21. Chapter 21
Chapter twenty-one
M aybe it’s the raw ache in my throat from screaming, or perhaps, the unrelenting heaviness in my chest that keeps me from arguing. Nightmares are nothing new—memories of my past haunt me every time I close my eyes. But they’ve never been corporeal. Never able to reach through the thick fog of dreams and grab hold of me. They’ve never been capable of dragging me back to the camps.
But this time, it was real . The cold point of the syringe, the icy edge of a scalpel.
The whispered threats disguised as encouragement: Don’t you care about the others, Willa? Don’t you want them to get better?
The idea of being a slave to my own wrecked mind is terrifying, and Niko—Niko saved me from it. Though he certainly has his own motivations that have nothing to do with my mental well-being, I’m so damned tired of being afraid—so damned tired of everything— that the relief and quiet of his death, of him, is too tempting to resist. Adira was right. There is no one better to protect you from a monster than another monster. Especially one with the power to kill even dreams.
Niko hands me a thick comforter that I wrap around myself, before following him out of the room. The floor is ice cold, and a violent shiver races up from my feet as Niko takes two strides to the door directly across the corridor from mine.
I narrow my eyes. “ This is where your bedroom is? Right across from mine?”
The king cedes an indulgent smile, before pressing a gloved palm to the ornate door. Ignoring my incensed look, he ushers me inside his rooms.
“You’ve been making me parade all over the palace when I could have just stepped across the hall?” I ask sharply.
Niko’s smile grows wider. “Forgive me for not realizing you were angling for an invitation. Let’s blame the multiple attempts on my life for the temporary ignorance.”
I glare at him. “You know what I mean. You’ve been right across the hall, just—what? Watching me like some sort of…deathly creep?”
His black gaze glints wickedly, and his death ribbons, which had been lazing around both our feet shiver to attention. “I’ve watched everything about you since the moment you arrived, Willa.”
The words send a thrill of heat through me, and they shouldn’t. I don’t like being watched, being known—it’s safer to be invisible. To fade into the shadows, unnoticed. But at Niko’s words, at the intensity in his gaze, I know intrinsically there’s nowhere I could disappear without his notice. And instead of scaring me, it makes me feel safe.
I clear my throat, gripping the blanket tighter, like the small action will keep him from seeing through it to the flimsy ivory nightgown that barely brushes the tops of my thighs. Or worse, to the skin beneath, the cage of bones that holds my deepest secrets. His care for me when I’d woken from the nightmare left me disarmed. It hadn’t been tender, but it had been Niko— perfectly ruthless. For when you’ve been touched so deeply by pain, the compassion needs to be even more forceful, or it won’t be felt at all.
Rather than trying to formulate a response, I cock my head and motion vaguely to his attire, which I realize, for the first time since I woke, is even more ridiculous than usual.
He’s shirtless and barefooted, wearing only a pair of gray sweats slung low on his hips, and his usual leather gloves that reach up to his elbows. His body is lithe, each ridge of muscle accentuated by his thin stature. Every inch of visible skin is tattooed in whorling designs and detailed script, even the tops of his feet and the skin behind his ears. They disappear beneath the loose waistband of his pants, and I jerk my gaze back up before I can catalogue the way they frame the tantalizing ‘V’ of his hips.
“Why are you wearing gloves with your pajamas?” I ask dubiously.
Don’t touch me. He’d spat the words in the Crocodile with such vitriol. And when Sam and Marina found us, neither of them had touched him. Not even to help him walk up the beach, though they’d both looked as if they wanted nothing more than to wrap him in a hug. And after, when Marina and I climbed into the carriage, both her and Sam had squeezed onto one bench with me, giving the king a wide berth of space.
I’d written it off as some weird, royal habit, but maybe there’s more to it. Maybe it isn’t only me Niko doesn’t want to touch him—maybe he doesn’t like to be touched at all .
As usual, Niko doesn’t bother to explain. Instead, he turns and breezes into the darkly appointed suite as if he were born to it. Which I now know, he wasn’t.
Had the Lunaedon first belonged to the Aeternalis? Had he been the one to choose the plush carpets and textured sofas? Had he designed the gilded oil lamps burning softly along the walls? The shelves of books lined behind a beautiful mahogany desk?
Or had it been Niko that made the Lunaedon his home? That chose the lush paintings and the beautiful stained glass? Niko, that uses the shining grand piano in the atrium off the side of the study, that decorated it with black stone trees like the ones in the courtyard floors below? In all the details of his story, he’d conveniently left out how he’d succeeded Pan as the monarch of Letum.
Despite my exhaustion, curiosity prods at my chest as I follow him into a lusciously appointed bedroom. Though everything is black, the room doesn’t feel cold or impersonal. The walls are elegantly paneled, the planks arranged in a geometric pattern, with clean, dissecting lines. Large, gilded windows stretch from floor to ceiling, revealing the swirling sky outside and the crashing sea beyond the cliffs.
A giant bed sits against one wall, piled with silky sheets and luxurious blankets. The carved headboard climbs and curves to the top of the vaulted ceiling, its towering presence decadently opulent. Drawn by its dark beauty, I instinctively step toward it, dropping my blanket to run my fingers over the smooth wood.
