Page 27

Chapter 26

A Handy Use for Shadows

“Alula…” Nier rasped my name, his usual melodious tones coming out low and dark—like a threat or a promise, I couldn’t quite tell.

We were back in the same spot we’d been last night, as if he was loath to take another step farther into the room.

“Nier, I—”

Not knowing how to ask for what I wanted, I groaned in frustration. Being so close to him after not touching him all day was making not just my light, but my body, strain for him.

“I know. I can feel your light calling to me; like moonlight pulls at the tides,” he growled, his voice coming out sounding strangled. “My shadows strain for you too. I’m having trouble holding them back. Whatever this forbidden pull is between us, it doesn’t make sense in either of our worlds.”

As inexplicable as it was, there was no denying our connection. Yet, every lie I uncovered and each fresh atrocity it revealed proved my elders no longer deserved my respect or allegiance, so I no longer cared about their rules or their codex. “I know this doesn’t work—you can’t stay, and I can’t leave—but the only thing that feels right in this world anymore is when you or your shadows reach for me.”

He hauled me up into his arms before I’d even finished speaking, pulling me into him and curling himself around me as I wrapped my arms and legs around him. He rubbed his cheek against my hair, before resting his forehead against mine as we breathed in the same air. It felt more intimate than anything I’d done with Haniel.

“You and your light feel right to me too, when little else has for the longest time,” he whispered, as if wary of putting those words out into the wider world, “which is why I told you the first night we met that you were dangerous. Being reckless right now could get us both killed.”

Every molecule of space between us felt charged with a pulse that grew in demand the more he tried to resist it, whipping up my light into a frenzy that threatened to capsize me. “I don’t know what our future holds, or even what tomorrow may bring. Every time you disappear it feels like the last time I’ll see you, and my heart fears we may never get another moment like this.”

He groaned again, his breath fanning across my cheek. “I’m so close to the edge after seeing you standing before that light forsaken door,” he whispered hoarsely. His breath feathered over my ear, but his lips never made contact, making me ache even more. I angled my head, chasing his kiss, but he inched away, keeping it tantalizingly out of reach. “If I kiss you right now, I’m not sure we’ll stop, and we can’t get carried away like that. Not here. Not when every light-damned male in this citadel wants to either kill you or possess you.”

“Even so, I don’t want to die never having kissed you…” It was an irrational, reckless desire driven by my surging emotions—but still, a raw truth I could no longer deny.

“Don’t talk about dying.” His tone turned sharp, a blade looking for something to slice. His grip tightened on me with a possessiveness that had scalding heat burning everywhere our bodies touched. As if the idea snapped a tie he’d used to hold himself back, his lips connected with my cheek—burning a line of hot kisses down to the corner of my mouth—before he yanked his head back. Breathing heavily with his eyes closed, as if that could block me out, his entire body shook with the willpower he was using to leash himself.

“Don’t stop there,” I whimpered. “Not tonight. I need you. Your touch is the only thing anchoring me amongst all this madness. Without it, I feel like I’m going to shatter, and I’ll never find all the pieces of me again.”

“Light blast it. We can’t do this here, where anyone can fly through the damn window.” His heart beat hard and fast against mine as he turned dizzyingly fast and shadow walked us to my bedroom, too far gone to walk. I didn’t ask how he knew which one was mine. I barely blinked before he’d kicked the door to my room shut and shadows spilled thickly into the air around us, blocking out the narrow windows and the door with inky darkness. “Alula…” The way he said my name with a lilting reverence had me melting even as we toppled down and his hard body pushed me into the soft mattress.

His head lowered and I forgot to breathe as his lips finally grazed over mine with the softest caresses—but he was still holding back and it was destroying me, as need clawed at me.

“More, please. I need more,” I whispered against his lips, chasing them as he fought to keep the contact light and innocent.

“Never beg. Not me, not anyone, Alula,” he breathed. “I want to hear you demand what is yours, with that fire in your eyes you try to hide. The fire I covet.”

His eyes roamed over my features, noting every breath, every flicker of my eyelashes, with an intensity that made everything beyond him and his shadows disappear.

