The Stars are Dying : (Nytefall: Book 1)

Nyte barely let me go. A touch to my back, a soft kiss on my shoulder, as though he thought I could turn to stardust any second. I craved it all. More than that. A desire to have his skin on mine climbed within me so strong. But he was so careful, always catching my eye as if to ask for permission before he laid his hands anywhere new.

Occasionally my eyes would prick. My nose would sting. Because this kind of affection I’d been so wrong to think I’d known before.

I stepped toward the dresser, remembering my injury with a limp that made me clench my teeth.

“Sit on the bed,” Nyte said, his voice full of an underlying wrath as he glanced at my leg. Then, meeting my eye, he brushed his soft knuckles over my bruised cheek. His silence was furious but composed.

He let me go reluctantly, and I shuffled over to the bed, perching on the edge.

Nyte maneuvered through the space, opening cupboards and retrieving a bowl, a cloth, liquor, a needle, and thread. He knew exactly where everything was.

“This place is yours…” I observed.

Nyte barely gave a sad smile at my observation as if he wanted to correct me, to say something, but he’d thought better of it. “You’re going to have to take those off.” His chin jerked toward me, and knowing the arrow wound on my thigh was his highest concern, my cheeks flushed to realize he meant my pants.

Sliding open another drawer, he retrieved a feminine nightgown. An ugly rise of jealousy stirred a protest as he came over to extend it to me.

“You want me to wear something that belongs to a past lover of yours?”

Nyte’s mouth curled with amusement. “I would rather you wore nothing at all.”

I held out my hand for it with a scowl. “Look away.”

He leaned down to pass me the lilac gown. “As you wish.” His lips brushed mine with the stroke of his fingers under my chin.

I melted under his true touch.

Nyte focused his attention on the bathtub, running the water and finding liquid soaps that wafted welcoming lavender and honey through the air. The scent was so embracing it tugged on something within me.

I didn’t waste time folding out of my combat wears, hissing at the sting of my leg and then remembering the long cut across my arm. As I slipped into the sleeveless silk I tried to examine the injury from Calix.

A soft touch landed on my arm before I could see the full extent of the wound. Nyte’s emotions were becoming so palpable they had to have entangled with mine. This time his rage was wrapped with vengeance, reflected in the hard lines of his face as he continued to look me over for other marks.

“Who did this?”

I shivered at the dark tone. His sight became fixed with scary calculation on my neck, and I remembered Calix’s hands tightening around it as I swallowed.

“He didn’t mean it.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

“I can’t tell you.” Because I feared what he would do.

Nyte stepped forward, forcing me back until my calves met the bed. His arm wrapped around my waist to lower me slowly before I could fall. “I don’t need you to tell me, but I would rather it came from you.”

Our eyes met, a challenge radiating between us.

Nyte lowered, never breaking my stare as he dragged the bowl of water over. “You faced your wrath,” he coaxed. “It’s always something physical, though not often truly real.”

“Stop trying to figure it out.”

“You can enjoy puzzles, but I cannot?”

My mouth tugged at that. Nyte dipped the cloth into the basin.

“This isn’t a puzzle. And I don’t need you to seek vengeance on my behalf. I will heal.”

“The act won’t be erased when it leaves your skin.”

I was pretty sure it would scar, but I didn’t voice what would fuel the fire in his irises. “No. But forgiveness is just as healing to the wound within.”

His fingers curled around my calf, trailing up slowly. Sparks shot to my core, making me all too aware of every inch of my exposed skin. My breasts tightened. He would see them through the thin silk fabric, but he didn’t look. He didn’t have to.

“You have far more restraint than I do,” he said. “Keep your eyes on me.”

I did, and as he poured the alcohol over my thigh I hissed, reaching to clutch his wrist, but the sting was surprisingly faint. My body relaxed.

“How do you do that?” I asked.

“By tricking your pain receptors,” he answered casually, bringing the warm cloth to my skin.

“I understand that,” I muttered. “Your magick…what is it?”

“Many things.”

“You have to tell me some things about you,” I pleaded.

His movements were so gentle as he cleaned the blood from my leg. My breathing occasionally stuttered at the slow strokes when they reached the hem. My hand over his made him pause.

“Why were you trapped down there?” I asked quietly.

