#so expect radio silence from 04/21 to 05/16

[koznme]

sorry guys, icarus is on hiatus until i’m done with this round of midterm exams, but trust me i’m planning many things to come >:)

[biffhofosho]

Succumbing to Sybaris | Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Word Count: 7.2k

A/N: Dark themes in this chapter, kids. Our poor girl has a lot to come to terms with. A belated happy birthday to my mans, Hyungwon. In celebration, we’ll be enjoying two chapters of CHW content. 

Cvr | Tr | Pr | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16| 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | Ep

It was raining, not in the satisfying, spa music kind of way, but a fuzzy mist that clung to every hair like dewdrops and made Amber crave a hot shower. The swollen bellies of leaden clouds squashed the heads of Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Hood as if daring them to pierce a hole and unload their misery.

Amber and Shownu stood on the front porch of his place, staring toward the city with the pervasive awkwardness of a morning after relationship-altering sex. All she wanted to do was crawl back into bed and let the covers swallow her up, but there was no time for it.

Finally, Shownu broke the silence with a grunt as he nudged his chin toward his car. He was halfway down the front steps when he noticed his partner wasn’t following him. “Coming?”

��We shouldn’t ride in together,” Amber reminded him, and Shownu nodded slowly.

“Of course. I’ll see you at the precinct?”

“I’ll be a few minutes behind.”

Even though she had meant it, it felt like a goodbye. The pair exchanged a long glance before Shownu drove off with a short wave. The domesticity in it buoyed her heart as much as it weighed it down.  

The moment he was out of sight, Amber felt strangely numb. Maybe it was the weather, maybe it was the resonance of Kai’s promise, or maybe it was something bigger than all of it. Whatever the reason, when her body moved, it didn’t feel like her own. She drove to the end of the block to a hole-in-the-wall coffee joint in the hopes of feeling something. A jolt of espresso didn’t rouse her, but the chocolate-frosted chocolate chunk brownie sure did.

“Perks of being a grownup, huh?” the cashier said as she bagged the treat. “Cake for breakfast.”

Amber mustered an uncomfortable smile and headed back to her car to eat in the welcome silence. She closed her eyes and listened to the morning traffic over the pathetic hiss of rain. If she weren’t so afraid of falling asleep and right back into Kai’s grip, she might have. The world was simple in here, and the urge to drive away from it all overwhelmed her for a moment.

Maybe Hyungwon and his brothers were right: maybe she should just disappear. If Kai didn’t know where to find her, maybe he couldn’t find her in her dreams either. He’d stop taking women, she had no doubt of that, but she also knew if she actually fled, the Portland PB would find a stack of severed bodies, Daisy on top, just like a cherry. No, Kai knew what he was doing. He was leveraging his offer, and he knew full-well that offer was too steep to decline.

Instead, Amber radioed the station before heading downtown. Her deadline was fast approaching, and she had loose ends to tie up.

By the time she got to Pioneer Square, the mist had stopped though the clouds were still as somber as ever. She found Lucas exactly where she had months ago, seated on the bottom step, staring just as blankly at the fountain as he had that fateful day. He looked ragged. His eyes were sunken and his shoulders were hunched and his usually warm skin looked bleached. Amber’s heart ached.

She joined him on the bottom step, but he didn’t lift his head as he said, “Good morning, Spiros.”

“Good morning, sir.”

His ears perked at the ‘sir’. Amber wasn’t often formal, so the mood deepened. Keeping her stilted formality, he said, “How’s Detective Nam?”

“Recovering.”

“You know,” the captain said, “he wouldn’t talk to anyone about what happened. Wouldn’t even give me a statement. Outright told me to leave.”

“Huh,” she said noncommittally.

“I heard he let you in though.” At least Lucas didn’t sound hurt, more expectant.

“Yeah.”

A long pause filled the space before he said, “Well?”

“He didn’t see who attacked him,” Amber answered quickly.

“Why the hell wouldn’t he give a statement then?”

“I’m sure he will as soon as he feels up to it. Eric went through a lot.”

“Which is why he should tell us as much as he can as soon as he can so we can catch the son-of-a-bitch.”

“And I’m sure he will,” she interrupted.

Lucas studied her for a long moment, and she could see his inner debate in those clear brown eyes. Eventually, his more patient side won out, and he returned his gaze to the fountain. “How are you handling everything?”

“Don’t think I am,” she admitted. “Haven’t had a chance.”