When his heated stare found its way back to mine, I let everything I felt rise to the surface. “Then stop pulling away and show me that you’re mine, at least for tonight.”

His smile was dark, as he chased his words across my lips again. “What if I want to savor this moment, so I remember every detail, every breath you take.”

Tightening my arms around his neck, I gripped his messy curls tightly in my fist. He let me trap him in place, both of us knowing he could easily escape if he chose. “Savor me later. Right now—I want to burn.”

In this moment, the only one we might ever get, I needed him to give me everything. I needed him with me, in every way. To banish the horrors of the world, if only for tonight.

“As you wish,” he muttered, before he grasped my face and took my lips in a bruising kiss that ignited my light into an inferno. It flashed behind my eyes as they fell closed, and raged through me, desperate for an outlet, a release. It found one in him.

Twisting ourselves around each other we became frenzied—he was everywhere all at once—and not just with his hands. Wisps of shadow wrapped around my ankles, winding their way up to my thighs in a warm, fervent caress, just as the lone one at my breast curved upward, teasing me with soft strokes.

“Oh,” I gasped. My eyes flew open, and my gaze darted up to connect with his as I writhed, breathless, underneath him. A knowing smile bloomed on his face that was intensely male.

“Tell me this is okay, Alula.” The heated tone of his voice and the feel of his breath on my cheek distracted me from the seriousness of his words, but I heard them all the same.

“It’s more than okay.” My body had never before craved a touch as much as it craved his right now. Yet the feel of both him and his shadows touching me so intimately brought out something wild within me. A part of me I never knew existed. “Darkness damn you, Nier. Stop tormenting me and take me.”

“I’m already damned,” he swore, sounding pained, as his shadow slid further and stroked directly over my hardened nipple—making me gasp. “You’re so sweet and innocent, yet you carry a piece of me around with you all day, pressed against your skin, and I feel you constantly, even when I’m not touching you.”

He bent his head toward the breast his shadow was tormenting and sucked my peaked nipple lightly through the soft silk of my dress. The heat of his mouth and the tiny bite of pain as he bit lightly had my back arching into him again. Taking advantage of the moment, he tugged the shoulder of my dress free and exposed my breast. He flicked his shadow away, before running the damp heat of his tongue over my skin—following the same path up from the underside of my breast as his shadow had taken moments ago.

A violent tremor rocked my body, and a trail of shimmers followed his touch, rising from my skin to tangle in his hair and illume our cocoon of shadows. They swirled closer in response, becoming denser as darkness thickened around us protectively.

“I can’t keep it contained,” I whimpered. “I feel as if I’m coming apart.”

He stared at the floating shimmers as he teased his fingers through them, making them swirl as if caught by a breeze. “They’re beautiful. Let them out, Alula. If you come apart, I’ll put you back together again.”

He raised his head and possessed me with a bruising kiss, conveying more than his words, sealing a promise onto my skin with his lips. As the brutality of the kiss gentled into a series of tiny kisses along my neck, he shifted onto one arm and ran a hand up one of my bare legs pushing the fabric of my dress up as he went, more shimmers trailing in his wake.

An insistent tug from his shadows still twined around my thighs had my legs dropping from around him and falling to the bed either side of him, just as his hand disappeared beneath the bunched folds of my dress.

When his fingers reached the apex of my thighs and he gave a languid stroke through the naked, wet heat of me, my entire body shook as I moaned. His answering groan was desperate.

“Have you been walking around the citadel all evening with nothing on underneath this dress?”

A shaky nod was all I could manage, unable to form any other coherent response. I’d simply pulled on my gown after my bath, too distracted by everything Adrita had been telling me.

He licked his lips, and the hungry, molten heat in his eyes turned ravenous. “Can I see you—all of you?”

He was no longer holding back. He was as here for this as I was.

At my nod, he tugged at my dress but struggled to slip it off quickly enough, seeming impatient now. “How attached are you to this dress?”

“I have no intention of ever wearing it again.” I wanted it to be gone. Now.

