AUDITORY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Saya Claymore
I feel safest when the hall is empty…most of the time.
I place the ballet slippers beside me and peel off the tape wrapped around my toes. Reddened swelling throbs along the sides from the strain of being elevated longer than usual.
Touching the blisters, I breathe out a low hiss.
Clear liquid seeps out. Bowing into the pain, I exhale, and my body tenses at the shudder of the doors closing.
My anxious fingertips bite into my flesh as my Blessed casually enters the hall.
Unfriendly, bored eyes look around aimlessly, his hands clapping as he swings his arms out and back in.
If I didn’t know him, I would assume he’s lost. But I’m not naive enough to believe his casual movements—everything he does is calculated.
“Saya,” he says cheerfully, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he smiles. “I was looking all over the village for you.”
I blink, unable to digest his words.
He claps once more, clasping his hands in front of him. “Not one for words, I see. Father told me you lacked…communication. A fault in your system, unlike the rest of us.”
Looking away, I hook my fingers into my slippers and rise. As I walk barefoot down the steps of the stage, he blocks my path. A sickly-sweet smile spreads across his face, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
My Blessed is lanky. Twig-like, but he holds the most vegodian power—a rarity among vegodian men—which makes up for how breakable his body seems. Flowers adore him, leaning closer whenever they are near.
“Do you know why they paired us?”
I shake my head.
He hitches a laugh, amused at knowing something I don’t. “Because you are weak. Barely a vegodian, from what your mum and my father have said. So, to balance things out, they want me to put my seed in you to carry on my magik.”
I blink and shrug my stiff right shoulder while my fingers tighten on the slippers looped between them.
“Heh…” Another mocking laugh as he steps aside, and I walk down the last steps before making my way down the aisle. “You can’t ignore me forever, Saya. Our praise ceremony will be soon. Once the ribbons wrap around us, you are mine to claim. Bound for a lifetime.”
My jaw locks, and my hands clench into fists. Still, I bite my tongue. I don’t need to give them all another reason to cast me out.
I loathe these memories, especially when they torment me while I sleep. To think I pushed them away for so long, only for my glamour to waver, and for them to return tenfold, like a thundering cloud looming over my head.
Running my fingers through my damp hair, in nothing but a bath towel, I reflect on last night. I admitted I liked Serun. Stupid, perhaps, to speak to a nightwalker about feelings. I doubt they have feelings, only the echo of them woven with the urges and lust that come with being a nightwalker.
Na?ve? Perhaps.
Am I desperate to have what we had in Darkovish Feeding Ground? Likely…
Shaking my head and securing the towel to my chest with one hand, I open the door to the closet. All the new clothes overwhelm me. I wore the same thing for ten years, so the idea of something new churns my stomach with anxiety.
Pick something that is you. When was the last time you did that?
“Never,” I answer myself.
Glancing within, a flash of gold and deep indigo catches my attention. Without overthinking, I take out the garment to find it is a structured tunic-style dress with high slits up the front of both thighs, while the back of the skirt is split into two long panels that flow like a tailcoat.
I slip it on to find the broad lapelled neckline plunges into a deep-V that almost reaches my navel.
The rigidity of the fabric holds in my stomach and chest, and when I face the mirror to inspect the outfit, my fingers curl into loose fists at the sight.
After wearing white my entire life—painted like a fragile, doe-eyed deer—the darker colours and dramatic tailoring bring out something malicious hidden under the surface. The mask is slipping.
I put on some black stockings and then face the door, shoulders squared. This room has been a haven, like the last one, where nightwalkers cannot enter.
My fingers close over the locket Serun gave me, and with a deep breath in, I push my nerves aside and open the door.
When I first saw Serun’s office, I thought back to the last time I read a book. Most books in my village were forbidden to me because they mentioned vegodian powers. So, I read picture books, and it was there that I fell in love with ballet.
My fingers brush against the spines as I pass and make my way out to the dimly lit corridor.
Floral patterns dance in silver and purple across the walls, the design reminding me of vervain.
I take in the now-familiar sunset painting when my ears prick, bending at the sound coming from the door on the right.
Music plucked from strings tickles my sensitive ears.
A harp? It’s delicate music, flowing along strings with tender affection.
I open the door and push it gently open.
The music cuts away, leaving a static humming in my ear as I enter a bedroom.
There’s a harp in the middle of the room, and a stool beside it.
The bed is against the window overlooking the Undercity—glimmers of light filtering through the red stained glass.
Sparks pulse in the darkness, filling the city as though Mother hadn’t left and taken the light with her.
I press my palms against the soft mattress and crawl closer to the window. From up here, inside Serun’s manor on the slope of a hill, the Undercity looks even more like a spider’s web—patterned with bridges and paths that branch out into different streets.
“Didn’t think to see you on a bed as an offering so soon, kamai.” I jump and spin around. The door closes with a click, and Serun leans back against it with his arms folded over his chest, and those very magnetic, intense red eyes watching me. “Evening.”
I tap the glass of the window. “Was the world like this before Mother left?”
“Not entirely.” He steps closer, his presence magnetising the air. “Magik was frowned upon back then, while I try my best to weave as much as I can into everything so it won’t be forgotten.”
“So nightwalkers hold more magik than compulsion?” I murmur.
