The Stars are Dying : (Nytefall: Book 1)

“It pains me deeply to say this,” Nyte mumbled against my bare shoulder, “but you have to get dressed.”

I stood watching the sunrise wrapped in nothing but a black bedsheet. Turning, I found him impeccably clothed. His black jacket was embroidered with gold, and his pants were crisp and tucked into expensive knee-high boots.

My eyes fell to the bed, where he’d laid out a beautiful purple gown. I was in too great a mood to wonder who it belonged to.

We’d only slept for a couple of hours, but it was all I’d needed. Nyte had taken me again and again, fulfilling his other desire as the city turned to starlight and he took me overlooking the empire. Moments from last night kept replaying in my mind, and I cursed the rise of the sun and how the orange glow split the horizon with reality.

I dressed, expecting the gown not to fit in places, but it hugged me perfectly. I stood and looked in the tall mirror, reaching for the corset ribbons, but Nyte crept up and brushed his fingers over mine as he took over. With the first tug I arched into him, tipping my head against his chest.

“Can you promise me something?” I asked.

His lips pressed to my temple, and we met eyes in the mirror. He continued to fasten my dress without looking.

“Anything.”

“No more secrets. You can’t scare me away now. And I’m afraid…you won’t see me the same after mine when I’m not even sure I see me the same.”

His lips thinned, contemplative. “I suppose you mean we have a lot to talk about.”

I nodded, and when he finished his tie, his large hands on my waist twisted me around.

“You are the same. Now and always,” he said. His palm cupped my nape, and he kissed my forehead. “I’m so sorry, Astraea. I didn’t mean for it to turn out this way.”

The change in his tone threatened to crack the globe we’d crafted around ourselves.

“Sorry for what?”

Nyte pulled back, and I watched his face as he seemed to travel elsewhere. His jaw twitched, anger flashed his irises a dark amber, and I tried to search for the cause.

Footsteps sounded, growing louder, and only then did Nyte turn toward the opening of the room. No doors. He used his body as a shield against whatever was coming, but he didn’t transport us away.

A single person, I thought, from the pattern of steps.

But I never could have imagined the person who walked into our safe space…

“Drystan,” I whispered incredulously.

Though he’d planned to use me, I couldn’t deny the lift of relief he wasn’t dead from being struck by the power of the key. It had retracted to a smaller version of itself, which I reached behind me to take from the dresser.

“You’re bold to seek me out,” Nyte said with a threat I’d never heard before.

The prince didn’t even appear wary, but as a bystander a chill crept over my skin. His caramel eyes slid to me, scanning me from head to toe as though he’d arrived as my savior.

“Astraea, come with me,” he said.

“Quit the act,” Nyte snarled.

“He’s going to use you. Trust me, I can help you.”

“You have to be insane to think I’d go with you,” I said. I didn’t know the full extent of his capabilities, and I feared Nyte was still too weak to stand against him.

“You should leave,” I warned, feeling my palm heat slowly, but I didn’t want to attack him.

A muscle in the prince’s jaw flexed. “After all you’ve seen, you would really choose him?”

“You used me.” It hurt. I didn’t know why I’d allowed myself to care enough to believe there was good in him.

“Did I? I pushed you, and look at what you gained from it. I knew you could do it—find your key.”

His word choice rang through me.

My key.

“I didn’t need you for that.”

Nyte remained deadly still. I’d known there was animosity between them before. No—that was too tame a word for what locked Nyte so still as he pinned the prince with a calculating glare, primed to strike in a heartbeat.

“He will always hurt you,” Drystan said.

“I’m giving you this one chance to get the fuck out of here,” Nyte said, his voice so low I shivered.

“You didn’t scare me chained, and neither do you now, brother.”

Time paused. My mind scrambled to rewind, replaying the jarring word I couldn’t possibly have heard right.

Brother.

I blinked as though I could still be asleep in Nyte’s arms.

Brother.

Brother.

Brother.

It couldn’t be unspoken. As Drystan’s gaze slipped to me, it was as if he were mourning the death of someone before it had arrived. It had always been right there, and now it couldn’t be unseen. Some of the angles of Drystan’s jaw; the shape of his eyes. It made the idea of them being kin so undeniable I couldn’t believe I’d missed it.

“You didn’t tell her,” he concluded, likely reading how stunned I was as I stepped away from Nyte’s back. “Did you tell her anything before you decided to fuck her?”

Nyte crossed the space so fast my fright knocked me into the dresser. Drystan let out a groan as he was pinned roughly to the wall. “She has nothing to do with this.”

Drystan dared to laugh, and I winced as Nyte drew back his arm and connected his fist with the prince’s face.

“Stop!” I cried. Maybe it wasn’t my place to intervene, but this violence between them I couldn’t stand by and watch. Most of all, I couldn’t comprehend such hostility between brothers.

Drystan wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth as he straightened. His eyes of hatred and pity met mine. “You are everything to do with this.”

Nyte clamped a hand around Drystan’s throat, and it was chilling to witness how effortlessly he could overpower him. A blood vampire. Nightsdeath. With a reputation to instill fear in entire nations. The prince should have had the strength to push him off.