Rising to his knees, he slipped a black knife free from the sheath on his thigh. He sliced through the dress like he was parting water. I gasped as the chill of the metal ran along my heated skin, and he reduced my dress to a pile of silken pink shreds—without leaving a mark on me.

I made no move to cover myself as he sat back on his heels and took me in. Every naked inch of me spread wide for him. I was completely exposed to a male for the first time, but I’d never felt more cherished. His breathing became ragged as he ran his eyes all over me.

“So beautiful,” he whispered, trailing a hand along my thigh again and watching as sparks rose from my heated, flushed skin. He wasn’t looking only at the color of my hair, or my wings. He was looking at all of me, seeing all of me.

“Your turn,” I said, my voice coming out slightly choked as I swallowed hard.

He kept his eyes on me as he reached up and began stripping sheathed weapons from his body, dropping them to the bed carelessly before he began to unbutton his shirt. Revealing parts of himself slowly and purposefully in long drawn-out movements, until he was naked before me, kneeling between my thighs—as completely exposed as I was to him. For someone so adept at hiding everything about himself, even his face, it was a rare gift I would treasure.

His golden skin gleamed with a light slick of sweat, and his black wings flared slightly, stirring the shimmers lingering in the air. His body was sculpted like a statue of a warrior. The broad shoulders, and the harsh dips and falls of his muscles were carved to perfection. Only he wasn’t made of stone. The muscles of his chest and stomach flexed with each heavy breath, while shadows teased over his body and the thick, hard length of his cock jutted proudly from between his thighs. He was all male, and he was magnificent.

A sudden shyness stole over me as I sat up to pluck a stray shimmer caught in his unruly curls, releasing it back into the air. “Can I touch you?”

He clenched his jaw as he nodded. I traced my fingers lightly over the scar on his neck, before laying a kiss on it hoping one day he’d tell me the story behind it. One I was sure was as brutal as the mark it had left behind. Then, following the curves of his body, I traced a path lightly over his chest and down over his stomach. He trembled as his breathing spiked harder, becoming loud in the hush of our cocoon.

Our earlier frenzy had deepened into something more as we stared at each other, completely bared. This was no quick release of built-up desire, or fumbled exploration in a stolen moment. This moment had its own gravity, trapping us in each other’s orbit.

He grabbed my hand, halting my exploration before it reached its destination. “We don’t have to do anything tonight. I’m happy just to hold you and feel you against me.” His soft reassurance broke through my momentary shyness, as he brushed my tousled hair over my shoulder before he kissed the curve with reverence.

I shook my head. My need for him hadn’t waned, it had just settled deeper within me, becoming a part of me. “I want this—I want you.”

“Have you…done this before?” His question came out hesitant, yet his gaze was probing. I dropped my eyes, but he grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him. “This is important. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I have.” I wouldn’t lie to him. There were too many lies we’d already uncovered between us. I refused to add another. Besides, I wasn’t ashamed of my choice, just unsure of how he would react. It wasn’t the answer the world would expect me to give.

His jaw clenched again, and his nod was jerky, but he didn’t ask further questions.

“It was—”

He cut me off. “You don’t need to justify or explain your choices to me; they were your own to make. As long as it was consensual.”

I nodded, and the sudden tension in his body dissipated.

Feelings I couldn’t name rose as I leaned up to kiss him lightly. He kissed me back, softly at first, then harder, stirring that fire within me again. I pressed myself into him and he lowered me to the bed again, gently this time, as he settled back between my thighs.

Every rocking motion of his hips as we ground against each other stoked that fire higher. My eyes kept fluttering closed as the sensations he elicited within my body became too much.

“Eyes on me,” he demanded. His amber gaze darkened as he ground down on me harder, and my eyes widened on a jolt of pure pleasure. “I hate it when you look down, or away. I crave your eyes on me.”

He could have no idea how much of a gift that statement was to me. I kept my eyes on his as he reached down and notched himself at my entrance, pushing in on a long exhale.

