They meet in secret. The definition of high drama. Of teenage angst. Romeo and Juliet. Pyramus and Thisbe. Tristan and Isolde. Clothes are shed in a hurry and they flow into each other's arms, tasting and touching and absorbing everything that they are denied in daylight.

It does not strike them as coincidence that all of history's most famous star-crossed lovers died tragically. As mouths seek and hands grope for curves to hang on, they anticipate death. They crave the completion of their four act play.

"Shh," he whispers.

"Harder," she urges. "More," she pleads.

"Shh," he warns again as they stumble in the dark.

Legs too weak to keep standing. Sweaty skin sticking to the wall. Hair clutched and pulled. It is beyond frantic. It is beyond fiery.

It is forbidden.

Her head falls back, connecting hard with the solid cinderblock, but she doesn't feel it. All she feels is the clouds and the sky and the eternity in his golden brown eyes. He grips her hips tight enough to bruise...bruises she will keep for days and weeks like badges of her private downward spiral. His mouth traces patterns on her throat, like ancient patterns on sand. Her teeth score a ragged imitation on his shoulder and he gasps away the pain and the tiny drops of blood that well up on his smooth skin.

Space and time begins to blur.

Faces shift. Turn oval and gray and alien.

Turn pale and pinkish and human.

And then back.

Back to their beautiful secret selves.

They anticipate this moment. Where all their masks are pulled off. Where all their secrets are laid bare.

They anticipate death. Where they will be united forever beyond the whispered accusations of a great love that once destroyed a world.

He tangles their fingers together as she rocks into his body...into the body she has always known, always loved. In every lifetime. On every planet. He buries his face in her neck as his youthful body spills its last vestige of passion and she strokes his hair with the utmost tenderness.

"Vilandra..." he pleads.

"Shh," she whispers.

"*Vilandra*..." he urges. "I love you. I love you so much."

"Shh," she warns again as they stumble in the dark.

As they move back to separate spaces.

To basement stairs climbed in silence.

To lights switched on.

To a world where haughty uber-bitch Isabel Evans throws a hairbrush at her interfering do-gooder brother Max and tells him to get out of her bedroom before she yells for Mom.

But tomorrow night the drama will be replayed.

And perhaps the curtain will finally fall on the fourth act.

Their audience is foolish. Their people, their family, their friends. None of them knew then. None of them *can* know now.

They can't know...and they won't understand.

In the Antarian tongue "Khivar" means "Beloved."

And there is only one person in her life who has ever played that part.

Romeo and Juliet. Pyramus and Thisbe. Tristan and Isolde.

Vilandra and...

"I love you, too, Zan."