Page 24 of Darkness Births the Stars #1

He stood up to fetch a few bandages from the kitchen. I blushed, knowing he was right .

“Nothing in my head you don’t already know about,” Noctis said, dismissing my apology as he wrapped my wrist. Watching him was oddly mesmerizing.

His eyes narrowed in concentration, a slight smile lifting the corner of his mouth.

The soft glow of the lyrin -stones softened the deep black of his hair.

He had always been handsome, and even the hardships of being Human had not diminished the otherworldly beauty of his features.

On the contrary, the faint lines around his eyes added an unsettling vulnerability to his appearance.

But that wasn’t why my own eyes filled with tears. It was the way he touched me. As if I were something precious, something fragile.

“Does it hurt that much?” Noctis asked, noticing the tears.

More than you will ever know. The words lingered on the tip of my tongue, but I managed a noncommittal sound, not trusting myself to speak. His thumb caressed my arm while he cradled my injured wrist in his much larger hand.

“Hopefully the pain will subside when the healing spell reduces the swelling,” he said softly.

Unfortunately, there was no healing spell to mend my broken heart.

“This is all your fault,” I snapped, yanking my hand away. “Everything.”

And it was, wasn’t it? He had distracted me. He was always distracting me. From what I needed to do. From who I needed to be. Throwing me off my rightful course until I ended up lost and alone. Just by existing. By making me feel. By making me care for him, despite knowing I shouldn’t.

Why couldn’t he have stayed conveniently dead? Or at least far, far away?

Bewilderment crossed Noctis’s face at the sudden change in my mood.

“Believe me, if I had known someone would follow me here, I would never have sought you out,” he defended himself.

“There was no evidence that Tharion had informed the rest of the Chiasma about my survival. I believe Vultaron looked for him when he didn’t come back and eventually discovered the truth.

” Something flickered in his gaze. “You being injured was the last thing I wanted.”

All so very reasonable, although it did not explain how the Chiasma had found him here, or how he and Tharion had stumbled upon each other in the first place. Not that I was all that interested to find out what kind of evil schemes he was no doubt already entangled in once more.

A bitter laugh escaped me. “It’s not surprising, is it? After all, getting me hurt in your ill-advised attempts to make the world bend to your will is nothing new.”

The venom in my voice astonished me. Some dark and malicious beast had awakened inside me, clawing and biting to break free. To hurt him as he had hurt me so many times before. And my leash on it was finally slipping.

Noctis’s eyes blazed with a fierce answering anger.

“It wasn’t me who dragged you into this mess,” he growled, his voice low and dangerous.

“Left completely alone and defenseless on a desolate farm in the middle of nowhere.” As he leaned over the table, his features contorted with seething rage.

“If I did not already wish Aramaz dead for his countless transgressions, I assure you, I would kill him for endangering you alone.”

I held his furious gaze, refusing to back down. “That is not your concern.”

“Not my concern?” He stood abruptly, the chair screeching against the floor. “The fool could have gotten you killed,” he raged, pacing. “How could he put you in such danger?”

“I betrayed him.” My answer was calm. Shying away from uncomfortable truths helped no one. “I broke the oaths I swore to him and the Light.”

My frank admission made Noctis pause. “Perhaps,” he conceded, shaking his head. “But you upheld those oaths for millennia.”

“I broke some of them the very night I made them, as you well know.”

Reminding us both of the pleasant memories between us might have been even more reckless than reviving the painful ones, I realized, as Noctis’s demeanor changed entirely. His mouth lifted into a roguish smile, and he moved with predatory grace as he made his way back to the table.

“Not that it matters,” I quickly added, before he could dredge up any details of that night so many ages ago.

It was enough that I remembered it all too well: his firm hands divesting me of my wedding gown, his lips fervently claiming mine, our half-hearted protests dissolving into desperate kisses, all restraint consumed by the fire of our passion.

“In the end, I also betrayed you. A failure even as a traitor.”

Noctis leaned over the table, his hands splayed on the wood.

“Yes, you are a devious woman,” he said, catching my chin between his thumb and index finger in such a lightning-quick movement that I could not escape.

