Chapter 69
Ihave read, and read, and read. I refuse to believe what I’m forced to believe at this point. I’ve memorized every single pathway.
I know who it is.
The only thing I can do to help is run.
I crawl into bed later wearing my favorite nightgown. It’s black, it’s silky, and it hugs in all the right places.
Dae is in his human form, lying on his back, and I’m memorizing every plane of his face. I”m even noting how each dark wave lays on his head, how his hair fades shorter and shorter down the sides.
His throat bobs when I curl up next to him, but his arms pull me in like that is where I belong.
“No disappearing tonight?” I ask inside his mind, my head on his shoulder.
He buries his nose into the top of my hair. “I thought you were going to die today, and then I thought you were going to belong to someone else. So, no, I’m selfishly taking what you’ll give me.”
“Whatever I give you?”
He stiffens, a concoction of his drowning desires and sharp anxiety go to war inside our shield. “Nizzara—”
When I lift myself up to glare down at those eyes, he sighs and reaches up to brush my cheek. “Nil will come for me after the King’s Final Duel, Nizzara.”
His words sink into me like daggers through my chest. I shield my mind and desires, hoping it’s enough to keep my devastation from him.
“And when I’m gone, there will be a long line of deathwalkers to take my place.” His jaw feathers. “I will not take your soul, but the others will.”
I narrow my eyes. “I’d like to see them try.”
He smiles. “I love that expression on you.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know,” he says out loud, his eyes on my lips.
I lean down until his scent is the only thing between us and let my desires run away with thoughts of nothing but his lips on mine.
His eyes darken and he guides my chin closer until his lips tickle mine when they say, “You cruel little beast.”
I smile against those sinful lips.
In a smooth, effortless motion, he rolls on top of me and pins me to the bed. His eyes, barely restrained, are begging for me just like other parts of him, begging the same thing.
I feel his desperation and intense desire in the air around us and it steals my breath. “I’ll make you a deal,” his voice is ragged but strong, having found a soul earlier.
I raise my chin, more than comfortable beneath every firm inch of him pressing against me. “What deal?” I breathe.
“If you kick my ass, I’ll give you whatever you wish of me.”
He dips his lips to my ear, his sultry voice pooling heat into every part of me, “I will kiss you, until tomorrow. I will hold you until your nightmares are gone. I will give you my crown and my kingdom, Nizzara, as soon as you prove you’ll survive after I’m gone.”
He pulls back and chuckles, “There’s that face again.”
“You want me to kick your ass?” I say, peering up into warm, sweet eyes.
He returns to my ear, drawing a tantalizing line with his nose down my neck, turning my breathing into a sporadic, heated mess. “Yep. So I know you can fend off any deathwalker who comes after the King’s Final Duel.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I breathe.
He continues grazing down my shoulder to my thin nightgown strap and takes it in his teeth before releasing it with a flick. My pulse is pounding hot and strong through me.
“I’m not doing it.”
He shrugs. “Then no—”
I buck my hips up, flinging him forward. He catches my headboard as I slide out from under him.
He chuckles. Damn, that coy grin of his. “Now?” He smirks, raising that devious brow.
I slide my dagger from my leg and take my stance. “Now.”
He points a look to my door where my night guards are just outside in the hall. “We’ll have to be quiet.”
“Why are you telling me? You’ll be the one begging for mercy,” I whisper.
His eyes narrow to sultry slits of green and gold. “Oh, I sincerely hope that’s the case.” He hops off the bed and withdraws his menacing blade.
I call his power. Its icy-hot lightning snaps through my entire body as I suck his sword into another dimension.
“That’s so cheating,” he says, but he’s smirking as he says it.
“It is not,” I hiss. “It’s smart.”
Except holding that monstrous blade in another dimension means his power will stay like this, taught as a bow string throughout my system.
I’d be more terrified of it, if it wasn’t coiling things into pleasurable, racy aches through my center. Judging by the smolder on Dae’s face—the burning need in our bond—he feels it too. He runs his hand through those soft waves.
“Fine. You’ll bond another spirit after I’m gone, so I’ll allow it.”
I keep my mind shields nice and tight as I circle him, twirling my dagger.
“Don’t you want to change out of your nightgown?”
I smile at the way his throat bobs while his eyes roam over me. “Someone told me distractions can be useful.”
He smirks. “I won’t go easy.”
