Page 85 of Darkness Births the Stars #1

“I don’t doubt you are. You seem to thrive. What you’ve built here is impressive.” I could hear the smile in his voice.

It seemed I played this illusion so well, I had even deceived the one who knew me best.

“I have ashes,” I said, tired of pretending. “Scattering in the wind the moment I open my hand.”

“That is not the entire truth,” Noctis answered, not dissuaded at all.

“How did Tharion find you?” I shot back.

His silence stretched so long, I thought he wouldn’t respond. “He didn’t find me,” he said eventually. “I found him.”

Surprise flashed through me. After Vultaron’s attack, Noctis had said he always knew the Chiasma couldn’t be trusted. It seemed uncharacteristically foolish to seek them out .

“I had heard rumors that the Chiasma were stirring once more,” he continued slowly, shifting beside me.

“And what did you hope to find?” I pressed, unwilling to allow him to evade the subject now that he had started to open up.

“The rumors claimed they were attempting to resurrect me, to bring back the Adept of Chaos’s power with the help of the Chaoscrown.” The words came quicker now, like a rushed confession. They confirmed all my worst fears. He had never fully turned away from Chaos.

“To what end?” I demanded, dismay and disappointment coursing through me. Noctis breathed in deeply, avoiding my gaze. “Belekoroz! To what end?”

“Baradaz…” I recognized that tone all too well, the one he used to placate me.

“No!” Had I fallen for his tricks again?

Believed he cared more for me than his fucking ambition?

His insatiable lust for power? I sat up as I furiously hurled questions at Noctis.

“What if Tharion and Vultaron had not tried to kill you? What if the Chiasma had sworn allegiance to you once more? What would you have done then?”

A warm hand closed around my knee. My body remained tense beneath his touch.

“I don’t know.” His stark honesty, the open insecurity in his voice, kept me in place. “Curse it. I’d been a mortal for ten fucking years. Surviving on scraps. I was desperate. I had nowhere to go…” The moonlight revealed the anguish on his face as Noctis sat up as well.

I forced myself not to pity him. “And when even that failed, you turned to me.”

“No! No!” He was so close now that our breaths mingled in the still night air. Something stirred to life in my stomach, my heartbeat quickening. “I’ve had that lyr -stone capable of finding you for fucking years. I just knew it would be better to leave you alone. That you deserved peace.”

Why did everyone think they knew what I deserved?

“But then, I thought I was going to die. And… I couldn’t stay away any longer,” he said, his voice a mere rasp laden with an ancient pain. “I was telling the truth when I said I wanted to see you one last time.”

My hand ghosted over the vulnerable skin of his throat, catching the rapid beat of his heart under my fingertips. I wished I could read the rhythm of his pulse like I had once read his thoughts. Distinguish truths from lies.

“You are the only good thing that has ever happened to me in my entire existence,” Noctis said, his laugh wild and pained. “Fitting, isn’t it? Because he never intended for you to be mine. The one guiding star, shining brightest in my darkest hours.”

Those words made something within me spread its wings and soar. I longed to kiss them from his lips, to greedily swallow them and guard them in my heart forever.

My stars mocked my struggles with their eternal indifference as I lay back down in the grass. Noctis remained seated beside me, his hand still on my leg. The touch burned through me, driving me insane.

“And now you want to stay here, in the middle of nowhere?” I asked with forced nonchalance. “Do you enjoy shoveling arak shit so much?”

Noctis laughed. “Stars, those beasts can produce an amount of shit…”

Long, elegant fingers drew little circles on my sensitive skin. I felt as if I was going to scream. Damn it, woman, I admonished myself. It’s your fucking knee. It shouldn’t affect you that much. Yet there was probably no spot on my body where his touch wouldn’t make me burn .

“It depends,” he went on. “Are you going to stay here in the middle of nowhere even if we manage to deal with Deira? Or are you planning to do something about this threat to Aron-Lyr’s peace?”

“Do you think we could do something about it?” I asked. “Two fallen gods who have lost their powers?” It should have been ridiculous. Somehow it wasn’t.