“Where have you been staying?” he asked. With his distracted gaze, Lucas had covered his fishing expedition well, but Amber had spent too many years at his side to miss his true question. But it didn’t upset her; in fact, it made her feel safe again. He had promised he would always care about her, and he still did.

But he wouldn’t if he knew what she’d done. He wouldn’t if he knew how much she wished she could keep doing it. Which was why she’d called him here. She had to save Lucas from her once and for all, and this was the place she could cut most cleanly.

“Captain Wong,” she said slowly, and his brow slackened immediately.

He hunched over, elbows on his knees and eyes blank as new slates. “Why are we here, Amber?”

His voice was so hollow, the question seemed to echo inside itself.

The detective took a deep breath, willing her brain to overrule her heart as her hand slipped to her waistband.

“It seemed fitting,” she said as she stared at the fountain now, too. It looked exactly as it did the day she’d called off their engagement. “Another end, I guess.”

She unclipped her badge, the clamp thundering like a grenade in the basin of the amphitheater. She rested it on the step beside his hip. Her gun followed a moment later, along with the unloaded magazine, but Lucas made no move toward either. He seemed frozen.

“Captain Wong,” Amber said as firmly as she could, “I’m tendering my resignation effective immediately. Thank you for your leadership and friendship all these years. It has been my greatest pleasure working for you and the Portland Police Bureau. I will always treasure the time—”

In the softest of voices, Lucas said, “Don’t.”

Amber looked at the man now ramrod straight on the step. The captain still stared off into the distance, but she knew he was aware of every breath she took and every flinch she made.

“What?”

“Don’t,” he insisted. “If you need time off, just take it. I know you’re going through a lot right now—”

She sighed. “I don’t need time off. That’s not what this is about.”

“Don't do this, don't quit. I'll put in for a transfer. If this is because of what I said at your house, I'll—”

“It's not because of you, Luke. It's because of me. I don't deserve that badge or your love anymore. I wish I did—god, do I wish I did—but that’s not what this is about.” Everything she’d rehearsed on her drive here evaporated, and Amber was left to fumble with the uncomfortable, inelegant truth. “At some point, fuck, I don’t know when, I lost my way, and I can’t find it back. Too much has happened. Too much has changed—especially me. I’m not the same girl you met on the street all those years ago, and I can’t go back to being her.”

“Amber—” Lucas reached for her, but she jerked her hand back.

“Please accept my resignation, Captain. Please,” she begged, her eyes wet and her chin heavy as she nudged it at the tarnished badge.

Lucas looked from his detective’s white flag to her resolute face. He’d look less bewildered the day she’d called off their engagement, but she should have expected that. Since the day they’d found Delphine’s body, Amber’s life had only pointed in one direction—toward the police force. It was the one thing that had never changed. It was the one thing they’d all assumed would never change. Until today.

“Can’t we talk about this first?” the captain whispered.

“I’ve already made up my mind. This is what’s best for the Bureau, sir. Trust me.”

“What about Daisy and the other missing?” he pressed. “You’re just abandoning them?”

Amber frowned. “That’s not what this is. I can’t explain it to you, but this is how I save them. You have to trust that.”

This time, Lucas managed to grab her wrist, and he tugged her back down a step. “Why? Why can’t you explain it to me?”

“Because it’s better for you if you don’t know.”

“Amber,” he continued in a grave voice. “Amber, what are you going to do?”

Her heart thrashed against her ribs until her whole chest ached.

“Nothing that can come back on the Bureau.” She put a few more steps between her badge and herself in case she caved to her knee-jerk reaction to take it back. “I’ve got some loose ends to tie up, and then I’m going to figure out my purpose in life.”

Lucas shook his head firmly. “No, I don’t like that. You’re going after this new guy Kai, aren’t you?”

So the news had made its way back to the captain’s office... Amber shouldn’t have been surprised—it was the highest profile case in Portland’s recent memory—but now that she truly understood the breadth of Kai’s dark deeds, she needed to keep Lucas as far away as possible.

“I’m really not, sir,” she insisted.

“Stop calling me sir!” he shouted, garnering a few looks from other parkgoers. The detective cringed, but the captain didn’t seem to notice. “If you’re going to quit on me, Amber, at least give me the dignity of my name.”

Her teeth set on edge as her body responded automatically to his familiar spark, but she pushed it down as best she could. She needed a clean exit, one that didn’t betray the truth.

“Lucas, please don’t make this any harder than it is. I’m doing the right thing here, and there’s nothing you can say that will change my mind.”

