Page 18 of Safe in Shadow (Pine Ridge Universe #22)

His voice changed. Came out slow and bruising, as if every syllable was meant to cut.

“My brother was a good man. I wouldn’t say he was always a clever one.

He could be easily led, and she led him quickly, especially in his grief and loneliness.

For months, I had to watch in silence—stuck in shadow, confined to the spot where I had passed—until I saw her from the windows—planting something in the garden, shouting at the cook that she was to keep away from that plot of land.

Bound in the room that’s now yours, that was first mine, I could only watch and listen.

I could hear their first seeds of discord, of James truly becoming a man, a leader.

Cynthia thought there was ready money to play with, James informed her the money was all tied up in investments and the land—and there were things we needed if we were to— If he was to make a go of it as a ‘gentleman farmer.’”

“Oh, no...”

“Oh, yes.” Nyx sat up suddenly, his exhaustion gone, the pain radiating from him in dark, spectral waves. Grace was caught in them, and she felt the sickening rage coursing through her as if it were her own brother under threat.

“It was then that I learned to tear myself from a single form and become many. I learned to move as a shadow, and oh, how useful shadows can be! Shadows that mimicked her perfectly, then moved, dancing along the wall while she blinked and tried to run from them. Smudges of black that followed her. Whispers that only she could hear. Believe me, I tried shouting for James until I was hoarse, and he could not hear a word. But she began to. Begged James to leave the house. Sell up. Move abroad. When he did not—it became a game of cat and mouse. Cynthia hastened her plans to widowhood, and I foiled every attempt she made. I learned to slam kitchen doors in the faces of the servants as they carried soup that she had poisoned. I churned the earth where her poisoned patch grew. But,” Nyx let out a sad chuckle, “she told me that would not stop her. That they would soon leave for a little trip to visit my mother’s people, or perhaps just to the seaside.

How would I protect him then? She believed I was bound just to the house and our lands—and she was right.

If Cynthia intended to kill my brother, all she would have had to do was to take him just past the boundary of our land. ”

“Bitch.” Grace felt as though she herself were going mad. How could anyone watch, imprisoned, forced to sit by and know their little brother’s life was dangling by a thread? How could anyone stay sane, knowing an innocent was being taken in by a killer and about to be slaughtered?

“Bitch, indeed. When my brother bought her a sweet-tempered mare, in addition to the plow horses he purchased for farming, she would ride along the bridle path we’d cleared through the woods.

I could not go past the woods on the far edge of our land, because the neighbor’s land began just there.

But I could enter the woods. For years, I have only had dim fragments of Cynthia’s face.

But now... I can recall her screams as I chased her on the bridle path, forcing her horse faster and faster, forcing the mare to swerve, to jump the logs that had rotted just beside the path.

I herded Cynthia. Manipulated her, just as she had manipulated James and me.

For the first time in over a century, I can hear her desperate pleas for me to just ‘leave her in peace.’ As if I had ever been given the chance to rest in peace, murdered by the woman I loved!

Knowing she would do the same to my brother if I did not stop her!

” Nyx ended with a hoarse shout, and the dying notes rang out and echoed in the empty house.

Thunder pounded outside.

“You had to stop her,” Grace whispered. “There was no other way you could get help. You had to save James, Nyx.”

Nyx looked at her. “Did I? Did I have to chase her to the edge of the ravine, then appear before the horse, looming as large as I could make myself? Did I have to watch her fly through the air and hit the rocks and branches below? I remember... She was wearing a red cloak with a large satin hood. Her face went white and still, and the hood was soaked through. It spread all down the side of her face, the only color left on it. When she did not return, James and the servants searched for her. Found her lying in a cold, bloody heap.”

Grace licked her lips and stood as Nyx began to pace the edge of the room.

Before, she had seen him as mere outlines, then in a black and gray form that was part mist and part solid.

Now, he prowled in agitation as the black tendrils of shadows shimmered and shivered their way onto his body in the form of tight-fitting black breeches, cut off below the knee, and a loose black shirt that hung open.

“When I go into the woods—something feels off. Nyx? Nyx, is she still out there? Haunting the woods?”

He rounded on her, eyes practically aflame.

“Oh, no. No, she is the reason I dare not leave this plane. I saw what happened to her soul, Grace. The bleeding slowed. Her moans fell silent. Her breast ceased to rise and fall with breath—and then she emerged, airy and white, and just as beautiful as the first day I laid eyes upon her.”

“Dude. No way she got into Heaven after murdering you and plotting to murder your brother, too!”

“No, I don’t believe she did. So pristine in white—and I, so steeped in black.

Had I been wrong to keep her from killing again?

I did not know what to think until the flames appeared all around the ground under her feet, and she vanished in the flames.

Condemned to the Pit, while I wait here, trapped in between.

I dare not try to find my way to Heaven with her blood on my hands, and Hell has no comforts.

I’m not foolish enough to believe that it’s better than this prison. It doesn’t have you, either.”

“Nyx, you were already dead at that point. You already chose to stay, didn’t you?”

He didn’t answer, just stared out the window at the storm. “No one else knew what she had done—what she would do next. James was too soaked in grief, and too rash in love.”

Grace’s voice was soft. “If you have to kill a murderer to stop them from murdering again, that’s not even murder. It’s... Self-defense. Defense of someone else.”

Nyx’s head moved slowly, and rivulets of black trickled toward her, friendly smoke that stroked her ankle as he asked, “You do not think I’m evil?”

“No.”

“You think... You think I was right to take a life?”

“Honey, if someone threatened Casey, my brother, who can be pretty moronic sometimes, they would be a grease stain. No one messes with my family.”

