Page 23

23

Eager to Die

NYX

I t was unnatural how familiar I was getting with the sensation of freefall.

We rushed toward the Earth leaving streaks of firelight, two falling stars over the city. Soundless and unafraid. A celestial event, both tragic and wondrous.

Seconds ticked by, wind roaring in my ears, and in no time at all, I knew we had failed.

Jedidiah cursed, confirming my suspicion.

A thirty-story drop would only take a few seconds and we were approaching that now, no vortex of spinning light to catch us.

Solaris’s declaration was literal—the only way out was through flight . I’d known it, too. I knew Jed’s theory was wrong. I knew the portal globe was not going to work. And yet, I jumped. I let him jump, too.

Coward. Monster.

I braced myself for the impact. I wondered how much this body of mine could take. I was a highly powerful Celestial, after all. Immortal in many ways. Would I even die instantly? Or would I cave in the pavement and lay there, conscious and twitching? Feeling every bone break, my muscles smash, my skull fracture and spill open? Would I be aware of the mortals who would scream and cry, horrified by what they were unfortunate enough to bear witness too?

When the dreaded impact did come, it hit from the wrong angle. Confusion spiked my blood as a massive dark shadow collided with us from the left.

Something huge and cold consumed me, and then we were ascending .

My stomach tumbled out of my body at the sudden change of direction, like one of those hellish amusement park rides—those towers with the seat carts that would rise and freefall.

Could death be so fast? Was it over? My spirit leaving my body, back to the Great Beyond?

My eyes popped open, the moon getting closer like the Goddess was zooming in on it.

Thunder cracked the air, over and over like a heartbeat.

And then it hit me. It wasn’t death. It was Solaris.

He had Jed and me both, one under each arm as his enormous wings beat the air, taking us back up.

“NO!” Jedidiah roared, his voice quickly swallowed up by the wind and Solaris’s thunderous wings.

My senses were completely out of whack. All I could feel was the rush and all I could see was a shadow of gray getting bigger and bigger.

With an abruptness that was clearly full of malicious intention, he dropped us.

Freefall again .

Quick, this time. The concrete rose to catch us promptly, welcoming us with a cold, hard shatter that ricocheted through my whole being. My teeth snapped shut on the impact, the agony searing down my jaw and spine until it leaked into my veins and through my entire body.

The stillness that followed was a shock.

No air occupied my lungs as I blinked up at the black sky.

“We have got to stop meeting like this, Groundshaker.” Solaris’s voice came out low and full of venom.

It took all my strength just to turn my head. Jed lay a few feet away from me, on his back, clearly in the same immobilized, winded state as me. I tried to figure out where we were, but I didn’t recognize anything. All I could tell was that we were on the roof of a building, but I didn’t think it was the Sun & Moon. Not high enough.

Solaris stood over him, the dark angel. His long black cloak trailed behind him like a river of darkness. His silver eyes shone in the moonlight, and I couldn’t help the way my heart skittered at the look I found in them. Not as vengeful as I was expecting. There was a glint of vulnerability there. An emotional rawness that made my mind whirl even faster than it already was.

What did he mean—they had to stop meeting like this? When had they ever met like this ?

“Fuck you,” Jed wheezed.

“You would not only risk your life like that, but hers , too,” Solaris growled, “and yet you have the nerve to judge and demonize me? I have never once put her in harm’s way like you just did. I should kill you for that. Right here, right now.”

Jed fought to catch his breath. He didn’t say anything back. He shut his eyes, pain etching his every feature.

“But you would like that, wouldn’t you?” Solaris went on. “Perhaps that’s been your game all along. You’re trying to make me end your pathetic life.”

The way they interacted. As if they were familiars.

What was I missing?

Catching my own breath came as no reprieve. It still felt like I was falling, even as I forced myself to sit up. I couldn’t hold in the groan as my back and head ached so bad, I saw black spots. Fucking crash landing .

“You are both much too eager to die,” Solaris muttered, glancing at me quickly before focusing on Jed once more. “It’s honestly becoming concerning. I ought to have you admitted. Perhaps a strait jacket and padded room are in order, yeah?”

“You’d know,” Jed hissed.