“What did you hope to achieve by coming here alone? Except your death,” Nyte taunted.

“You won’t kill me.”

Nyte squeezed. Drystan choked, and I stepped forward, floundering with what to say that would get Nyte to think about what he was doing.

“He could have told the king where we are!” I tried. “We should go.”

But Nyte wasn’t the male I thought I knew anymore. He was someone unforgiving, and now he was perhaps giving in to the vengeance he’d spent a century building.

“My first drop of honesty for you, Starlight. He is only my half-brother.”

That blazed something in the prince, who tried to attack. He barely got to move before Nyte hit him again, forcing him to his knees, and he gasped.

“Please stop,” I whispered.

It was as if I no longer existed while this dormant battle was reforged between the brothers.

“He killed my mother,” Drystan rasped.

Nyte kneeled, grabbing Drystan by the collar.

My mother. It confirmed what I feared. Shifted the world.

The king was Nyte’s father.

The thought was dizzying. I wanted to escape, but they were blocking the only exit. Except for the open archways for windows that led a very, very long way down.

“Did he even tell you what you are?”

Nyte’s fist connected with Drystan’s jaw again, his fury rising with every test.

Drystan didn’t stop. “Did he even tell you what he is?”

“I know what you are,” I blurted, my pulse thrumming in my ears as I confronted it.

Drystan had the audacity to look confused.

“You were there that night, right before Hektor found me.”

The slight widening of his eyes was all the confirmation I needed.

I shuddered to say, “You’re Nightsdeath.”

That fell all shock from his face. His mouth began to pull upward in amusement, and he got in one single laugh before Nyte grabbed his jacket to haul him back up. He was so furious shadows leaked through the room, circling and priming.

“I see your power is coming back,” Drystan mused. As though he had no regard for his life when Nyte was so dangerously sharp right now.

“You were there?” Nyte seethed.

“Yes.”

One word, and it was enough to snap something in Nyte.

He reached behind himself, and I was frantic, unsure of what to watch as it all happened so fast. The shadows answered him, swirling like a starlit void. Familiar. When he pulled back, I swayed at the dagger he now held.

My stormstone dagger.

“Are you going to tell her, or shall I?” Drystan taunted.

Nyte aimed the blade for the prince’s chest, and it didn’t look like he would hesitate to drive it through—

“Nyte!” I called his name, the cold air breezing behind me as I stepped up onto the ledge.

That seized his attention.

I was still trying to process what I’d seen, because I was sure I’d done that before. Been so desperate for my weapon that I’d somehow conjured it.

“What are you doing?”

Nyte’s voice snapped me out of my memory. He advanced for me, but I shuffled back, my heels close to slipping off the edge. He paused. Rage fell to deep concern as he watched my feet and read my expression.

“Astraea, come down. Please.”

“What is he talking about?”

“I’ll explain everything, just—” His jaw locked when he tried to reach for me again and I moved a fraction. Behind him, Drystan chuckled breathily, getting back to his feet.

I watched war wage across Nyte’s face.

“I’m seconds from turning around and killing him.”

My heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t even the prince’s life I cared for most; it was the thought of the regret that would forever plague Nyte if he killed his brother. I didn’t know their history, but something in the way Nyte had winced—if only barley-there—when he hit Drystan… What was pouring out of him now was a century of being wronged, and it was volatile to everyone in his path.

So I took his hand. Watched his face relax and his shoulders loosen when he was able to slip an arm around my waist as if I might change my mind in a split second.

“You’re making a mistake, Astraea.”

I wished I could expel the pang of sympathy I felt at meeting the prince’s final look before shadows stole us away.

Nyte placed his hand on my waist, and I followed his line of sight to watch him slide my stormstone dagger into a belt on the dress I hadn’t noticed before. I didn’t have the mind nor the minutes to ask how he’d retrieved it.

“Use it. Even on me if you ever feel the need. The key is volatile even to you right now.” His hand cupped my cheek, a thousand words swirling in his irises, but time was slipping away too fast. “You are safe.”

I met Nyte’s golden gaze and couldn’t be sure why I felt the urgency to kiss him one last time. Like this had all been pretend and our globe was about to shatter.

When everything stilled we pulled apart. I dared to glance at where he’d taken us, but it wasn’t close to anywhere I might have expected. I’d hoped he’d take us far, somewhere we could pretend a little longer.

Not here.

A grand hall with pillars lining each side. Iridescent black marble floors and a red carpeted center leading all the way up long stairs to…

Nyte had taken us to the throne room.

“Why are we here?” I asked, my words filled with foreboding.

Guards began to flood the room, but they faltered when they took in the sight of us.

Nyte took my chin, almost like he wanted to say something else, but our time was up. Coolness wrapped around me as he stepped away, and I watched his face, his poise, seeing how the room darkened with his demeanor as it slipped into something of nightmares—stripped of any warmth, and least of all…mercy.

Nyte turned, scanning the guards with purposeful threat, daring them to challenge him.

They didn’t. The guards balked. Seeing their reaction inspired the same fear in me, but I couldn’t be certain of what it was for.

Until one of them spoke. One word.

A name.

One that shook dormant stars and announced to the world nothing was safe now.

“Nightsdeath.”