“Good,” I say.
When he kicks my torso, I fly back, but, before I hit the wall, he materializes behind me, catching me with iron-clad arms.
I throw my head back, headbutting him in the chin, and throw an elbow into his abs. The same moment he doubles forward, I surge my head back again, smacking him square in the face. I spin out, swiping my dagger across his chest.
He vanishes, his ghostly outline circling, his power still coiling and tightening through me.
He materializes to my left. As soon as he’s solid, my fist lands center on his chest. I throw everything I have into that single contact, reaching down inside and brushing my mother’s golden gift—because it is not the darkness that swirls inside, and I know I can’t hurt Dae. It fills my arm as naturally as breath fills my lungs. Gold light sparks out from where my knuckles meet him, and his solid slab of muscle ricochets off my fist.
He flies backward, crashing into the stone wall, knocking books from my shelves. He’s on his ass, beaming up at me with worship and pride tangling the air around him.
A pounding comes from my door. “Everything okay, Your Highness?” Brunar yells from the hall.
“I’m fine. Get back to work,” I call back as I stride over, dagger out.
Brunar offers a relenting mumble through the door as I straddle Dae and wedge my blade up under the smooth short beard on his jaw, his power still wrecking me, his eyes still worshiping me.
“Ass. Kicked.”
His expression melts. “You’re fucking beautiful when you’re pointing a dagger at me.”
I can’t stop the smile on my lips. “Does that mean I get those promises?”
His hand finds mine, weaving our fingers, and tugging them up to his lips. While his other hand trails my thigh. “They were already yours.”
His eyes darken at the sound that escapes my lips, my dagger going slack in my hand. I recall his blade of shadow, letting it clink somewhere behind me.
But the deep, coiling sensation doesn’t leave. Not even close.
Maybe because his hands are sliding up my nightgown toward my hips.
“Are you sure you want this?” he says in my mind.
I glare at him, letting my desires be as loud and as explicit as they want. “I choose you, Dagen. I want every moment I have left with you.”
A bittersweet ache sweeps through our bond, and I lean back. “Do you want this?”
Before I can second guess myself, he leans his forehead against mine, his fingers knotting in my nightgown. “I have wanted you since the first time I laid eyes on you, Nizzara.” His hands begin to move again, trailing the rest of the way up until they find the sensitive divot of my hips. A deep groan sounds in my mind. “You just fought me without underwear?”
My smile widens, spreading stupidly and happily across my face.
“Cruel, cruel little beast.”
He pulls me tight, and in a swift, easy motion, he’s on his feet, striding for my bed with my legs wrapped around him. Everything is rock hard beneath me. I bite off a whimpering sound when he pins my back to silk sheets, because his hips are pressing against me with delicious pressure.
I desire his shirt to be off.
He nips my bottom lip. “Your desires are so subtle.” But he is a good man and pulls his shirt over those soft, dark waves on his head.
Words are stolen from me as I memorize every muscled hill and valley on his tan chest. Scars run over his tan skin like any seasoned dueler, and I commit each one to memory in case I never see them again.
“If you keep looking at me that way, I will beg for mercy.”
The top of his pants dig into my thighs, teasing as he leans down, branding me with kisses up my neck and jaw as if we have all the time in the world. His fingers weave into mine, pinning them above my head. Those sinful lips of his begin doing tricks once they claim my lips, making every sensitive nerve-ending of mine burn. With each stroke of his tongue and bite of my lip, my desires plead for his pants to be gone.
A rumble vibrates through our bond. He unbuttons the top button of his pants, but I dissolve them into some dimension far from here, before throwing them back into the room on a chair.
He chuckles through our bond, but his kiss only deepens, and his body pins me harder against the bed. Every firm inch of him is pressed against me. He lets go of my hand to trail his fingers under my nightgown until I dissolve it too.
When he realizes it’s gone, he breaks his kiss, his burning gaze caressing every part of me. When it finds my neck, he brushes his fingers over that vulnerable place and lays a gentle kiss there.
His emotions surge through our bond as his lips brush that spot—such rage and overwhelmingly tender heartache. His lips continue to my shoulder that’s taken countless blades before trailing all the way down my stomach where the infantry’s blade tore me open.
A tangle of fear and drowning affection weaves through the air around him. Heat pricks my eyes and throat.
He moves back up to my mouth, kissing me until I am to the point of begging.
“Dae.”
