Page 54

54

Conquered

NYX

I woke up screaming into the silence, scrambling desperately to get away from the Gold Masks.

I clipped my jaw shut and fell still when I realized I wasn’t there anymore. My chest rose and fell while the molecules of my body came back together.

My mind reeled, replaying what I’d just seen over and over.

I sat up, my spine and neck searing. Dead silence reigned through the penthouse. The air was charged, instantly summoning the hairs on my arms to rise.

There was something different in the air. I couldn’t place it, but my instincts were screaming at me to run.

A few black candles that were left standing cast a pale glow that only accentuated the darkness. I swallowed as the shadows roiled around me, prowling like living creatures. I couldn’t tell if my head was pounding or if the thrum belonged to the heartbeat of the darkness itself.

The destruction left in the wake of the brothers’ brawl was bone-chilling. Nothing in the penthouse had made it out alive. Every piece of furniture, every surface, every occult nick-nack had been caught in the crossfire of the war between Jedidiah Stone and Solaris Adder. There wasn’t a single thing that wasn’t cracked or tipped or shattered.

That was when I realized I was alone inside the salt circle.

It was broken. They were gone.

A harsh gasp tore from my lips. I instantly started searching but he spoke before I got a chance to lay eyes on him. “Hey.”

The heart that had been ripped out of me was punched back into my chest, bloody and beating hard.

“Jed.” It was more of a breath than a word.

He was…just sitting there. In the armchair by the unlit fireplace. Disheveled and bloody, his eyes jarringly vacant.

I went hard and jagged, unmoving from my spot on the floor as I regarded him. Fight or flight ignited inside me. I hadn’t realized until now just how much he had truly frightened me.

He wouldn’t look directly at me. His head hung, dark hair falling over his brows, shoulders slumped, his face smothered in one hand.

There were no traces of mania left in him now. No, this was the crash. The pit of despair that swallowed you at the end of it all.

I scanned the rest of the place. No sign of Solaris. But the relentless pain in my chest told me he was close.

So, they got out of the shadows… Then what?

I was afraid to ask.

“He’s in there,” Jed muttered, nodding toward the double doors.

That only made things more confusing.

I remained frozen, a deer in the headlights. The silence ringing in the tense air between us hit like an alarm only we could hear.

“You’re afraid of me now,” he rasped, swallowing hard. His bloodshot eyes met mine for only a second. That was all it took to gut me.

He looked away, leaving me stranded.

“You’re still here,” was all I could muster.

He didn’t answer.

My speechlessness morphed into word vomit. “You can leave, you know. I broke the spell that kept us trapped. You don’t have to stay here anymore. You—”

The look in his eyes, which were now pinned to me, had the words turning to ash in my mouth.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, his voice low, guttural. “And neither are you. Neither is he.”

Every inch of me flushed with goosebumps.

Whatever happened in the shadows, it had changed things.

I glanced around me, at the broken salt circle, the pool of blood hardened on the floor, and forced myself to stand up.

“What did you see?” I whispered.

Jed shook his head. My heart physically, literally dropped when I saw the glimmer of tears in his eyes. They didn’t escape the guard of his lashes, but they were there, lining his dark ocean gaze with silver. I couldn’t recall a sight more beautiful or terrible.

“The truth,” he said, finally.

Jed stood up from the chair. The sudden movement triggered me to jump out of my skin. I didn’t back away. But I was tense, on high alert, just in case.

He had dressed as Death on Hallows Eve and now that had manifested in reality. His black, open-collar shirt was torn and stained with thick, dark blood. The skin on his neck and arms was no better. His hair was grown out and wild, face struck with the kind of depth that only a creature who’d just crawled off the battlefield could possess.

The heartache of it all hit me like a tidal wave, like a piece of me died right along with him.

We’re too young for this .

We should have been in our academies with our friends. Honing our power in controlled, healthy ways. Partying, living it up, basking in the glory of being a young immortal born of high magic. Being a ‘starseed’ was supposed to be a vibrant, expansive experience.

Our lives, everything…was just dark.