His golden gaze flashed up, so vulnerable I didn’t think he’d ever exposed this side of himself. “I stopped being what he wanted me to be.”

“The king?”

He flinched. “Yes.”

Nyte retrieved a needle and thread. My stomach turned at what he was about to do.

“Don’t look,” he said.

My breathing became labored. “It’s hard not to when I know there’s a needle through my skin.”

“I didn’t think you’d be so…weak-stomached.” He held my thigh in both hands, and I panicked, sitting up and bracing my hands on his shoulders.

“Wait.”

He did. Instead of the sensation of the needle, his lips pressed down. My mouth parted, eyes fluttering closed, and I tipped my head back. His hand squeezed, massaging as his lips pressed higher. Both became a maddening distraction I moaned softly at, the space between my legs heating up. I wove Nyte’s midnight locks through my fingers, and he chuckled darkly, reading where my lust-hazed subconscious mind wanted him to reach.

His teeth dragged along my flesh, sharper than I expected, and before my breath of pleasurable surprise could leave my mouth it was replaced by soft lips. Higher, and the material began to bunch around my hips. I became weak to his hands and mouth exploring me.

Then he stopped.

As I straightened, Nyte’s teeth snapped the thread. I stared at my leg in bewilderment. He’d managed to stitch the wound so precisely while distracting me.

“How did you do that?”

“It wasn’t hard to divert your attention. Do you want me to continue?” He wrapped a strip of bandage several times around my thigh, catching my gaze as he tied it tightly. “One word. I wouldn’t just oblige, not when I’ve been thinking of tasting you for so fucking long that the scent of you is straining the last tether to my already pitiful willpower.”

I could admit the sight of him on his knees, so close to the building ache between my thighs, was clouding my mind with powerful need. I’d imagined this too, and it had been nothing compared to the real thing.

“Your bath is ready,” I said, nerves gripping my confidence.

“There are more enticing ways to get my clothes off, Starlight.”

The nickname settled in me with a new tug toward something.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, tipping my chin up to seize my attention.

I wondered what he’d say to it. If he could help me to discover the truth in it. But I didn’t want to lay that burden on him just yet. One night. I wanted one night to bask in the peace I felt at being in this secluded tower with him.

“Tomorrow,” I said. “Can we talk about it tomorrow?”

He smiled—a smile of such genuine happiness it showed something in him I’d never seen before. Nyte rose, reaching behind him to fold himself out of his torn shirt with no warning. I tried to avert my eyes, but it seemed my willpower was just as damned as his.

The sight of his scars would never fail to rile something heartbreaking and vengeful in me, but what consumed me with a foreign rage was seeing the fresh dark bruises peppering his ribs. He masked his pain so well, but when he turned toward the bath…

I stood, my hand covering my mouth.

“They did that to you?”

His back was raw with wounds. Whipping wounds. My body tremored at the sight of it. An anger so pulsing and hot overcame me, and I didn’t know what to do with it. The king had ordered that because of me…or had it been Drystan? He knew I’d found out about his secret, and this confirmed I’d begun to fall for his monster enough to care about the harm he inflicted.

“It’s not the first time,” Nyte said as casually as if he were speaking of verbal discipline. “Not even nearly the worst,” he added, reaching for the buttons of his pants, and only then did I turn away. “There are a few skeletons on my side of the veil from when they couldn’t let go fast enough before I caught the strike and pulled them through.”

I couldn’t tell if he was joking. Fuck, did I want him to be? When part of me relished in but also felt sickened by the grim notion he could talk about killing so easily. Then again, hadn’t I believed I’d killed Hektor? And even now, all that twisted in me was disappointment that I hadn’t.

The gentle splash of water told me he was dipping into the bath. Then, with his hiss from the sting of his raw skin, I imagined him submerged in the milky water beyond sinful distraction.

“You should have let me tend to those,” I said as I turned around.

Nyte waved a lazy hand as if it were nothing, and that splintered something deep in me. His head tipped back contentedly, eyes slipping closed. He propped his arms up on the too-small bathtub and, stars above, his glistening torso was godly. Mapped with scars and gold markings. He was mesmerizing.

“I’ll heal in a few days,” he said. “Maybe a week.”

“How?”

“My fae blood will start coming back around now I’m out of the damn ward. Paired with the small vial I consumed of yours—I only needed it so I’d have enough strength to get you out of there when you came.”