Our gazes stayed on each other as he worked his way inside me with gentle thrusts, angling my body the way he wanted to reach ever deeper, while connecting with me on every level. As he quickened his pace, he stroked me into a frenzy that had the shimmers we created morphing into tiny stars and filling the space around us. Nothing I’d ever experienced compared to it. Our very hearts seemed to beat in tune. With the world beyond us enshrouded in shadows, I wasn’t entirely sure we were still on the earthly plane, or if we’d somehow slipped over into the divine.

“Alula…”

Oh, light bless me. The way he kept repeating my name with that whispered, lilting reverence, his eyes never leaving mine, had me coming apart in no time at all.

The raw keening noise that poured from me was like nothing I’d ever heard from myself, as a tidal wave of emotion, chased by waves of light and shadow, washed through me. My legs shook, and if not for his body anchoring mine, I may have floated away on a blissful tide.

His answering roar was trapped behind clenched teeth as he fought to stay quiet while his body shook. Tiny tremors rocked through me as he shuddered, prolonging my own release. Locking my arms behind his head, I mindlessly stroked the silky curls of his hair like I’d longed to do for days, watching as stars flickered and drifted down around us before winking out one by one.

Something about that rang alarm bells as I recalled waves of light—I didn’t think had occurred behind my eyes this time. Not given how calm my light felt within me now. “Did I release my light?”

“Yes, but none escaped my shadows. I made sure of it.” He rested his forehead on mine, our bodies still wrapped around each other while his dense shadows cocooned us.

“Sorry,” I mumbled into his hair as I struggled to raise my head. No wonder he’d initially tried to keep me at bay, insisting this was reckless and dangerous. I’d been spiraling so badly when we’d first gotten back to the suite, I hadn’t even thought about what might happen to my light if he touched me more intimately—even knowing sparks had a habit of forming between us when we touched.

“It’s okay, Alula. I’ve got you ,” he whispered. They were quickly becoming my three favorite words. A rare contentment filled me until he slipped from the bed moments later.

“Where are you going?” I sat up as panic clutched at my chest. His shadows parted around him as he stepped across the room.

“Nowhere,” he answered with a calm reassurance, as he grabbed a cloth from a pile and dipped it into the washbowl my mother had left earlier. He crawled back onto the bed and began cleaning me with a care I’d rarely ever known. When he was done, he kissed me gently before cleaning himself and disposing of the cloth.

Settling against the headboard, his dark wings a stark contrast to the pale wood and white blankets, he pulled me into his side.

My head dropped to his shoulder as the exhaustion and emotional overload of the day dragged at my body and mind. I closed my eyes, too weary to marvel at having a male, let alone a Fallen, in my bed.

“Will you stay the night?” I asked sleepily, feeling the long day crashing over me as my body relaxed into a stupor.

“I’ll stay until either your mother or your brother arrives.”

“Just stay. They never come into my room, and I don’t want to spend another night worrying about where you’re sleeping or if you’re safe.”

“Okay.” His quiet capitulation was muffled by a kiss to my hair. “If you haven’t figured it out yet, I can’t deny you anything when you ask it of me.”

I shook my head against his shoulder. “I asked you to not to go when we returned from the library, but you went anyway.”

“I didn’t go. I just watched you from a distance to keep you safe.”

I tried to smother the grin his words provoked, but I was forced to hide my face in his neck instead. I took the opportunity to breathe him in deeply, searching out that hint of apple blossom still clinging to him. I knew I wouldn’t sleep soundly if I knew he was out there prowling the darkness alone. Not tonight. This night was mine.

Taking the liberty of his offered warmth, I snuggled in as he pulled a blanket over us. I had just enough awareness to wonder if it was him or me unwilling to let this night end.

“I don’t want to be a Leóht. I just want to be me,” I mumbled. My sleepy mind had finally figured out what had bothered me so much about Adrita’s insinuations earlier. Being the only one of anything sounded incredibly lonely, and I didn’t want to be alone anymore.

“Sleep now. We’ll figure the rest out together—tomorrow,” I heard him whisper, as his shadows surrounded us like a warm cloud and I drifted off to sleep.

It seemed darkness had a sweet side.