“Maybe if you’d stop snorting poison up your nose every godsdamned day you’d be able to think clearly and wouldn’t be stuck in a vicious cycle of extreme highs and lows.”

“What,” I forced out the word, fractured and pathetic, “did you mean?”

They both turned to look at me. Jed was halfway to his feet. Regret shone in his eyes as they met mine. I swallowed and looked away from him to Solaris. “What did you mean, you have to stop meeting like this?”

For a split second, Solaris looked like he might tell me. It would only be to spite Jedidiah, purely cruel intentions. Selfishly, I wanted him to follow through. But I watched as he chose to dodge, knowing the look on his face before he even spoke.

“Oh, Firefly. How I love the way you look when you’re kept in the dark.”

Jed growled and rose to his feet, breathing hard, his jaw clenched to combat the pain. The concrete where he’d landed was cracked and sunken in. Despite all that, it didn’t stop him from lunging at Solaris, throwing a punch straight to his jaw. I gasped, completely incredulous as they broke into another fucking fight.

This time, Solaris fought back.

Goddess .

They became a blur of limbs, fists, and wings, whirling around the roof like a couple of Tasmanian devils. With each hit and grunt, I couldn’t tell who was getting the worst of it. Solaris’s strength surprised me—I’d never known him to be physically powerful. His threat had always been his shadows. Jedidiah was clearly at a disadvantage, having just been tossed onto the cement like a sack of bricks. But he held his own, shouting profanities as he unleashed his rage.

I rolled my eyes.

I didn’t have the energy or the care to stop them this time. If they wanted to rough each other up, so be it. They could both use it, honestly.

I forced myself to my feet, shaking my head as they pummelled each other in my peripheral vision. I tuned them out. Surprise bloomed in my chest when I realized the Sun & Moon Hotel was right beside us. The tall obsidian tower, with its blacked-out windows, was nearly invisible in the dark. So, I knew where we were now. The door to the staircase out of here was calling my name.

I should go. Go now while they’re distracted…

I glanced over at the WWE match going on and released a long-suffering sigh.

“Alright!” I shouted. “That’s enough! You guys are behaving like the mortals I went to high school with!”

They didn’t stop. Jedidiah kicked Solaris in the gut with all his might, sending him flying across the roof, hitting the stone wall hard. Jed immediately rushed after him, grabbing him by the throat and pulling him forward. Solaris reacted with a swinging backhand to Jed’s face, which had blood spraying from his lips as his head cranked to the side. Jed’s grip loosened on Solaris’s neck, and the winged male took a page out of my playbook, dummying Jed with an unexpected headbutt.

Horror clogged my lungs as Jed went down. Solaris’s eyes shone with a demonic gleam as he planted his foot on Jed’s chest. Both of them had blood pissing from their noses and lips. The air reeked with an unholy amount of fury and testosterone.

“You won’t win this,” Solaris taunted.

“Fuck you,” Jed grunted. “You’ll never actually end it. You’re too much of a pussy deep down.”

Solaris grinned, one of his sadistic, threatening grins. My heart fluttered while goosebumps erupted over my flesh. I knew that look. It was the same face he made before he used his shadows to devour all the mortals that night on the beach.

I trudged toward them, my fingers sparking, ready to intervene.

But then Solaris’s face fell. The maniacal look vanished, replaced with eerie blankness. His eyes clouded over with black before he collapsed to the ground, lifeless.

A beat of silence. Then Jed sat up, confused.

“Get away from him!” I shrieked. “Jed, get up!” I rushed over to him, grabbing him by the arm, attempting to pull him away.

Solaris sprawled out on the concrete, his wings twitching lightly. His blacked-out eyes stared up at the night sky, unseeing.

He’d fallen into the shadows again.

My chest ached fiercely. My vision heated and blurred. A deep, demented part of me sprung to high alert. Instincts that burned with the need to help him. Instincts that made my heart bleed for him.

“What’s wrong with him?” Jed demanded as he got up on his feet and moved away from him with me. He breathed hard, making an awful wheezing sound as he did so. His bloodied face was a tragically beautiful sight. I used it as a distraction.

“We have to stay away from him,” I declared. “Or we’ll fall in!”

“Fall into what?!”

