The Stars are Dying : (Nytefall: Book 1)

My consciousness returned in waves. I didn’t know how much time had passed.

Giggling was the first thing to make my senses trickle back in. My mind was foggy. Cracking my lips and trying to swallow, I winced at the painful dryness and peeled open my lids to find the source of the feminine voice.

Several things moved. Several people.

Then I remembered the last face before I’d fallen unconscious.

Mercifully, my headache had dulled and wasn’t punishing me for the luminance that flooded my vision. It adjusted, and I wished I hadn’t bothered to try to enter my surroundings at what I saw.

There was a beautiful red-haired woman straddling the prince. Another dark-skinned woman with stunning large eyes cast seductive looks at him from his side, and a handsome man with a pale complexion trailed a seductive hand over his shoulder to his nape. Drystan reclined casually, the top of his shirt undone, but thankfully everyone was clothed to some scandalous capacity. Their wears were light and elegant, reminding me of those from Hektor’s establishment, only far sultrier.

Drystan was yet to notice I was awake, and I kept deathly still, only peeking, as he leaned forward. The woman angled her neck, and my skin blazed at what I was about to witness. The prince’s teeth sank into her neck with the ease of a ripe apple. She tensed against him for only a few seconds before she relaxed and moaned, pressing into him and moving her hips as if it aroused her.

I twisted around, my breath spiking as I pushed up, scrambling for a way out without being noticed.

I was too late. Drystan’s low groan rattled through me, and I stared at him through a mirror I couldn’t avoid. He caught my eye, and his were only wild for a blink before he let go of her neck and eased a slow, wicked smile.

My skin torched. Yet I couldn’t break his stare.

He wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of his lips with his thumb. His tongue swept over it too.

Stop staring.

Was he trying to look so dangerously seductive?

“You’re awake,” he said, his thick voice coaxing the woman off him. “Good.” He gave those around him a look and a nod of his head, and they didn’t even glance at me before they left.

“Where did you take me?” My cheeks were burning. I tried to look anywhere but at him while his clothes were disheveled, the open top of his shirt revealing a muscular chest. I had no business seeing him in this state. Clearly, I was interrupting his pleasure, and there was no way I was going to give the impression I would continue what he’d dismissed.

“The Scarlet Rose. The establishment you followed me into the other day,” he answered.

“What time is it?”

“Almost dawn.”

I scanned myself, relieved to find nothing had been taken from me. I still wore my cloak and boots ready to walk out of here. “The castle gates will be opening again; I’ll be able to get—”

I stopped myself. I felt fine. In stark contrast to how weak and helpless I’d been at twilight. A soft purring drew me to a black cat, always around at the most unexpected of times. I was surprised they’d let it in here.

“Your handmaiden happened to be outside the gates with your pills. I assume that’s what had you so worse for wear. Truly, you had me worried for hours. I thought you’d touched or eaten something you shouldn’t have in The Poison Garden.”

I blinked, stunned, and wondering how Davina could have known. It didn’t matter right now. I would find her later for that explanation. All I could be glad for was that she had been there.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“Where else was I supposed to take you?”

“A separate room from your…affairs would have been appreciated.” I got to my feet, and Drystan approached me with a glass of water I took eagerly. When I finished, he held me with a studying look I turned stiff at. Even when his hand rose, I didn’t stop the brush of his thumb against the beads of water on my lower lip. “I should get going,” I rushed out, sidestepping him, but Drystan mirrored me.

“Pull out your map.”

I blinked at him. “What are you—?”

When I didn’t oblige, he seemed to think it appropriate to do so himself. I caught my breath at the proximity as he reached a hand into my cloak, knowing exactly which pocket held my map and overlay. He didn’t look at it, instead fixing them together and holding them out to me. It didn’t take me long to see and realize…

“I happened to remember this was marked in your destinations.”

The tiny scroll appeared over another circle on the overlay: The Scarlet Rose.

“You’ve done well. But I happen to know Draven is collecting his final piece now. Enver is dead. Rose is heading for her final. And as for Arwan, he’s been difficult to track, but I wouldn’t underestimate he could be close to the end trial too.”

It seemed I wasn’t making headway against the others as much as I’d thought. “How did Enver die?” I asked. This was news to me, and I blanched at how casually he mentioned it.

“Draven. There is no such thing as an ally in a game with one winner.”

“He stole his key.”

The prince nodded, and my blood ran cold.

As my mind reeled, I didn’t register Drystan’s advance. My breath turned sharp when my hair was tipped over my shoulder, and he stepped closer. I meant to protest and put some distance between us, but my gaze turned to his face. He didn’t meet my eye. Though I was fully covered to the top of my neck, Drystan’s attention lingered on my neck.

