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Always & Forever

NYX

I stared at my sister’s sleeping face in the glow of the firelight and I couldn’t believe she was real. Not just here, but—like this . With her shiny raven waves chopped short, her slender frame wrapped in dark blue leather. She looked like a different person, a stranger—yet somehow, seemed more like herself than ever. It made no sense, and so I studied every feature of her face, trying to figure it out. She was sharper now. Her eyes had beamed an icy, stoic glow. Gone was the timid little sister I’d left behind at Luna Academy.

I was proud of her but I mourned her, too. The Emilia I once knew and would never see again. I hadn’t been there to watch her transform into this new creature and that killed me.

But she was here now—and so were Faye and Natalia. I couldn’t even be mad that they’d brought Venus. It was outrageous, sure, but it had been the one thing that told me they were real and not vampires hiding behind glamour magic. Only my sister and my friends would be crazy enough to do such a thing.

The Goddess worked in mysterious ways.

I fell asleep on the rug, nuzzled close to my little sister. I dreamed of flying. Half-lucid, I admired the Earth from the perspective of the sky. LA glittered below like a cluster of fallen stars. It was beautiful, and thrilling—until the dark clouds formed a heartbeat. A heartbeat that crashed like thunder, so loud it felt like my skull would shatter. I flew closer and closer to the disturbance, determined to vanquish it.

And then I was falling. Plummeting to the ground at a horrifying speed.

It jolted me awake.

My eyes flew open to find darkness personified standing over me.

My blood halted and turned to ice. Solaris loomed like a phantom, his eyes fully black, shadowy veins rippling down his face. An aura of darkness radiated from him like black fire. He pressed his finger to his lips, warning me to stay quiet.

My heart ejected from my ribs when I saw his hands.

His manacles were gone.

He grinned demonically as he watched me.

They’re too late , his voice mocked in my mind.

My lips parted on a gasp. His face warped with fury. Do not make a sound or I’ll kill them all.

I turned to my sister—who had a tentacle of darkness hovering over her sleeping face. It took every fiber of strength not to scream. Solaris emitted tethers of shadows over each one of my friends. Over Jedidiah. With one thought from him, I knew what could happen. They’d be consumed. Wiped from existence.

I met his void eyes once more, feeling as though he’d turned me to stone. What are you doing?

What I was always meant to do.

Tears leaked from my eyes while a war of questions assailed my mind. What was happening? How could we communicate telepathically? Was I still dreaming?

He smiled wrongly, devouring my horror. We have always been connected. I held back for you. No more of that. We adore you, but your foolish desires will interfere no longer.

My stomach tumbled. We?

The shadows radiating from him… inside and out…

No, no, no.

Jedidiah had been right. It finally happened.

He grabbed the sword from the mantle, running his finger down the blade, drawing blood. Black blood. Then the tip of the blade met my throat. Get up. Do not make a sound.

My legs were like jelly. I rose shakily, my lungs ready to burst from their lack of air. He kept the blade pressed to my throat, his black eyes swallowing me whole as he forced me backward, out onto the terrace. The wind whirled through my hair, the full moon beaming silver light upon us. A stunning backdrop to a dreadful moment.

Solaris . Even my internal voice was panting. Please.

He lowered the sword and I gulped in a breath of short-lived relief. He closed the space between us, towering over me, his shadows caressing my skin. Like cold silk being brushed down my arms. I shivered, trapped in his dark gaze.

He leaned down and pressed his lips to mine. Softly, but my entire body erupted. His cool palm cupped my face as he deepened the kiss that I was helpless to stop. He tasted like winter and misery and yet I was ravenous for more. My fire raged through my chest, burning in my hands, desperate to be released. To dance with his darkness.

I didn’t understand.

Always and forever , he whispered into my mind. He pulled his lips from mine to look into my eyes with his blacked-out orbs. We have traveled the cosmos for eternities, choosing new worlds and new stories in which we will meet again. The endless tale of light and dark.