“You’re fae.” It was all I heard, greedily adding pieces of him to the map I was charting.

He slipped one eye open as if to gauge my reaction. “Sort of.”

That made my eager expression drop, and as that eye closed again, a slow curl of amusement grew.

“You need a haircut,” I said flatly.

Nyte didn’t even look, pointing his finger across the room. “There should be some scissors in one of those boxes if it disturbs you so much.”

As it turned out, he could be just as insufferable on this side of the veil.

I wandered over as he dipped his head underwater. I looked in several containers, finding the scissors, but I paused, drawn to an ornate purple box. I unlatched it, and when I lifted the lid musical notes began floating from it. Two dancers spun while the song played, and I watched, mesmerized. The inside of the box was navy-blue, beautiful constellations decorating the fabric, so it was as if the figures were losing themselves to each other in the sky. And the song…

“I’ve heard this before,” I said vacantly. Then I was transported back to the market, back to holding that tiny box while cranking the lever, and these were the same notes—I was sure of it. I looked over my shoulder, momentarily distracted by how devastating Nyte looked with droplets falling off his midnight tresses while his face gleamed with the light of the moon that had replaced the sun.

“You have.”

“Was that…you?”

His jaw worked as if he were debating the answer. “Yes.”

I closed the lid with more force than necessary. “Why?”

All this time he’d been following me, helping me. Soothing my doubts and making sure I never felt truly alone. And I’d accepted it all as a desperate, tragic soul. What I didn’t want to confront was the why. Why he’d chosen me.

“I hoped you would remember it for times I could not reach you.”

It didn’t answer my question; his reply only weighed down on me, pricking my eyes with unexpected tears.

I asked again. “Why?”

“We have one night before the world goes to shit. I’d rather not waste it on the past.”

I was reluctant to let it go so easily, but more so, I shuddered at what he meant by that. Of course the king would be hunting for me. He’d be hunting for Nyte too when he discovered he was missing.

“Come here.”

It was unnerving how easily he could read my emotions. Perhaps my rise of fear was written all over me, but I snapped out of it, finding myself distracted by my racing pulse the moment I stood by the bath’s edge. I got to my knees, close enough that Nyte could reach out a hand and slip a finger through my hair, watching the silver curl of it.

“Much better,” he purred. “You could join me.”

“You hardly fit in there yourself.”

“Is that all that’s stopping you? I’m certain we could make it work.”

“Just…let me cut your hair.” I could hardly handle the giddy thrill taking over me. The thought of our wet skin against each other’s with no barriers was too tempting. Too damn tempting. Before he could read that too, I shuffled behind him.

Dark locks fell away as I cut, and soon I became lost to the silky feel of his hair. My fingers combed through it, and I delighted in the low noises he occasionally gave off that tightened my skin.

“Your hands… Fuck, you don’t even know.”

I slipped them through tighter, adding pressure, and the vibration it drew from him… My eyes fluttered. Stars, I was losing every sense of myself to his reactions.

“Tell me,” I whispered close to his ear. Feeling bold, past the point of being coy, I slipped one hand down his neck, tracing the raised imperfections along the way, until I could feel the beat of his heart under my palm. Hard and fast. Not enough.

I wanted him undone for me.

“I’ve had fantasies about these hands,” he said, taking mine. He guided me up and around to his side without turning. “You don’t want to know all the depraved things I’ve fantasized about you.”

My heart lurched. “Maybe I do.”

This version of me wasn’t someone new; it was someone found.

By him.

Nyte leaned forward, planting firm hands to my waist and soaking my nightgown. I gasped. He paused, waiting for me to object, but I didn’t.

“I’m not wearing any underwear,” I whispered.

“I hoped not,” he replied in a low gravel tone that was utterly sinful.

Sparks shot through me as his lustful gaze trailed over my body. Bracing on his shoulders, I eased myself into the water.

I hadn’t been wrong to think the bathtub was too small, but he didn’t seem to plan for space between us, and I didn’t think I wanted it either. My pulse was in my ears as the warm water lapped at my thighs, my ass, drenching the nightgown I still hadn’t removed. I swallowed, licking my dry lips, which made a sparkle of hunger flash in his eyes like he was waiting to devour me.