“Perhaps it takes the broken to mend what has been sundered,” he answered.

He hadn’t said he wanted to be with me. I didn’t ask if he wanted to be with me. So like the two of us, always avoiding the real questions. His fingers slid a little higher, playing with the hem of my dress. I shivered.

“Should I stop?” A hoarse whisper above me, his hand stilling on my skin. An out, if I wished to take it.

I didn’t. It was so easy to give in. To allow my body to relax, to let my legs part just a little in invitation, one single word escaping my lips.

“No.”

He sighed, and then, thank the stars, his hand resumed the slow exploration of my body.

I drowned in it all. Each delicate caress, each languid circle of his fingers brought him inexorably closer to where I wanted—needed—his touch the most. My unwavering focus on the stars above was the only anchor preserving my sanity.

If I looked at Noctis and saw he was as wrecked as I was, I would unravel. Completely.

I was quiet the entire time, my teeth sunk into my bottom lip, restraining every moan and sigh that threatened to spill out.

The only sounds were our ragged breaths and the faint whisper of fabric against skin, as if we both knew that even the softest word could shatter the fragile spell we were under .

His fingers brushed against my clit, another surge of arousal piercing through me.

My control shattered. A soft whine escaped me, my hips canting up in a wordless request for more.

Another deep intake of breath from him. Then an elegant finger finally slid inside me in one glorious push.

There was no resistance, only irresistible hunger.

I clawed at the grass beneath me, writhing in desperate need, trying to get the cursed man to move, to give me more of this feeling, more of him.

Why shouldn’t I get what I wanted for once?

Perhaps he was right, and we were heading straight into death. Let me be selfish, just one more time.

I tossed my head from side to side, overwhelmed by the intensity of my longing. His caresses drove me insane, shallow strokes that felt so good but were far from enough.

Noctis swallowed audibly, his pace slowing even more. I groaned in frustration. Did he want to torment me? Punish me for every time I had rejected him? My desire eviscerated my pride, like dry leaves consumed by a forest fire. If he wanted me to beg, tonight I would.

“Baradaz. We shouldn’t…” A tremble went through him, so violent I could feel it in my very core. He was holding on to his control by a fine thread. Curse his newfound consideration for my feelings. He wanted to talk, to define what we were to each other, where this alliance might lead us.

Too bad I didn’t. I only wanted to feel.

My hand closed around his wrist in a hard grip, keeping his finger buried deep inside me as I pushed him down and rolled on top of him in one smooth move.

“Light.” The look of surprise on Noctis’s face as I straddled him, my dress hiked up indecently around my waist, was nearly comical.

Desire quickly replaced the astonishment when I rolled my hips against his hand, the exquisite friction making me moan.

Stars, yes, that was it. Something primal had awakened inside me, something that would not be denied.

Noctis indulged me, sliding another finger inside me when I moved up and down on top of him, fucking myself on his hand in a relentless rhythm.

My gaze searched for the sky again, the comforting vastness of space.

This was painfully intimate. Because those were his hands on me—inside me—bringing me pleasure.

Yet it felt oddly detached. The shadows hid his face, allowing me to pretend this was just another harmless fantasy, a dream I did not want to wake up from.

My climax built up quickly, only to stay frustratingly out of reach. Sweat trailed down my temple as my movements sped up. I was so close, so close, just a little more to send me flying over the edge—

“Please.” The broken plea tumbled from my lips.

In some ways, Noctis could be merciful. He gave me exactly what I craved.

I moaned helplessly, head thrown back as he worked a third finger inside me.

The initial stretch was delicious. Delightful sparks sizzled through my limbs, down to my fingers and toes.

His fingers curled within me, and then he pulled them out, the loss making me gasp—only for him to thrust inside me once more, hard and deep enough that I cried out, shuddering in renewed ecstasy.

He set a quick, firm rhythm, his thumb pressing against my clit every time his fingers plunged as far as he could reach.

I was coming apart, nothing more than a firestorm of sensations, burning as wildly as a shooting star. All thoughts gone. Utterly, gloriously free.

