Page 13 of The Night Is Defying (Nytefall Trilogy #2)

13

A straea

The bitter air stopped nipping my skin. I tried to blink so my vision would focus, and I was placed down on something soft. The heat I craved was drifting away and I clutched it with a weak fist.

Nyte’s soft chuckle gave a similar warmth within. He took my hand. Then he was sliding in behind me and I relaxed.

“I’m bleeding,” I said sleepily. “Quite badly I think.”

“I know,” he answered. “I would get a healer, but it would take too long. Do you trust me?”

“Do I have a choice?”

Nyte didn’t answer, and the next thing I knew his arm was lifting to my mouth; my hazy sight caught the gleam of crimson. I tried to jerk my head back, only to be restricted by his solid chest.

“Shh,” he soothed. “It won’t do anything but heal you.”

I was too tired and in pain to refuse. The alarm in me dulled with his gentle approach, waiting for me to accept. I closed the distance, and the first hit of metallic liquid on my tongue drew my brow together.

I was drinking Nyte’s blood.

Soon, the copper tang turned to something sweet. Addicting. I clutched his forearm like some starved creature that couldn’t drink fast enough.

“Easy,” he warned, but it was distant from the roar in my ears craving more. More. More.

Nyte smoothed back my hair before that spare hand slipped around my waist. A low vibration against my back tightened my core painfully, and I needed him to relieve it. Frustratingly, his hand didn’t dip to where I wanted but rather circled me, trying to restrain my movements against him.

His lips pressed to my neck and I whimpered. Sparks shot through every nerve cell and I came so close to a climax I was near feral. Desperate. He con tinued to tease down my sensitive throat, and I wanted him to bite so badly I could have begged for it.

“That’s enough,” he said, his tone thick with lust.

It wasn’t enough for either of us, and I couldn’t understand why he was denying it.

I could only speak or act on the desire overtaking me if I let go of his arm from my mouth and tight clutch. But I wanted his blood so much at the same time that it became maddening.

Finally, I let go when I couldn’t inhale enough air through my nose, alone with the exhilaration sharpening my breaths.

“Good girl,” he growled over my collar. My head tipped back against his shoulder while he continued with his kisses along the base of my throat.

“Nyte,” I panted, not sure what I wanted to follow with, and then my mind became hazy.

“Starlight,” he murmured. So relaxed, calm. When I felt the complete opposite. Wanting to take over the world hand in hand with him right this moment or wage a war in these black sheets.

“Did you find Drystan?” I asked, trying to grapple anything to ground me while I was soaring.

“Yes.”

“Is he a danger?”

Nyte pushed the hair over my temple in relaxing strokes.

“I don’t think you really want to talk about him right now.”

No, I didn’t.

My blood was racing too hot, scrambling anything else but the feel of him. Desire crawled my skin and I wanted the clothes between us gone.

“I feel like I need you,” I breathed.

“It’s a natural effect of drinking from a Bonded,” he explained. “You are absolutely stunning.”

His compliment drew my attention to my arms—the silver markings that were glowing.

“Did we—”

“No, we are not Bonded fully from it. It requires a blood exchange and spoken words.”

I nodded, not sure what was stronger, my relief or—

Stars, I didn’t want to acknowledge it fought with disappointment.

Between my legs still grew so warm that I could hardly keep still.

“I need—”

“I know.”

Instead of helping me the way I hoped, he slipped out from behind me too fast for me to voice my dismay. He couldn’t just leave me like this.

My scowl up at him was met with a knowing smirk.

“Undress for me,” he said, leaning down to press a kiss to my head, and I was too pent up with lust to admire his tenderness.

He stalked into the washroom and the irritation didn’t leave me as I heard the water running. Fuck, it crossed my mind to reach my own hand between my legs and finish what he hadn’t.

“Go ahead.” Two words of pure enticing gravel. My sight flicked up to find Nyte, cross-armed, leaning sideways in the door frame. “I won’t stop you.”

It felt like a dare. Would he break or I? Perhaps his blood, the unexplainable surges of magick I’d endured both in the cave and with him, had clouded all sense and reasoning.

“Get out of my head.”

When I stood, my knees took a moment to feel like they would hold me before I walked to him, never breaking eye contact.

“I’m not in your head,” he said, irises melting to a liquid gold as they watched me, like he was trying to anticipate my every move. “Your body is my favorite language.”

