Page 20 of The Night Is Defying (Nytefall Trilogy #2)

20

N yte— P ast

When three weeks passed since he had last seen Astraea, Nyte broke his own damn defiant stance to seek her out in Vesitire.

She had become a plague in his thoughts. Devouring all of them to remain the sole focus more times that he cared to admit. Every time he paced a room, broke something, flew high, tried to do anything to eradicate her presence in his mind, the suppression only made it worse.

So he’d spent the last hour high on dark, simmering rage, thinking that maybe if she didn’t exist for him to find, he could forget her.

Until he laid eyes upon her as he spied, crouched and blended fully into the darkness, atop a tall building.

Just like that, his mind calmed. When seconds ago he had wondered if he would snap to end her once and for all when he found her.

The peace only lasted for a few seconds before he watched a man—a celestial—approach her on the street below. Nyte quickly assessed his towering wings and the dominant way he carried himself. Then what sealed his assumption was the glint of the moonlight against a circlet that peaked downward at the center of his forehead.

A High Celestial. One of four.

He would have to get closer to distinguish the sigil on his jacket. Nyte’s ability would work to slip into his mind, but unlike anyone else, this celestial was sure to feel it if he tried.

The man reached for Astraea, and Nyte didn’t realize his fingers around the chimney had tightened until he clenched only stone debris in his hand. The hold he pulled her into was near intimate. Nyte should have looked away, but he couldn’t. What overcame him he had no right to feel, nor did he want it.

He couldn’t help tracking her every response though he was on the verge of doing something reckless. Thinking she would lean into him, Nyte braced to leave before he snapped. Yet Astraea laid a hand on the High Celestial’s chest, a signal for space, which he didn’t grant right away. His palm went to her face now, and Nyte broke .

Slipping into her mind, he said, “Over a hundred years, I’ve never been able to find you. So I have to think this exposure is a calling.”

Astraea reacted to his voice, too abrupt that it made her companion survey the street as well as if she picked up on an impending threat. His brown hair half tied back in a knot, leaving a few strands around sharp features and a shadow lined jaw.

“Took you long enough,” she sent back, but gave her attention back to her company.

“Come to me,” Nyte said, then took off.

He landed high on a mountain and slipped into the snow-covered woodland. Then he waited. Nyte could tell a lot about a person by how they navigated the dark. Would Astraea hesitate with fear? Shy away with uncertainty?

A candle flickered inside him before he saw her. Astraea’s footing was gentle, careful but bold. He sought her through the shadows while he watched from behind a thick tree. Her hair was a beacon against her surroundings and stark clothing, but her magick awakened faintly to glow the markings of her skin. Astraea glided through the woods like a fallen star, utterly exquisite. Confident in her light and unafraid of the dark, perhaps even curious.

Through the shadow that climbed her body, he felt her like a ghost’s touch. Her breath drew shallow, stopping her walk. The beat in her chest amplified as she observed the moving darkness, lifting a hand as if to greet it.

“I found you,” she said through her thoughts.

“I see now what has been occupying your time,” Nyte said, stepping out from his cover.

Astraea watched him now, and the darkness drifted away from her.

“Auster? He’s not a new distraction,” she answered.

Nyte’s jaw locked, and to distract himself from something ugly stirring within, he turned to continue his walk.

He knew the name.

“The High Celestial of the House of Nova,” Nyte drawled. “You’re involved with him?”

“You could say that,” she said, but it was a low murmur that took his interest.

“He seemed… affectionate.”

“He’s my Bonded.”

That slammed his steps to a halt. He didn’t realize how close she’d come until she knocked into his side with the abruptness of his stopping.

How could that be possible? Nyte had been sure the she was his last time he saw her, but now he was doubting again.

“Are you—?”

“No,” she cut him off. “We haven’t completed that. ”

The topic made her uncomfortable, and Nyte wondered why.

“You’re a powerful match.”

“Yes, so everyone likes to remind me.”

“So what’s stopping you?”

