Page 13

Zoey

Two days have passed since my unsettling conversation with Katerina.

I’ve spent the entirety of them reworking my strategy for passing Night Court Survival 101, since it’s really not going as well as I hoped when I first got here.

Jake’s dead, courtesy of Aerix.

Henry continues to put me on edge with his oily stare, watching me when he thinks I’m not looking.

Aurora keeps to her books and acts like we’ve never spoken.

Isla, Elijah, and I continue to play chess between lunch and dinner each night. Isla wins every time, but I’ve been improving at a rapid pace. I’ve even started consistently beating Elijah.

Of my two suite mates, Sophia remains sweet, but she’s gradually becoming more guarded. Victoria has remained steadfast in her quest to hate me with every fiber of her being.

Then, there’s Aerix. The prince of darkness himself.

I’m currently sitting on his massive, canopied bed, sinking into the impossibly soft sheets, nibbling on a cookie that melts on my tongue.

He stands by the fireplace, the flames dancing across his black wings.

Those wings.

He’s been keeping them retracted less and less often when we’re alone. And every time they’re unfurled, my eyes can’t help but trace their shape—sleek, powerful, and otherworldly.

He refuses to talk about Jake’s death. Refuses to acknowledge the blood on his hands, or the letter he left behind—a promise carved in ink and violence, warning that anyone else who dares to hurt me will meet the same fate.

And yet, he watches me now. Not with anger, not with regret, but with something quieter. Something unreadable.

“How’s the cookie?” His voice is soft, but there’s an undercurrent of authority that he probably can’t help.

One that sends a slow, curling heat through me.

“It’s good.” I raise it in a half-toast, fighting to keep my voice light. “Very chocolatey today.”

He arches an eyebrow and gives me a half-smile. “High praise, coming from someone with such fine taste.”

I can’t help but laugh.

Aerix has been doing that to me more and more often—making me laugh.

“I know how much you enjoyed my cooking that morning in the bunker,” I say, and as I finish off the treat, those beautiful wings of his shift, feathers rustling as if responding to something unseen.

I should look away. I should pretend I don’t notice the way he watches me, the way his eyes drink in every shift of my body, every breath, and every moment of hesitation.

But I don’t.

Instead, I meet his stare, challenging it.

His lips curve slightly. Not quite a smirk, and not quite a smile. Just something dangerous and knowing.

“You keep looking at them,” he says, and my stomach tightens.

Internally, I curse.

Outwardly, I shrug, feigning indifference. “They’re hard to ignore,” I say simply.

“Or do you not want to ignore them?” His voice lowers, and he takes a slow, deliberate step forward.

His question steals my breath away.

But I can’t keep letting whatever he does to my insides distract me. Because this thing between us needs to go further than physical attraction.

I have to keep building trust with him. How else am I going to make him fall in love with me so he’ll trust me with information about the Blood Coven, the Revenants, Kallista, and whatever else he’s hiding?

Well, I know how else. I haven’t gotten there yet… but I will.

And from the restlessness I sense more and more from him during our feeding sessions, I’m going to have to get on that—soon.

“Victoria’s been unleashing her wrath on me more often than usual.” I force the words out—anything to redirect my thoughts and steady the erratic beat of my heart.

“Yes, I’ve heard her whining.” He moves closer, and the air shifts with him, carrying his predatory grace. “She’s afraid I’m going to ditch her and keep you to myself.”

“Are you?” I ask, my voice quieter than I intend.

Because I’ve seen what the queen’s frequent feedings have been doing to Matt. How they’re turning him into a hollow shell, stripping away everything that made him human.

How they’re slowly killing him.

“You intrigue me too much for me to kill you,” Aerix says, and then he adds, more quietly, “In a way that confuses even me.”

An unexpected warmth stirs in my chest, but I force a smirk, hiding the tangled mess of feelings his words awaken.

“I do enjoy being alive,” I say, taking a sip of juice to push whatever feelings I’m having as far down as possible.