I sank down, inch by inch, until I was hovering just shy of letting my apex press against him. My brow pinched, and I felt over his chest, combing my fingers through the new shortened lengths, now similar to how he’d always appeared to me when our minds were entangled.

This was so real.

With the last acknowledgment, not wanting to revert to how he’d been so close but so far before, I pressed myself to him fully, letting out a soft noise at the hard length of him I was thrilled to finally meet.

“Do you feel what you do to me?” he mumbled huskily, leaning forward until our chests were flush. He took a deep, devouring inhale from the crook of my neck.

“If you’re not a vampire, why do I get the impression you want to bite me?” I breathed. It rushed through me, and I’d seen the sharp points disturb his smile before.

“I do,” he purred, pressing his lips to my throat. Then teeth. Pinching enough to make me fist my fingers in his hair with a gasp that turned into a moan. “It’s one thing of yours I would kill to taste again.”

My hips moved near subconsciously, lapping the water, and his hold slipped to my ass tightly.

“Would it heal you faster?”

His breath grew staggered across my neck, and I knew his response. “Yes. But I won’t take it for that.”

“I want you to.”

“You’re driven by lust right now.”

“I think that’s part of the point.”

I could feel his smile against my throat, and I needed it then. So badly I was close to abandoning all shame and begging for it. I couldn’t do that. No—that felt like he would win when I wanted him to beg.

“Suit yourself,” I said, lifting but only getting fraction of space between us before he pulled me back, nearly spilling the water over the edge.

“Don’t do that,” he said darkly.

“Do what?”

“Be a damn tease.”

It was my turn to smile.

Nyte tucked a strand of silver behind my ear, irises of honey delighting in the game. I drew a shallow gasp at the water flowing over my shoulder right before he dragged a soft, lathered cloth along my collarbone. His fingers lingered on my bruised neck, his chest rising and falling with calculation under my palm.

“I’m okay,” I hushed out.

I became transfixed watching every flicker of his reaction as he mapped my body, soaking the nightgown so completely I might as well have taken it off, but this moment was too precious to disturb.

He washed the dirt from my skin and kissed the blue and purple peppering my knuckles. Then I stopped him, taking the cloth and adding more honey-scented soap. Nyte sighed contentedly, eyes fluttering, when I began doing the same to him, marveling at every imperfection and gold marking, wanting to discover the language of him I thought would be sacred to us.

“Astraea, you made your mark on me long ago and I vowed never to remove it. Even if it became my greatest punishment to carry.”

Something about his declaration flashed past to present.

Past to present.

Past to present.

I didn’t know what it meant, only that this felt right. Nyte was what I wanted, and whatever was shadowing his face with doubt I needed to erase.

I kissed him hard. Needy and wanting. He gave it all back and more. The water sloshed with my movements and how he aided my slide against his cock. Nyte gripped my ass, then my nape, tearing his mouth from mine with a groan of satisfaction, and my neck inclined as if on instinct.

“Are you sure?” he said, voice strained and unrecognizable at my throat.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

Gods, I was so close to climaxing at the thought alone, so primal and dangerous I craved it as if I were the one who was starved.

“Just remember you’re in control. The moment you want me to stop, I will.”

I nodded, still chasing my pleasure against him.

“Words, Starlight.”

“Yes.”

“You are in control.”

“I am in control. I want this.”

He pressed one final kiss to me, and I braced with a held breath.

Then his bite eased into my skin.

My eyes snapped open as the two lines of pain made me seize like an electric current from my neck down my arm, locking me still. It only lasted seconds before it faded away, turning to something possessive. A fire that didn’t just burn; it consumed.

Nyte drank from me, his teeth inside me reminding me of the ache of emptiness I felt below. I rocked against him harder, now frustrated with the challenge of water, but the heat and our slicked skin was so sensual I didn’t want to leave.

His groan while still buried in my neck made me whimper for the end I was just shy of reaching. Nyte’s hand fisted tightly into my soaked nightgown, strong arms crushing us together, and I held him back, never wanting to disentangle myself from the safety he shielded me with or the warmth of him that carried me.

“Nyte.” I sighed his name, so deliriously high.

His teeth sliding out of my neck made me shudder violently, breaking me out of an otherworldly trance. I wanted to do it again already.

“Fuck,” he panted. His tongue lapped my neck and a burst of trembles shot through my every nerve with the sensitivity. “Are you all right?”