Noctis pulled down my dress with his unoccupied hand. My breasts spilled out, the cool night air washing over my sensitive skin. Clever fingers twisted my nipple. All the coiled-up tension inside me spilled over in one wonderful, intense explosion .

I was shamelessly loud then, crying out into the night sky as I rode out my climax on top of him.

A fractured mix of Aurean words and his name, too far gone to care what I revealed.

His fingers stayed within me as I clenched around them, catching every single tremble he coaxed from me.

He didn’t allow me to come down from the high, resuming his tireless ministrations, reigniting my desire at once.

“Again, saeraery . Let go for me.”

My body obeyed his command, starved for his touch, as if it could not get enough of the sheer bliss he offered me, tensing up in another peak as if I were nothing more than an instrument he was expertly playing, until I was sure there was no pleasure to be had anymore.

I collapsed on top of him, utterly spent, trembling in aftershocks.

“Stars, yes, my queen,” Noctis groaned, his hand fisting in the hair at my nape to tilt my face up to his. “Finally you’re mine again.”

It wasn’t the words that shattered my passionate haze, but the tone—vindictive, triumphant, and harshly possessive. His lips trailed over my throat, my jaw, seeking my mouth.

I turned away just before our lips could meet.

Furious disappointment replaced my bliss as I scrambled off him, tears blurring my vision as I yanked down my dress with trembling hands.

How could I have been so foolish as to believe he had changed?

This was just another attempt to use desire to reel me in again.

“Let me go!” I fought against Noctis’s grip as he captured my wrist.

“No,” he ground out, his hold unbreakable. “Rage at me, curse me, but I will not let you run away from this, from us. Not anymore.”

“This is your fault,” I snarled, my instinct to flee, to protect the fragile shell my heart had become, stronger than ever.

“Don’t you think I know that?” He captured my face in his hands, his forehead pressing against mine, those dark eyes pulling me in.

“I know that I am fucking this up again, because I always do, and it kills me. Lyr , Baradaz…” His voice dropped to an anguished whisper.

“Do you have any idea how much I want you? How much I have always wanted you? What it is doing to me to have you so close to me every single day and not be allowed to touch you, to kiss you, to make love to you? I am burning alive, and you chastise me for begging for more. You wanted me to be truthful to you. So here is the truth. I don’t care if it is madness.

I don’t care if you’re a goddess, a queen, or a mortal farmer.

I want you to be mine. Mine alone. And that will never change. ”

I stared at him, my panic slowly subsiding as I sensed the stark desperation in him. This was no manipulation, no clever attempt to use my desire to put a claim on me once more. He was as lost as me, as afraid to make a mistake.

My hand came up, cupping his jaw, slowly trailing to his lips. “Burning alive, huh?” Quite the apt description for the all-consuming fire raging between us.

His mouth quirked under my fingertips. “Well, I assure you, little queen, one part of me is definitely aching.”

“Poor man,” I answered. “It must be agony.”

He laughed. “Serves me right for choosing such a cruel mistress.” When he pulled me into his arms, I didn’t resist. “Don’t go, Baradaz,” he murmured into my hair. “Nothing has to happen. Just stay with me tonight.”

Nestled against his chest, I listened to his heartbeat, the steady rhythm the most soothing sound I’d ever heard.

“I only wish this could last.” A single tear escaped me and trailed down my cheek, leaving a cool path in its wake.

“It can last,” Noctis answered, his arms tightening around me. “We can make it last.”

Hope. A dangerous thing. Enough to set kingdoms ablaze and topple entire realms. Enough to kill the immortal .

The one thing that had kept me alive through all the anguish and despair.

“So, you’ll help me pack tomorrow?” I asked.

Noctis chuckled. “You know, saeraery , I love giving you a helping hand whenever you need.”

His insinuation earned him a low growl from me. “You really don’t know when to stop, do you?”

He kissed the crown of my head. “Where would be the fun in that?”

I fell asleep like that: safe in his arms beneath the stars, the world—and its threats—far away, at least for a while.