His brows sharpened into a V. “What about Delphine, huh? You’re just going to let her case go unsolved?”

“There are other ways I can honor my sister’s life,” Amber replied darkly, and Lucas narrowed his eyes.

“Tell me what you’re about to do!”

“I don’t know!” she shouted, and then softer: “I don’t know. All I know is that I won’t burden the Bureau anymore. It’s not the right thing to do.”

“The right thing would be to stick it out and face whatever consequences you’re expecting.”

“That’s not fair to you or anyone else.”

“Oh, fuck this martyr shit, Amber,” Lucas snapped. “What’s not fair is you leaving your team—your family—to clean up your messes.”

“Maybe, but there’s a difference between cleaning up a desk and a whole goddamn dump. You can’t change my mind on this, Lucas. It’s the right thing to do.”

“So that’s it?” he hissed. “You’ve used this place and everyone in it all you’ve needed to, so now you’re throwing it away?”

As cold as she could muster, Amber answered, “Yes.”

The captain let out a bitter snort. Only the slosh of the fountain and the shuffle of businesspeople on their way to work filled the space between them.

Finally, Lucas picked up the gun and badge, twisting them this way and that. When he spoke again, it was flat and sharper than a blade. “It was always going to end like this, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” she replied honestly.

“Fine. If that’s the way you want to play this, I’ll have Linda process your exit paperwork, but you need to handle the transition for any open cases. And you need to be the one to break the news to Detective Nam. Clean up one of your own messes for a change.”

“Understood, Captain.”

Amber took a few more steps up before Lucas’s voice caught her one last time. It was harder than granite and equally as alive. “And do us all one favor, Spiros.”

“Sir?”

“Don’t ever come back.”

Wind funneled through the square, and despite the oppressive humidity, a chill settled into Amber’s bones.

This was how it had to be. Burning bridges were necessary, yet she had never heard anything crueler in her life. In the span of four words, she realized she’d done exactly what Hyungwon and all his brothers had been doing for her: she’d locked out people she claimed to care about in the foolhardy hope that she could keep them safe.

“Thank you, Luke. For everything,” Amber managed before she left the park and the rest of her life in her rearview mirror.

By the time Amber pulled over her little Caprice, ancient mountains shrouded the valley except for a few wily bends in the quiet two-lane highway. Walls of birch and spruce trees crowded asphalt lips while ferns tufted the forest floor, and their shadows stretched long and spindly like prison bars around her.

At some point in the afternoon, the Pacific winds had ushered out the clouds to make way for the tangerine sunset. Under a shawl of sunshine, for the first time all day, Amber felt warm.

She hadn’t been out of the car except to refuel, but she could no longer resist. She got out with a cat stretch and sat on the hood, eyes closed, head-on to the west. Golden light kissed her cheeks, and even the inside of her eyelids were soft peach.

Amber had been driving in circles all day through lavender farms and winery country until she’d felt she’d put enough miles between her and the city. It wasn’t that she was running away—there was no point—but driving helped clear her mind until eventually the only thing she wanted was to chase the elusive yellow sun. She’d followed its descent, and the next thing she knew, she was back in the woods.

The air was freer here than in Forest Park. The humidity had cleared out, leaving the scent of pine and earth in its wake. Amber considered strolling into the untouched wilderness, but her legs vetoed the idea. They were itchy to move again but not for a hike.

Reluctantly, she climbed back into the driver’s seat and abandoned the evening sun for the call of the road again. There was more traffic now, but it was nothing compared to the city—commuters heading home one direction and daytrippers returning from the coast the other. The rhythm was soothing and familiar, and it meshed perfectly with Dolores O'Riordan’s keening yodel on the stereo.

Amber ran out of road just as the sun kissed the lip of the sea. She pulled into an empty parking lot at the edge of the little resort town of Seaside and walked out to greet the oncoming night. She tossed her shoes into the passenger seat and headed out toward the dunes. Far down the beach, a few couples walked along the water line hand-in-hand or sat out on hotel balconies to watch the sun set, but this far down the promenade, she had the world to herself.

The sand was cold beneath her toes, and Amber wiggled them in deeper to find the dampness left after the day’s rain. Above her, wispy bronze clouds striped a marigold sky, and beneath it, the tides were ebbing, leaving a shimmering ribbon of sand creased only by the lap of the gentle waves. The little black speck of a tanker tugged along the horizon while the rounded cliff-face of Tillamook Head bookended the beach like the bow of a ship forever anchored into the volatile face of the sea. But for tonight, at least, the Pacific was as smooth as glass, the light breeze was soft and warm, and the world was simple again.

