Page 45 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

“A long time ago,” he said, “when I was a child, and then a young man, I had dreamed that maybe one day, it could have been. Instead, I left it worse than I found it. And that version of myself mourns what I have done. Even if I don’t regret it.”

I understood this. It was the part of me that still mourned what died when I thrust that arrow into Atroxus’s throat. The belief, the faith, the dream. Not the god.

Another loop. Almost done.

He said, wryly, “Are you going to tell me it’s not my fault?”

I shook my head. “No. I’ve learned over the years that people think they want absolution. But that’s not what they really need to hear.”

“What do most people need to hear?”

For some reason, I had to speak past a lump in my throat.

“They need to hear, ‘Even if it is your fault, I will love you anyway.’ ?”

He was quiet, thoughtful. He pulled through the final loop of the lace and straightened. “There,” he said. “Done.”

Slowly, I turned around, holding my dress against my body. I swayed, still, and I knew he was tracking that sign of weakness. He was so close that I could feel his breath against my lips. And gods, how I wanted to close the distance.

The scent of his blood was overwhelming. Hunger twisted in my stomach.

His gloved hand swept over my cheek, wiping away a smudge of dirt.

“For whatever of your mistakes, Mische Iliae,” he said, quietly, firmly, “for whatever of your faults, for whatever unintended pains you may bring this world, I will love you anyway.”

Love. That word sank deep into me, twisted around my still, cold heart.

I knew Asar loved me, and I knew that words were the least valuable currency to show it. And yet. His voice wrapping around that word made me shiver. I wanted to capture it and hold it in my soul forever. A gift I could never deserve.

I swayed again, wordless.

“And I will never stop telling you that you were incredible, because you were, and you are, and don’t you dare ever be ashamed of it,” he went on. “Now stop arguing with me and drink, so I can keep watching you bring the world to its knees.”

Sun take me. This man.

I was so tired. I was so weak. My heart hurt. And when he put it all like that, I didn’t have it in me to resist anymore.

I let the dress fall. It was so heavy that it hit the ground with a satisfying thump.

Asar’s smile faded. His gaze raked over me, inch by inch, feet to head. I relished that stare. I felt it almost like I felt his touch.

“Sorry,” I murmured. “It was heavy.”

“Oh,” he said, slowly, deliberately, “don’t you dare be sorry.”

“I’m sure there are some clothes in here some?—”

But Asar had already gone to the bed and, with one vicious movement, threw back the blanket, then the sheet. He raised his brows at me expectantly.

I swallowed thickly. “That’s not—it’s not safe for you.”

“There’s a sheet. Perfect protection.”

I started to protest, but another wave of dizziness struck me.

“Sun take me, Mische, just get into the bed and drink.”

Through my headache, I thought to myself, What a wonderful collection of words.

I obeyed, going to the bed and lying down. I sank into the mattress, lashes already fluttering, world tilting. For all my protests, Asar was right. I was fading fast.

He gently smoothed the sheet over my body, then lay beside me on top of it. I reached for his wrist, but he shook his head and lifted his chin instead.

My brows rose. “I can’t.”

“You need it faster than a wrist can give it to you.”

“I’ll hurt you. And there’s no magical bathtub here.”

“I’m feeling?.?.?.?invigorated. I think I can handle it.”

Invigorated. That seemed like one way to describe how he’d looked holding that mask. Like the god we had set out to make him.

My gaze traced the angle of his perfect jaw, then the elegant lines of his throat. Found the steady beat of his pulse there, right under his skin, and couldn’t tear my gaze away.

A lifetime in a church, and yet, I’d never had my self-control tested so much as it had been since I met Asar.

I truly meant to protest more. But his gloved hand found the back of my head, guiding it down.

And I found myself lowering my lips to his skin.

My fangs slipped easily through his flesh. His blood flooded my mouth, sweet and rich.

He let out a groan of pleasure that I felt vibrate against my lips, and gods help me, I almost lost all coherent thought right there. The last time I’d fed from his throat, he’d been inside me, the two of us writhing through our hungers together.

I was grateful for the sheet between us, because my body rolled against him before I could stop it, the carnal impulse overwhelming.

“Good,” he whispered. His hand fell to my waist, sliding down, and his touch burned, even through the fabric between us. His fingers dug into my hips in a way that reminded me too vividly of how he’d held me there when I rode him.

My palm flattened against his stomach, enjoying the way the ridges of his abdomen tensed under my touch.

I was so hungry.

So hungry.

And he tasted so, so good. Better than he had in the Descent, or in Morthryn. How was that possible?

I wrung out that next swallow.

