41. Nyte
41
N yte
It wasn’t often I woke to such peace and I knew from that feeling alone that Astraea was near. Very near. I breathed her scent in a long inhale, registering the soft feel of her under my head, and a warmth hotter than flesh at the side of my face.
Her fingers combed through my hair and I stifled a groan, deciding this awakening right here was the best in my entire existence. My eyes slipped open for the final piece of this dream, and the angel staring down at me really did make me question if I was even alive.
“You’ve been out for a long time,” she said quietly, brushing a lock of hair from my head, which she held in her lap.
I spared a glance around but only took in gray jagged stone around us, illuminated by a small fire. Then I remembered the events that had unfolded after the temple.
“Zath helped to get you here. I really need to learn how to travel with someone through the void. I could feel it but… you said traveling through it was risky even at the best of times.”
“Thank you,” I said, it was barely a breath in my weakened state, but I was coming around. I took her hand over my chest, and it was all the strength I needed.
“Do you think they hate me now?” The sound of defeat in her small voice had me pushing up, propping on one hand.
I tipped her chin up, unable to bear the weight on her that bowed it as if she’d done something wrong.
“You were absolutely incredible. If they have any ill feelings toward you standing up for your friends then they’re a problem,” I said. “One word and I’d end them all. Or at least make them remember it’s you they bow to, and that you will never bow to them.”
Astraea yielded a small smile that relaxed the tension in me, ready to charge at her every whim.
“Always finding answers in violence,” she mused.
“I find my answers in you. What I do is entirely dependent on your wishes.”
Astraea leaned in to kiss me, and fuck, I loved it when she did that.
“I’m going to go to Althenia once you’re well,” she said gently, like it might detonate a fuse in me.
I wouldn’t deny the idea sparked something volatile, but I knew this time had to come. I had to let her go.
“Auster said you’d been meeting with him,” I told her. Part of me hoped he’d been lying to provoke me, but the other part knew it was the truth.
“I’m sorry. It’s not that I didn’t trust you, but he said…”
“You don’t have to explain it to me. How did you feel with Auster?”
Her brow furrowed, seeming to try to answer that to herself first.
“Sad, like I broke something I don’t know can be fixed. Also… wary.”
“That’s not giving me assurance to let you go with him.”
“Let me?” she challenged. I loved the fiery flicker against the ice of her irises when she adopted this playfulness.
“I could tie you up.”
“Is that a fantasy of yours?”
“It would be a fantasy if I’d never done so before.”
Her lips parted, searching my eyes for the lie.
“That’s not fair,” she pouted. “Taunting me with lost memories.”
“Would you want me to—?” I leaned into her, forcing her to lie down slowly. My hands gazed along her side but shadows crept along her stomach, lassoing around her wrists. She tried to wriggle from my touch but gasped when the shadow bonds locked her hands above her head. “Restrain you?”
The answer was in the desire fluttering her eyes.
“Yes.”
I leaned down, kissing her lips softly, then her neck. “Good.”
Letting the shadows ease from her wrists, Astraea’s hands slipped down my abdomen, dipping under the hem of my untucked shirt. Her fingers against my skin were fucking bliss.
“You can’t come with me to Althenia, can you?” she asked, wandering her touch absentmindedly.
My fucking heart skipped at her want for me.
“I’m not welcome there. I’ll only reflect badly on you for bringing me there.”
“That’s not fair.” She frowned.
“We also don’t know if you can open a pass in the veil for me.”
Astraea began tracing my chest and I was in an utter state of rapture that the thought of hiding in this cave with her for days was the most appealing thing in the world.
“I think I could,” she said thoughtfully.
“Your confidence is stunning.”
She smiled to herself this time but it quickly fell. “What if I don’t belong there for all I’m choosing against them?”
That meant me. I wanted her to say it— I choose you. There’s nothing I wouldn’t give for those words. But more than that I wanted her happiness, and this wasn’t it.
“What do you want to do?”
Astraea slipped her hand around my back while her knees tightened around my hips, drawing me down closer.
“You’re everything I shouldn’t want,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“So why do I want you so badly?”
“Even the most pure and precious things can be lured by darkness.”
“I don’t think it’s just your darkness. I think it’s your heart.”
“Because it’s yours,” I said.
Astraea kissed me, firm and unexpected. Every time she moved for me first, I turned into a pining proud fool for her.
“Before you settle on your choice, you should give Auster more of a chance. To be sure.”
“You don’t want that,” she accused, maybe even taking offense.
I gave a resentful laugh. “I would rather the world burned to ash, but that would be entirely villainous of me. I’m trying not to corrupt the world’s hero into condemning it for me.”