I turned when I reached him.

Nyte made a noise of faint amusement. “Not in the mood to stretch today?”

The high was beginning to fight with my returning fatigue, but the need between my thighs kept me wide awake.

My gown dropped after Nyte untied the back, leaving only my undergarments. Nyte took my hand, guiding me with backward steps into the washroom. He braced hands on my waist; reading what he wanted to do I gripped the counter behind as he helped me atop it.

The basin beside it was full of warm water while the bath was still filling. He dipped a cloth inside, then dropped to his knee, taking my calf tenderly.

“Every wound on your flesh inflicts a new one in me,” he said in a voice of shadowy confession.

“You shouldn’t allow it to. I can be quite accident-prone.”

“Too late.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. How was I going to be able to sever this tie I had to him?

“It won’t matter when you’re gone,” I said quietly.

Or if I was gone.

His golden eyes flicked up and I could barely withstand the misery in them.

“It will always matter.”

I couldn’t bear the determination in his gaze.

“You had company…” I diverted. “In the cave?”

He huffed a humorless laugh. “I would rather I hadn’t.” Then his eyes flexed as he asked, “The nymph that hurt you, are they still alive?”

Certain he could incinerate all life within mile-long stretch of pool if I gave the wrong answer, I was wary of being honest.

“She said you owe her something.”

“What happened?”

I became distracted by the way he moved. Standing to dip the cloth in the basin, the water turning deeper shades of pink each time. His jacket removed and sleeves rolled to his elbows showed every contour of his golden tattooed forearms and all I could think about was how I wished they weren’t flexing to wring out the water but rather working with his fingers in me.

The next time he stood he dropped the cloth and did not retrieve it. Instead my breath caught on an inhale as his hands trapped me on either side and he leaned in close.

“Fuck,” he growled, slamming his lips to mine, and the surprise of it drew a moan from my throat. “I can hardly think, hardly breathe, with the scent of your arousal driving me wild.”

“I want you,” I said, drunk on the assault of his mouth on mine, my jaw, my neck. I wanted him to bite.

“You have me,” he said in a low, gravelly murmur. “For every call. Every whim. Every minor inconvenience, I am yours.”

I gasped when his fingers slipped into the low neckline of my cotton corset and he tore the material down the front. It felt so carnally possessive that I shivered at the dark look he trailed over my silver marked skin.

“I could have taken it off in a minute.”

“A minute too long.”

Nyte dropped to his knee, dragging my underwear down my legs to expose me to him fully. Desire pooled out of me from the mere anticipation as he lifted my knee over his shoulder and shifted me to the edge of the counter.

“Look at you,” he marveled, running his hand over my navel before dipping fingers through my core. “So ready for me already.”

He sank a finger in and my head tipped back with a cry, my fingers threaded through his hair in a silent demand.

Nyte smiled sinfully, kissing slowly up my thigh while his finger worked in and out of me. It was utter wicked torture and he knew what he was doing.

“Nyte, please.”

“That’s it, sing for me.”

He added a second finger and my hips tried to meet his strokes. Needing deeper, faster, something, when the slow teasing was making me so hot and needy it was maddening.

His mouth finally met my center and my back curved to the pure bliss of his tongue pressing and licking and devouring me in every way that made my thighs shudder around his neck. This was my favorite thing, I decided. Nyte and his perfect talent between my legs with his mouth. He read every small reaction I gave and adjusted his assault, sucking on the sensitive bud, curving his fingers slow then faster.

“You’re going to come so soon for me, aren’t you?” he hummed against me.

I didn’t have words. Something of a mewl and a cry came from me in confirmation, and Nyte growled, the vibrations teetering me to the edge—

Nyte pulled his fingers from me suddenly and his lips stopped sucking. I moaned, shuddering from the denial of my release that was right. There.

I barely managed to drag my head up and open my eyes when Nyte gripped my hips and his cock replaced his fingers, sinking into me deeply. I gasped at the fullness, reaching for his nape for purchase as he groaned, and we both watched him thrusting in and out of me in a fast, deliciously brutal pace.

“I haven’t stopped seeing this every time I close my fucking eyes,” he ground out. “The sight of you wrapped so tightly around my cock.”

I wanted to feel it, reaching my other hand between us and parting my fingers where he fucked me.

Nyte swore, leaning his forehead to mine and slowing his pace for a second to marvel at us.

