Page 19

19

Partners in Crime

JEDIDIAH

T he visual of Solaris Adder sleuthing out of the master bedroom with Nyx Morningstar cowering in his shadow caused a blinding, murderous rage to explode in my skull. He smirked at me, as smug as fucking ever, puffing his chest out slightly so I could see his wounds were healed.

Nyx looked guiltier than sin. Her chest rose and fell as our eyes met. I swallowed hard, refusing to show any signs of the turmoil going off inside me. I took in her appearance, relief flooding me when I realized she, too, had healed. Her beautiful obsidian eyes were back to normal, her skin back to its bronze, untainted glory.

It all clicked then. They’d needed to be together to heal.

I barked a harsh, cold laugh.

In my peripheral vision, Solaris continued to smirk.

“Jed…” Nyx peeped. “What the hell are you doing here? It’s—it’s not what it looks like.”

I moved closer to her, completely ignoring Solaris’s existence.

“Oh, Princess, that’s where you’re wrong. It’s exactly what it looks like, isn’t it? You locked yourself away in that tomb as your last-ditch effort to keep yourself away from him. But since I was foolish enough to break you out, you could no longer resist the urge to make your way to him. You even killed for it, didn’t you? I woke up, crumpled on the floor, to the sound of sirens. A few houses down, a woman had been murdered. Police are perplexed! What could have happened that would cause her to fly into the wall like that? Why doesn’t her partner remember anything?”

The smirk had slid off the Darkbringer’s face.

Nyx visibly trembled, her big black eyes locked on me.

“So, tell me. How was your first kill?”

She tipped her chin up defiantly. “I’ve killed before.”

“Yeah, vampires ,” I spat. “Killing demons is a lot fucking different than killing a human. Do you realize the karmic baggage you just earned yourself? And for what? Him ?”

Her jaw clenched tight, that familiar fury rising to the surface of her features. Smoke curled from her nostrils, her fingers clenched into fists, gold fire crackling over them. “As always, you think you’ve got me all figured out,” she snarled. “What do you—”

“Charming as this little lover’s spat is,” Solaris interjected casually, moving further into the great room, “we don’t have time for it.”

Nyx and I both clamped our jaws shut, watching him go and stand by the sitting area, in front of the unlit fireplace. His wings took up nearly the entire space, especially now that they weren’t so wilted.

“If one of you could be so kind as to lift the glamour.” He waved his hand over the black coffee table suggestively.

“What do you think this is, man? We’re obviously not staying.” I shook my head at him, miffed. Then I turned back to Nyx. “I’m getting you out of here. We don’t have to go far but you aren’t staying here. I know somewhere we can go.”

She stared up at me, surprisingly seeming to consider it.

“You’re right, she won’t be staying here,” Solaris muttered. “She will be going back to Luna Academy.”

“Fuck that!” she wailed. “I can’t go back there! Not after the Luminary allowed them to arrest me and spread those lies about me.”

“Oh, please. You hatched a dragon . Not to mention your glorious performance of power that brought an entire coliseum down within minutes. You immediately outrank all of them. There’s nothing they can do to you. You should be glad all I am asking you to do is return to your school. Rather than vanquish it entirely.”

My chest burned as I witnessed their interaction. The way he thought he could control her. My hands throbbed with power that desperately wanted to be released. I did my best to rein it in, but the ground trembled in warning. Glass bottles tinkled on the liquor shelves, doing a threatening dance toward the edge, promising a violent mess.

“You don’t get to decide what she does or where she goes,” I said in a low voice.

“But you do?” Solaris quipped, raising a brow.

I ignored that, unable to stop myself as I glanced beyond his winged frame, out the glass windows into the city below. I looked away from it quickly. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of a reaction to this place. I was sure that somehow he knew I used to stay here. In the years leading up to my enrolment at Veneficus, this was my lair. Oh, man. The parties I used to throw up here… I stayed here most of my first year too. Eventually, I grew tired of looking at the city of fallen angels. I would rather have a throne in the far away mountains, high above the clouds, overlooking my kingdom of snowy forests. Urban life was a disease.

He could keep his city.

But he couldn’t keep this girl. Not if I had anything to say about it.

Nyx piped up then, her tone aggravated as hell. “ Neither of you get to boss me around. Have you two suddenly forgotten who you are dealing with? I have more power than ever. So, you can chill out with this pissing contest because I win.”

I smirked. There she is .

“I do need somewhere to stay,” she went on, folding her arms across her chest. “But it won’t be here. And no offense, Jed, but it won’t be your little hideout in Malibu, either. I need somewhere totally off-grid.”

“You’re still hiding,” Solaris deadpanned, glaring at her darkly.

