Despite my many protests, the sidewalk passed in a blur of motion under my heels. I didn't want to go to the stupid dance anymore, but Micah was insisting. It was the safest place for me to be—around humans—while he headed off to meet the approaching storm. Bettihemae was on the loose, and he wanted to leave me in a public place where she was sure not to risk trying anything.

With a small huff, I crossed my arms when we came to a halt in front of the open gym doors. A cold breeze coming from the west threw my hair in my face, and loud music and high emotions beat from behind.

"You're angry with me," he observed shortly.

I tossed my hair back into place and stared at the yellowing and purple-clouded sky, the atmosphere appearing very much like it had been beaten and bruised. You bet your perfectly toned bottom I'm angry.

I wanted to start yelling, but I shook my head. No, I wasn't going to act like some incoherent child. Closing my eyes, I drew in a slow breath, trying to find my calm. He was fidgeting. I could tell he had to go but was torn. As angry as I was, I didn't want him to leave to face the oncoming low pressure front while there was still this tension between us.

"I need to understand what that was back there. That kiss..." I turned around to find him open but unrepentant. "It was all wrong. You didn't kiss me because you love me. You did it as part of some strategy."

"I was protecting you," Micah told me, a series of emotions playing through his eyes. His soul was twisting with frustration and anger, fear and... loss? The first three emotions I understood, but it was the highly developed sense of loss that puzzled me.

"You think I need protection from Alex?" Blinking once, I watched the grief of his anticipated loss spread to intensify his frustration and fear. Does he think I am going to leave him for Alex?

"Alexander BruLagoon is not strong enough to protect you." I gave Micah a knowing look.

"Well, he isn't," my guardian insisted. He crossed his arms and gazed out at the broken horizon, the winds coming from that direction now smelling distinctly wet. "All that I am," his voice came out steady but strangled. "All I have strived to become, I have done so for your well-being."

"I understand that." I touched his arm. "But this isn't the source of your worry."

At this he paused. He seemed to be searching his emotions to figure out a way to express them.

"You are in possession of a pre-emptive sense of loss," I offered, hoping it would help prompt his inner dialogue.

He nodded, his eyes still on the sky.

"But you must also know I could never leave you," I continued, my hands working over his crossed arms.

His thumbs traced their hum back and forth over my knuckles when our fingers laced.

"And if you don't know it, I am telling you that you should. I need you in my life, Micah."

"I need you, too," he echoed. "It's odd, but it's true. I do have a sense of impending loss, as you put it. You are the only thing I have, you know?"

"I'm your home," I replied, but he shook his head.

"There's actually more behind that sentiment. True as it is, I have clothes on my person and my motorcycle, all these things are to keep up a human façade. But I'm not of human lineage, and I own nothing but the guardianship title I've earned as a devvi, highly regarded as it is. At the end of the day, nothing that makes me who I am holds any real meaning. Nothing is genuine—except you."

"I'm not going to leave you, Micah."

"I know that, Aurora. Well, in my heart, I do. I just need to get my head wrapped around it." He touched the side of my face, stroking fingers along my cheek. "You won't voluntarily go to him. And he isn't powerful enough to take you from me." His adamant gaze then locked onto mine, his next sentence spoken quiet but firm. "I won't share you with someone who cannot best me."

Astonished, I stared at him with a mixture of awe and realization spiraling up through me as his words trailed off. He knows me better than I know myself. He said as much back in the hallway on the first day of school, has said it off and on ever since. Micah knew what I was capable of, understood that the she-devvi in me would rise to the top. She-devvis take multiple mates. That, being together, meant that we would add others. This declaration of his just now, and my slowly nodding in agreement, was us setting a standard of who could join us. Only somebody who could best him.

With the setting sun seemingly hesitant to slip over the valley wall and disappear into the sulfuric mire, Micah's wildness stood out to me. His scent enhanced to a sensual peak by the teeming weather. My heart gave a hard thump when his eyes pulsed with the call of the storm, their color saturated to a deep violet. My middle was instantly in a twist. I struggled to stand my ground when the impulse to ravish him raced through me. Those brightly colored eyes. It made me wonder if this was some trick of nature instilled in males to make us females want to breed. The way female birds went for males with the brightest plumage.

Sensing I was struggling, he gave me a moment to recover my composure before he pulled me into a farewell embrace.

These things that play on our very emotions to get us to reproduce are simply confusing. I hugged him back. If only nature's tricks could be stripped away so we were left with our true feelings. Maybe this is why I can't sense his love? Were there too many other things getting in the way?

"I'm coming back for you," he vowed, his hold tightening briefly before he put distance between us.

"I will be here waiting," I promised in turn, tiptoeing to plant a kiss on his bowed forehead. "I want that back tenfold when you return," I murmured, and he smiled, his silent eyes full of what I presumed was love.

He gave me a crooked smile, half teasing. "Beautiful, you won't be able to handle the amount to which I'll return your affections when I get you alone later."

Before leaving, he took off his bronze overcoat and slipped it around me, explaining that dark matter was woven into the lining.

"Is this because of the dress?"

"I'm giving it to you just in case, because I can never be too careful with you." Micah's humming touch brushed my cheek again, and then he left.

* * *

After a sip of punch, which I promptly spat back into the cup—too sweet for my on-edge nerves—I worked my way around the outer wall of the profusely decorated gymnasium. The dance was in full swing by the time I stumbled inside.

With music and conversation pulsing all around, the collective nostalgia I found there emanating from clusters of seniors gathered below construction-paper fall foliage and low-hanging crepe paper somehow amplified my sense of disconnect, after all, I was so much older, and it made me seem that much more out of place.

Because, being in my early-twenties, I am such an old maid. Clearly. Eyes rolling, I let my wandering attention settle on the dance floor, watching everyone who was fully human, having a good time. And I didn't belong.

Somehow, I think, I had always known I was different.

Dressed eloquently in lavender-kissed silk, Reese was surrounded by a throng of happy couples. Not having spotted me coming in, she was oblivious as I stayed in the background. She laughed and swayed next to her Dandoy, er uh, Aaron, and I found myself rejoicing that she was happy. Still didn't mean I belonged.

This was their time to be human teenagers. Somewhere along the way, being told I was entirely human all my life when I wasn't, and being poisoned to force my growth, I had missed out on all of this: the light-hearted fluff of youth.

I suppose some would interpret this as a thing to be sad over, while others would tell me to suck it up and go have some fun. I would say to the latter: I can't help how I feel. The situation was what it was. Stagnant.

I ditched the cup of punch in the trash and grabbedthe backdoor's push bar, wondering with a pulse of exhilaration going through me, where the next chapterof my life would take me now thatit included devvis.

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