Page 24

T ime was moving in slow motion during my stay in the Noctani safe house. Each day was different. Some days, Nikolai would allow me downstairs with him to explore the first floor. Some days, he would make me stay locked in his room.

One thing was certain, he never let me interact with any of the other Noctani.

Ever .

Nik was the only one I had been in contact with and I was beginning to think I was losing my mind a little bit.

Nik was still somewhat himself, but he also…

wasn’t. He remembered things from our past and he craved both my blood and my body, but without the bond in place, I couldn’t discern what his true feelings were.

And any time I tried to ask, he would shut the conversation down .

The blackout shades were pulled down on all the windows and locked closed at all times, and I could never tell if it was daytime or nighttime.

That in and of itself was making me go stir crazy.

Nik had told me that while Noctani weren’t affected by the sun as vampires might be, they did largely prefer the night.

This observation allowed me to discern that they appeared to keep a nocturnal schedule.

I could guess when it was day or night based on their sleeping schedule, but I could never know for sure. It had me out of sorts.

Nik had left early today and was already gone when I woke.

I made quick use of the washroom in all its decadence before dressing and approaching the door.

I had tried to use my magic to unlock it time and time again.

Despite it appearing to be a regular wooden door, it must have been laced with iron or ash.

My magic was useless against it. I tried the same with the windows, but never had any luck.

Nik had been wearing a jacket with big silver buttons yesterday, and while we romped around in bed together I had torn the jacket from him, ripping one of the buttons off and shoving it under the pillow for later.

He had tossed the jacket to the floor, long forgotten about, and hadn’t picked it up today, either.

When I moved to the bed and fished under the pillow for the button, a sigh of relief escaped me that the back of it was a long pin.

I hadn’t thought I would get this lucky.

I quickly moved to the door and dropped to my knees before it, fishing inside the lock with the sharpened back of the button.

It was a little short, but it was all I had.

I scoured this bedroom searching for something I might use to pick this lock, but there was nothing.

Nik likely hadn’t realized the button could be used as a lock pick, either.

I pressed my ear to the door to listen for a click. I had never picked a lock before, and it hadn’t been part of my training with the resistance. I was fishing around blindly for anything that might give, holding my breath as I sent up a silent prayer to the Mother.

“Please, please unlock,” I muttered to myself, a line of sweat creasing my brow as I worked.

Right as I was about to give up, as I was about to search the room for another tool I might use, I heard the click. My eyes flew wide as I turned the knob, the door creaking towards me as it opened.

I was on my feet in a heartbeat, quietly treading down the hallway. I didn’t have any weapons, and I hadn’t seen any I could steal during my supervised visits on the first floor. If I was going to escape, my best bet was to do it while Nik was either gone from the house or asleep.

I was fairly familiar with this area of the house, having cased it each and every time I was let out of Nik’s bedroom.

At the end of the hall was another bedroom and washroom before the steps descended into the main living space.

The hallway was covered in a thick, worn carpet and I used it to my advantage, trying to remain as silent as possible despite my clunky boots.

My heart was beating fast enough that I thought it might jump into my throat as I inched towards the staircase carefully.

I had never made it this far before, and there was no telling when Nik would be back.

I had no idea if there were Noctani milling about on the first floor.

I was blindly hoping to get lucky one more time.

My next step had the floorboards creaking beneath the carpet and I pressed my eyes closed, internally cringing.

I waited in silence for one long moment, but no one came.

The board creaked once more as I shifted my weight off it with my next step, and as I sent another prayer up to the Mother, the door at the end of the hallway flew open.

Shit .

I lifted my eyes, expecting a horde of Noctani to appear before me, but it was only Giselle. The beautiful Noctani who had challenged Nik down by the entrance to the cells. Whose face now bore the scars of his claws.

I took a deep, steadying breath as I took a step backwards away from her, the floorboard creaking beneath me again.

Curse that fucking floorboard.

“What are you doing out of your quarters?” she asked me, quirking her perfectly manicured eyebrow up at me.

I opened my mouth to speak, but before the words even had time to come out, Giselle was before me, her hand wrapped around my throat. She lifted me off the ground and I kicked against her, pulling at her hand. Her nails dug into my skin.

“Let… me… go… ” I gasped between ragged breaths.

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Another few moments and I would black out.

She cocked her head to the side as she narrowed her gaze on me. “I have no plans to let you go. I will do what he failed to do. I will bring you back to Donika.” She paused for a moment, her nostrils flaring wide. “You smell like him. ”

I tried to reply, to kick free or claw her hand away from my throat, but all I managed to do was flail through the air.

She released me with a disgusted expression, her lip curling. “To think he would take a witch to his bed.”

I coughed as air rushed back into my lungs, pressing the palms of my hands against my knees as I tried to fill my lungs with air.

“What is so special about you?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

I rubbed the sore skin around my neck, my gaze finally meeting hers. “Are you not still a witch, only one tainted with dark magic?”

She laughed at this. “I am so much more than that, you cannot even begin to comprehend.” She ran her gaze over me, and I could see the jealousy simmering in her onyx eyes.

She was tall and lean, with a small waist and long, impossible legs.

Her dirty blonde hair was cut to shoulder length, her black eyes lined with kohl.

“And yet, it isn’t you he takes to his bed.” I said, taking another step back to put distance between us.

Her gaze filled with rage in an instant. “Not yet, anyway.”

