Page 24 of Grim and Oro (Lightlark)

NIGHTBANE

For centuries, I lived in frost and darkness. Until she showed up in my castle, gleaming like the first star at night, and showed me all the ways the world could still make a person smile.

Now, even through the near-endless calls to the scar, I notice the pockets of beauty in my lands.

And, when I see beautiful things, I have the urge to show them to her.

That’s why I think to take her to the field of nightbane.

To see her reaction to it. To show her that Nightshade is not all darkness and shadows.

There is color in my realm, it is not all like the castle she despises.

I used to think nightbane was just a poison. That it was solely vile. Addictive. Disgusting.

But now ... now I see the pretty flower and realize it can be so much more. It can be used for life . Not just death.

“I want to show you something,” I say, after we’ve finished what seems like our hundredth time trying to get past the obstacles in the cave. We’re almost ready. We’re almost about to reach the end of this journey.

She takes my hand, and I’ll never tire of it. Of her trust, that I’ll bring her somewhere safe. A trust I don’t deserve.

We land, and I pluck one of the flowers for her. I hand it to her.

I’ve never given anyone a flower before. I don’t know if I look ridiculous, and I go still for a moment, tense, awaiting her reaction.

Surprise melts into something deeper. She likes it. She takes it.

“Smell it, Hearteater.”

She does. Then, she frowns.

“Familiar?”

“It has the same scent as the Wildling healing elixir,” she says. She looks wary.

“I think they’re the same flower.”

There it is, a bridge between our two realms. Proof that perhaps they are not so different. That maybe ... maybe something could work between us.

She turns around, studying the field, and I feel her awe. Her confusion.

“What even is this?”

“It’s nightbane,” I tell her.

Sometimes the most potent poison comes from the most beautiful flower.

I should know.

She shakes her head in confusion. “But the Wildling flower doesn’t kill ... it heals .”

“We extract the same nectar. In Nightshade hands, under our own extraction process, it turns into a drug that produces euphoria. I suspect under a Wildling’s touch, it turns into a healing elixir instead.”

She stares down at the single flower I offered her. Her fingers smooth across its petals. They’re soft as velvet. I’ve never even thought about their beauty, until it was something I wanted to show her.

They are like us , I want to tell her. Dark and light. Life and death. Somehow, they come together and make something extraordinary.

Perhaps we could do the same.

I can feel her hope, can see her thinking.

But she’s not thinking of us, like I am. She’s thinking of her people, the way I should be.

“We can make a deal,” she says. “We don’t have much of this flower. If you can give Wildlings some of yours, we can provide healing elixirs. In exchange, we need hearts. From ... people you are already going to kill. And other stuff I can’t think of right now that we need.”

I almost smile, watching her. I wonder if she knows. I wonder if she knows that if she asked, I would give her almost anything. “It’s a deal, Hearteater.”

And for a moment, I pretend that this could work. That I could find another way to end the dreks. That she could live , with me, and we could bring both our realms together.

I hold out my hand, and she takes it.

We shake.

I portal her back to her room, and neither of us pulls from our grasp.

She swallows, and I watch her throat. I remember biting it. Licking it. Tasting her. My gaze slips lower.

When I was wounded, I told her more than I’ve ever told anyone.

And she didn’t use it against me. She didn’t laugh or think of me as weak.

She’s here, looking at me, like she could possibly see past all the blood on my hands. As if she could possibly want me.

Our gazes lock, and I understand that something has changed, even from a few days ago, when we stood in this very spot. When she told me, very clearly, that she didn’t want to kiss me.

Right now, she’s staring at me. She’s ... grasping my fingers, and pulling me toward her, until her spine hits the wall, and I’m towering over her once more.

Her gaze never leaves mine. She lifts her chin, toward me, and I know what this is. An invitation.

I lean down, slowly, tentatively. I’ve killed thousands. I’ve made countless battlefields run red with blood. I’ve made grown men weep and piss themselves.

I’m not afraid of anything.

Yet right now, inches from her lips, my breathing is labored. My arms are trembling.

I told her she would be the one to beg for me to touch her, but I’m the first to do it.

“Please,” I say, the word sounding as pained as I feel.

“Please, tell me you want this.” Please tell me I’m not the only one here, suffering.