I held his face, in a state of rapture as I nodded. “Far more than all right.”

His irises were alive again, near glowing, and something thrilled me within at seeing the effects of my blood. Trailing fingers over his neck, I noticed the raw marks were gone. The relief I felt was immeasurable, but it didn’t erase the memory of it that gripped me with a vengeance.

Nyte kissed my jaw. “You are so brave. So magnificent. But I hope this isn’t end of your desires tonight.”

I shook my head. It wasn’t even close to enough. I needed so much more from him I couldn’t even form a sentence with the scattered words in my mind.

“May I…?” Nyte’s fingers lingered on the hem of the nightgown clinging to my skin.

My chest ached at his tenderness, not used to this kind of attention. It flooded me suddenly, and once again all I could give was a silent nod.

I raised my arms as he peeled the material away, but he locked eyes with me even when I was finally naked before him. He shook his head, scanning every inch of my face, and my gut twisted at the anger and disappointment locking his jaw. My barriers rose until Nyte moved so abruptly I yelped, clinging to his neck, my legs clamped around his waist as he stood from the water.

Nyte carried me to the bed, and my heart slammed. It felt as if my skin were the only thing stopping it from breaking free.

“I was going to list all the things you deserve, but fuck that—it’s not good enough. So here are my promises instead.” The black silk bedsheets clung to our skin, but all I could focus on was the fiery passion in his eyes. “I’m going to kill him. I will never say his name because I plan to wipe it from existence on this realm so you may never hear it again.” His cock slid against me, and his hand hooked my thigh around him to bring us closer. “I’m going to right everything he wronged. Give you everything he denied you. Worship every inch of the goddess you are, starting right now. Do you believe that?”

My brow pinched with every press of the tip of his cock against my apex. “I believe you.”

“Good. Now I’m going fuck you, if that’s what you want. This night won’t end with once or twice if you tell me yes. There won’t be enough time to fulfill every promise I make to pleasure you either. But this night is yours. I am yours.”

“I want this,” I said. “I want you.”

Nyte had been a pain in my ass but a longing I’d always reached for. Even the night I’d stumbled into the dance room and discovered him there I’d wanted him.

He wasn’t just a lustful craving. Never had that been all I wanted, but I couldn’t place what it was. Something our language didn’t know, that didn’t begin and end with our time. And I wanted to take it slow to figure it out so I wouldn’t miss a thing of what was unraveling between us.

“Just know this ends any second you say. You are in control.” His lips on my jaw scattered everything, and I arched into him. “Say it.”

“I am in control.”

His tongue trailed over the bite mark he’d made, and my legs tightened around him. My whole body surged with a current of pleasure, and he smiled, heading lower.

“Your blood is incredible. But I’ve dreamed far more of tasting you in other places.”

Teeth nipped over my peaked breast, and I inhaled sharply. My fingers tugged his hair when he sucked instead. Every lap of his tongue and placement of his lips was so precise, leaving nothing of me untouched. Nyte trailed torturous kisses over my ribs, down my navel. Realizing where he was headed, my eyes opened, but my head tipped back. My blood was roaring. I’d never had someone—

My hands grappled the sheets tightly as his tongue slid slowly through my folds. He gave a groan of pure gratification that vibrated over my core, and I was in a state of utter pleasure. He licked again and again, so slow my teeth dragged over my lower lip, wanting to beg for more. I didn’t know what to ask for, only that this was bliss and torture combined.

“Watch me as I pleasure you,” he purred.

Stars above.

I wasn’t prepared. Nothing could have braced me for the surge of dominance I felt witnessing Nyte on his knees off the bed, hands curled around my thighs as he gave a dark smile of satisfaction between my legs. He locked my stare, planting a kiss to my inner thigh as he said, “Good girl.”

Then he devoured.

I didn’t know what I expected, but Nyte knew how to unravel me. He touched and licked and sucked so meticulously every movement raced me toward a high edge.

“Are you going to come for me, Starlight?” The rumble of his voice over my apex accelerated my sprint. My hand unfurled from the sheets to slip into his hair, my hips rocking against his mouth, and he chuckled with satisfaction. “You feel like you are. You taste…fucking incredible.”

I couldn’t watch anymore, throwing my head back at the finger he slipped into me. My body curved, and I moaned when he added a second. He worked them with a slow hook, building speed, until I teetered on the edge of something so euphoric.