“You’re a stunning creature,” he whispered. Nyte leaned his mouth to my ear; his tongue flicked my lobe before his sharp teeth dragged down my neck.

I must have squeezed him like my hand did in his hair as he stilled with a groan with his next deep plunge into me.

He was still fully clothed, and I found it wildly attractive. How he’d snapped his restraint so fast that he didn’t take the time to undress.

I rubbed myself to chase my orgasm faster, and Nyte’s eyes closed like he was on the brink of losing sanity. He kissed me hard once, then his hand planted behind me, the other gripped my hip, and his pace raced both of us to the edge.

“Good girl, keep touching yourself and come with me,” he rasped.

He hit a spot inside me that tightened my skin with each thrust; my own movements climbed my pleasure so high that I tensed for the fall.

My thighs clamped around him tightly as I came, clawing the skin of his neck with the intensity wrecking through every internal piece of me. Nyte groaned loudly as he reached his release, spending himself inside me in slow, deep plunges until we were a panting, entangled heap.

“You have destroyed me, Astraea,” he said, kissing me tenderly. “In every life, that is your power over me.”

I wanted to say it wasn’t power since I felt at his mercy too. My attempts to keep distance would always be feeble. If my past was at work in ways I never knew, I thought we were doomed. We were cursed with this cycle of destruction, and I didn’t know if we could break it. If we were strong enough to defy it. And that became my greatest fear.

Nyte pulled out of me, and I shivered with the cold lick of air across my center and my slicked skin. He cleaned himself off before fastening his pants. I hadn’t moved. He came over and lifted me easily from the counter and over to the bath where I let go, moaning softly with the gentle lapping of hot water I sank into.

“What happened under the library?” Nyte asked, pulling over a stool to sit by the bath.

“I truly intended just to go for books,” I started. Flashbacks of where he’d been locked for so long threatened to spill sympathy on my face that I knew he would hate. So I looked away. “Without you I had to go the only other way in, and then I… I only wanted to know what you’d endured all that time.”

“You found out it wasn’t as dire as it seemed? That I had a luxury bathing room and delightful company.”

“No,” I whispered. “I found out that not even the most beautiful place should be anyone’s prison.”

I sank down to my collar with the wave of peace lapping within me. “But in that cave… what is it? It awakened my magick.”

He held out a palm, which I slipped my hand into without hesitation. “There are certain magicks that call to one another.”

His skin and mine both glowed and within me pulsed a precious life awakening. A demonstration. Magick, I was discovering, was something to join with inside myself. It was a language waiting to be learned and only I stood in my way of using it.

“That cave used to be for the celestial dragons; it’s imbued with their magick even after all this time. That’s why it calls to you. It leads out to the Great Lake surrounding the city and so from time to time a wandering water creature might find itself inside.”

“They don’t seem friendly.”

“They can be,” he said. “I’m so sorry, Astraea. I don’t think Fedora would have killed you, but I owe her a debt and she used you to prompt me along.”

“You bargained with a—” I searched for the word he’d used.

“A nymph. And yes, she did something for me a while ago.”

“What?”

“She left your dagger in Goldfell Manor for you to find.”

My lips parted with the shock.

“It was you?”

“I hoped it might spark a memory or at least give you some sense of the power you had.”

I didn’t know what to say. That dagger had meant the world to me—the one treasure I had that was a secret rebellion and made me feel safe.

“No memories, but it did more for me than that,” I said, hushed from the emotions flooding me.

Nyte’s fingers laced through mine and I had no willpower to stop what was going to make the end of this hurt so much worse.

“You’d better give her what she wants before you leave this realm for good,” I said, trying to make it humorous but my heart cracking deeper with the impending departure. “I’ll find you only to kill you myself if she starts plotting her vengeance on me instead with you gone.”

Nyte smiled sadly, his lips pressed to my knuckles.

“What did you find out from Drystan?” I asked.

“Not much yet. He’s being very… difficult.”

I huffed. “I expect it’s on purpose, even for amusement.”

Nyte groaned, swirling fingers over the surface of the bathwater.

“I’m trying to be nice.”

“Your version of nice doesn’t typically align with others’.”

“I’m nice to you.”

I couldn’t deny that. There was a softness that calmed the darkness in him and curved his sharp edges when we were alone. He’d done some things that turned me sour but there was always a reason.

