Chapter 24 Incentive Salience
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
INCENTIVE SALIENCE
I’m an addict. Addicted to learning more about the dangers in the dark.
But it’s more than that. Jax’s words, my moonflower tattoo, and the way he made me feel. Sick and afraid of someone I have shared my bed with for months. So, here I am, stepping into the red glow and letting the door close me in.
The shadows wait near the bed. He stands, still drenched in a darkness that ripples around him as if alive. The nightwalker raises his hand. Claws extend, reaching out to me as he says, “You came to taste freedom.”
“Stop calling it a he. You’re humanising the bloodsucker.” Jax’s vile words rush back and burrow underneath my skin.
“Kamai?” His voice is closer now, and as I blink away my dark thoughts, the nightwalker gently strokes my cheek with his long claws. “Your not-lover did something, didn’t he?”
My eyes crinkle, and as a laugh desperately tries to escape, I take a step back and turn my head to avoid looking at him. I reach across my body and cling tightly to my upper arm. “What do you see when you look at me?”
From the corner of my eye, I see his hand return to the shadows, and he walks away. The nightwalker steps up onto the bed, and his shadows open the vent above it.
“I see a glamour you never should have hidden behind, kamai.”
I take a hesitant step towards him. “What does kamai mean?”
He breathes a laugh. “I will tell you when you accept my offering.”
“Is it the reason you want me, nightwalker?” My eyes narrow. “From the very beginning, you have called me kamai.”
With amusement in his eyes, he raises a hand and says, “No. I want you to accept my offering because I enjoy your company. Is that so hard to fathom?”
“A little—yes,” I admit.
Shadows swirl around him, and he floats towards the ceiling, his hand still outstretched. “Then let me show you.”
I look to the door, my hands balling into fists. Moments with Jax peel away from my skin like dead memories with every step I take towards the nightwalker who sees me as more than a monster. Who sees me as I wish my mum would have seen me.
As I take his hand, smooth and strong, my glamour wavers. Long, pointed nails come into focus instead of the flat, chipped ones. My skin, once creamy, turns a ghostly ice blue.
White hair falls around my shoulders as his claws wrap around my hand, and his shadows lift me with ease. A sharpened breath escapes me as we enter the airshaft. He’s fast, breaking into smoke as I float upwards, his hand still in mine.
Light spills from ahead, and I wince at the brightness, closing my eyes. When a cold chill spreads across my skin, and my knees connect with the hard ground, my eyes fly open.
The nightwalker no longer holds my hand, and I am on my knees behind him as he walks ahead. Shadows drench his clothes, some breaking away and becoming wisps on the wind.
Wind…
Through widened eyes, I look up. Thousands of stars cluster in the sky, and with shaky breaths, I rise to my feet.
It has been ten long years since I last saw the stars. Ten years of dreaming about lying in the valley of moonflowers and gazing up at them.
Pain hits my bones, a sharp blade sawing through them. This moment was supposed to be with Jax, yet here I am, standing beside a nightwalker. My glamour is gone, removed at his touch.
“I see…” he says, and I tear my focus away from the stars to watch the nightwalker now circling me. Red eyes look me up and down, softening. “I see Saya Claymore as she should be seen.”
I look to the stars again, my throat tightening and heart pounding. “Here I am, exposed, while you are still hidden in shadows, nightwalker.” My eyes narrow on him. “Are you like the creature in the vent?”
“No.”
“Then why do you look like it—your claws, I mean.”
“A glamour…perhaps a curse. It is supposed to frighten those who come near me. Though you seem to be enticed by it.” He stops in front of me, eyes not once leaving mine. “I will show you who I am if you accept my offering.”
“And what exactly is your offering? You have not elaborated on what you want from me.”
Red eyes crease in amusement. “I want you to survive the red moon, but I can’t do that without you drinking my blood. With it in your system, I can protect you.”
My smile falters, and I drop my gaze.
“You’re still not willing to accept what you are.”
“Then what?” I say, glaring up at the stars and moonless night. “You save me, my friends, and my brother? You protect us, while they are terrified over what you are?”
“Just you. Your brother, your friends and your not-lover will panic, and perhaps try—and fail abysmally—to kill me instead of thinking about safety.” He faces me, but all I see are his red eyes through the shadows. “I can be your sanctuary.”
I pick at the skin around my fingernails. “Jax has a plan. The slayers will save us. He will help all of us escape. All I need to do is—”
“Hide who you are,” he finishes.
I release a shaky breath as I say, “Until I am out of the Feeding Ground. Then I can show them who I am. I will convince them…in time.”
“If that is what you desire.”
“Sorry,” I blurt when he looks away. “I don’t know why I am apologising.”
He breathes a laugh. “You are…amusing.”
A strange fluttering stirs in my heart.
“Here.” The nightwalker holds his hand out to me. “Instead of my offering, give me a drop of your blood. At least then, if you are on your deathbed, I’ll be able to find you.”
I jerk my head back. “Why?”
“No one should die alone. Trust me.”
With a slow breath in and out, I raise my hand and rest it in his. He takes my index finger and draws it to him until it’s consumed in the darkness. A sharp breath escapes me when he takes me into his warm mouth—not icy as I had expected—and his tongue rests against my finger.
I wince at the prick of pain from his fang, and after a long, hard suck, he slips my finger out of his mouth. Heat flares between my thighs.
