupervised stroll, isn’t it, Miss Cordoza?” she asked smoothly.
My stomach dropped.
“Oh. Uh. Sorry,” I mumbled automatically.
Brilliant response, Amrin.
Very mature.
Very graduate student of you.
The professor lifted one perfectly sculpted brow and waited.
That was all she had to do.
No raised voice.
No interrogation.
Just that calm, assessing stare.
I swore the woman could drag confessions out of people through sheer psychological warfare alone.