“Nyx.” Jedidiah whispered my name like a prayer. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I should have never—fuck. What happened, I—”

I charged him, shutting him up with all my weight slamming into his chest. His arms caught me instantly, weaving around the small of my back, pulling me up to my tiptoes as his face dove into my neck. He wasn’t as warm as usual, but he still felt like home. I made some sort of pathetic sound, something between a cry and a gasp. His enormity swallowed me and I was so fucking okay with that. I didn’t mind the bitter stench of death clinging to him, either.

“I would never hurt you. You know that, right?” He spoke into my neck, his lips brushing my throat, unleashing a storm of butterflies in my lower belly. “I’ve been fucked up, out of my mind—but I would never, ever hurt you.”

“I know,” I breathed, muffled into his chest, meaning it. “I know.”

“I won’t get like that again. I’m done with the angeldust, I swear. I’m getting my shit together.”

I stiffened, suddenly remembering the fact that he’d been high out of his mind.

All of it started trickling back in.

“You kept such a huge secret from me,” I whispered. “ Many huge secrets. Goddess, Jed. All this time, there’s so much you never told me. I have always been open with you!”

Shit.

My rage yawned awake in the pit of my chest, peering out through my eyes. Smoke curled from my nostrils as I yanked myself back, halfway out of his arms, which he locked around me with a death grip.

“You’re right, you’re right,” he professed, not wanting to lose me. I could feel him desperately holding onto the moment. But it was slipping, slipping through the cracks like sand.

“Fuck!” he growled. “What was I supposed to say? I haven’t come to terms with any of it myself. Speaking it out loud just made it too fucking real.”

Tears burned my eyes, but I choked them back. The ache in my heart weighed me down. It was hard to stand, hard to breathe. “We can’t talk about this now.”

He nodded, eager to drop it.

My gaze gravitated toward the double doors of its own volition. Jedidiah tensed a little but didn’t let go of me.

“You need to see him,” he stated. Not begrudgingly, either.

My eyebrows pulled together into a frown as I turned to regard him. Those were the last words I would expect him to say.

“So, what? You’re just…okay with him now?”

He scoffed. “Hardly. It’s not like that.”

“What’s it like, then?” When he didn’t answer, I kept pressing.

A long, loaded pause.

The storm outside raged.

“Go,” he murmured.

“Jed…”

But there was no point in denying or prolonging it.

We pulled apart. The way I turned and slowly started making my way to the ominous double doors had my stomach in knots. It was almost involuntary. The ache in my chest had morphed into a magnet that drew me forward, drew me to him.

Jed followed.

Goddess . Whatever had happened in the shadows, whatever Jed saw—it shattered an entire paradigm. Usually, I would demand to know. But right now, I couldn’t bear any more revelations.

The urgency of the moment almost swept me off my feet. I flicked my wrist, commanding the doors to slide open for us.

They refused.

My brows narrowed. I gritted my teeth, upping the level of kinetic power wafting off of me. But even at full strength, the stone doors didn’t budge.

“What the fuck?” I hissed. They had never resisted before.

Solaris was cut off from his magic. There was no way it was him keeping me out.

“Solaris!” I called anyway. “Let me in!”

Jed appeared at my side. He pounded on the stone, but even his brute strength was swallowed up the depth of the doors. “You let her in! Let her in now !”

Nothing.

“It’s the shadows,” Jed explained through heavy breaths. “He never fully came out of them. He was lucid, but… He’s not well. The shadows are trying to get back into him or something.”

I burst into flame. Fire so white it was almost silver licked up my arms, burning furiously. I hurled raw, multidimensional power at the doors.

They groaned, they fought, but they were nothing to me.

I had my fiery hands out, the backs of them together as I mimicked the motion of sliding my fingers between the doors to force them open. My lips tore back over my teeth as I snarled with exertion. The doors rattled, fighting me tooth and nail. I recognized the magic that fought me. The unmistakable arrogance of shadows. Which only made me angrier, fueling the power funneling out of me until the doors combusted, turning to rubble at my feet.

Victorious, I let my fire go out and went to stalk into his room but stopped short. Jed stumbled into my back, grabbing my shoulders to steady himself.

We both took it in, neither of us breathing.

The winged creature slumped on the floor against the far wall was a pitiful sight.

“ Get out ,” Solaris hissed.