“I always found that to be one of your most captivating attributes.” My heartbeat quickened as he tilted my face upward, his thumb trailing to the corner of my mouth in a gesture that was both tender and possessive. “Among a few other things.”

The heat curling inside my belly was as familiar as it was unwelcome.

It had been years since someone had touched me like this.

Since someone had looked at me like Noctis was looking at me now.

As if he wanted to devour me whole, only a thin thread of control keeping him back, a thread oh so close to breaking .

“You are feeling better,” I remarked. I should have noticed earlier, when he had shown no sign of weariness while caring for me.

White teeth flashed, his eyes glittering. “The magic helped.”

He didn’t mean the healing magic of my Water stone. No, what had revived him was the Chaos magic he had channeled outside. Chaos was his element, always would be.

The hands that had touched me so reverently were responsible for the near destruction of all of Aron-Lyr. For the deaths of thousands. Did he ever feel remorse for his crimes? Did he even understand the meaning of the word?

His thumb brushed lightly over my bottom lip, sending a shiver through me. Desire flared within me, wild and uncontrollable, and I couldn’t suppress a gasp.

I shouldn’t yearn for him.

But I did. Lyr save me, I did.

His dark eyes pulled me into their fathomless depths, the space between us seeming insignificantly small suddenly.

“Do you remember when you tried to rip out my heart with your bare hands?” Noctis asked, his smile deepening as if he were recalling a cherished memory rather than a night steeped in blood and despair. His face was so close that I could feel his breath on my skin.

My hand on his chest, sharp claws sunk deep into his flesh.

Blood streaming over the pale planes of his body with every fluttering beat of the heart I could feel pulsing against my fingertips.

Even more blood trickled from the corner of his mouth as he took a shaky breath. I must have pierced his lung.

“Do it.” His wild, desperate eyes never left mine as he forced out the words. “Free this world. Free us both.”

Our minds collided in a tempest of fury and grief, a dark abyss that threatened to consume us both .

“I’d rather it be you than anyone else.”

The flames of my rising anger incinerated my desire as I shook off the haunting memories threatening to choke me. I swatted Noctis’s fingers away from my face. “Do you find all of this amusing?” I growled.

“Baradaz, wait, what I meant was—”

I couldn’t do this anymore. If I had to look at him for one more moment, had to relive one more memory I had buried deep in my mind to hold on to my sanity, I was going to scream.

“Get out.” The words were a hiss. The desperate snarl of a wounded animal backed into a corner. “I need to be alone. Now.”

Noctis stared at me, hurt flickering in his eyes. It only fueled my anger, because he had no fucking right to it. Then he abruptly straightened, his expression hardening into an unfeeling mask. “As you wish, my queen.”

I should have felt satisfaction at the sight of him leaving, his bare feet nearly silent on the wooden floor. But I didn’t. I was tired. So tired, I thought I could sleep for a thousand years.

Three days after Vultaron’s attack, I had reached the end of my strength.

Sitting at my kitchen table, I couldn’t even glance at my arm, knowing the sight that awaited me: a discolored wrist, swollen to nearly twice its normal size, throbbing with sharp, relentless pain.

Using the lyr -stone again was out of the question.

I had already done so yesterday, and it would take at least another day for its power to regenerate enough to cast another healing spell.

The temptation to let my head sink onto the table and drift off to sleep was almost irresistible .

This wasn’t working. It just wasn’t working.

Instead of the usual two hours, it had taken me nearly four to milk my araks that morning.

I had done the bare minimum, only providing enough relief to them to prevent an infection, not caring that half of the bluish milk ended up on the barn floor instead of in the bucket.

I couldn’t keep them inside the barn forever.

Sure, I had managed to feed the chickens, but the henhouse needed cleaning, and there was a gap in the fence of the southern field that required mending.

I could ask Briseis or one of the young workers from the village for help, as I had during past illnesses or harvest seasons. But with Noctis here, I dared not risk it. Who knew what dangers his presence on the farm would conjure up next?

I was going to cry. The pressure built up behind my eyelids, my throat constricting as the first sob threatened to escape.

“Baradaz.”

I would not cry in front of Noctis. I refused to. With a monumental effort, I somehow kept the tears from spilling over.