Amber waited at the top of the beach until orange liquefied into gold and finally flared pink on rose petal clouds.

“I ran out of real estate,” she said to the ocean as well as the man now at the crest of the dune behind her.

She knew who it was without a sound between them.

Like a dream or a long-forgotten memory, Hyungwon materialized beside her.

Together, they looked out at the indigo sea. Lazy swells melted into the heaving horizon, the dying breaths of daylight terminating in midnight foam.

“Here I am at the end of the world, and there’s no escape,” Amber continued, but Hyungwon remained silent. She sighed. “I know everything.”

“I heard,” he replied. “Hyunwoo also told me you didn’t go to work today, that you’d quit.”

“News travels fast. So what other secrets do you and your brothers have for me? You put a tracker on my car?”

“Why would I? I knew you’d be here.”

Amber let out a light laugh. “Sure you did.”

“It’s your perfect day,” he reminded.

Just like that, Amber remembered the chat that had started everything. It hadn’t even occurred to her that she had actually followed through with what she’d thought at the time had been a nonsense answer. With a frown, she replied, “Today’s been anything but perfect.”

“Maybe. You weren’t thinking of it like that though, were you? You were thinking of it as your last day.”

Amber glanced at Hyungwon from the safety of her periphery. Fingers of salt and sand feathered his wispy bangs and wrinkled the fabric of his dress shirt. He might have stood on this beach for centuries, always looking this handsome no matter what forces the world could batter against him.

There was no way he could know about her dream, but it felt like he did. It never failed to unsettle her the way Hyungwon seemed to live inside her head.

“You don’t know what I was thinking,” she asserted.

He looked at her at last, and even though she refused to face him head-on, she felt his full power. “Tell me what happened.”

“You have your secrets,” she said, “I have mine.”

Amber caught the twitch of a scowl flutter across his face, but it faded as quickly as the next wave.

“You don’t sound like yourself,” Hyungwon said softly.

“Turns out maybe I never even knew myself, so how am I supposed to sound? Like the stubborn, pushy detective who refuses to give up?”

“That’s who you are.”

“That’s who I was,” she snapped. “Everything changes. Besides, I’m not supposed to fight it, am I? I never was.”

“Can anyone fight destiny?” Hyungwon echoed.

“You tried.”

“Kai is not your destiny.”

Amber shook her head in disbelief. “So you all keep saying. I guess that just leaves you and your brothers, huh?”

He looked at her with eyes of golden silk and a mouth of clear purpose but said nothing. The sea gobbled up the last of the sun’s rays and, with it, the full breadth of Hyungwon’s beauty.

“What am I supposed to do now?” she whispered, and it was nearly spirited away on the wind, but the man beside her still caught it.

“Stay with us.”

“You know that won’t make a difference.”

He turned to face her, every ounce of his power funneling onto her. “It makes a difference to us.”

“Well, it doesn’t make a difference to him,” Amber spat and wished it was right into Kai’s face. “You know, Hyunwoo told me that a vampire can’t enter your dreams unless he’s invited in, so tell me why Kai is in mine then? What does that say about me?”

Hyungwon’s brow furrowed, but his voice was as confident as ever. “It says you want answers, and you’re willing to do anything for them.”

Suddenly, Amber burst into laughter, and when she finally caught her breath, she managed, “It’s a nice thought.”

“I’m serious.”

“When are you not?” she added, sober again.

“We’re in your dreams, too.”

She laughed again, this time bitterly. “Yeah, so maybe I’m looking for the same thing from him I’ve already gotten from your brothers. I’m a taker, remember?”

Hyungwon shook his head adamantly. “Amber—”

“That girl from the club,” the detective interjected, “did you sleep with her?”

A stiff breeze whistled across the water as it flung grains of sand around her ankles. Hyungwon didn’t answer at first, but at last he said, “Why do you ask?”

Amber wished he hadn’t taken so long to answer. Her throat felt scratchy, and now her jaw twitched. “You said blood was a trade. I just figured that was part of the exchange.”

She could feel his eyes burrowing into the side of her face, but she didn’t look at him or maybe she simply couldn’t.

“No,” he said as he watched the detective, “I didn’t.”

“What did she ask for then?”

“Nothing she could have.”

The detective chewed her lip for a moment before she asked, “Then what did you give her?”

“I took her worst memory and made her forget it.”

Hyungwon’s answer churned in Amber’s chest.