“I’m not hiding,” she insisted stubbornly. “Why would I want to be around anyone? They all believe I’m evil.”

I looked to Solaris, surprised. “So, you have told her about the aftermath of the Clash of Spirits?”

His face betrayed nothing. “She has not asked.”

“The aftermath?” Fiery, obsidian eyes met mine. “What are you talking about?”

“Of course he didn’t tell you,” I muttered darkly, tossing him a dirty look. He shrugged.

“Tell me!” Nyx demanded.

“You caused quite the global stir.” I stared directly at her as I spoke. “You burnt down the Memorial Coliseum. It was all over the mortal news. There were cameras and smartphones everywhere. So, when Solaris flew off with you, it was caught on film by several different mortal devices and the videos went viral. Their mainstream media tried to squash it, but conspiracy theories online have gone crazy. Religious people are going fucking nuts, calling it the End Times. Spiritualists claim it’s extra-terrestrial. Either way, they’ve been reintroduced to the Divine, and the craziest part is—they have not fallen into Amnesia about it. They remember .”

Her wide, fervent eyes stared at me as if I had just spoken in a language only our two souls knew.

“And yeah, the Celestial media is demonizing you pretty bad. They say the footage of you and Solaris flying off was fake. They are spreading their own, demented narrative. I think I’ll let your buddy here tell you.”

Solaris rolled his eyes.

“What are they saying about me?” she asked him, her voice ice cold.

He glared at me instead of answering her.

“Solaris!” she growled. “Tell me.”

He sighed and waved his hand nonchalantly before he spoke. “They blame you for what happened on Hallows Eve.”

“For destroying the Coliseum? Well, no shit.”

“Not just that,” he told her slowly. “For the vampire attack. Lord Vanderbilt and his Council created a narrative suggesting you used black magic to weaponize them against the Celestial Society. They say you’d been working with vampires for some time, and they helped you escape prison, and that’s how you ended up there that night. They say you orchestrated the entire thing.”

Nyx’s silence was terrifying.

The girl who normally exploded at any little thing stood completely still, letting the truth sink in. I could only imagine what fiery brew was churning inside of her.

A handful of throbbing heartbeats went by.

She closed her eyes, breathing sharply through her nose. “And what do they think of you , Solaris?”

That was not what I had expected her to say. I flicked my gaze to Solaris, gauging his demeanor. He was good at keeping his guard up, but with eyes that expressive and bright, it wasn’t hard to catch glimpses of the truth.

“Me?” he rallied back innocently. “Why, that I am your partner in crime, of course.” He flashed a grin, but it fell away instantly.

“What of the dragon, Solaris? What did you do to him!”

He kept his gaze steady with hers. “I thought you should remember on your own.”

“What did you do to him?” she demanded again.

“I did nothing. He was with us when we left the coliseum. By the time we landed up North, he was gone. I don’t know when we lost him. But when I brought us back to the mountains outside the city, he was there. He appeared to me shortly after you locked yourself away.”

“ Appeared to you?”

“Yes,” Solaris snapped.

“You knew I hatched that fucking dragon, and you said nothing!”

He didn’t reply. His expression smoldered.

“Are you really surprised?” I interjected, snatching her attention. “Hell! Snap out of it, Morningstar. Don’t let the cursed bond he forced on you make you forget what he is. Who he is.”

I physically watched her gaze go clear .

She blinked, and it was like she was taking in the world for the first time since she emerged from her tomb. She glanced around the room, and the three of us standing in it.

Her lips pressed together, fury laced with desperation and grief etching in the line between her brows. “Take me out of here,” she whispered to me.

As if she had to ask me twice.

I moved in to scoop her up and portal us out of here. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance because a cold hand snatched me by the back of the neck and tossed me across the fucking room.

I growled in annoyance—but fuck him—I had my wits about me mid-air. I knew how to angle myself and land gracefully with a roll that spun me up to my feet with ease. Before I was even fully vertical, I charged him. Without a second thought, I propelled all of my strength and power straight for him. All I saw was red. And behind that, two giant wings that I wanted to rip to fucking shreds.

I hit him square in the chest with all my fury and might, and we went down . The floor caved under us, the whole six feet we slid. Bottles fell from the shelves in the bar, the glorious orchestra of broken glass a backdrop to my wrath. I was punching his face before our fall even ended.

His wings broke his fall, the fucking bastard. I only had him on the ground for a second. He used them to propel us back up to our feet while he shoved me away with a hiss. I lunged for him again, swinging. The shot to the jaw I managed to get in on him ricocheted through my own body, lighting me up with adrenaline and satisfaction. Blood sprayed from his lips, and I laughed and went in for another hit. Then another.