“You think too highly of yourself.”
“You begged me not to leave.”
“I didn’t beg. ”
“It’s one of my favorite things from you, so I think I’d remember.”
Her lips parted with an adorable scowl and I smiled in amusement. Before she could say something snarky I claimed her mouth and then we were lost. Or found. We were stars colliding and night defying.
I hadn’t been able to give her everything when we’d woken after the ordeal at the keep. I died seven times before Astraea came around. It was a record I hoped never to beat or even come close to again.
Now, everything came pouring out of me and I hoped she had the same blazing desire to receive it. Her back curved, pressing us tighter. Those fucking hands of heaven locked in my hair to pull me closer and I was driven so wild with everything I wanted to do to her that I didn’t know where to start worshipping this goddess wrapped around me.
The ground trembled beneath us and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a direct warning from the gods.
It only surged me with defiance and a dominant need to show them she was mine .
Slipping my arms around her back, she lifted so effortlessly to me, straddling my knees. I stood with her, pushing her to the wall, and she moaned, opening that pretty mouth for me to devour her deeply.
Astraea’s hands moved to glide over my ribs before clawing at my back. Such a needy girl. I broke our kiss abruptly and was burned by the passion in her icy eyes.
“I need you to undress for me before I make ribbons out of the only clothes you have until we reach a town.”
She shivered against me and I reluctantly let her go, bracing a hand on the wall instead to watch. Everything around us still shook and Astraea observed the falling debris as she undid the fastens of her leathers.
“Do the quakes always last this long?” she asked with a hint of fear.
“No. The longer they are, the more they’re affecting the magick.”
“Maybe we should stop—”
I reached for the button of her pants, then pulled the ties.
“We could,” I murmured, kissing her jaw, her neck. Drinking in every sweet taste of her flesh. “But we’ve tempted fate this far, why stop now?”
Astraea peeled out of her leather jacket, then I helped fold her out of her shirt just as the quake stopped rumbling.
I groaned at the perfect sight of her bare chest that would never fail to turn me into a crazed male for her. I sucked one of her nipples and she pushed her chest into me. Such a good fucking girl. I gave the other the same attention and her arousal filled my senses. I breathed the drug of her deeply, becoming more and more unhinged to be buried inside her with each breath. Hooking my fingers in her waistband, I kneeled, freeing her stunning legs from the leather as I did.
“How much do you want this?”
I was priming to unleash on her. Everything I never got the chance to do the other night.
“More than anything,” she said through a delightful short breath.
I lifted under her knee to hook it over my shoulder, then I bit into her thigh, piercing the flesh. Astraea gasped from the surprise, hand flying into my hair and grabbing a tight fistful. I only took a mouthful of her exquisite blood before I licked over the puncture wound. My eyes flicked up, finding her lust-clouded sight on me.
“Did that make you needy for me?” I asked, kissing along her thigh. I loved the way her hand tightened and her brow twitched in anticipation the closer I got to her center.
“Shit, yes,” she mewled.
I groaned, savoring that sweet begging I would never tire of hearing.
Then I couldn’t hold back any longer.
Astraea’s cry echoed through the small cave and I gave no mercy. Needing her to scream louder as a declaration to the world that she was mine. That only I could make her feel this good.
My tongue passed through her hot core and the taste of her exploded in me. Sucking on the sensitive bud gained the most reaction. Astraea ground her hips into my face like she couldn’t get enough. I let her use me as she needed, cupping under her ass for encouragement, and she didn’t hold back. Her arousal coated my mouth and chin as she chased her pleasure, and my cock was fucking aching to be touched.
I slipped a finger into her tight heat and swore at the slickness pooling out of her. Enough that I added a second easily.
“Oh, just like that, please.” I turned nearly feral with that. Her wish was my fucking command. She was close to the precipice and I needed it like a starved man.
I sucked harder, driving my fingers into her faster with a slight curve with the right pressure to make her body sing until she began to tense for the orgasm and her channel sucked my fingers deeper.
Astraea climaxing was a blessing from the heavens no creature from hell deserved. She cried beautifully, and I held her tightly pressed to the wall as my assault strung out every euphoric tremor of her release.
I slowed as she came down from her high. Every gentle flick of my tongue caused her body to spasm from the sensitivity, and I delighted in the wicked torture. Astraea moaned with my fingers slipping out of her and I sucked every last taste of her from them.
Her eyes were wild on me, looking down with her chest rising and falling and she wasn’t finished. Good. I wasn’t even close to being done with her.
“On your knees and take out my cock,” I ordered.