“I wish you could do the same for me,” she said.

“So do I.”

“Chae?”

“Yes?”

She swallowed hard. Questions had always come so easily to her, but now that she’d met Hyungwon and his brothers, for the first time, there were things she was afraid to know. Maybe if she didn’t ask, it would change reality, but then ignorance seemed equally as terrifying.

In spite of the ice crystallizing in her stomach, Amber asked, “Why were you online that night?”

With one question, they were back in front of the cool glow of their monitors, lines of flirtatious dialogue ticking back and forth despite all the backspacing they had done to craft the most tempting lures. Amber could never have imagined that she would be the one forever hooked.

As Amber waited for his answer, she mustered every ounce of indifference she could to keep from looking at him with begging eyes. Somehow she knew that whatever he said next would change everything; it was just a matter of direction.

Hyungwon turned to her, eyes wide and bright in the darkness. “I was looking for the one. I was looking for you.”

The smell of the sand and the sea wafted between them and, underneath, a hint of his burnt caramel drizzling over her honey—a little bitterness between all that sweetness.

“Now you sound like Kai and his stupid riddle,” Amber chided. “The one with a capital O.”

In a flash, Hyungwon was in front of her, his hands clasping her shoulders. “I will never, ever let him have you.”

“You and your pretty words, Chae.”

“The only thing I want—”  he started.

“Well, all I want is a swim. It’s why I came here, isn’t it, you know me so well…” she said bitterly.

“I do, Amber.”

Something inside her shifted like the sands under her feet. She felt like she was sinking, but she wasn’t scared. She dug her toes in deeper.

Amber pulled out her ponytail holder and let her hair crash like the waves against her shoulders. She stared up at Hyungwon’s dark eyes, that golden predatory flash glinting in their depths, and felt the urge to offer her neck to him.

He stepped closer until his lips were a breath away from her forehead. If his lungs were anything other than ornament, she would have welcomed the warmth of his breath on her brow. He looked down at her mouth and then to her throat before he settled on her denim jacket. He pushed it back one shoulder at a time until it fell onto the sand. Amber felt his cool fingers at the hem of her tank before he inched it up her waist. The pads of his fingers glossed over each rib until finally her shirt was gone, too. Hyungwon held her gaze as he waited, but her hands had made a decision for her. She undid her bra and held it against her chest before it, too, fell away.

Warm, damp air tickled her bare skin, but it was the gathering anticipation that had her every atom straining toward the man in front of her. Tentatively, one of his fingers reached for her, stopping just above the hill of her breast. Amber studied his fascinated gaze as he took in the breadth of her exposed skin. His eyes flicked up to hers, and whatever Hyungwon found in their depths gave him the courage to gloss his fingertip along her skin. He followed the curve of her breast to its soft underside, and she shivered. His touch was a slow brand that left a sting of emptiness in its wake.

Amber wanted to cry or maybe cry out, but she swallowed both urges as she waited to see what Hyungwon would do next. That searing finger scudded across her nipple, which sent a urgent yearning between her legs. Her flesh perked sharply, and he circled the aching hill before he pulled back to her whimper.

Her heart was racing and her chest hurt, but whatever bridge Hyungwon had built between them wobbled and collapsed with each passing second that he didn’t come back. Instead, he slipped off his own shirt and then his pants and turned toward the sea as he waited for her.

With shaking hands, Amber undid her jeans and emerged into the night her truest self. Out of the corner of her eye, she made out Hyungwon’s slim, naked form, but for some reason, she was too afraid to stare. The ghosts of his words from the day they’d met resurrected in her mind.

We’re pulled to each other, and that pull’s inescapable. We’ll always come back to each other because it’s the only thing that feels right.

With every fiber of her being, Amber had fought the intensity that bound the two of them. She’d cursed, she’d clawed, she’d run. No matter what she’d done to put distance between them, she’d always ended up by Hyungwon’s side.

Now, his open hand glowed in the moonlight.

“Shall we?” he asked.

Trembling, her fingers ventured forward and closed the circuit to unite them again. Little sparks kicked up in her chest, igniting brushfires in every corner of her body. Together, they walked down the long expanse of low tide.

The ocean greeted them with a burst of ice in their toes, but Amber was the only one to gasp. The further they walked, the colder it got, but she steeled herself against each gentle onslaught. When the water was at her knees, she closed her eyes and pitched forward.