He wasn’t striking back, which only pissed me off more.

“Fight me, you piece of shit!” I shoved him, using all my strength in hopes of aggravating him enough. He crashed into the wall behind us, which was the wall beside the bar, making the rest of the liquor bottles fall.

Silver eyes flashed, finally showing signs of the hideous beast within him. His lips tore back into a snarl and then the angel of death himself was flying at me. I smiled, elated, and positioned myself in preparation for his attack.

He never made it to me.

At the same time as he came to an unnatural halt, a magnetic force invaded my heart, spreading through my body like iron clogging my veins. My entire body went still against its will. Then my feet were being ripped from the floor, my stomach cramped with knots as I defied gravity. I couldn’t move an inch, helplessly suspended in time.

Solaris, a few feet away, mirrored me.

Nyx came and stood between us, her arms splayed, fingers spread and pointed at each of us. Her chest heaved. The look on her face was startling. A dead, unfeeling blankness settled in her dark gaze despite the otherworldly power she emitted. The amount of strength it would take to stop not just me, but Solaris too… Shit . She wasn’t even working up a sweat, either. She looked bored.

“Enough,” she growled, keeping us suspended mid-air in her telekinetic hold. “This bullshit is beneath you.” She was looking at me as she said that. Then her focus slid to Solaris. To him, she said nothing. As if they were beyond words.

She kept us like that for several long seconds. Time seemed to stretch out and slow down, the pulse in my chest knocking dull and lazy.

A glimmer of her true self reappeared when a wicked grin slid across her lips as she regarded us, trapped in her hold. “ If I deign to release you heathens, do you promise to behave?”

She was just fucking with us now.

I didn’t even bother to try and speak. It was clear I had lost all motor control, including that of my vocal cords. I glared at her, waiting for her to give it up.

She sighed, lowering her hands. We followed the movement like puppets, our feet reuniting with the marble floor.

The feeling rushed back into my body as she released her power. I gasped, flexing my fingers, and coughing a little. Solaris shook out his wings like a giant fucking bird and cleared his throat, shooting silver daggers at her from his hateful stare.

“Jed and I are leaving for a bit,” she told him icily. “Don’t even try to throw a fit about it. You know I have no choice but to come back.”

I hated the smug look on his face as he regarded her. “Very well, Firefly.”

Obsidian eyes flicked to me. “Come on, you big brute.” She turned and strutted toward the elevator. I followed silently without even the slightest glance in the Darkbringer’s direction. I couldn’t stand being here another second.

I also couldn’t stand the idea of her being unable to stay away.

I’d figure out a way to keep them apart. Or how to kill that motherfucker. Even in the darkest of magic, there were loopholes.

The elevator never showed up. We stood awkwardly outside of it for an absurd amount of time.

“Come on,” I urged, grabbing her by the arm. “Fuck this.” I pulled out my portal globe and tossed it, ready to pull her through with me.

The crystal sphere soared across the room and landed with a dreadful clank on the floor, rolling to the glass wall on the far side of the penthouse. No burst of spinning light.

Nyx and I stared at it, incredulous.

“Oh, that’s right,” Solaris quipped from behind us. “The only way out of here is through flight. How silly of me not to mention that sooner.”

We both turned slowly to face him.

“ Excuse me ?” Nyx hissed.

He stood there, amid all the destruction caused by our fight. Broken glass and liquor pooled at his feet. He had his hands folded behind his back, his wings held high. “Right before the Clash of Spirits, I enchanted this place. It is entirely cloaked. As far as the outside world is concerned, this penthouse does not exist. No one except those permitted by me may enter. And no one may leave, except through flight.” He gestured to the glass wall behind us and the terrace outside.

“Those permitted by you?” I snapped back, shaking my head. I didn’t understand. Why would I be on that list? It wasn’t rocket science to know why he wanted Nyx Morningstar all to himself.

“Yes,” he answered simply.

“Who else is permitted ?” Nyx deigned to ask, leaning on one leg, her arms crossed in annoyance.

“No one,” Solaris replied.

She and I shared a glance. It didn’t make sense to her either.

“Us two?” she affirmed in utter disbelief.

“Oh, and Morpheus, of course.”

“Who the hell is Morpheus?” I demanded.

He ignored me. “You two may have your privacy,” the Darkbringer declared, strolling casually toward us. He passed us after he lingered by Nyx for a few seconds, exiting through the glass door that led out to the patio. He turned back briefly and said to both of us, “The second bedroom is yours.” Then he faced the city once more, bent his knees, those giant wings beating the air once, twice, three times before he vaulted into the sky and disappeared into the night.