I was shaking. Tears streaming down my cheeks. He was gazing into my eyes but still somehow looking past me—or through me.

Because it wasn’t Solaris speaking to me. It was his shadows speaking to my fire.

He smiled as he watched me catch on. Then he backed away and launched into flight, leaving me standing there with a gaping wound in my chest.

Everything started to feel far away.

“Nyx,” someone said, jarring my attention.

A gasp raged from my throat as I shot up. I was sitting on the rug next to the fire with my sister sound asleep next to me. My friends too. Jedidiah, softly snoring on the bed.

It was a dream.

My trembling hand brushed my lips. They were cold and tasted like him.

“Nyx,” the voice from my dream whispered.

I turned to find Michael staring at me with a look in his eyes that made my insides lurch. He nodded pointedly at the mantle.

The sword was gone.

My chest rose and fell. Dread pooled in my gut like acid.

Michael opened his mouth but I shot my fingers to my lips and shushed him. Moving carefully to not wake anyone, I rose to my feet and silently beckoned him to follow me. We crept out onto the terrace. The night was exactly as it had been in the dream.

“Did we have the same dream?” I asked him, my voice barely audible.

His wide eyes had already told me he did but I needed to hear it. “It was your dream, Nyx. But yes, I saw it.”

Every inch of me was trembling.

“What does that mean?” I could hardly form a word over the panic ascending my throat. “It was just a dream. But the sword is really gone.”

“I don’t know—it’s like he hijacked my ability. He was in my dream before he got to you. We should wake—”

“No.”

“Nyx—”

A trail of ethereal blue flames burst to life on the ground next to us. A pathway of fire that led off the terrace, into the dark unknown.

The moonlight we stood in brightened.

“What the…?” Michael’s stunned voice trailed off.

Or maybe I’d just stopped listening because I was already back inside, rooting through my bags, and pulling out the dragon leathers. My soul urged me to get ready. An unnamed purpose raged through my veins. I couldn’t make sense of it but it was there. Every cell in my being was on alert, the thrum of impending chaos preparing me for something I couldn’t fathom.

“What are you doing?” Michael hissed. “Nyx, you can’t go after him alone.”

“I have to! Shh!”

He whirled to face the other way as I stripped off my sleep clothes and got into my leathers.

“You’re all together,” I told him, still speaking as quietly as possible. “You’ll be okay. Take care of Jedidiah. I’ll be back…” I wasn’t so sure of that last part.

Michael’s expression warped with rage as he turned back around. He grabbed me by the arm, nearly shocking a yelp out of me. He yanked me then pushed me into the wall and cornered me there, glaring at me like I’d murdered his whole family.

Whoa.

“You cannot leave her again,” he growled.

“Michael.” I was panting. “I…”

The fire trickled inside. The flaming blue trail didn’t stop until it reached me.

Michael’s chest rose and fell, his gaze fixed on the phenomenon. When he looked back at me, his dark eyes were teeming with internal conflict. His shoulders slumped in defeat. “You have to come back,” he rasped.

I squeezed his arm. “I will. I promise. Please tell my sister I love her. And tell Jedidiah…” I glanced over at him, sleeping peacefully in the bed we’d shared. I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Tell him not to be mad.”

“I think he might punch my lights out if I tell him that.”

I almost laughed. “Probably.”

What he did next shocked me to my core. He hugged me.

It was both affectionate and severe, like a warning concealed by physical affection. He smelled like cedar and smoke and man , and I suddenly understood why my sister fancied him. “You better come back. She’ll never forgive me if I let you go and you don’t.”

“I will,” I promised.

Before I left, I scoured through Emilia’s bag and, sure enough, found the demon blade. Holding it gave me that familiar, dense feeling. Like a knot in my stomach. The thing was a dark omen in itself. I didn’t have a holster, so I slid it between my breasts, secure in the skin-tight leather of my top.

Then I followed the trail of blue flames.