Please tell me a beauty like you could possibly want a villain like me .

“I know if I touch you again it will kill me ... but I think I might die if I don’t. ”

I wait to be rejected. I wait for her to push me away.

But she doesn’t.

She nods.

And I can taste how much she wants me.

I shouldn’t do this. I should know better. But I can’t change my feelings, just as I can’t change the fact that this won’t end well.

She gasps as I gather her in my arms. Her hands slide up my neck, fisting in my hair, loosening a groan in my throat.

An inch from her lips, I feel it. A rip across my lands, my own connection to it as ruler catching like a frayed thread. I curse, not because of the pain, but because of the timing.

Worry. “What is it?”

“There’s been a breach in the scar,” I say. I look down at her, committing her to memory.

If the dreks kill me today, at least I’ve told her. At least she knows even a fraction of my feelings for her. At least I know she wanted me to kiss her, this once.

That’s enough , I think.

Then I portal away.

I fight them all night. My muscles go slack. My skin burns. But all I think about, through it all, are green eyes, watching me. Parted lips.

I consider the flash of emotion I felt from her, when I almost kissed her. It wasn’t just desire ... it was something deeper. Something unfamiliar.

The dreks take out an entire legion. I watch them take one of my best men into the scar, carrying him between them. I hear his screams, sense his pain.

Eventually I turn the creatures to dust, but it took too long to draw the amount of power to do it.

It takes me too long to close the scar again. Took too long to notice that it was breached in the first place.

I was distracted.

For hundreds of years, I was known as a heartless warrior. Perhaps because of my unwavering focus, my willingness to go to any extreme to win.

The moment I saw her, both of those things changed.

I’m distracted even now, back in my quarters, overcome with exhaustion. It takes me until my shirt is nearly off my body to sense her.

Her .

Isla. The reason my thoughts no longer follow a steady path.

I turn slowly. Tentatively.

She’s sitting on my bed, highlighted by the dim light of dawn escaping my curtains.

Isla blinks. Stands up quickly. As if she hadn’t meant to be sitting on my sheets. As if she herself was surprised she had ended up there at all. As if it wasn’t exactly where she had meant to position herself.

But then, I can sense everything she’s feeling.

My memories of the battle dissolve. I could be back on the battlefield, facing swarms of scaled dreks, and my focus would be solely on her, on her red dress that is sheer in some places.

Its slit high up her thigh. Silk clinging to her body as if wet.

Like her clothes the day I found her in my bathtub.

I prowl closer.

She raises her head. She says, “I—I just wanted to make sure you were fine.” She knows now what I faced, after healing my wounds. She knows I was at the scar.

I raise my eyebrows, conveying that I can feel she’s here for far less innocent reasons. I might tease her more if I didn’t know her, if I didn’t think it might keep her from coming back.

Instead, I motion toward my bare torso and say, “I’m fine.”

She swallows. “I can see that.” Her gaze slips down my chest. She straightens. Opens her mouth to let out a retort, or threat, or excuse.

Before she gets the words out, though, her gaze drops lower.

Her eyes go so wide I’d have laughed if I weren’t throbbing in discomfort.

Then she turns her gaze downward, as if assessing herself to determine what exactly caused my current state.

She doesn’t know, does she?

She doesn’t know what she does to me.

She doesn’t know that I’ve been almost constantly on edge since I’ve met her. She doesn’t know that I think of her every night, every time I allow myself to relieve my near-constant arousal.

As if she could ever understand what a mere glimpse of her does to me. From the moment we met, she’s been a curse worse than all others. One specially crafted for me.

I wonder if she’s been sent from my enemies as a potent brand of torture. It would make more sense than me becoming reduced to pure, unthinking desire whenever I’m near her.

Especially during moments like these, when I might as well be on fire for how much I’m burning for her, aching to tear that clinging dress to shreds and claim everything beneath it.

Worse, I can feel her own desire pulsing off her, the heat of it; it physically pains me that I’m not already touching her.

But I won’t reach for her until she tells me to.

I won’t touch her until she begs me to.

I expect her to turn. To portal away. To leave me throbbing in the dark as she has countless times before.

Instead, she steps toward me.

I don’t move a muscle. I’m not sure I’m breathing. The gods-damned world could erupt in flames around me, and I wouldn’t even notice.