“Are you always so direct about people’s personal lives?”

No. In fact, he’d never cared to inquire about anyone before.

Nyte shrugged, continuing his walk. “I’m curious how it works. A match of power, is it not? Why wouldn’t you want to strengthen yourselves.”

“Are you really clueless? Vampires and fae have a Bonded too—” she paused to contemplate. “Which are you exactly?”

“I’m intrigued as to what your fables say about me. No scepter, but there might be some truths.”

She huffed a laugh. “No beard either.”

“I’ve never been fond of them.”

“They say you’re death, actually. None of our species.”

“It’s not far from the truth.”

“I think it is.”

They broke out of the trees, coming to a wide open glade covered in snow. At the farthest edge, Nyte headed toward the small cabin.

The door was pitiful and wouldn’t keep out any chill. Nyte had to duck through the threshold.

“What is this place?” Astraea inquired, scoping around.

“A cabin.”

“I can see that.”

He didn’t want to expand; he’d only come for one thing and then they would leave.

Astraea reached for something on the crooked mantle and Nyte reacted before he could stop himself. He caught her wrist.

“Do you always touch what isn’t yours?” he said irritably.

She eyed him carefully. “It’s just a wooden figurine.”

Nyte didn’t look at the bird carving. He stepped forward, forcing her back with the hold he still had on her until her back met the wall. He tuned into her heart, picking up speed and skipping beats like a song off tune.

He let Nightsdeath linger at the surface, and watched as she glanced at his ears, then his neck, until finally his eyes, and through this lens she became so dangerously bright.

“Do you know why people truly fear the dark?” He canted his head, hooking a strand of her shining hair. “Because it requires trust.” The cabin flooded with the shadows Nyte drew in from every tree, rock, and creature. Cloaking them in pitch darkness but unable to smother the light that glowed between them from the whimsical markings over her skin.

“You can’t scare me,” she said, but the breathlessness gave her away.

Nyte leaned in close until his breath fanned her neck. It was a compulsion; he he was repelled by how insufferably bright she was yet wanted to claim her so no other could.

She was his war.

His to end.

His to break.

His to protect.

“Then let go of the light,” he said in a low, taunting tone.

Astraea did. The glow of her shallowed until they stood in his peaceful embrace. Where everything began and everything ended.

The dark wasn’t just trusting.

It was tempting.

A keeper of sin and lies.

It was dangerous.

Yet she stood here with him. A willing little lamb in his trap.

“You’ve proved your point,” she said.

“I don’t think I have.”

Nyte’s hand wrapped her throat, but in the same breath, she flared to life. The key glowed and wind blasted through the cabin as she slammed it to the ground. For the first time in his life he was caught off guard by how quick and dazzling she could become, and the force of his magic strained against hers.

They stared off in a battle of wills. Night against starlight. He tried to hold onto the darkness he’d pulled together as her light pushed it out. Maybe he could overpower her, but this place would become dust, perhaps the forest around them too, if one of them didn’t yield.

So he let the shadows return.

Both of them straightened when the magick around them cut out. They collected their breath after the exertion. In full battle… they could be catastrophic.

“Don’t provoke me again,” she warned.

A sinister thrill rattled in him with that.

“Don’t entice me,” he said.

“I could turn this place to ash in a blink.”

“Is that what your light does? Burn?”

“Like your darkness, it does many things. I just happen to be in the mood for fire.”

“How so?”

“What?”

Astraea’s heartbeat was so fast he became entranced by it.

“What is it about fire that excites you?”

“Perhaps I just want you to know what hell will feel like before I send you there.”

The curl of his mouth wasn’t foreign when he made men tremble at the cruelty of his smile. But what awakened in his veins at what she evoked was so new it became an addiction.

“You are a volatile, stunning thing,” he mused.

Nyte backed away, turning to pace to the far end of the cabin while Nightsdeath slumbered again inside him.

“How do you do that?” she asked, closer than he expected her to come after he’d invaded her space. “Turn all dark and frightening, I mean.”