Her words had my stomach doing somersaults, and I tasted bile rise up the back of my throat.

Would Nik take another into his bed now that we weren’t bound?

Now that he might not even be capable of love?

I’m not sure if it is something I could forgive…

and the thought of him with another almost had me emptying my stomach right onto th e carpet between us.

Giselle could see that her words had rattled me. She took a step towards me. “He will tire of you, and when he does, he will move on to me. I can blow his mind like you never could, Stormshade .” She spat the word as Donika did. As if it was a curse.

“And yet I have been here for what, two weeks? Three? And he hasn’t .”

I never saw her raise her arm but between one blink and the next, her palm was against the side of my head, smashing my skull into the wall. It gave beneath me, my head crashing through and hitting the stud behind the plaster. I saw stars behind my vision, but I never pulled my gaze from her.

She was fast .

“How dare you speak to me like that,” she raged, a fistful of my hair in her grip as she wrenched my neck back.

No.

No, no, no.

Not my neck. Not my magic.

I aimed to push away from her, to fall to the ground and scurry back into the bedroom, but her grip on me was relentless, and she was much stronger. I needed Stormslayer, and I needed it now .

She bared her fangs, black veins pulsing out from her eyes. Her head snapped back, preparing to break skin, when I was suddenly wrenched away from her.

Or rather… she was wrenched away from me.

I was seconds away from her drinking my blood and stealing my magic as Nik was supposed to do, but she was thrown to the end of the hallway.

Her head cracked painfully against the stairway banister.

I fell to my hands and knees when her grip on my hair was yanked free, and I inhaled deeply, trying to steady myself.

Nik was standing above me, his black boots and training pants the only thing that would focus in my vision. When my gaze traveled up to meet his, the only thing I could see in his depthless eyes was simmering, unfettered rage.

“How dare you put your hands on her!” His voice was cold as ice as he slowly moved towards Giselle.

She cradled the back of her head, crawling away from him until she hit the other side of the wall. The only place for her to go now was down. Nik’s footsteps were slow and measured, and Giselle cowered away from him.

“Was the scar across your pretty little face not enough of a warning?” he seethed.

Pretty ? I shook my head, clearing the thought.

I couldn’t be jealous, and of a Noctani, no less. I was losing my Goddamn mind. I moved to stand, my head pounding and my ears ringing with every beat of my heart. Spots swam before my vision once more, but I tried my best to blink them away.

“I’m sorry, Nikolai.” Giselle exposed her neck to him, as if she were a wolf and he were her Alpha.

Maybe she was a Nightshade. Was it possible that the Noctani were more animal than human now that they had been corrupted with black magic? Had they formed some type of… pack among themselves ?

The hierarchy was clear. Nikolai led them, and no one else would stand against him. He was the strongest as a human, and he was the strongest as Noctani.

“Sorry?” he asked, inclining his head towards her. “Weren’t you sorry the last time?”

He kneeled before her, reaching his hand out to push a lock of her dirty blonde hair behind her ear. The gesture was almost… intimate. It had jealousy simmering hot in my gut. As his hand skimmed the back of her neck, his nails became elongated claws, and they dug in.

Giselle threw her head back, an animalistic howl wrenching free from her throat as her head fell back.

My jaw fell open as I scrambled backwards away from them.

Tears stung the back of my eyes as I reached the bedroom door, my hand on the knob.

I wanted nothing more than to close it between us and free my vision from the horror before me, but I couldn’t bring myself to glance away.

He had paralyzed her.

Severed her spinal cord.

I wasn’t sure that was something even a Noctani could recover from. Blood dripped down the back of her neck, staining the carpet with fat, wet droplets. This… this wasn’t Nikolai. The Nikolai I knew was never cruel. Never reveled in such savagery and cruelty.

He leaned into Giselle, his lips whispering against her ear. “This is what happens to those who think to touch what is mine .”

With his claws still digging into the back of her neck, he closed his fist, snapping her neck in one swift movement. Her lips parted on one final cry before her eyes glazed over. He released her, and her bloodied body fell to a heap on the carpet before us.

I turned to retreat into the bedroom, but Nik was already there behind me. He was so damn fast. I flinched away from him, but there was nowhere to go. Giselle’s dead body lay across the hallway, blocking the route to the staircase.

I had lost my only opportunity to escape.

“Are you scared, Firecracker?” he asked, raising his brow at me as he leaned down towards me.

Yes . I couldn’t separate the two… the Nikolai I once knew and the one standing before me. They weren’t the same, but there was so much of them that was . The dimple on his right cheek popped as he glanced down at me, and I thought I was going to be sick all over again. What was I doing?

My hand remained on the doorknob, but he grasped it, bringing my palm over his chest.

His heart beat beneath my palm, a rapid, furious pace.

“Am I not your Nikolai?” he asked, raising his brow at me. “Does my heart not still beat?”

It did… but that didn’t mean he was mine .

No.

Dark magic had made him something… other.

But despite knowing that, despite every instinct in my body telling me otherwise, I melted the moment his lips brushed the skin on my cheek. He wrapped his arms around me, fitting my body to his. He was still so… warm. And he was right here .

I shook my head, trying to clear the thought. Things were getting too muddled, and I needed to keep my wits about me .

When he took me to the bed that night, there was only one thing that was flitting through my mind over and over again.

He had left the door unlocked.