“Some,” he agrees. “Like my family, for instance.”
Tearing my gaze away from the window, I shuffle off the bed and stand before Serun. Without meaning to, my focus lowers to his mouth.
Lemongrass and nightshade—a beautifully fragrant, devastating blend—fill my airways like oxygen. I lean in, wanting more when he pulls away. My heart stutters a beat before my walls move high to conceal embarrassment and hurt.
“Afraid, nightwalker?”
“Not in the slightest,” he says with a breathy laugh, his eyes crinkling in amusement.
I step forward, daringly bringing us back into contact—into the orbit of tension about ready to crumble Kepler. “Then what are you waiting for?”
Sharp fangs flash. “The perfect moment.”
My breath shakes as I look into those killer eyes: windows to a place where crimson paints the walls and floors, voices wailing, desperate to flee with their souls on tethered heartstrings. And this time, I’m the one who looks away.
His voice drops an octave—a careful sound. “Until you know what you want, I’ll wait.”
“How gentlemanly of you,” I mutter.
“It’s the least I can do.”
I breathe a laugh. He has jokes for someone likely to be centuries older than I am. It eases me enough to sigh and ask, “Have you heard anything about Cole?”
“Did you want me to call Reyes again?”
I shake my head. “It’s fine. I will wait until later tonight. For now, show me where you would like me to train with my vegodian magik.”
The shadows quiver. Is he amused? When he looks at me like that, with his stupid half-smile, crooked around the edges, my heart murmurs a beat.
I could be reacting to the forbidden lure of a nightwalker, but if I’m honest with myself, it’s his tender affection. The way he’s made me love myself.
I hint at a smile as we depart, only for it to drop as I glimpse the harp as Serun closes the door. “Whose room is that?”
“Mine,” he answers while I follow him down the corridor. “Though I don’t care to use it unless to listen.”
“Were you the one playing music while I was in the coffin?” Clasping my hands behind my back, my fingers tighten when he nods. “Why did you do it?”
Serun steps closer, deliberate but careful, those shadows of his keeping close to his body. “If I had it my way, I would have been in the coffin with you, but my family wanted you to do it alone. I was outvoted. So, I played music to help you figure out which way was up.”
My tongue flicks across my top teeth, relishing the feel of my fangs. “There is one more thing that has been bothering me.”
“Among a growing list.”
“Yes…” My eyes narrow, and my steps slow. “The letter you gave the Bleeder you killed in the feeding ground. What did it say?”
He clicks his tongue. I’m sure he was hoping I would forget about that night.
“If you want me to trust you, I need to understand you, nightwalker.”
With a deep chuckle, he tilts his head slightly to look at me. “You wanted to kiss me earlier. Am I really someone you don’t trust? Your arousal was potent.”
“And what do you want me to do about that, nightwalker?” I mutter.
Lifting a brow, he looks down at me from the corner of his eye. “Nothing. I’m merely observing your mating call.”
I stop walking. My what?
“And what would your mating call be, then?”
“Making you share our blood on the same night to claim you as my consort,” he says without batting a fucking eyelash.
“Well…Sadly, it’s working.”
He laughs. “Sadly.”
Rubbing my forehead, I say, “You’re distracting me, but I’m not going to let this go. I need an answer.”
His smile falters. “Very well, I wrote I wanted to meet Feeder zero-zero-eight, and for one of them to invite you to the private room within forty-eight hours, or else I will kill another Bleeder.”
A shaky breath escapes me. “That’s why they were so adamant in the blood bank. Usually, they would let us take triple, but they refused. It was because of your letter.”
He cocks his head to the side and narrows his eyes at me.
“Why didn’t you come earlier, then?” My hands move around my arms. “Did you let that nightwalker—”
“No.” His voice is sharp and frustrated. “I went to your room first, and when you weren’t there, I headed to your not-lovers when I heard your scream. I got there as fast as I could.”
“But you knew—”
“I didn’t. I wrote the letter but didn’t know if they would uphold it after my slaughter. Some Bleeders don’t work for me. They work to survive—and I suspect some may even be in communication with the slayers, but I don’t have a solid lead on that yet.”
My arms slacken and drop back to my sides. “You’re lucky you didn’t hold your liar’s tongue. I’m over secrecy.”
“Kamai still bothering you?” he says with a twitch of a smile.
“Enough,” I snap and walk away, only for him to effortlessly catch up.
As I glare ahead, my steps fall into stride with his—a magnet to his shadows, my light faltering in the presence of the Nightwalker Lord. Our knuckles brush, and the corridor blurs as I hyperfocus on the way he walks.
The way those muscles tense.
The lure of those crimson-dipped eyes and how they soften in my presence.
Candlelight turns into a shadow of nothingness, forcing my memories to rise, like I’m gasping for breath underwater. Remembered moments curdle like milk in the pit of my acidic stomach. When my mouth found his. My fingers slipping into silky hair. Exploring his marble skin.
“Your heartbeat is stuttering.”
Maybe I am thirsty…
With a huffed breath, I shake off the memories that shackle me, and keep my focus ahead—not on the nightwalker I desperately want to kiss.
No words are needed. Serun knows that my proximity to him is fuelling my growing curiosity about everything I was taught to hate.