Chapter 16 Emanation The Offering #2
“Define wounded.” I tighten the silk around me and cover my breasts. “Are you here to feed on me as well?”
“Depends.”
My fingers grip the fabric, and my jaw clenches. “On what, nightwalker?”
“On whether you answer me with the utmost honesty,” he drawls. The shadowed shape moves, appearing to lounge back comfortably in the dim, reddish light. “If you don’t, I’ll find another way, kamai.”
“Kamai?” I murmur. “What language is that?”
“Daryun,” he says with a dismissive tone. “Who gave you that tattoo on your shoulder? Were you bitten?”
My tattoo? Bitten?
Abruptly, my entire body tenses. “I got it when I bloomed,” I say, my words flowing too easily. “And I’ve not been bitten by a nightwalker before.”
I have no control. Words I try to hold back, clenched tight behind my jaw, blurt out.
A stir of amusement surrounds him and a low, breathy laugh floats out as if it belongs to the air. “Bloomed…Fascinating,” he murmurs as he sits up—well, the shadow looms taller, so it seems like he is sitting up.
“I have a question,” I say. His power seems to waver. My eyes narrow, and an emotion I can’t place stirs in the air as I say, “Were you the nightwalker who killed the Bleeder?”
Dark red eyes dilate, and the shadow ripples, then smooths out like a cloak. “Yes.”
“Were you also stalking me in the airshaft?”
“I wouldn’t call it stalking if you happen to be in the same place I was lurking…But yes.”
“Are you the nightwalker who was in my room?”
He chuckles. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Intrigued.”
Intrigued? Does he know what I am?
“Kamai, can I ask you a question now, or do you have more?”
I hug the sheet around me tighter and mutter, “Why are you asking permission? I’m merely a Feeder.”
“Very well, merely a Feeder. Were you forced into this Feeding Ground?”
“No,” I say, the word bleeding freely from my mouth. “I willingly came in.”
The shadows rise as if the nightwalker stands to leave.
I lean forward, my stomach tensing as the words fumble out.
“But my brother had no choice! The elder in my village wanted him dead when he was three years old. And there are others here who were taken by the Bleeders. They smashed down doors and dragged them out of their homes to bring them here. My friends. Manni. Emily. They were all captured.”
His lure fades, and my straight back slumps. I take a deep breath, suddenly feeling light and calm, but it doesn’t last long.
“I’d like to bite you. Would you permit me?”
Bite me?
I open my mouth, only for nothing but air to slip out, and I pause at the idea of being consensually bitten. I quickly shake my head and say, “No.”
He breathes a laugh. “You hesitated.”
“No. No!” I furrow my brows. “I’m just confused about who you are. Nightwalkers aren’t like this.” I gesture to the dead nightwalker on the floor. “This is what I know…”
The shadows surrounding the nightwalker still at my words, the aura unsettling. “Fables carry a grain of truth. Nightwalkers who dwell topside are far more perilous than those from the Undercity.” The shadows tremble. “We uphold order and consent to ensure this world flourishes.”
The Undercity. Jax was right. This nightwalker must work for Serun.
Silence sits heavily between us. My breaths are shallow, while he takes none. The fabric wrapped around me rustles as I move, but the shadows are soundless.
“I’ll ask you once more: may I bite you to uncover your truth? It won’t be painful, and I won’t take more than you can handle. All I’m doing is tasting your past.”
My…past? He will see everything. He will know—
“I know, kamai. I have already seen what you fear to reveal—Your fangs, that is. You are, strangely, a part of us, and I would like to know how that came to be, if you will let me.”
My frown deepens, and I curl my lip inward to hide my fangs. “My mum told me never to trust nightwalkers.”
“Even yourself?”
An aching flutter stirs in my chest at the memory of the way my mum looked at me, like I didn’t belong. As though I never came from her womb but was something she found and wished she had killed before I grew into this.
“I won’t tell anyone of our encounter if that is why you’re hesitating. You are a…curiosity.”
For some reason, I believe he speaks the truth, but is it because he’s a true nightwalker with the power to make me feel this way? An enchantment. An allure.