The cold knocked the breath from her lungs, and everything inside her retreated into a ball until it felt like all her warmth was huddled in her chest. Amber pushed her limbs forward into a freestyle swim, and gradually, the ice in the water tempered and her shivers subsided to the rhythm of her stroke.

Hyungwon paddled beside her with all the patience of a father tolerating a child’s whims. The cold didn’t affect him and neither did the exercise, but he matched his companion stroke for stroke until at last the lights of the town dwindled to pinpricks behind them.

Amber rolled onto her back, her lungs heaving and her limbs leaden, and floated on the undulating belly of the sea. She wasn’t afraid of what was below her, only who was beside her. Hyungwon followed suit and faced the sky, his hand stirring the surface beside her as a clear reminder of how the current was gently nudging them together.

Blackness of every depth and shade engulfed them. The blunt face of Tillamook Head boxed them in from the right while the full breadth of the Pacific unfurled to the left. Above them, the bruised tentacle of the Milky Way stretched from horizon to horizon.

“Is it like you imagined?” Hyungwon asked at last.

“Yeah,” she said, but it was a lie.

A brilliant banner of white festooned the sky for a split second, and Amber’s heart leapt.

“Make a wish,” she shouted as she closed her eyes and made hers.

“What?”

She lifted her head from the water long enough to gape at the man floating beside her. “Four hundred years old, and you’ve never made a wish on a shooting star before?”

“Not that I remember,” Hyungwon said with the vaguest hint of embarrassment.

“Wow, you’re really something, aren’t you, Chae? You make a wish, and then you keep it a secret or it won’t come true. Got it?”

“Okay.”

He sounded so uncomfortable that Amber had to smile. If nothing else, today would have one good memory sandwiched in it.

And all at once, Kai’s dark promise loomed larger than the Milky Way. The cold inside her intensified, but it had nothing to do with the bracing currents.

Amber wiped the saltwater from her lips and whispered, “What was she like?”

“The girl at the club?” Hyungwon asked. “I don’t remember.”

“No, not her. My sister. What was she like when you met her?”

Even through the slosh of the swells, Amber felt him tense.

“You know I didn’t really have a chance to know her…”

“Please, Chae? I need to know.”

“Bold,” he answered immediately. “Fearless. She walked right out of that pharmacy and asked to bum a cigarette. She said she’d left her ID at home.”

Amber smiled. That was her sister no doubt, a rule-breaker and a playgirl. Of the two of them, Delphine had always been the daring one, the one who attracted adventure almost as easily as the boys. She knew how to push every boundary and could get away with it with one sunshine-bright laugh.

“I liked her immediately,” Hyungwon continued. “She reminds me of you.”

“No,” Amber corrected. “I remind you of her. Once Delphine was gone, I had no choice but to pick up where she left off. I couldn’t let her legacy die with her. I wouldn’t be the person I am if it hadn’t been for her.”

Amber could feel Hyungwon’s apology before it left his lips, but she waved it off. She knew he meant it; it just didn’t matter right now. For once, other things weighed heavier on her mind.

She stared up at the purple-white tapestry of one of the few things older than the man who floated beside her.

“What if I get hypothermia and drown?” Amber asked, her voice almost lost in the water. “I can already feel it settling in my muscles and slowing down my heart. Can you hear that over the waves?”

“Yes,” Hyungwon confessed. “I can always hear your heart.”

She hummed. “I could die out here and you'll go on forever.”

“That assumes I would let you die.”

“You wouldn’t have a choice,” she argued. “You have no warmth or breath to bring me back to life.”

“I don’t like this, Amber. Stop talking like that.”

She let out a long, slow breath before a lap of seawater puddled in her mouth and she spat it out. “Maybe this is what it means to give in.”

“No,” Hyungwon replied, his voice as distant as the stars, “that’s giving up. I won’t let you.”

A tear slipped from her eye and joined the ocean. Amber wasn’t even sure why she was crying, but she felt more tears pool as the stars blurred. “Maybe it’s better than admitting that I can’t live my life without you.”

Hyungwon rolled his head toward her, and despite the blackness of his gaze, his eyes reflected the starlight. “Then live it with us. Be ours. Be mine.”

His fingers glossed over hers just under the surface. He was as cold as the water, as lifeless as the waves. Still, Amber opened her hand to him, and he slid in and held her tight.

Above her, the Milky Way stretched like taffy beyond the mountains. They floated under its majesty until her skin pruned and her limbs grew heavy, until the last of her warmth clustered lonely in her heart.

“It’s time to go back,” Hyungwon said as he tugged Amber upright. They bobbed in the swells, treading water and staring at each other.