My first impression was that he was reflecting on his indulgences with the woman from earlier, and my refusal formed with a spike of fear knowing he didn’t need permission to take what he wanted. It wasn’t until I allowed his fingers to trace my collar, right over the exact points of my scar, that I was sucked through a portal to another dimension of time. It stole the ostentatious pink decor and lavish furnishings, snuffing out all bright color to replace it with something ominous.

Searing pain erupted in my neck, and all I could do was stare stunned at the black canopy of trees. Then I was falling, landing with force, and every movement cut my palms, my legs. A ringing filled my ears from shock, but shallow voices echoed above it. Trying to scramble to my feet, I was so unequipped for the nighttime forest setting, but all that raged within me was survival.

I could hardly draw breath, but an instinct to run coursed through me. To know if I had the slightest chance to make it, and to find out why he’d let me go.

I turned around.

The hooded figure had his back to me. I couldn’t feel the claw of branches tearing the skin of my feet and ankles as I tried to gain distance. He turned to glance at me over his shoulder, and I sucked in a gasp that began to pull me back. Speeding, racing time forward.

The familiar caramel eyes latched onto me as he raised his hand to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth…

I stumbled back as the bright room of The Scarlet Rose exploded around me.

Us.

Those eyes from the vision didn’t change, and I knocked into a table, items clamoring to the ground as I tried to gain distance.

“Are you all right?” he asked, canting his head curiously.

All this time…Drystan had held the other end of the tether to my memories. Which only made one thing blare through my mind with even more clarity. Rose and Cassia had to be right: Drystan was Nightsdeath. Somehow I clung to the notion the title wasn’t befitting of his subdued and careful exterior. But now I remembered a trickle of that night before I’d turned and run into the arms of Hektor…how could I continue to deny it?

Drystan fastened the top of his shirt and righted the rest of his clothing. “This trial can wait; you should head back to the castle and get some rest. I’ll accompany you—”

“No.” My response came too fast, and I scrambled to tame my racing heart, which choked my airway. He couldn’t know what I suspected. It would remove my disguise in an instant. “The others are well ahead of me,” I said. “I have to get this one today.”

His tight jaw eased in understanding as he reached for his cloak.

I jerked as something grazed my calves until I found the black cat, an oddly soothing comfort right now. When Drystan turned to me as if to come closer, it hissed. The prince’s gaze fell to it with no reaction.

“I’ll send a carriage for you once you’re done here,” he said. “Draven won’t kill you unless he can obtain your whole key, but you’re hardly in a state for the exercise.”

I didn’t argue or say anything. My mind was still reeling with the haunting vision of someone who wore the prince’s face while hiding a malicious glare I couldn’t picture on him right now.

How the hell was I supposed to kill him?

When he left, I slumped down onto a plush couch.

“How are you feeling?”

I whirled at the silvery voice.

Nyte stood in the corner of the room, cloaked in shadow. His tone was distant.

“A lot better,” I replied. “Thanks for helping me.”

Nyte huffed a bitter laugh. “I did nothing for you. I could do nothing for you.”

That fact pinched my chest. Judging by the way he kept his distance, I figured it pained him too.

“Only two pieces to go,” I whispered as though on the other side of that goalpost things would be different. As if then he would truly stand before me, no barriers.

Gold pierced the darkness he stood in as he finally looked at me. “Did he touch you?”

I suppressed a shiver at the threat in those words. “No,” I said. It wasn’t a lie. I knew the distinct type of touch Nyte was asking about.

His lips pressed together, and all he gave was a small nod.

I took a few breaths to collect myself, staring at my lap until a large, scarred hand, a phantom touch, tingled over my thigh. Nyte crouched before me, but I didn’t look up.

“Your heart is racing,” he said softly.

I couldn’t calm it. “It’s been eventful,” I muttered, which was putting it too damn lightly. “I’m going to get this trial over with.” I needed away from him. These dark, lamenting feelings that tore through me with him near were beginning to tangle themselves with the horror that still clung to me from a moment ago.

Out in the hall, I decided to take the stairs, hoping to find someone I could ask for any indication of where the next clue was. The landing widened far more than the halls below it. I froze at the eight doors, four on each side, seeing the white and purple stars on them. Breathing steadily, I tried not to allow my mind to project me back to Hektor’s manor. Perhaps it was a common enchantment for this type of venue.

They were all purple—which meant occupied if the spell was the same—except for one white star. I headed for it and stepped into the low-lit room, which coaxed me inside with familiar, gentle notes.