He stares at me for a moment, and I can’t read his expression.

Then, as if making a decision about something inevitable, he retracts his wings and unbuttons his shirt, shrugging it off in a single, fluid motion.

My breath catches as I drink in the way the firelight carves shadows across the lean, sculpted lines of his chest, and how his muscles move with precise, effortless control.

He’s perfect and unnatural—beautiful in a way that shouldn’t exist.

I place the glass back down on the nightstand, unable to focus on anything other than him.

No, I think, trying to shake myself out of it. This is a man who brutally killed Jake and left his drained body on display for the entire human wing of the palace to see.

Still, the magnetic pull I feel toward him doesn’t go away.

Especially not when he crosses the room and settles onto the bed, close enough that my knee brushes his thigh, making my heart race so quickly that his supernatural hearing can definitely hear it.

“You’re welcome,” he finally says, his gaze sharp enough to pierce straight through me.

I tilt my head, letting my hair fall aside as I meet his eyes. “You don’t think you can seduce me into thanking a fae, do you?”

His lips curve, slow and wicked. “Is that an invitation?”

Something in my stomach twists. And instead of answering, I do something I haven’t done since the night of Jake’s murder.

I lean in and press my lips to his.

It’s only supposed to be a fleeting kiss. A show of appreciation, since I can’t give him the words he’s trying to coax out of me.

But the taste of him—the crisp bite of glacial wind and the ghost of winter-dark skies—ignites the traitorous part of me that desperately wants him. Not just as an ally who can keep me alive in this place, but in a way that coils desire deep inside my soul.

He responds immediately, one hand tangling in my hair as the other finds my waist, firm and possessive. His control is ironclad, but his urgency is unmistakable. And as he effortlessly guides me onto my back, I can barely register how we ended up like this.

This is strategy, I remind myself as I gaze up into the deep, midnight eyes that have carved themselves into my soul. It’s a game. It’s how I make him continue to protect me.

But when his wings unfurl to cocoon us both, strategy blurs with something far more dangerous. Because being surrounded by him doesn’t make me feel trapped.

It makes me feel safe.

So, I hook my arms around his neck and pull him closer.

He murmurs my name, and I arch into him, his body a contrast of sharp cold and burning hunger.

“See?” He’s hovering over me now, on full display, his eyes drinking me in as if I’m something rare. Something his. “I’m not going to let you waste away. I need you healthy for some extremely important activities.”

My pulse stutters at the confession—or whatever it is. Because when Jake and I fought in the garden, he told me something I haven’t been able to forget.

Aerix doesn’t sleep with humans. Or at least, that’s what they say.

But if high school taught me anything, it’s that rules always have exceptions.

And Prince Aerix Nightborne is already looking at me like I’m his.

“Then I suspect I’m going to need that strength,” I finally tell him, giving him a small, mischievous smile.

And then, I kiss him again.

The second I do, the control I thought I had slips dangerously through my fingers.

Because he kisses me back like he’s unraveling me. Like he’s peeling back every calculated move, every layer of pretense, and pulling me straight into his orbit.

Slowly, I slide my hand up his spine, my fingers trailing over the smooth, impossibly cool skin of his back.

I go higher and higher, eventually reaching the base of his wings.

“Don’t,” he commands, and wind bursts from nowhere, knocking my glass of juice off the nightstand as his wings retract so violently—so fast—that I’m lucky I still have all my fingers.

“Sorry,” I say quickly, my heart in my throat. “I didn’t mean to?—”

He doesn’t let me finish.

Instead, his mouth crashes against mine, hard and unyielding. There’s no hesitation this time. No calculated control. This is something raw and desperate—something that makes my head spin and my blood sing.

I don’t know if he’s punishing me or claiming me.

But as I melt beneath him, a reminder claws itself up from the sliver of my brain still capable of forming rational thoughts.

Because this is supposed to be my game.

And I’m dangerously close to forgetting which one of us is playing who.