“Not yet,” she insisted.

He pulled her close, their legs falling into a rhythm between each other’s as they floated. His other hand reached for her cheek and thumbed a wet arc across its plane. “Your teeth are chattering and your heart is whispering. We’re going in.”

Amber didn’t respond, but the moment he started swimming for shore, she followed. He could have lapped her twenty times before she would ever reach the beach, but instead, he kept pace beside her, watching her face and the way the starlight dappled it.

At last, her feet grazed the shallows, but Amber swam as far as she could before her belly scraped the sand bed. She rose on jelly legs like a newborn foal and stumbled immediately into Hyungwon’s arms.

“I’ve got you,” he said, slipping his arm under hers until her thighs stopped trembling and her knees straightened. He could have carried her much more easily, but Amber was glad he let her find her own strength.

Together, they walked up to the edge of the breakers and let the foam surge around their ankles.

“I’ll get your clothes,” Hyungwon offered, but Amber refused.

“Not yet. Not yet.”

Though every muscle in her body complained, she forced herself tall and full into the sea breeze. Against her sodden limbs, it cut and froze, but Amber closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

The sky was vast and the mountains unmoving and the sea fathomless, and she was small and unimportant, but there was peace in that. She’d struggled so hard for so long, but it was just like fighting the ocean—in the end, there was no winning against such insurmountable obstacles. There was only succumbing.

“Is this what it’s like to be you?” she wondered, studying the ice blue cast to her fingers. “I’m so cold, so dead inside.”

“Stop this,” Hyungwon ordered and forced a towel around her shoulders, but Amber shoved back and stared angrily at him.

“You stop this. You started it—all of it, Hyungwon. I can’t get you out of my head,” she wailed, clutching her temples. Softer now, she cried, “I can’t get you out of my heart. And I hate it, I hate it so much. What have you done to me?”

With his free hand, he caressed her cheek, wet both from salt and tears. He pushed a sodden tendril behind her ear before his hand drifted to her neck, his thumb stroking her languid pulse. Their eyes locked and their connection sparked anew. A little gasp slipped through Amber’s lips, and it was all the distraction Hyungwon needed to wrap her in the towel.

He guided her back toward the foot of the dunes and said, “Let’s get you warm.”

“And how are you going to warm me up, huh? You’re undead,” she grumbled.

“Don’t be a jerk, Amber,” Hyungwon reprimanded before he vanished.

She had only a moment to regret her words before he was back like a fresh peal of thunder. He laid a blanket down on the dune, and in a dimple in the sand, he piled firewood and kindling into a neat tower.

“I should haul you in for theft,” she chided through a rattle of her teeth as she studied the stolen towel and blanket, but Hyungwon ignored her.

He knelt in the sand, still naked but unfazed by it, and lit a fire with the skill of a man who must have done it for centuries. In the low glow of the newborn flames, he shimmered. After only a few moments, the fire kicked up into a gentle crackle with the occasional hiss and pop.

Slowly but surely, warmth pervaded her extremities and the prune lines in her fingers and toes softened. Amber squeezed the towel tighter around her and wished she’d had someone warm to lean into. Beside her, Hyungwon’s hands hovered over the flames, and she wondered if he felt the heat the same way she did.

She stole several glances at him, getting bolder each time, but he refused to look back at her, and somehow, it grated on the last of her nerves.

“What?” Amber said with a frown.

“I didn’t say anything,” Hyungwon answered.

“You’re clearly angry about something.”

“So what if I am? You don’t listen to me anyway.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Why should I? Because you’re a 400-year-old vampire?”

“No, because I care about you. Because I care what happens to you.”

Of all the things he could have said, Amber never expected that. Her lips felt numb, either from the cold or his confession, she couldn’t tell.

This time, Hyungwon filled the silence. “You’re too reckless with your life.”

“I’m a police officer,” she whispered. “It’s what we do.”

At last, he turned to her, eyes narrow and cheeks tight. “Really? You all risk drowning in the ocean?”

“That’s not—that wasn’t what I was trying to do.”

“What were you trying to do then?”

“I don’t know!” she shouted. “I don’t know…”

Together, they looked out at the open water, and it was like they were right back in it. Amber felt its chill deep in her bones and heavy in her legs. She felt like she could sink at any moment all over again.

Hyungwon let out a slow breath. “You were testing me… Whether I could really save you or not.”