“You said I couldn’t scare you.”

“No, but you terrify others.”

Nyte kneeled by a small chest, opening it to rummage inside.

“I don’t do much to invoke that,” he answered. “Fear is choice. What is it that makes something frightening?”

“Unpredictability.”

“So you’re not affected by me because you know all I’m capable of?”

“No…”

Nyte paused, flicking a look up, but she seemed just as puzzled as he. Astraea should be afraid of him. Yet he believed her when she said she wasn’t. Her brazenness around him wasn’t just arrogance. She was smart enough to know fear wasn’t a weakness. It was necessary.

He found what he was looking for and straightened again.

“We came here for a compass?” she observed flatly.

Nyte dusted it off. “You should learn to think beyond the ordinary means of an object.”

“It’s magickal?”

“It can be.”

“Do you always dance around straight answers?”

He flashed her a devious side look, then tossed the compass to her.

“Magick deals in bargains,” he said. “I didn’t think I would have to explain that to you.”

Astraea examined the intricate gold casing.

“So what does it require?”

“I’m not sure, actually. My brother and I won it in a game of cards years ago. He said it was an item of the Wanderers Trove. It’s supposed to lead you wherever you ask—any place rumored to be hidden or lost, you’d find the way with that. We never really got the chance to take it anywhere and discover how to activate it. Besides, it’s not like there’s anywhere we could have gone.”

Nyte knew there was much of the land to be explored, but their leash to their father was short. He planned to snap them both free of it someday. He had the patience to get it right.

“I can take it to Auster—”

“No.”

Her blue eyes flicked up at his abruptness.

“It’s a very high value item. I’m not risking you cutting me out of this alliance if you find what you need with your Bonded.” He took a pause with the taste of ash in that word. “You came to me for help, and I think it’s about time we made it official.”

“What are you saying?” Astraea already knew, so he left his silence as confirmation, which dropped her arms and turned her face defiant. “I’m not bargaining with you.”

“Then give it back.”

Nyte stepped toward her with a hand out, but she jerked back, pulling the compass to her chest. His eyes twinkled in amusement at her stubborn frown.

“The Cratonis Bargain then,” she said begrudgingly. “It prevents either of us from betraying the other until we find the source of the quakes.”

Nyte lifted a brow. “Are bargains part of your training, maiden?”

Astraea folded her arms, leaning against the precarious wooden table. Nyte blocked out the memories of him and Drystan around it from a long time ago. This cabin held much of their childhood with Drystan’s mother. Before they grew older, and she shed all warmth for Nyte when she discovered the monster he would become. It was then that their fantasy shattered. Nyte was not her true son, and he was shunned by the only nurturer he’d known when he was young. Drystan always defended him, and Nyte harbored a guilty conscience that she all but abandoned her own son too, eventually.

“Like you said, magick deals in bargains. I’d be a fool to not read up on them,” Astraea said, pulling him back to their present from the past he’d tunneled to.

Nyte took a long breath to drown the threatening flashbacks.

“It requires giving what we most desire from the other that cannot be claimed back,” he said.

Astraea straightened, and if he wasn’t beginning to read her easily he might have dismissed the thought that she appeared nervous.

“What is that for you?” she asked, giving him her back.

His tongue traced across the two teeth that had sharpened at the mere thought.

“Your blood, of course.”

Her shoulders locked at that, but she’d known it was coming. More dominant than his raging craving right now was his curiosity about what her desire from him would be. He could slip into her mind to find out, but watching her squirm to spill it herself was far more exciting.

“For this to work you need to be honest,” he said with a hint of amusement.

When she turned to him, the color on her pale cheeks and the way she couldn’t seem to hold his eye made him very curious.

“Don’t get inflated with arrogance about it,” she snapped. Nyte could hardly suppress his smile.

“It can’t be that bad.”

“I only want to know… shit. ”

Under all the titles, esteem, and power, Astraea was just a person. One who now covered her eyes in embarrassment and paced the floor with tangled thoughts. It was humbling to see, distracting for a moment.

