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Masochist

SOLARIS

T he crack of my wings punished the sky as I tore through the night, fleeing from the shadows that hunted me. The corners of my vision were blackening like burning paper, darkness eating at my senses from the inside out. I roared with fury and ascended higher as the angry storm clouds closed in around me. I ripped through them, dodging blue veins of lightning, my wings beating relentlessly until I conquered the storm altogether and rose above it.

Moonlight stung my eyes, the stars glaring woefully at me. The stillness, the clearness, brought me no respite. It only accented the effect of the shadows as they ambushed me.

The black clouds rippled under me like dark, murky water.

I breathed hard, flying on the spot. The air up this high was freezing and electric, blundering into my lungs like a hailstorm.

The expanse of velvet sky was endless, limitless , and still I was suffocating.

Six seconds in, six seconds out.

Wind and shadows howled in my ears, in my brain, furious and unyielding. We’d been separated for too long, and they had lost all abandon, now ruthless in their pursuit to be reunited.

“No,” I growled, forcing myself to breathe, to block them out, to fight.

Six seconds in. Six seconds out.

The moon’s rays brightened. My eyes blew wide, scouring the sky, noting the lack of grainy black film around the outskirts of my vision.

It was working.

I kept breathing. Kept pushing them out. The beat of my wings slowed until it matched the rhythm of my breath. The storm clouds rumbling under me calmed. The entire world seemed to slow and match my pace.

I didn’t trust the stillness or the brightness, but even so, it felt like a win. At least for now.

I stayed above the clouds and under the moon for a while longer. Breathing deeply, until my inner realm was as steady and clear as the starry winter sky.

My heart thumped in sync with my breath and my wings. Each beat summoned me back. Back to them.

I tucked my wings in and dove through the clouds.

Landing silently on the terrace, their voices instantly carried out into the night, steeped in passion that made my spine go straight. Curious, I flattened myself to the stone wall, becoming one with the darkness, and dared to peek inside.

They stood in front of the fire, staring into each other’s eyes. Neither of them sensed me.

Something warm and tight ignited in my stomach when I saw Nyx was in her shifted form.

Jedidiah brushed his thumb along her bottom lip. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered. “Every part of you.”

She snorted. “Liar.”

He answered with an eye roll. “Brat.”

My legs felt heavy and fused to the ground. I watched them, as if from another world. How effortless it was between them. Jedidiah scooped her up like a baby and she yelped but it was a playful sound. There was no disgust or defense etched on her face. She smiled, her fangs visible, as he plopped down in the armchair with her cradled in his lap. The way he absently brushed his fingers through her hair and she placed her palm on his chest—it was natural. Not forced or calculated or tense.

After everything, they still just…connected.

I pried my eyes away and leaned against the wall, glaring out at the moon.

“Your heart is beating so fast,” Nyx told him.

There was a pause before he answered. Then, shakily, he said, “You know what you do to me.”

There was a falter in his words. Perhaps she missed it, but I didn’t. Jedidiah was beginning to withdrawal. I’d seen it when he sat across from me in the war room. The way his eyes darted. Or how he’d constantly wet his lips and had to ball his hands into fists to keep them from shaking. He’d been abusing angeldust for far too long and hadn’t realized how dependent on it he’d become until he went without.

An inconvenience, to say the least. We didn’t have time for this.

When they didn’t speak again, I steeled myself, preparing to go inside.

But Jedidiah’s voice stopped me. “Nyx, I meant what I said before. You should go back to Luna Academy. At least for now. You need to be with your coven. And your dragon—I mean, what if he stays away so much because of where you are? Because of who you’re with ? If you go back, I bet he—”

“Jed,” she scorned. “We’ve talked about this! Even if I wanted to, I can’t go back. Not yet.”

“Why?”

I had to peek around the door to see her face. The sorrow in her dragon eyes melted a glacial film that had been caging my heart for a century.

“You know why.” Her gaze flicked into the fire. “Plus…I don’t want to leave. I’m not leaving you guys. Solaris will return. And when he does, we will figure this all out. We’ll get his manacles off. We’ll get our vengeance against Rashira. Then we will plot our return into the Celestial Society— together .”

More melting inside me. My fingers trembled.

“Together.” Jedidiah repeated the word slowly, sounding as though it tasted foul on his tongue. “As in, the three of us.”

“Yes,” Nyx rasped.

“I don’t know how sustainable that’s going to be in the long run.”

“Well, me either. But there’s no point in fighting it anymore. Solaris, as mad as he may be, seems to be right. We keep being drawn back together. The three of us. We…” She trailed off, still watching the flames dance.

Jedidiah watched her. His throat worked, his eyes darkening.