“That’s it,” he praised, and those final vibrations threw me over.

I cried out with the climax that shattered me. He kept devouring, and I was helpless against the grip of his hands digging into the flesh of my thighs. I hoped it would mark. I wanted him imprinted on every part of me.

This experience would never compare to anything I’d done before with Hektor. Nyte was taking every memory of him and setting it ablaze so I would never think of it again.

Only this.

Only Nyte.

“The sounds you make, Astraea—” He climbed back up my body, and when he was close enough I couldn’t stop myself. His lips glistened with me, and I claimed them. A low growl emitted from his throat as his tongue swept across mine. “I’m going to be hearing those noises on repeat on my damn death bed.”

“That was—”

“Only the beginning.”

My chest rose and fell deeply, and though my body still tingled warm with the aftermath of his wicked assault, I was thrilled with those words.

“How shall I take you?” he murmured. “Here? The wall? Braced against the open arch so the whole city can watch me fuck you?”

I’m in control. What awoke in me was a dominating need to feel that.

When I planted my hand on his chest, Nyte pulled back immediately. Those molten eyes blazed over me, waiting. I pushed him and he answered, lying on his back, and my leg hooked over him. He ran his hands up my thighs, a curl of delight forming on his mouth.

“Like this,” I said breathily. “For now.”

His eyes closed as if that aroused him. Only then did I finally look between us, and for a second I balked at the size of him. My mouth watered unexpectedly with a rush of want to taste him too.

“Another time,” he said, reading my thoughts. His strained voice accompanied the squeeze of his hands. “Because right now I need to be buried so far inside of you it’s driving me wild.”

My breath shuddered on an exhale as I reached for him. At the first feel of my fingers curling around his cock, barely meeting, I couldn’t help but work him slowly.

“Fuck…those hands,” he groaned, hips jerking into my play, and I relished in the power I felt, owning his pleasure.

Then I positioned him at my entrance, brow pinching as the tip prodded my body with a demand to take him whole. But he was more than what I was used to, so I had to go slow, sliding down another inch. Back out. Another inch. My breathing hardened as the tightness grew. A faint pain with a stretch under the waves of pleasure as he filled me.

“You’re perfect for me, Starlight. So fucking perfect the gods reject it out of spite.”

I needed nothing more. I couldn’t wait any longer as I braced my hands on his chest and sank my hips down to take him fully. My cry mixed with his growl, and we stilled for a few seconds. At least I did, to remember my own damn name, when this completeness consumed me far deeper than lust. I became entangled with him, wrapped in his essence. I didn’t want to ever be a separate soul again.

This felt like the calm before a battle with so much bottled up inside of me straining to be released. Raw and furious, because Nyte would wage this war with me.

I began rocking my hips slowly, powerfully. His cock left my body right to the tip, only for me to take him all the way back in with one quick thrust. I kissed him as I picked up pace. His hands aided my movements, roaming along my spine, my hips, my ass.

“You are so—fuck.” I slammed down on him hard.

I began to feel a caress over my navel, snaking around my back like new hands pleasuring me, though his didn’t move from my hips.

“You once asked if I command the shadows,” he said thickly.

That tingling, featherlight caress trailed over my breast before building in pressure. I moaned as so many sensations exploded over my skin, his shadows like feathers falling around me. Then those hands of shadow massaged, teasing my nipples while I rode Nyte with his aid. My nails dug into his chest, and now I’d had my fun I needed him to take over with something more demanding.

Nyte read what I wanted. He sat up, still seated inside of me. “My turn,” he whispered against the base of my throat. “As much as having you fuck me is like witnessing a goddess in power, I’m going to take you my way now.”

“Please,” was all I could muster.

“Your plea is music to my ears, but unnecessary.” He lifted us from the bed, and I suppressed my moan with every step that became a gentle thrust, unable to focus on where he went. “I’ve had a particular fantasy, if you will indulge me.”

A flutter erupted in my stomach.

He took us over to a wall before slowly setting me down. I sighed at the cool breeze between my legs as he slipped from me. Nyte met my eye as though asking for permission. I nodded, anticipation building for what it could be.