“I promise not to tease you about it,” he said.

She still cast him a scowl.

“I want you to kiss me,” she blurted.

Of all the things he’d imagined, this hadn’t even made the list.

“I’d have thought your desire would involve something sharp lodging in my chest.”

“It does,” she grumbled, hating herself for what she wanted. “But I know that’ll achieve nothing and this… it’s a mere curiosity to know if I’m completely broken.”

“You’re not broken to crave lust, and your choice in suitor is faultless,” he added with a wicked gleam.

“It’s not that… it’s that I wonder if I don’t. ” The rose coloring her cheeks spread. She added in a grumble, “And you wouldn’t be my first choice; you just happen to be a convenient one.”

“There can’t be a lack of prospects who would gladly go to their knees for such a request from you.” Though he had an urge to hunt down any she allowed to touch her.

“There’s none Auster wouldn’t hear about.”

By the gods, he despised that name the more he heard it.

It was another unexpected confession. Nyte laid down his weapons before his enemy for this moment of vulnerability he never could have anticipated walking into.

“Have you never…?”

“I have… but I just have never felt good about it . Sleeping with Auster.”

Astraea looked at him, and her face washed with horror like she was only just realizing who she was divulging this too.

“We should just choose a different bargain. The Fecarrah Bargain would make sure I couldn’t draw blood from you, at least. Or—”

“Astraea,” he halted her scramble for a way out. “You don’t have to be ashamed with me. There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to be intimate with your Bonded. I’ve seen it before.”

That lit a light in her eyes and Nyte didn’t expect it to warm in his chest.

He couldn’t deny there was still a note of resistance in him. He was being too soft on his enemy, but for this plan to unfold in the long run, this temporary trust was necessary.

“You have?”

Nyte nodded, coming a little closer.

“A few times, in fact. Some tie the Mating Bond for power and live as friends. Others have parted ways without ever completing the Bond.”

Astraea mulled over his words, and he watched her in fascination. Nyte had never met someone he didn’t want to breach the mind of because the puzzle was far more enticing to put together slowly, delicately. The star-maiden was a picture worth painting with precision to capture the finest details.

“So, are we doing this?” he asked carefully.

Nyte could be patient. He was damn good at it.

“Who goes first?” She still couldn’t meet his gaze and something about that frustrated him.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Finally, her eyes flicked up, and he was lost in the spark of challenge in them that instant.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

He moved before she could rattle with another twinge of uncertainty.

The moment his hand grabbed her jaw and his lips met hers…

Nyte was overcome with a rage of want—no, nothing so easily sated or forgotten; Astraea became a need. As essential as the blood that coursed faster through his veins and as necessary as the air they could hardly draw around the kiss that turned to a near feral demand he wasn’t prepared for. When she gave a breathy moan his arm circled her waist, lifting her onto the table, and their bodies pressed together.

She was made for him. It was undeniable.

But their perfect existence was crafted for destruction, not bliss.

Right now, he didn’t care if they cleaved the world in half with the passion that ignited between enemies.

The ground trembled, turning violent.

Astraea leaned back, planting a hand behind herself, but they didn’t stop with the dangerous quake that rattled through the cabin, tumbling things from the mantel.

He couldn’t break away from the heat of her despite the very land that quaked around them like a warning from the gods against it.

“Nyte,” she breathed his name and his cock ached at the sound of it.

He kissed along her jaw, down her neck. “My turn,” he said, voice husky with pure wild lust the like of which he’d never felt before.

Astraea’s hand tightened to a fist in his hair in anticipation. Nyte couldn’t hold back anymore.

The moment he tasted her blood he knew he’d fucked up.

It was his greatest desire and he’d never been tested to the very limits of his control when blood turned him feral. He’d indulged in human blood before and it was a sweet craving, but this… her… she was euphoric. Her blood was transcendent, and he didn’t know if he could stop.