There were so many versions of the person beside me that lingered in the minds of men. No one knew the real one. Not even me. But I was committed to him and if he was as committed to me—knowing who I am in this life—he would forgive me for wanting to figure out Auster too.

My wet hand cupped his face and I leaned in, kissing him softly.

“What was that for?” he asked.

I kissed him again, more needy this time because I didn’t want that to ever be a question again. As if he thought anything kind or warm had to come with a reason other than that I cared for him. No matter our differences or what was to come, I didn’t think that would ever change.

“We need Drystan,” I said quietly. “The fae want a vampire annihilation because they’ve never seen anything good in them. He’s the son of the king that wronged them—a blood vampire. On our side, he could help change the tide of this war.”

Nyte groaned, reaching for a bottle of purple soap and pouring some onto his hands. I dipped my head under the water and let him lather it into my hair when I came back up.

“He’s not going to be easy to convince. Once we eliminate my father, he’ll want my death to follow. He might bargain his allegiance to you if you find a way to do it.”

“I don’t believe that. He wouldn’t truly wish you dead.”

My eyes slipped closed with the pure bliss of his fingers massaging my scalp. He took his time, giving my hair his utmost care and attention.

“You’re severely underestimating his vendetta against me.”

“Or you’re too stubborn in your self-conviction that you want him to be hell-bent on condemning you.”

“Is that so?”

“Just try,” I said, barely a sigh from my lips when all I could focus on were his hands.

They slipped down my neck, kneading my shoulders, and I did moan then. It was a different kind of arousal and between his glorious massaging and the hot water my existence was melting away.

“For you,” he murmured under the shell of my ear. “I will.”

His lips pressed to my neck and I was needy for him again, resisting the urge to touch myself under the water.

“Did I ever have these kinds of feelings for Auster?” The question slipped from me before I could stop it, as if his touches relaxed me far too much to think clearly.

Nyte’s hands stopped moving against me and the pause of silence became charged.

“What kind of feelings are we talking about?” he asked enticingly, pressing fingers into my skin again. I knew it disturbed him that I asked about Auster, but I thought this was his way of quelling the insecurity.

“You know what kind.”

“I like to hear it. Your body might bend for me but you often deny me your words.”

I guarded them because I was afraid. When they felt like fragile tokens of me voiced to a world that could break me with them.

“What if I don’t have the words to do it justice?”

“You just gave me everything I needed to hear.”

Nyte retrieved a bowl, gathering water and rinsing the bubbles from my hair. His care was bliss and agony.

“I want to try something,” Nyte said gently. “I’ve been thinking about how to help your memories. That if you’re beginning to trust your intuition then maybe some images can help, even if they’re not in your… perspective.”

My stomach erupted with a giddy thrill. I craved anything that could help me gain the pain to move forward in this present.

“You want to give me yours?” I thought.

Of course, how could I not have considered the possibility before considering his ability to reach into minds?

“I want you to understand how we got here. That it wasn’t easy then and it never will be.”

It felt like he was trying to warn me, but I wasn’t afraid of what I could see.

“Thank you,” I said, overwhelmed by the trust he was extending to me.

“Please don’t,” he said, pained.

Standing and retrieving a towel as I got out of the bath, he handed it to me and I hated the guarded expression he wore. My kindness repelled him, like he was always braced for me to suddenly look at him and see the villain everyone wanted me to.

“How do we do it?” I asked carefully, scared he might take back the suggestion.

“Come,” he said, guiding me into the bedroom.

“When you wake, you’ll have it,” he agreed. I was giddy, anxious, but ready to see what would meet me in my dreams filled by him.

“How does it work?” I asked curiously. “Why do I need to be asleep?”

“We both do. Where I’m from, my father called it Nightwalking. The subconscious mind is most susceptible to having thoughts and feelings and images woven in, masked as being of your own creation.”

It was both a daunting and fascinating concept.

He picked a violet nightgown as I finished drying off. I lifted my arms and he slipped the material over my head, neither of us really conscious of our movements anymore.

He took my hand, guiding me to the fire instead of the bed. Sitting in the tall chair, he pulled me onto his lap where I sat sideways. Between the comfort of him and the gentle heat of the flames, I was already fighting sleep and my hair had to dry. I thought this must be why he chose here, when watching the flames flicker in an amber tango, I became hypnotized.

Then Nyte spoke, his voice a gentle murmur vibrating softly in his chest.

“Once upon a time, the brightest star met the darkest night…”