Page 23

L ater that afternoon—if it even was afternoon—we were lying in bed. Our bodies were wrapped together blissfully. The only thing missing was the sun streaming in to cast a warm glow against our skin.

And Nikolai’s humanity. That was missing, too.

I was splayed across his chest, the bedsheets tangled around my torso.

His skin pressed against mine. I wasn’t sure whether it was day or night, or how long I had been locked up here.

I wasn’t sure I even cared in this moment.

With his eyes closed peacefully, I could almost pretend that everything was back to normal.

Almost.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked, quirking his brow as he peered down at me with one eye open, one eye remaining closed.

I shrugged against him. “It’s nothing. ”

I couldn’t help but wonder about his life since turning into Noctani. I knew he had gone to the castle to see Donika, to receive his orders, but I wasn’t sure how much I could ask. I feared that whatever I did ask might set him off.

He sat up against the headboard, pulling me with him. He gazed at me with those black tourmaline eyes and a shiver ran down my spine. I wasn’t sure if it was fear or lust. Maybe it was a combination of both.

“Ask me,” he said.

His voice sounded almost… gentle for the first time since I had been captured by him.

“What has it been like?” I asked.

I figured it was best to try to keep it vague rather than asking specific questions that might set him off.

His personality since turning Noctani was…

volatile. He had suffocated me with his shadows one moment and then brought me books in the next.

He had ripped a Noctani’s heart out with his bare hand simply for trying to take me.

His gaze fell on the window beyond the bed and his brows pinched together in thought.

“It hasn’t been as bad as I would have thought. I dare say I have enjoyed most of it.”

I cleared my throat. “How so?” I kept my gaze trained on him as I pulled the bedsheets against me.

I pressed back against the headboard next to him, and his hand fell from my back to the mattress between us. A muscle feathered in his jaw as he wove his hands together in his lap.

“I’m stronger and faster than I ever was as a human.

My magic is… unparalleled.” He allowed a sliver of shadow to escape his fingertips and it slithered towards me, caressing my exposed thigh before retreating.

“I didn’t want to see Donika again, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

The hardest part about going back to The Stone Palace was seeing Zachariah. ”

“Your father?” I asked, studying him.

He didn’t meet my gaze, but he nodded.

“Yes, my father. I hadn’t seen him in… years before I was turned.

I remember being so angry with him when he showed up in Siraleth.

I had thought turning Noctani would simply erase all of that.

That all of that anger festering inside of me would simply disappear.

But it didn’t. When we got back to Akra, all I wanted to do was prove myself to him all over again.

Win back his trust. Show him that I was stronger and more powerful than ever before, exactly as he wanted. ”

He shook his head, a curl of his blond hair falling over his forehead. He tilted his head back to rest on the headboard, his gaze on the ceiling.

“He and Donika are working together. That… angered me even more. That the only reason I joined Donika’s army in the first place was to please him, but it was still never enough.

He forgot about me entirely, simply taking my place by Donika’s side when I couldn’t do it myself.

I only wanted him to be proud of me, finally. ”

I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t think Nik would ever be able to make his father proud knowing what I did of Zachariah. He wasn’t a good man. He killed his own wife because she stood in the way of how he wanted to raise his son. Stood in the way of his quest for power .

Nik glanced at me and a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He almost appeared as if he were my Nikolai when he did that, but it never reached his eyes.

“He was very surprised to see me like this,” he said, waving his hand to indicate his Noctani state. “I guess that wasn’t the initial plan when their army came to Siraleth. Merely a consequence of Donika trying to… torture you. Best you.”

“I’ll bet he was surprised,” I sighed.

“I wish I could have had a better relationship with him, and now that I am Donika’s most powerful weapon and it still isn’t enough…

” he paused, thinking. “It’s as if I’m mourning my human self and my relationship with my father all at the same time.

I knew he was out there in Istmere somewhere, but I never expected to be working with him again. Especially not in this capacity.”

“Working with him, how?” I asked, my voice soft.

“He and Corian are Donika’s number one and two.

Now I have been thrown into the mix and it throws that balance off kilter.

She didn’t trust either of them to find you…

only me. Zachariah felt… slighted, I think.

To not be her first choice for once. And now we all work together for Donika, doing her bidding. ”

“Her bidding?” I repeated, phrasing it as a question in itself.

I was treading a fine line here.

Nik nodded enthusiastically. “What she tells me to do, I do it. Except sometimes… sometimes… ” He opened his mouth to speak but the word s wouldn’t come.

It was as if he physically couldn’t say what he was trying to, that the words were cut off in his throat.

“This.” He heaved a frustrated sigh, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t belong entirely to myself anymore. I belong to Donika. And sometimes I can’t say… what… I… am… thinking.” I could see him physically struggling to get the words out, as if under a spell.

From my time spent with him, I gathered that it was a side effect of being bound to Donika.

That her blood made him what he was, and her magic that runs through his veins won’t allow him to betray her.

But that didn’t stop him from fighting against it.

I had never seen the other Noctani fight against it, and the only discernible difference between him and the rest was that he had been bound when he was turned.

I placed a hand against his shoulder. I was surprised that each time I reached out and touched him, I found his skin warm and soft. It was utterly at odds with what he had been turned into—I expected his pale and chalky skin to be cold and clammy.

“But you haven’t brought me back to her yet, even though that is what she told you to do.”

His gaze sparked with anger. “No, I haven’t. When it comes to you, she won’t tell me what to do. She can’t. You’re mine .” He all but growled those last words. “The idea of her putting a hand on you… ”

Confusion and exhaustion threatened to pull me under. My eyelids were becoming heavy as I slumped against the headboard.

“You’ll keep me safe?” I asked .

The hope in my own voice threatened to choke me.

He nodded fiercely, his hand coming up to palm my cheek. “I will never let her kill you.”

Those two things weren’t necessarily the same thing, and the difference wasn’t lost on me.

There was only so much Nik could do to defy Donika.

There were certain things he couldn’t even say—certain things he couldn’t do.

It was only a matter of time before his loyalty to Donika overrode his need to keep me all to himself.

At some point, Donika would make him bring me to her. And he would obey.

I needed to escape before that happened.

Nik shuffled back down onto the bed, pulling me with him. His chest warmed my chilled fingertips and I curled against him, my head resting in the crook of his neck.

“I am glad I got to see my father, though. Despite everything. He always wanted status for me, and what better status could I get than the strongest Noctani in Donika’s army?

To prove ourselves, she put us through a series of tests.

I passed with flying colors.” He laughed to himself, the vibration of his chest running through me.

I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to.

Even without humanity Nik was trying to please his dad, as he had while growing up.

There was no pleasing Zachariah. Not when Nik was in love with me.

He might not have those types of emotions right now, but he did feel some form of possession towards me.

I was counting on that to save me, in the end .

When I finally fell asleep, the sheets still stained with our blood from earlier, all I could think about was how much the lines had blurred.

And how here and now… I didn’t think I minded it at all.