Page 51 of Crave Me

But he should know by now that silence never unnerved me.

We were both from an era of honor that very few these days seemed to understand. It was why we tended to tolerate each other and often voted in favor of the other.

When he’d taken back his crown and throne with Air and Amethyst, I hadn’t batted an eye.

But had he requested my assistance, I would have told him an honorable king handled his own business.

However, he’d never asked me for a damn thing. Because he already knew the unspoken rules of leadership and he honored them as I did.

“So you’ve heard about the bounty,” I finally said, deciding to play the first hand. “I found her.”

He arched a brow. “And you’ve decided to keep her.” Not a question, but a statement.

“For now,” I confided. “She can’t leave through a portal. So I’m evaluating the situation.”

“Why not just kill her?” he asked, his gray irises flickering with power even through the screen.

“Because she’s done nothing wrong other than enter our world illegally.” Which wasn’t the full truth, but it wasn’t a lie either. “She’s trying to find some medallion that’ll let her return to her reality.”

“Return to her reality?” he repeated. “What is she?”

“A goddess. Specifically, the Goddess of—”

Power hummed over my skin, silencing my words. I glanced out the windows of my study, half expecting to see Nyx standing on the patio.

But she wasn’t there.

However, I felt her like she was right next to me, her essence a beacon in the air that had me breathing heavily in response.

What are you doing?I wondered, my instinct to connect to her mentally almost driving those words to her mind. But I held back as I felt another jolt of power.

“What is that?” Volker demanded, obviously feeling it, too. Which didn’t bode well since he was in another area of the world. “What’s she the goddess of, Vesperus?”

“The night,” I said slowly as the room seemed to shift around me. “I need to go.”

“You need to kill it,” he corrected. “Now.”

“I don’t answer to you, Volker,” I replied, standing. “I’ll call you back later.”

I hung up before he could counter my previous statement.

Not that there was anything he could truly say. Volker and I lived by a similar code. He would understand that I only listened to two entities in life—myself and my people.

And right now, the intruder alarms were blaring outside. Which meant my people needed me.

Except I suspected it was a result of something Nyx had done.

Fuck.I shouldn’t have left her alone, but I hadn’t been able to sleep with her luscious, naked body only scant inches from my own. And I’d needed some space to think.

Which fully defied the purpose of keeping her in my room—where I couldwatchher. However, she’d been asleep, and I’d expected her to come find me whenever she woke up. I’d shown her where my study was last night, so she knew where to look.

But clearly she’d had another agenda on her mind.

One I should have anticipated rather than leaving her to her own devices.

Fool,I chastised myself. This was obviously a result of not sleeping well enough to think through my ideas. Because an alert version of me wouldneverhave left a goddess alone in my palace without a guard.

I headed toward my patio door and called up Kaspian from my wrist. It was like a phone, only enchanted by magic, like everything else in this world.