And I was so drunk on my desire, on the sheer life that Asar offered me, that I couldn’t help myself. I followed the ridge of the V that led into his trousers. Lower, to his length, hard and throbbing already.

He drew in a delicious, sharp breath as my palm wrapped around it through his clothing. I knew he was considering pulling away, as he had in Ryvenhaal. But I extracted my teeth just enough to whisper, “No. I want you.”

His cock twitched at those words. As if my hunger alone was pure pleasure for him.

“Then you’ll have me,” he said.

And I felt a door opening for me—a door into his mind, coaxing me inside. I realized what he was doing: giving me an opportunity to reclaim the power that I’d used to destroy. Paint over the pain with pleasure. The gift I hadn’t even known I needed.

With a gloved hand, he gently lowered my head back to his throat.

“Perfect,” he murmured. “You are perfect.”

I drew in another mouthful and pushed my hand up his length. I felt his spark of pleasure in my own body, his thoughts intermingling with my own. My thumb swirled around his tip, and gods, I resented the layers of fabric between us for dulling the details, the folds of skin, the silky texture.

My mind slipped further into his. He was thinking about my body pressed against his. He was thinking about my hand around his cock, and just how desperately he wished it was inside me instead. His desire made me dizzy with want, and I fed that back to him as I pumped him harder, faster.

He thrust against my hand as I drew another agonizing swallow. I sensed him driving closer to the end. I wanted to wring it out of him.

But with my next drink, I sensed a wave of weakness. A jolt of pain.

Immediately, I tore myself away from his throat.

His blood dribbled at the corner of my mouth, and my tongue darted out to capture it. He stared at me with half-shuttered eyes, soft in their dreamy exhaustion and sharp in their vicious hunger.

I said, “Did I take too?—”

But Asar just gripped my waist through the sheet and pulled me on top of him.

The weight of my body, the sensation of my thighs opening around his hips, sent his wild pleasure—his hunger—through us both.

“No,” he growled. “No, you’ve never taken enough.”

His hips thrust sharply up, dragging his rigid cock against my core. I let out a fractured moan.

I rolled against his length, faster, shifting with the constant feedback of his mind. I watched the blood roll down his throat, still glistening with the remnants of my kiss, and I had to throw my head back and bite down on my own lip to stop myself from going back in.

“Look at me,” he commanded.

Look at me. Look at me. Look at me.

His voice reverberated with the power of compulsion.

I did. His gaze was glazed over and predatory.

“Tell me what you want.”

His hands ran up and down my body through the sheet. One paused at my breast, circling my hardened nipple.

I slowed my movements, then stopped, and watched his entire body go taut in protest.

I said, “I want to watch you lose control.”

His mind answered, I’ve done that for you long ago.

Aloud, he said, “Then make me.”

Beneath the haze of my pleasure and his, I understood what he was offering me. The opportunity to reclaim the power of compulsion.

I was greedy. I was selfish. I gladly took it.

“Come for me,” I breathed.

Come for me. Come for me. Come for me.

Oblivion crashed over him first, and as his hand found my core, the wave barreled over me a moment after.

Asar gripped fistfuls of the sheet around my body, and when I collapsed against him, I had to bite down hard on the pillow just to keep my mouth from finding his bare skin again.

Base, feral euphoria, mine and his combined, erased my senses.

Asar swiftly grabbed me and pressed me to the bed, the sheets still between us. He lowered his head over me, his nose nearly brushing mine, lips so close I could taste his words.

“You are an event, Mische Iliae,” he murmured. “God slayer. Dawndrinker. Shadowborn queen. And I would die to taste your skin.”

His gloved hand was tight around my wrist, pressing my palm to his chest, right over his heart. Like he wanted me to feel just how much he meant it.

And a terrible part of me, right now, wanted to throw back this sheet, open my thighs around him, and let him.

But I choked a breathy laugh, the tension breaking.

“I think it’s best if only one of us is dead at a time,” I said.

Slowly, a smile spread over his lips. I withdrew from his mind and wriggled from under his grasp as he settled beside me. Lust still throbbed between us. But the exhaustion came, too. Mine from the aftereffects of my feeding. His from all he had given up.

“Feeling better?” he said.

My eyelids were very heavy. I forced them open to look at him. “Mm-hmm. And you?—”

“I’m perfect.” He smoothed the sheets down over me and extracted himself from the bed. “I’ll clean up. You rest.”

I wanted to protest. I really did. But my lashes fluttered. When I forced them open again, Asar was back, wearing fresh clothes, lying on top of the sheets while I lay beneath. I resisted the urge to curl up against him, and settled instead for the weight of his body beside mine.

I dreamed of skin, and want, and all the ways the two collided.