Astraea’s moans only encouraged him. Her thighs pulled him closer and clamped tighter. The wreckage continued to mount around them with the quake that lasted longer than ever before. He didn’t care if the stars were collapsing too. All he knew was her.

The way her hips ground against his hard cock made him thrust against her too as he kept an arm around her to press them impossibly tighter when it never seemed close enough.

“I think I’m going to…” she lost her words but he knew what they were.

He could only groan through his mouth still wrapped around her throat with his teeth deep in her flesh. Nyte was losing his damned mind to thoughts of his cock being buried inside her too.

Astraea’s blood wasn’t just like any other celestial’s.

It wasn’t even just because she was the star-maiden.

She was his. In every way. Forged in his bones and written in his soul. It was dangerous to think of Auster right now when his murderous thoughts turned despicably villainous to keep the High Celestial from taking her. In this moment he would wreck the realm and kill anyone who stood in his way.

Nyte pulled out of her flesh with a pained groan. Against her neck he said in a low, husky murmur, “Come for me, Starlight. Show me how bright you shine for your enemy.” Then his tongue lapped over the small puncture wounds he’d made.

His name cried from her mouth with a release that shook her body and he almost exploded in his damn pants too. Nyte held her tightly as she rode the waves of her climax. He didn’t want the moment to be so fleeting and clung to every exhilarating fucking second of her wrapped tightly around him. They stayed catching their breath as the world around them settled too.

The last trembles of the land were a reminder of what they’d done. He had to remember it was not for pleasure—only a duty. An alliance.

He felt the bargain like a new tether within him. They were protected against one betraying the other until they found what they needed to stop the quakes.

Nyte deemed her steady enough to keep herself propped up as he stepped away. Astraea wouldn’t look at him immediately hopping off the table. The sight of his bite mark on her collar surged a primal need in him all over again. She fixed the neckline of her jacket to conceal it, which ground his teeth. He wanted her to wear it openly so every creature would see Nyte’s claim on her.

“I didn’t mean to… I mean I didn’t expect…” Astraea was embarrassed, and that disturbed him.

“It means nothing,” he assured. “Nothing but confirming you do have needs and lust is simply natural.”

She chuckled with resentment that turned dark in him.

“Then I’m fucked up and twisted to have it surface with my enemy and not my Bonded.”

He wanted to rip that term apart unless it was said in regard to him. Nyte hadn’t even met Auster and he wanted to kill him. With Astraea’s blood coursing through him he trembled with volatile rage replaying his proximity to her. The obvious affection he had for her.

“I was just an experiment,” he said, matching the acidity in her tone. He had to remember that being her enemy trumped any alignment of power. “I’m confident you can find it with another. But to further ease your mind, a bite from a fae or vampire is supposed to evoke pleasure when it’s done willingly. It is why many humans seek out the blood vampires.”

Even as he said it, the darkest, most selfish and insidious part of him wanted to kill whoever she chose to finally bed before they could even get that far. Perhaps it would be his new favorite way to torment her when this was over. He could follow her, let her fulfill her desires mindlessly with men who could never give her enough, not everything she would crave, then see how many bodies he could leave in her wake before she discovered it was him.

“We don’t ever speak of it again,” she said firmly.

Nyte’s teeth clenched. “It’s already forgotten.”

“Then I’ll find you again soon so we can track down a mage for that damned compass.”

Astraea’s boots crunched over shattered ornaments on her way out. He watched her back right until she left through the Starlight Void, engulfed by beautiful darkness.

Nyte stayed a moment longer to untangle his thoughts.

Being wrapped with Astraea in the heat of her pleasure was something his mind was going to loop in torment for a while.

He pinched the bridge of his nose with a groan, pacing to the mantle. When his sight fell down, he sank to his knees to pick up the small bird carving.

It was the only thing he had of his mother’s. He’d been clutching it as a babe when his father stole him away in the night, supposedly saving him, before crossing worlds to escape one so powerful.

That’s all he knew. Perhaps all he would ever know.