Amber didn’t reply, but she didn’t need to. Even if she hadn’t realized it before, she realized now the vampire was right. It was another thing she’d picked up from Delphine—pushing boundaries way too far.

His fists clenched as the flames danced across the plains of his skin. Eventually, they loosened, and Hyungwon seemed to crumple with them. “You were right, you know. If you had drowned, I couldn’t have brought you back, at least not as you are now—perfect and warm and human.”

Amber hunkered down, too, head on her knees and eyes on the fire. When she’d asked it, her heart had been begging for him to prove her wrong, and when he had, hope had blazed within her. But he’d lied—or maybe it wasn’t a lie so much as wishful thinking, but did that distinction matter? Now, they both knew the truth.

“If you can’t save me from drowning, how could you possibly save me from Kai?” she asked. The flames batted around her words like a cat idling with a yarn ball, and the harder Amber stared into them, the keener they burned.

“All we need is a little more time,” Hyungwon insisted.

“Well, you don’t have it!”

He stared at her, sumptuous lips parted and dark eyes alight. “What does that mean?”

“Exactly what you think it means,” Amber replied obstinately.

“How do you know that? Has Kai come after you? Has he threatened you?” Hyungwon punched the sand, sending grit flying into the fire to a messy hiss.

“It doesn’t matter, Hyungwon. You just told me you can’t save me.”

“That’s not what I meant!” he protested. “It’s not the same thing, and you know it. You don’t know what I can do—what I will do for you. If you can just find a way to trust me, my brothers and I will find a way to get rid of Kai. I promise you that.”

“Trust. Promise. More pretty words. You remember how we met, right? You remember my sister? How am I supposed to do any of those things?”

There was a deep wound in his baritone as Hyungwon said, “You could if you wanted to, which I guess is my answer.”

Their hands were inches apart and yet there was a whole ocean between them again.

Amber looked up at the sky and asked, “What was your wish?”

“I thought you said not to tell?” he grumbled.

“Yeah, I did, but fuck the rules. You know I’m not good at following them.”

Amber had hoped the self-flagellation would have softened the mood, but the ice in Hyungwon’s eyes didn’t thaw.

“I wished that I had never asked to meet you,” said the vampire. Beside him, the detective stared at the dark heart of the sea, her chest feeling like an open wound as he continued, “You wouldn’t be here, bad things wouldn’t have happened to the people you care about, and I wouldn’t have to worry about losing the one thing I’ve searched for since the day I became this.”

Amber studied his profile galvanized by fire, but Hyungwon may as well have been on the other side of the Pacific.

“Why did you ask to meet me?” she wondered.

“Because you were trying so hard to be someone I knew you were not. I know what that’s like.”

“You don’t know me, Hyungwon.”

“As you insist,” he sighed. “What did you wish for?”

With a light laugh, she said, “That I’d never agreed to meet you.”

His eyes drifted back to the fire. A log popped, sending crimson fireworks into the sky.

Amber let out a shaky breath and faced the man so close and yet so far from her. “I could hate you if I’d never met you.”

At once, his eyes lashed to hers as he leaned forward, almost as though he were listening to her heart and looking for the lie within it.

“But I'm changing my wish,” she continued. “I wish you would just let me go.”

“Forget it because I won't.”

“I'm scared,” Amber blurted and immediately regretted it. She felt more naked now than she did under the towel.

“Of Kai?”

“Of Kai and you.”

“Amber, I would never hurt you,” Hyungwon reassured. He reached for her, but she jerked back.

“You already have, don't you get it? You’re responsible for taking one of the most important people in my life from me, and I don't hate you. I don’t hate you. That's what I'm scared of.”

The towel fell from her shoulders, and her skin warmed in the firelight. His gaze skimmed over her huddled frame for just a second before it was snared once again by the net of her eyes.

“You don’t know…” Hyungwon said as his hand caressed her cheek at last. His touch was warm from the fire, and it jumpstarted Amber’s heart.

“What?” she breathed.

“How precious you are to me,” he finished as he leaned forward and kissed the corner of her kaleidoscope eye. “You’ll never know.”

With trembling hands, Amber held his face and stroked his bottom lip with her thumb. Water dripped down his chin, and sand peppered his cheeks. Her heart ached under the weight of his beauty.

“You’re tearing me apart, Hyungwon,” she whispered, a tear pricking her eye. “What am I supposed to do?”

He kissed her thumb, and Amber shivered. His brown eyes pleaded with her as his hands traced her naked waist, feather-light and innocent even if those lips were anything but.

“Love me, too,” he begged. “Please.”