“What do you mean by a curiosity?”
“I haven’t seen someone like you before…Someone balancing between life and death.”
He hasn’t seen a half-nightwalker, half-human before? That can’t be true. I can’t be the only one in Naylen.
“You are wrong,” I whisper.
“Am I?”
My fingers tighten around the sheet, and I stare down at the blood seeping on the ground. “Do you see everything if you bite me? All of my memories, even the ones I can’t remember?”
“I see what you have seen.”
This could give me the answers I need. There might be something I’ve seen that I don’t remember now. Who my dad is, maybe.
“Not a drop more than I can spare,” I say, loosening my grip on the silken sheet to bare my shoulders.
“Understood,” he says. “Close your eyes if you don’t want to be tempted. Some humans become overwhelmed with desire, and it’s…a nuisance…to handle.”
I almost laugh. After the nightwalker before him, I doubt this very much.
The shadow moves, and as it does, I scrunch my eyes shut. My heartbeat thuds in a chaotic rhythm, and there is a ringing in my ear that almost hurts.
“I’m going to touch you now,” he whispers, the words icy against the shell of my ear. “But only my bite. Expose your neck for me and remain still. Movement will drive my fangs deeper and can tear the skin.”
“Alright…” I tilt my head to the side, exposing the shoulder partly inked with moonflowers.
Then it is as though time comes to a complete halt. Each moment seems like an eternity spent waiting for something to happen, and every breath feels like a thousand in this liminal space.
A sharp prick of pain pierces my neck. It’s like a shard of ice pressing inside me, sinking through my skin and muscle, the venom weaving into my bones. The ache is as painful as it is blissful, and a deep craving settles in my chest, yearning for more of this divine suffering.
My eyes fly open at the intensity of the sensation, and I take a deep breath, reflexively arching my back, only to feel his hands grip my shoulders firmly. Cold fingers tighten, but unlike the nightwalker earlier, this touch is tender and soft.
Shadows surround me, swirling in a rhythmic pattern like ribbons woven from twilight.
White ribbons seem to bleed from my exposed flesh and join the dance, entwining with the darkness and sprouting moonflowers.
A black snake slithers between the blooms as they spin an intricate design of beautiful fear.
I am at his mercy. As though in the web of a spider who wants to save me, my hand moves across his marble skin and slips into silky hair, like dipping my fingers into a tranquil stream.
But the bliss doesn’t last long. Fangs retract from my neck, and as I slump against him, the nightwalker leans in and gently kisses the bite wound. As he draws back, I tilt my head into him, and my lips briefly press against his, electricity pulsing through the air.
Sharp red eyes soften, lowering to take in the venom and blood dripping down my neck. “You are luminol to my hydrogen peroxide.”
Drunk on whatever the venom is laced with, I slur, “I kissed a fucking corpse.”
He breathes a laugh, standing and lowering his hand to me. “And you were my first.”
I take his hand, no longer feeling bound. Instead, I’m in a dreamlike state as I stumble to my feet and sway. My vision swirls, and as the room blurs into a sea of red and black, I collapse onto the bed.
“Your first?” I mumble, words slipping out unbidden. “How…disappointing.”
“Somewhat.”
My brows pinch as I close my eyes. “Either you’ve not been a nightwalker for long, or…I don’t know where I was going with that. Either way, your first kiss was with a stranger.”
Why the fuck can’t I stop rambling?!
Humour stirs in the air. “I’m old enough to know what I want. Besides, we aren’t strangers now. I’ve tasted you. Know you…”
I groan, reach up, grab a pillow, and tuck my arms underneath it. “Well, I don’t know you. Therefore, you are a stranger to me.”
“Then I suppose we will have to meet again.”
“No,” I grunt. “Let’s not do that.”
The venom makes me sink into a comfortable, light sleep. As I relax my shoulders, a frost-tipped touch moves across my cheek, and a velvety voice breathes, “It seems a bite from a nightwalker removes your vegodian glamour, if only for a moment.”