I had come to know that look.

“How long am I supposed to play piggy in the middle before you two don’t need me as a buffer anymore?”

The air went cold.

Nyx flinched, her expression crumpling. “Jed…”

“No, I’m serious. I saw you two last night. And I’m not mad. I’m not mad at you, Nyx. But I’m also not a fucking idiot. ”

It was as if he’d taken a cold, metal tool and shoved it down my throat to scoop out my insides. I felt hollow and sore and something else, something that shook me up and rearranged me.

She yanked herself out of his lap, smoke seeping from her nostrils. There she was—that mythic, fireborn creature, created in the image of fury. Even more so now that her Drakiana form had emerged. She was too stunning, too ethereal, especially with pain and passion etched over her otherworldly features. She glared down at him, smoke curling from between her lips, her dragon eyes burning.

“I’m not going to keep having this fucking argument with you, Jedidiah! Frankly, I think you put this shit on me to cope with your own involvement here! He’s your brother . And while you might act like that means nothing to you, I saw the way you looked at him before we escaped that vampire den. It was you who refused to leave him behind. I mean, look at the way you tried so desperately to help him just now! ‘Breathe, Solaris, breathe!’ Come on! That was you, not me. If anything, it’s you and h—”

He vaulted out of the chair and shocked her back a step, his hand wrapping around her throat. Fuck, it unsettled me when he did that.

“Do not finish that sentence, Nyx.”

“Or what!” she growled defiantly.

He towered over her, her throat engulfed in his enormous hand. Their size difference alone was enough to send me into a fit. He used it against her, flaring up to make her feel as small as possible. But Nyx was unafraid, glaring up at him with her swirling dragon eyes, bearing her fangs.

I almost grinned . That’s my Firefly.

“You’re just as deep in this shit as me, Jedidiah!”

“Shut your fucking mouth right now.”

“You started it!”

“Yeah? But can you really tell me I’m wrong, Nyx? I went about it the wrong way before, I know—I’m an asshole. But the truth remains. When those vampires glamoured themselves as me and him, what happened? What did you do?”

My fingers balled into fists. He was really going to go there again. Fucking idiot.

Nyx needed no white knight to ride in and defend her honor. She reefed out of his grasp and her palm met his cheek with a cold, hard slap that echoed off the walls. His face jerked to the side. He accepted it, knowing damn well he deserved it. He only turned back to glare at her.

“I can’t fucking do this anymore!” she cried. “If you’re really that insecure about your place here then take your own fucking advice and leave! Take the Selenite stylus and go ! Leave me, leave Solaris, leave this fucking mountain, and go live the life you want! I won’t stop you!”

“Maybe I should !” he roared. “Make your life easier and bow out now so you’re not forced to choose between us. Since you made it pretty clear in front of Rashira that you have no interest in doing that. Deep down, you want both of us, Nyx. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”

“Right, right—because I’m such a piece of shit for refusing to let either of you die!”

His shoulders slumped and he stepped back. In defeat?

“No, you’re not. You’re not a piece of shit.”

She cocked her head, studying his change of demeanor with dark curiosity.

“It’s me,” he rasped. “It’s me who is the piece of shit. I’ve known this whole time what I’m getting myself into. I mean, fuck. Fucking look at you! You’re not a woman, you’re myth and legend incarnate and I’m still trying to force mortal fucking laws and morals onto you. I’m an idiot. You don’t owe me shit. You can have who and what you want.”

He collapsed back into the armchair and smothered his face in his hands.

I watched, beyond intrigued. His words festered inside me, and I didn’t know what to make of them. They stirred me.

As many times as I had watched him, or I had made Morpheus watch him, the Groundshaker continued to surprise me. I had come to know him well, yet that didn’t mean I could successfully predict his actions. Whether he’d blow up or bow down or shut right off, was always a mystery. The only thing I was sure of was that he’d always come for Nyx.

And she knew it, too. She stared down at him, and the furrow between her brows smoothed out, the fire in her sapphire eyes waning.

“I’m not going to stand here and lie to you, Jed.”

He looked up at her.

“You’re right, okay? There is a part of me dark and depraved enough to desire unspeakable things. It doesn’t mean I actually want it to happen. It doesn’t mean anything . Don’t you get it? Whatever is between me and Solaris is a blood oath. He won me like a fucking trophy on Hallows Eve and that’s that.”

The ice inside me that had melted hardened again. My jaw clenched, the edges of my vision darkening.

She still —after everything—

“I begged you before not to undermine the closeness we have shared. Me and you . Our nights together. He doesn’t get that side of me, Jedidiah. I don’t know what else I can say.”