The friendly smoke rushed to her, and this time it dragged her, like a wave going out, leading her to Nyx’s arms.

“You don’t have to say that. I will never hurt you. I have never hurt anyone. Well, anyone innocent,” he whispered.

“I’m not. I’m saying it because... Because I like you.

I want to be with you. I... I learned about some couples in Pine Ridge.

Ghosts and humans getting married—not that I’m in a hurry to get married!

I just mean... This doesn’t have to end here.

I don’t want it to,” she murmured, arms reaching up to slide around his neck.

“I... You don’t have to choose me. There are so many others. I have nothing left, and I cannot even be sure of all of my memories. The truth is so tangled and the past so distant,” he lamented.

Grace shook her head, her hands now moving to lock around his strong jaw. “Cynthia wanted you for money. I want you for love. Love is free and doesn’t have to have any accessories. Okay?”

“Love?”

“Well... Yeah.”

“Love,” he repeated, and he shot into the air, a hurricane gust that pushed her off her feet and carried her up the stairs without letting her feet touch a single one.

SHE LOVES ME. I HAVE nothing; she has it all. I am dangerous, and mad, and perhaps evil to some, but she... My Sunflower loves me despite this.

“Tell me what you learned. I will make an honorable woman of you, I swear by everything that moves in shadows,” Nyx growled, sliding her onto the bed and smothering her with his humanesque form.

Grace only moaned as his hands roughly tugged her clothing off, leaving it in shreds and puddles of threads. He needed her bare and full of him.

Needed to taste her. Fill her. Feel her on every part of him.

His shadows spiraled outward from his spine, moving with his desire. He pinned her legs back to leave her pussy pink and spread, helpless to shield herself from his hungry eyes and hungrier mouth.

“I have longed to taste this nectar. Longed to feel you squirming and crying out my name.” His head dipped, and his tongue darted.

Segmented. Seven splits of darkness went to work, all licking frantically.

He captured her nub in one slick tendril while others parted her soft, plump lips, and others invaded the wet, tight tunnel.

He could feel her spasming in pleasure and overstimulation.

That part of him that was not truly good, nor truly human, reveled in that.

“You look like a gift. All wrapped in black ribbons,” he muttered against her pussy, slurping up the juice sheeting from her.

“I... I like being your gift.”

His cock jumped. “You like being bound to me? Bound in me?”

“Oh, God, yes. I... It’s safe and sexy, and I just get to enjoy you.”

I make her feel safe. And happy. “I want you to show me how much you enjoy it. I must hear it, Grace. Let me hear that you love what I do. That you love me,” he begged.

His mouth sealed over the hard little pearl at the top of her pussy, sucking greedily while shoots of shadows sprang from his chin to keep her pussy packed full.

Grace wailed as he sucked on her, and his shadows danced in her hot, tight little box. He hated to think of the other beings in the portal below the bed listening, but he felt a sick sense of satisfaction that they could only overhear, never enjoy. Never get through.

“You are all mine,” he spoke between hard sucks.

“God, yes. Yes, yes, fuck , yes!” Grace whimpered, her hips moving in desperate little bucks.

“Do you love what I can do to you?” he whispered, dragging his hands down her bound thighs.

“So much!”

“Say it for me!”

“I love being bound by you! In you, to you, with you, all of it!” Grace cried before her voice turned to one long, trembling scream of delight.

That was enough for him. He loved that she was not faking her pleasure, and he wanted his cock buried in her so he could feel those divine pulsations of her clenching walls.

Without a pause, he went from sucking her clit to splitting her pussy open on his cock, making it extra wide and long so that he didn’t mess a single spasm.

“Nyx!” she keened when he forced the extra width in.

“Ohhh, Grace. My taste of heaven here on earth,” he sighed, enraptured.

“This is what it is supposed to feel like. Cynthia’s body tolerated mine.

Yours craves me. It’s mutual.” He kissed her throat, his hands pressing into her small breasts, finding the thick nipples and squeezing them as he fucked her.

“I crave you. I would gladly spend my eternity in this room if you would visit me each day. Bring me life and light with your smile, all while soaking in my darkness.” His shadows split again, this time forming a second phallus and sliding it into her tight second entrance.

The little ring of muscle was lubricated by her juices, but not as wet as her pussy.

He made himself small—just the right size to fill her without hurting her.

GRACE WAS LOST IN A haze of pleasure and broken boundaries.

Nyx had her tied up tightly, her knees strapped in shadowy ribbons to her thighs, her pussy stretched wide around a cock that was almost too big, and her ass stuffed full of something that was just right to drive her crazy.

Helpless and loving it. Only, not really helpless.

If she said “stop,” she would have been freed—and that would have been terrible, because she was going to come again, even harder this time.

“How come you’re so good at this?” she moaned as his hands owned her breasts, tugging her nipples and making her pussy twitch on each twist and pull.

“I think it’s something gifted to those who are between portals.

Knowledge that is not truly our own. I recognize languages I never spoke while alive.

And I know secrets of pleasure I never would have dared try with a woman in my time.

But you... You are so strong all day. It makes sense that you are so ready to rest and rely on my strength at night.

All you carry and haul. Lift and drag. Tireless.

” Nyx allowed himself to float up from the bed, to carry her with him.

“Let me carry everything for you, my love. I can give you that.”

She sighed his name with pure contentment, her beautiful eyes closed, face blissful and serene. “My Nyx.”

“My Grace.” He took her to the window, let his shadows cushion her back, and made love against the backdrop of rain while wrapped in their own black clouds, bodies making their own special kind of lightning.