His hands grip my waist, bringing me to the edge of the bed, his hard length meeting my center without breaking our kiss.
“Nizzara,” he groans, sliding in slowly, filling and stretching me with his entire length. A quick slice of pain comes before melting into a pleasurable, needing ache. He doesn’t move, his hand caressing my cheek as his lips quiver against mine.
“Are you okay?” His forehead rests against mine, his excited breath mingling with mine.
I bite his lip. “I’m not weak.”
His lips smile against mine, and he begins moving.
I’ve been on the cusp of explosion since I straddled him on the floor, and every pull and thrust has me hurtling toward oblivion. His hand slides down to where he’s moving inside of me. His thumb finds the deliciously tender spot and strokes.
My whimper is out loud this time, and I’m biting my lip to keep from screaming.
His eyes darken as he pools his power into me, like oceans trying to flow through stream beds.
“As much as I love to see you bite your lip, don’t.”
Power explodes from me, stopping time as I come undone, shaking and screaming his name in a pocket of time meant only for us. Every muscle inside me quakes with waves of pleasure as I melt around him.
“Beautiful,” he says, his awe and arousal crashing in waves around me.
I’m breathless, my voice shaking in the aftermath of intense pleasure when I say, “That’s all you’ve got?”
His dark, menacing voice purrs, “You’re such a cruel little beast.” He bites my lip and adds down our bond, “And I’m nowhere near done with you.”
He slides out, scoops me up, and moves me higher on the bed, kissing his way down from my lips to my breasts to my belly button, until his tongue finds that same exact spot his thumb just had.
“Dae,” I gasp, already near the brink again from his slow, sensual strokes. But as soon as I’m close to another oblivion, he pauses, holding me on that sharp edge, until I’m whimpering, until the tiniest flick of his tongue tears me apart.
I scream his name again, time still frozen around us.
He growls and slides back in, intensifying every lingering shudder as I turn into a boneless, hot mass around him.
Something flickers in our bond. His eyes find mine and he stops moving. “I’m sterile,” he says, “but if you want protection I can—”
I shake my head, running my hand down his perfect chest. “You’re perfect.”
He slams into me with such wonderful aching depth. His muscled forearms flex on either side of my head as he finds a rhythm that has me building, and building, and building until I’m riding the edge again. He pauses long enough to take my nipple between those sinful lips. He bites, and nips, and sucks until I’m begging for another release.
Finally, he shows me mercy and starts moving, harder and faster, taking us both down together.
His body tenses as I cry out, this wave deeper and longer as he rides through it. He kisses me, hot and breathless before he rolls over and pulls me into his arms.
The depth and intensity of his emotions wrap around me, as if tucking me into a safe and guarded place beside his heart.
He presses a kiss to my head and whispers in my mind, “I’m going to miss you.”
“I’ll miss you more.”
He nips my ear. “Don’t pull that shit. I’ll miss you most.”
I turn over so my nose is touching his and his smile puts the one in King’s Hall to shame. This one is happy. His eyes are bright, full of caramels and emeralds until a shadow passes over them.
“Promise me you will wipe the floor with Kazem.”
I hear what he’s really saying. Promise you will not be afraid, that you will live, no matter what.
“I promise.”
He nuzzles closer, content with my answer. “I won’t be here for our training session tomorrow.”
I take the opportunity to touch those luscious dark waves on his head, cursing myself for not touching them every day since he materialized in my bathing chamber.
“Why?”
“Because there’s something I have to finish before the King’s Final Duel.”
My eyes search his. “Your sister.”
He nods, his throat tightening. “I don’t think she’s alive, but I have to know for sure before . . .”
“I have to show you something,” I say, rolling out of the blankets. My feet pad the stone floor as I go to the chair and retrieve the diary using gloves. “It belonged to your sister.”
He sits up and reaches out for it, but I yank it back. “It has poison on it.”
His brows flatten. “It can’t hurt me.”
“If you get sick because you didn’t listen—”
“I’ll be fine.” He takes the little, black book in his hands with such reverence. “It’s a diary.”
He hands it back to me. “Then I can’t read it. If it belonged to Lo—”
I push it back to him. “Just the last page.”
He sighs and opens to the last page, his brows furrowing as his eyes flicker left and right, reading.
“She got out,” he breathes.
I nod.
“I’ll be fine tomorrow. Go. Find her.”