“Just come on,” I snarled, reefing him toward the door which would hopefully lead us into an elevator that would take us down.

“Are you joking ?” Jed’s voice slithered through his lips with a hiss, malice lacing his words. He jerked his arm out of my grasp and grabbed my throat before I could register the move. He forced me to look into his stormy eyes, making sure I saw the fury in them. My lips popped open as my heart sped up, the familiar feeling of his huge, warm hand on my throat rattling my brain even more. “He’s lying there, vulnerable! This is my chance! I’m going to rip out his fucking heart!”

“ Absolutely not .”

The words had charged out of me with such authority, yet I hadn’t meant to even speak them. My mouth had a mind of its own. I watched as they registered behind Jed’s eyes, the truth sinking in.

The reality of the situation dawned on me then, too. I didn’t even remember yanking out of the fingers locked around my throat and moving to stand in front of Solaris’s body. But now I was. Standing in a readied stance, waiting to protect him.

“Gods above, Nyx…” His voice was barely more than a whisper.

I tipped my chin up, though my cheeks heated with shame. “If you go near him, if you touch him—” I spoke too fast, too breathy. I swallowed and tried to collect myself. “You’ll fall into the shadows.”

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “ Fall into the shadows?”

“Yes. When I got to the Sun & Moon, I found him like that. Slumped over with black eyes. I tried to wake him up, but instead, I was pulled into the darkness. The void. I was out for an entire day! The things I saw… Trust me. You don’t wanna go there. Plus, when you take him down, don’t you want him to be conscious? Looking into your eyes as you take everything away?”

Jed stared at me for a moment before finally scoffing and shaking his head. He scrubbed his hand over his face, dismayed, shoulders slumping and his fight stance loosening as he took a step back. Away from me.

“The feminine, ever the master manipulator.”

A fire lit in my belly. What did the rest of the female collective have to do with this? This was my own fuckery. “Being a sexist bigot isn’t a good look, babe.” I repeated what he’d said to me that fateful day in the Sphere.

He smirked, though it was devoid of any humor or warmth. His glare flicked over my shoulder, to Solaris.

“At least you’re able to come up with good stories, hey Princess? You’ve always been good at denying the truth to yourself.”

My heart sank like a stone to the ocean floor. “Fuck you.”

“Whatever. Let’s get out of here, then. I’m not going to fight you to get to him.”

“I wouldn’t fight you.”

“No,” he agreed, an ominous light flashing behind his eyes like lightning. “You’d fucking kill me.”

He turned and made for the door on the other side of the roof. I followed mindlessly, just glad to be moving on from this place.

A figment of darkness flickered in my peripheral vision. I turned to see what it was, confused because I knew no one else was up here.

Another shadow passed on the opposite side. I whirled just in time to watch as Jed released a surprised cry and went flying backward.

“Jed!” I yelped. I darted after him on instinct, not processing what I was seeing.

The darkness around us hissed, alive and sentient. Tentacles of shadows emerged from all around, one of them wrapped around Jedidiah’s throat, dragging him.

I didn’t have time to ponder what in the seven hells was going on. I just acted. With a feral scream, I unleashed my fire tenfold. It burst out of me in a shockwave, chasing the living darkness away. The tentacles screamed and hissed before retreating back into nothingness.

My fire fizzled out, but a few embers remained, just in case.

It all happened so fast. My mind reeled, leaving me on autopilot.

I ran to Jedidiah. My heart pumped out of control, beating so loud I could hear it in my ears. He shot to his feet, his hand clutching his throat while his breath soared out of him rapidly. “What the fuck was that!”

“Are you okay?” I demanded frantically, clutching his arms. My eyes roved over him, making sure he was free of the shadow’s hold.

“I—Yeah, fuck.” He turned back to Solaris, who was still lying lifeless on the ground. “I don’t understand what…? Those were shadows !”

A heavy, heavy weight landed on my chest as I recalled what Solaris had said to me back in his bedroom. The shadows will continue to hunt until we are reunited .

I swallowed. Hard. Grabbed Jed’s hand and tugged. “Come on. We have to get out of here.”

Shadows controlled by Solaris Adder were terrifying enough. But shadows acting on their own volition, furious that they’d been cleaved from their vessel? That was an entirely different devil.