Astraea didn’t miss a beat, sinking down with me and working her nimble fingers on my buttons and ties. The relief when she freed my cock was a burst of pleasure itself, but she wasted no time in gripping my base in her pale hand, tightening as she pumped in slow, tormenting strokes. I wanted her mouth wrapped around it, and if I didn’t ask I knew she would in a moment. More so, I wanted to be deep inside her so desperately it was a carnal need.
Perhaps it was the lingering, resentful thoughts of Auster. He was good for her, safe. I was nightmares and devastation but she couldn’t deny which kept her feeling the most alive.
“Turn around and put your hands on the wall.”
She did as I ordered, giving me her perfect ass, and I coaxed her hips back while nudging her knees farther apart. Astraea shuddered with a pained moan as I passed my fingers through her soaking heat, using her release to cover my shaft. I shifted up on my knees, kissing between her shoulders and wrapping a hand around her throat. My cock lined up with her entrance. Astraea pushed her hips back, taking the tip of me into her body, and I groaned against her skin.
“Impatient,” I growled. Then plunged all the way to hear her sing for me and it was mind blowing. I had to take a second fully seated in her, clutching her body bent perfectly in my hold.
“Don’t hold back this time,” she rasped.
“You think I’ve been holding out on you?”
Pulling out to the tip, I began fucking her in slow, savoring strokes. I wanted her to feel how perfectly every piece of me fit with her. Then again. And again. Slow punishing plunges she cried out at, beginning to anticipate it to meet me stroke for stroke.
“Do I feel good inside you?” I whispered across her ear.
“It feels… oh gods— ”
My next deep thrust altered her words.
“We’ve talked about this,” I said, a low graveling warning before I plunged in again and stayed seated in her. “The only gods around here are you and I.”
“I want you… to fuck me as Nightsdeath.”
I stilled with a dark, pleasurable shudder at hearing that. It was unexpected, but the darkness inside me rattled to be desired.
“Are you sure it won’t frighten you?” I taunted, trailing the vibrations of my words down the column of her neck that inclined for me. Begging for my teeth. My mark.
“I can handle you.”
She was the only creature in the world who could.
Nightsdeath crept to the surface, but I kept control. It was urges and dark promises that impressed on my consciousness. Nightsdeath was like choosing what emotions to turn off and which to amplify. If I had no control, I had no humanity.
It was most dangerous around Astraea, who was so beautifully bright that she repelled the want for goodness. But the defiance to crave it could also translate to the most euphoric bliss in the throes of passion.
Astraea gasped like she felt the change in me, the embrace of a monster. Shadows replaced my hold around her neck so my black-tipped fingers could hold her hips in place.
“How hard can you take it?” I asked, trembling with the restraint required not to give in to abandon.
“Just fuck me.”
The beast in me purred at that and my cock glided in and out of her, and I marveled at the sight of where we joined.
“I want to mark you,” I growled, pressing my lips to her shoulder before my teeth scraped there.
“Please.”
“So willing for me.”
With my next deep plunge into her my teeth sank into her skin with the ease of an apple. Then I was lost in her. High on the taste and scent of her, my hips slammed into her hard and fast and she clawed at the wall with her cries of pleasure. I licked her wound when my mouth pulled away and my abdomen tensed with an impending release.
“Come on my cock,” I ordered, fucking her like no sane person. She made me crazed, entangled in madness. I didn’t think any amount of her would ever be enough and that made my chase with her an eternal flame.
Her channel gripped me like a vise and I was so fucking close. Another snake of shadow wrapped her middle before the tip reached her apex, rubbing her sensitive bud with every powerful thrust that had us both slick with sweat and ready to collapse.
Astraea’s noises were heavenly. The call of my name shattering through her release was a god’s blessing bestowed on me. With my next slam into her I came too, seeing stars and darkness and her, her, her .
“Fuck, ” I rasped, struggling to collect myself back from an orgasm that continued to rip through me as I braced one hand next to hers on the wall and the other around her body as the shadows dispersed and Nightsdeath was put back to rest.
“That was…” Astraea didn’t finish her words. She didn’t need to.
I kissed along the column of her neck in the comedown of our shared euphoria.
“You are utterly exquisite.”
I slipped out of her, and we gathered our breath.
“There’s a lake just through the trees,” Astraea said, turning around.
I took her hands as I stood, and from her blood and the adrenaline we created, I felt brand fucking new. As I hooked under her thighs, Astraea’s smile bloomed, lifting into my arms, legs circling my waist.
As I carried her out, the night was bitterly cold but bearable with the heat of our worked bodies right now.
“Your light is warm; if you can find out how to channel it right, you could save us a freezing bath in a minute.”