I rushed to him. My heart thrashed in every inch of my body, and before I even laid eyes on his face, I knew it was bad. “Help me get him up,” I voiced, body on autopilot while my mind drifted off into faraway worlds.

But before we could sling his arms over our shoulders to lift him, he shot away, vaulting himself into the far corner. Cloaked in wings and shadows, he growled, “Get her out of here.”

I winced at the rejection. At the venom in his tone.

As if he felt that, quietly, he added, “Let her go.”

“She’s here by her own volition,” Jed told him. “She could have left us but she didn’t.”

“ Liar .”

“He’s not lying,” I declared. “I’m here, and you will not turn me away.”

“Get out, Firefly.” His voice seeped out slow and serpentine. “Be free of me.”

After that came only silence, save for the three thrashing hearts and ghastly breaths.

“My Goddess, what happened in the shadows?” I went off. “I don’t recognize either of you. You’re wallowing in defeat, trying to cut me loose.” I gestured to Solaris, the phantom shrouded behind his curtain of wings. Then I turned to Jed, flailing my hands at him. “You’re suddenly passive and sympathetic to the very person you were just trying to murder in cold blood. I honestly am afraid to ask—but what the fuck did I miss?”

Big surprise. Neither of them answered. I couldn’t even hear them breathing.

“You brothers and your secrets ,” I hissed, growing tired of the games.

Solaris’s wings rustled, but he said nothing.

A hand on the back of my neck sent my heart into freefall as Jed came up behind me, pressing his chest to my back. He leaned down, hand gripping me possessively, and pressed his lips to my ear. “Rein it in, sweetheart. We’re not going to war against each other this time.”

Chills rushed over my arms. The dragon leathers were suddenly too tight, my chest rising and falling, the dragon pendant heavy enough to indent my skin.

“Here’s the thing,” Jed began, his lips still close to my ear. “What I saw in the shadows… it changes things. You, me, and him? We share a common enemy. I couldn’t admit that before and I still don’t fucking like it, but that’s what it is. Don’t think for a second it’s anything more than that. It’s war. And for now, the three of us are on the same side.”

“And which side is that?” I breathed.

“Our own side.”

Why was it so hot in here? Where did all the oxygen go? Why wasn’t Solaris saying a fucking word?

“But first, you need to help this dumb fucker.” Jed shoved me toward Solaris, keeping his hand on the back of my neck while he led me. I was too stunned to protest or rally back.

“Get her away!” Solaris hissed.

He tried to hide in his wings, but I caught a glimpse. Veins of black rippled under his lashes, reaching to the bottom of his jaw. The whites of his eyes were swallowed by darkness, though the severe silver of his irises remained, creating a startling contrast. Dark veins corrupted his throat and hands. But it was his eyes that set off alarms inside my soul. He’d always been jarring to look at, but now it was literally going against nature to not run from him.

“See what I mean?” Jed murmured. “He never truly came out of the shadows. They’re trying to reclaim him and something tells me that if they succeed, we’re all fucked.”

“I’m fine,” Solaris insisted through gritted teeth. “Get out.”

“Oh, yeah, that was convincing,” I snapped. My chest throbbed, my ribs about to shatter. “Solaris, you look like you’re fucking dying. And I can feel it ,” I gushed, unable to stop myself. “I feel it like it’s happening to me, and I can’t bear it anymore.”

He straightened, moving the dark feathers from his face to look me in the eye. My heart dropped at the sight, but I didn’t flinch or turn away.

My eyes burned as we stared at each other. The tortured creature who broke free from his cage just to torture me.

Jed at my back made me startle. His enormous frame closed in on me, shoving me forward to trap me between them. “What—” I started, but his hand reaching around to snatch my throat had the words dying on my tongue.

He leaned down, his breath blowing through my hair. “Let us in,” he whispered, lips teasing the skin of my jaw.

Solaris’s fingers moved to my hair, traveling across my scalp until he got a fistful of my braid.

I didn’t know what was going on.

My own heartbeat was going to kill me.

I didn’t stop it.

Solaris’s silver-black gaze ate me alive. His lips were parted slightly, the breaths in between us charged with desire and maybe fear. My heaving chest was only inches away from him. He was so tall and lithe and dark, like a phantom, half in this world, half in the next.