“Once upon a time, a woman stumbled into a room.” His hand curled under my knee, lifting. “She didn’t just dance. She moved as the most exquisite thing to have ever lived.” His hand flattened against my calf, and I held his neck tightly for balance, realizing what he was doing as he tested my flexibility with care. “And there was a male…who fell completely at her mercy that night. Who would have trekked through the fiery depths of hell to see her bend like that again.” My ankle rested against his shoulder. He stepped closer, and while the stretch burned slightly, I knew it would pass and this position would be worth it.

“Is that why you’ve followed me since?” I teased.

The tip of his cock pressed into me, and I whimpered. “I followed you…because I can’t stop.”

Nyte slammed into me with one powerful thrust that strained my toes on the ground, and I cried out. He gave a few long, slow strokes that shot sparks of pleasure through me. Then he kissed me once and let go.

He pistoned in and out of me, and I couldn’t be sure what sounds came from him or myself. Each rut of his hips driving into me over and over scattered everything I knew about myself. What built was wild and desperate, like centuries of war waging against us at once. He slipped my ankle from his shoulder, hooking it around his waist as he lifted the other.

I didn’t realize he’d moved us until I was set upon something solid. My arms slipped from his neck to plant themselves on the dresser behind me, rattling everything upon it and sending some things tumbling off when he didn’t stop his merciless thrusting. Nyte’s expression was pinched with desire and fury, watching where he fucked me hard. His thumb brushed over my apex, and I threw back my head.

“I need you to come for me now,” he rasped.

I was so damn close, and his words were as sinful as his touch.

“Look how beautiful you look wrapped around my cock.”

Stars, I was undone. Completely and utterly his.

“You’re squeezing the fucking life out of me.”

The cliff he pushed me toward was higher than the last. Impossibly higher, and I feared and braced for the intensity of the fall, knowing it would tumble through me. My body tensed, and my climax this time shook the stars of my world.

“Good girl. Fuck, Astraea—” He called my name with a tight grip as he released himself.

I continued to soar. Nyte’s arm hooked around my back when I couldn’t hold myself up anymore. I was flying, only to tumble back down and remember where I was. Who I was. Pieces of me snapped back one by one, reforged with the essence of him.

Our skin was slick against each other, heated and glorious.

“Of all the times I imagined this, none of it comes close to what you have done to me,” he panted.

He lifted me off the dresser. I was still catching my breath when my back met soft sheets. Lying down brought on a sweep of tiredness, but I wanted to fight it.

“Can you promise me something?” he whispered, planting tender kisses over my collar while pulling a blanket over my cooling skin.

“Yes.”

“It was all real, Starlight. Everything we’ve been through. Everything I feel for you is real. When the dawn comes, please remember that.”

“What happens at dawn?”

Nyte lay beside me, and it was an effortless, near subconscious movement to tuck myself in close.

“We face who we are.”

I inclined my head to look at him, and I reached my fingers up to brush the lock nearly touching his eye. “We have to kill the king,” I said.

I couldn’t stop now—not when Nyte had said he could help me and this was what Cassia had wanted to achieve. But selfishly, I wanted nothing more than for Nyte to take us somewhere far.

He took my hand, planting a kiss in my palm. “There are a few more on my list,” he murmured, eyes flashing to my cheek, then my arm, then down to my covered body. “But yes.”

“I killed this one,” I said quietly, touching my cheek. “I struck another too, though I don’t know if he’s dead.”

I didn’t know what to think of how fast I’d acted. How it had been so easy that recalling the moment felt like stepping into another person’s body. Discovering these things I was capable of…

“Good,” Nyte mumbled, lips pressing to my shoulder as I lay on my stomach. “He met a faster end than he would have had from me.” His touch traced between my shoulder blades, adding pressure down either side, and I turned my face into the sheets to suppress my moan.

He stopped.

I flicked a glance up at him.

“Don’t deny me your reactions. It’s absolutely wicked.”

I smiled, so content and genuine it stopped all teasing from him. Nyte mapped my face, running a hand up my back as if to be sure I was there.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, wanting to smooth out the furrow of his brow.

He shook his head. “It’s how right things feel that is most frighting.”

His words inspired trepidation. Invited in a trickle of the cruel outside world I wasn’t yet ready to face.

I hooked my leg over his waist, coaxing him to lie down fully. Desire sparked anew in his amber irises, and beneath me I was thrilled to feel him wanting again.

“What did you say about overlooking the city?”