I was too enraptured with her body around mine to feel the woodland beneath my bare feet. When we got to the lake, Astraea clamped around me tighter as I walked into it.
Shit, it was fucking freezing. I almost retreated, but thought that this could be a good training exercise for her magick.
“This could wait until morning!” Astraea gasped, trying to let me go when the water lapped past her ass.
“It won’t be much warmer then, anyway,” I said.
Her teeth started chattering, her body shaking but locked around me. I stopped in the pool where I could still stand but sank down to submerge to our shoulders.
“You could heat around us,” I said through short breath. The water was like small knives to our skin.
“I—I don’t know h-how,” she chittered.
“Focus, love.”
Brushing hair from her face, I warmed her ear, her neck, with my breath. Anywhere I could. I tried reaching her with my magick to give it a gentle awakening. When her silver markings started to glow, she was the most breathtaking sight in the dark.
“Good girl,” I whispered. “You’re not just a vessel to power, you are the magick you harbor. Trust yourself with it, and command what you want.”
Shimmering light spilled around us like she bathed us both in starlight. Fucking exquisite. Astraea glowed like a goddess, her tattoos, the glittering strands of her hair; she was in every way a pure fallen star.
“My fallen star,” I said to her, kissing the constellation on her chest.
We both shuddered at the warmth that weaved through the cold. Our bodies relaxed against each other and I groaned with the pleasure, no longer wanting to make this swim quick but wanting to stay here for hours. To take her again and again in these waters imbued with her magick.
After a moment of peaceful silence and soft touches, Astraea broke it.
“How did the celestials manage to overpower you at the temple?”
My anger simmered at the recollection.
“They’ve been busy these past few centuries. It seems they’ve created a material that incapacitates the fae like stormstone does to vampires, and obsidian the celestials.”
“Why would they want such a thing against the fae? They are their allies.”
“I don’t think any two groups can wholly be considered allies anymore. They know I was born fae and they were right to assume whatever this new material is that it would incapacitate me more than stormstone or obsidian. It’s also safe to assume they know many fae joined my father’s army over the years, so I guess they wanted to be fully prepared.”
“Most of them were forced against their will,” she argued.
“Yes. But war doesn’t spare the innocent. It views everything that’s multicolored through a black-and-white lens. It is not fair nor merciful. It hears no reason.”
“We have to make them. Be the voice of reason if we must.”
I adored her fierce will. Astraea was in every way a fit leader, then and now, she just wasn’t always what they wanted her to be and that made me love her even more.
“I’ll be right by your side. I’ll do whatever you ask of me.”
“Whatever I ask?” she repeated coyly.
My cock jerked from that tone alone.
“Unless you order me away.”
“What happened to giving Auster a chance?”
“I already changed my mind.”
“Jealousy suits you.”
“This isn’t jealousy because you’re undeniably mine. I mentioned Auster so you can finally accept that with a clear conscience. I’m very patient and you are very worth the wait.”
I kissed her throat, refraining from scattering bite marks across her body.
“You held back again in the cave,” she accused breathily.
Our stares tangled in desire and thrill.
“I didn’t fuck you hard enough?”
“You haven’t shown me everything you can do.”
“I would never give everything at once. We have eternity, and I have infinite ways to pleasure you. Next time, I want you to feel my magick inside you.”
I kissed her hard and she curved into me. My cock prodded at her core from our position.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you,” she said before we could lose ourselves again. The serious edge made me give her my full attention for it.
“You can ask me anything.”
“Did you really kill Drystan’s mother?”
Guilt locked my body as I sighed. “Yes. It was an accident long ago, shortly after you died.”
Every time she learned something heinous about me I always counted my breaths for her reaction, believing it would be the next sinister truth that would make her see the monster I am and leave me.
“How?”
“I’m not proud of who I was back then. Vicious nightmares need peaceful dreams… and you were gone.”
Her delicate brow pulled together and her fingers threaded through the back of my hair.
“I’m here now.”
I sighed, running a hand up her spine in complete gratitude for that fact.
“His mother tried to kill me first, knowing I would be sent for her when she planned to leave my father and abandon Drystan. Nightsdeath didn’t give a second chance to her attempt at ending my life, futile as it was. I didn’t realize what I’d done until I was kneeling by her body and her lover’s coated in their blood. Nightsdeath has no brother. No one to consider.”
“You’ve been Nightsdeath around me.”
“That part of me is both repelled by and addicted to you, I can’t explain it. You make me volatile but in a way that either drives a need to kill you or a desire to claim you.”
Astraea pressed herself to me with a playful smile. “The feeling is mutual.”