His eyes shone up at her, the fury and tension dissolving like a snowflake on a hot stone.

And I was back in the shadows again. Trapped in endless darkness. Cold and isolated. Watching a world I’d never be a part of from a realm that no one would ever understand.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I keep doing this. I don’t feel right. I’m—I’m just—”

“It’s okay,” she murmured. “I get it. I haven’t felt right in forever.”

He stood up and took her face in his hands. “What’s the matter?”

She shook her head. Her mouth opened and closed a few times before words made it out. “I’m—I’m so—” She battled with it, the war behind her eyes clear as the moonlight.

Finally, she surrendered. “I’m starving .”

Jedidiah made a face. “I brought you all this food…”

Idiot.

“I’m not hungry for that .”

His eyes blew wide. “Oh.”

They stared at each other as the fire under the mantle crackled and spat. Her chest rose and fell.

He didn’t understand what she needed. He didn’t understand what she was .

My feet inched closer to the door. A baser instinct to help her howled through my veins.

“Kiss me,” she said, and my insides plummeted from my body.

I should have looked away, but I could not.

“Kiss me, Jedidiah. Please. I need you.”

I need you.

His lips crashed down on hers and they erupted into a scene that sharpened into a scalpel and carved my chest open. My exposed heart thundered as I watched her shove him into the armchair and climb on top of his body. He welcomed her hungrily, his hands on her back and in her hair as he smothered her against him. Their mouths were a clash of lips and tongues and teeth. She straddled him, moaning as they ravished each other, and there was nothing malicious about her affection. She wasn’t doing this to spite him or hurt him. They were… they were just…

Of course they were.

I had known. I had known what they were, but to see it for myself was a whole new awakening.

She…she surrendered to him. Tilted her head back, her face twisted in euphoria as he kissed her slender throat. And the Groundshaker may not have understood what she was, but he accepted it wholly, worshiping at the altar of her shifted form. He winced as she knotted her clawed fingers in the back of his hair but it only fueled his desire more.

I was trapped and drowning in a moment that didn’t belong to me.

And it would never belong to me. She would never belong to me. I’d tried to trap her, pluck her wings, steal her magic, force her to stand at my side. I wanted her so badly and no matter what the cost. It had clouded my judgement, my sanity. Turned me into a creature as cruel as the ones that had forged me.

I’d never have her by force. I’d never have her by sharing her.

I’ll never have her at all.

What she’d said about me was true—I wasn’t a real person.

I was nothing.

Their infernal heat blazed out onto the terrace, burning through the sky itself.

Their mouths and hands were frantic. I needed to leave.

He pulled at the bottom of her t-shirt and she leaned back, obliging him as he yanked it over her head.

My abdomen was on fire.

I glanced back at the sky as it called me. The moon beckoned me away from the ruin that was about to lay into me.

My heart thundered.

Ever the masochist, I turned back.

They were devouring each other, their naked chests flushed together. Fixated on the look swathing Nyx’s features as she tilted back to let him kiss her throat, my knees trembled. She liked that, she liked it so much. She gave the prettiest whimpers, clutching her shifted hands in his hair and—

I needed to go . To fly away and leave them, perhaps to never return at all.

I turned away, pressing my back to the wall, breathing hard as I screwed my eyes shut. But I could still see her. Her shiny, open mouth, whispering whimpers and moans as she let him adore her.

The pit inside me expanded and filled with icy poison that spread through my veins before it hardened.

It wasn’t wrath or envy. I didn’t have a name for it, the force that took over my being.

The corners of my vision grew darker and darker.

I stepped forward. To fly.

A sharp gasp from inside made me stop.

Slowly, I turned around.

They were both frozen. Staring at each other in silence as the fire behind Nyx’s naked back raged.

Blood poured down Jedidiah’s chin.

“I—” Nyx’s voice was hoarse and fractured. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Oh.

She’d bitten him.

The horror and shame that teemed in her dragon eyes as she stared down at what she’d done had me yearning for my shadows, for my weapon of devastation, just so I could plunge the world into ruin to make it match her new form.

She tried to shuffle off of his lap. He grabbed her by the throat and held her in place. “Nyx, it’s okay.”

The look of marvel on Jedidiah’s face both gutted me and filled me with relief. He was truly worthy of her. I was glad for it, and destroyed by it.

“No, it’s not!” she cried, her pain conjuring into a wave that crashed over me. “I hurt you! I’m sorry. I never should have—”

“I fucking love you, Nyx.”

The sound of my gasp was drowned by hers.

She fell still, her eyes widening and filling with tears.

My vision burned and blackened as I turned on my heel and vaulted into the sky.