Why did that turn me on?
He chuckles, then says, “Hopefully I don’t need to find you.”
“How long will it last in your system?”
“A week. But I suspect the Hellsgate will open in a few days.”
“And the slayers?”
“Are close.”
He lowers my hand, but keeps hold of it as I glance back the way we came and say, “I should head back to my room. Do you think you can convince the Bleeders to allow it? I’d rather not sleep in a room that reminds me of…”
“I can, kamai.” His hand tightens on mine, and he pulls me towards him. My eyes widen as his free hand tucks a lock of white hair behind my ear, and then our lips collide, and we are consumed by darkness.
Lost in soft, supple lips, our mouths open, and his tongue traces a path across the fangs I’ve long hidden behind a closed lip smile. Desire burns through me, and an unfathomable lust surfaces as my hands move over his shoulders and slip into his silky hair.
Long, clawed fingers trace my ear, following the point usually hidden by my glamour, while his other hand rests on my hip, guiding me into shadows I should fear, but don’t.
A taste.
A longing.
A yearning.
Whatever it is, it burns to the roots as my tongue dances with his.
A deep rumble rolls from him, and a soft moan escapes me at the way he touches parts of me I’ve wanted to erase.
His grip. My grip. We don’t want to pull away.
My fingers tangle in his hair, tightening in desperation, while his pull my body against him.
“Fuck, you’re maddening,” he groans before his mouth finds mine again. My back arches, and the only reason I haven’t fallen is because his broad arms cage me against him. He could bite me now, and I wouldn’t care.
I wouldn’t care…
Shit.
As I start to pull away, he releases his hold quickly.
“What was that for?” I say breathlessly.
Crimson eyes soften. “A memory. My way of saying goodbye.”
“Do you do that to everyone you meet?”
“No.”
Tension thickens the air as my eyes search for his mouth in the shadows.
“Fuck it.” I grab the shadows, and what I believe is a mouth turns out to be what feels like a nose. We both blink in bewilderment, and through my embarrassment, I step away and clear my throat. “Goodbye, nightwalker.”
He blinks some more.
Fuck me, why would I try to kiss a shadow when I can’t see where his fucking mouth is?
“If you wanted another, you could have asked,” he says as I edge back towards the access vent.
“I meant to kiss your nose. It’s how we humans say goodbye, you know!” I mutter.
“I wasn’t aware of the custom, thank you for teaching me,” he says with a chuckle. “Goodbye, Saya Claymore.”
The shadows bleed into the night and I am left alone on the roof of the Darkovish Feeding Ground.
When I return to the private room, it’s not long before the Bleeder arrives to escort me back to my room. They don’t speak, and when I enter my room, they close the door behind me without a word.
A foreign ache hits my heart, but I shake off the feeling and scramble up onto my bunk while Manni and Emily watch me. Once I am sitting cross-legged, I nod firmly and say, “Go on. Call me stupid.”
They look at one another, then back at me. Emily goes first. “You remember what I told you about my grandma? You’re addicted to him. You promised you wouldn’t see him again, but you did. Just like my grandma tried to do.”
With a slow blink, I say, “I’m not seeing him again. This time, I promise. He is gone.”
“No more creepy things in the airshaft?” Manni says.
Clinging to my lies, I say, “No. I’m certain he isn’t in the airshaft.”
Manni leans over the edge of her bunk and says, “Are you okay? You look…sad.”
“Would you still be my friends if I changed?” I ask so suddenly that I probably give them whiplash. “If I became a nightwalker?”
Emily raises a hand and says, “I mean…as long as you don’t take a bite out of me, we can still be cool.”
Manni reaches down to palm Emily’s face and shove her back before saying to me, “You’re you, and we love you. But don’t let that nightwalker sway you into thinking you need to be like him. If the nightwalker wants you, he can accept you the way you are.”
“Okay…”
Manni’s dark eyes narrow as she says, “I blame Jax. If he weren’t such a dick about you seeing the nightwalker again, you wouldn’t be questioning this.”
Emily coughs, “If he were a better fucking situationship, Saya wouldn’t have entertained the nightwalker at all.”
Surprisingly, she is half right. If Jax didn’t freak out over my tattoo, I wouldn’t have let the nightwalker get in my head. Still…I was growing to like the shadows clouding my mind.
I press my hands to my stomach and start picking at the skin around my fingernail. “Jax…Do you think we are compatible as a couple?”
Manni and Emily look at each other for a beat before they start talking in a rush. “Whaaaat? Jax? Yeah, of course! You two are totally endgame—it’s not like he threatens your friends and wants you to ditch them or anything,” Emily says with a roll of her eyes.
“Sure. Oh, yeah. Your situationship is the least toxic one I have ever seen. I am fully team”—Manni gags a little—“Jax. He isn’t manipulative at all.”
I smile at their antics. “When we are out of here, let’s stick together. I’m not sure I can do any of this alone.”
Manni’s eyes soften, and with a nod, she says, “I will always be by your side.”
Emily bobs her head and says, “Of course! And if you do fuck a nightwalker, I will not judge, but I will have questions. Like, is it cold? Does it feel like a popsicle in your—”
Manni flings her pillow at Emily and hisses, “Stop!”
Laughter flutters to the surface, but I bite it down, letting my smile reach my eyes instead as I watch them bicker.
Perhaps they will accept me for who I truly am one day.