“She loves a fist around her throat,” Jed mused, lining kisses along my shoulder blade. He was talking to Solaris . My stomach tightened to the point of pain, heat sinking between my thighs. “She acts tough, but what she really wants is to be conquered.” Jed squeezed harder and I let out a cry, which he angled his face around to mine to devour. He hovered there, his lips a whisper away from mine. “Don’t you, Princess? You are a twisted, masochistic little creature.”

“What are you doing?” I managed, straining to breathe.

“Shh,” Jed insisted, shoving me closer to Solaris, smothering me between their chests. “Try it,” he urged, not speaking to me. His fingers unwound from my throat while Solaris stared down at me with so much heat, I thought I would combust.

I should stop this.

“You’re ours ,” Solaris growled, the shadows in his eyes spreading over the silver like spilled oil.

Then he reached up and wound his cool, strong fingers around my throat, and my eyelids sank closed as I released a breath of fear and longing.

When they both started devouring me, I knew it was wrong. Impossible. They would never…

But they were .

Jed gripped my hips and ground my ass into him as his lips ravaged the skin of my shoulder and jaw. Solaris had me by the throat, but he moved his grip to the back of my neck so he could lean down and kiss the tender skin where their hands had been. I gasped, my hand flying up to tangle in the back of his hair. My other one rose behind me to snake into Jed’s hair. I held on as if gravity had reversed and they were the only things keeping me from falling into the ravenous jaws of the sky.

The room came alive with the sounds of our heat and gasps. Their hands and lips were everywhere, so much so that I lost track of who was who. I didn’t care. I tilted my head back, eyes shut, mouth open and wanting. Hot and cold lips took turns with it. I would die right here, consumed by them.

The throb between my legs was insatiable, my heart rocketing.

I inhaled deeply, expecting the mingled scents of earth, blood, citrus and smoke.

But all I smelled was death. Not the metallic aroma of blood, but full-on rotting death.

“You’re going to taste so fucking good,” one of them said.

My eyes shot open.

A sharp pinch on my throat made me shriek. The hands gripping me turned hard and careless, squeezing me beyond the point of agony.

They were all over me—I couldn’t see or breathe or think.

I tried to wriggle free, but they had me wedged between them, nowhere for me to turn.

Another sharp pain sank into my shoulder. I screamed, more frantic this time, the distorted lust evaporating in my corrupted mind.

They were biting me. Hard.

I screamed again, crying for them to stop. The hands touching me became clammy, the mouths wet and starving and cruel.

I knew I needed to burn myself free, but, to my horror, my fire was smothered out. The blood draining rapidly from my veins made it impossible to summon my magic.

Panic spread through me like poison.

With the hand I had in Solaris’s hair, I yanked backward, groaning as I used all the strength I could muster.

I succeeded in ripping him from my throat, only to lock eyes with a fucking stranger.

A female .

Red eyes blared into my soul, a wicked grin growing along her long, bloodstained mouth.

The revelation was an axe to the head.

The broken salt circle .

“No,” I croaked, shaking my head.

The female vampire smiled. The one drinking from my shoulder unlocked his jaw from my flesh just to look up, showing me as the dark glamour evaporated. Shadows billowed off the face I had believed was Jedidiah’s, until it morphed into something else entirely. A pale, white-haired male, who had a single streak of black in shaggy bangs. One dark eye, one crimson eye, over a fanged jaw that grinned horrifically at me.

All I could do was fucking blink.

“Trust me, dragon girl,” the female said, her voice smooth and seductive. “None of us thought you’d be this easy to fool. But I’m so glad you were because you are an absolute delicacy. The purest blood I have ever tasted.”

“Where are they?” I demanded, weak from blood loss, dying from humiliation and bewilderment and anguish. “If you hurt them, I swear— Ah! ”

They snarled and dove back down to mercilessly sink their fangs into my flesh. Ancestors roared to life in my draining blood, urging me to fight back. But I let them down. I couldn’t reach my magic, couldn’t even move my limbs.

Whirling stars obliterated my consciousness, pulling me under while the demons drank their fill of me.