Stars. And swirls and swirls of planets. Beautiful patterns of the universe—of hunters and sirens and magic—and at the very top, where the wood meets the vaulted ceiling, is the star that called me here the night I tumbled off the building. That has been calling to me my entire life.
“They’re the constellations of Letum?” I ask, the tips of my fingers bumping over a particularly dense cluster of stars.
Niko hums in acknowledgment as I count the stars that line the utmost edge of the headboard. Seven of them, bigger than any of the others. But the biggest of them all is mine. The second star from the right.
I feel Niko’s gaze following the trail of my hands, and a blush rises to my cheeks as I realize how close I am to his bed. When he’d suggested I sleep with him, he’d probably meant on the couch in the outer rooms. Or knowing the king, he’d probably meant for me to curl up on the floor next to him like a sad puppy.
But rather than a rebuke or a cutting remark, Niko answers my question. “They used to mean something to me. In another life.”
His words feel like a confession; like a secret.
“What?”
“Freedom. Absolute freedom.” There’s a hollow tinge to his voice—one filled with sadness and regret and something else I don’t understand. I want to ask what he means. Niko is the most powerful man in Letum, and to those of us without it, power means freedom. Doesn’t it?
He’s already turned away, his face hidden in the shadows as he strips off his gloves and lays them neatly on a small table set beside an overstuffed chair.
His fingers are pale, the designs inked over his knuckles stark in the dim light. He drags them through his already wild hair, his shoulders rising slowly in a deep breath. He’s still exhausted by his show of power on the beach, and I wonder again at what the Carrion King tithes to keep Letum safe—the price of his protection.
“Sleep, Willa,” he says softly, as if he can sense my questions on his skin. He settles into the chair, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall with a strangled groan.
Annoyance and worry prickles at the back of my neck. Niko was already so drained when he came into my room. Another use of his magic will have sapped what little energy he regained in the Crocodile. I think of the way his eyes rolled back into his head, the painful hitch of his breath as his body rebelled against him.
“Are you insane?” The words are out of my mouth before I can temper them.
“Ironic that you’d be the one questioning my sanity, you absolute lunatic,” he replies without bothering to open his eyes. “Poor Sam will never be able to look at a nail file the same way again.”
“It was one time,” I grit out, before shaking my head and measuring my words. “I meant…you’re insane if you think I’ll take the bed when you’re in so much pain. You can’t sleep in that chair.”
Niko flicks one eye open with a look implying that’s exactly what he intends to do.
I pad over to the chair, standing over him with a hand on my hip. “Come on, Corpsey.”
Both of his eyes fly open, narrowing so furiously at the nickname, a laugh bubbles from me.
“You’re a million years old and have been practically dead for three days. And practically dead, geriatric, kings need rest. You aren’t going to get any in that chair.”
“Three hundred and thirty-four,” he replies without missing a beat. “And I assure you, the chair is fine.”
I scoff. “Is this some outdated, old man show of chivalry? Are you going to offer to sleep on the floor to protect my feminine virtue?”
He levels me with a wry look. “The skill with which you wield a dinner fork would suggest it’s my virtue that needs protecting.”
“Oh, you wish,” I snipe back with an irritated sigh.
Niko’s gaze darkens as he swallows slowly, and for some ridiculous reason, my eyes are drawn to the bob of his throat. The tantalizing ripple of his tattoos. Since when is swallowing attractive?
“I don’t wish, Willa. I dream. ” He says the word like it’s wanton, his tongue rolling over the syllables in a way that feels tantalizingly indecent.
I shift beneath the unnatural heat of his eyes, ignoring the wicked glint in the depthless obsidian. The Carrion King delights in crawling beneath my skin, in prodding and poking until he finds his way beneath my cool demeanor. But just as he’s learned the paths beneath mine, I’ve become educated in his: specifically, his infuriating habit of unsettling me as a means of distraction. A way to keep me away from the more vulnerable parts of himself.
“Get in the bed, Your Majesty, before you collapse on the floor. My back still hurts from the last time I had to carry your giant ass.”
Niko shimmies primly. “I think we both know my ass is exquisite.”
I point to the bed. To the mass of blankets tangled in the center, like he’d been thrashing with nightmares of his own before being woken by mine. Niko doesn’t move, only stares up at me sullenly, his expression guarded.
“I won’t touch you,” I assure him softly. “I promise.”
Surprise flickers in his eyes, followed by an unmistakable flash of rage. His ribbons begin to writhe around his arms, and for a moment, I worry I’ve made a grave miscalculation. If I’ve speared too deep and will be punished for it. But then, Niko rises to his feet, body swaying precariously, and I don’t know whether to be relieved I’ve read him so well, or furious he truly wants nothing to do with me.
“After you, Darling,” he says in a tired voice.
Pushing away something that feels dangerously close to disappointment, I climb onto the massive mattress. I feel the weight of Niko’s eyes on my bare thighs as I pile a few pillows into a makeshift wall at the center of the bed. I shoot him a cheeky look. “To protect your virtue.”
He rolls his eyes, stretching out on his side of the bed. The lanterns along the walls immediately wink out, like they’re attuned to their king. The only remaining light comes from the shine of the stars outside, which is admittedly, pretty bright. But I like that he didn’t block them out with curtains or blinds, like that it feels as if we’re sleeping on the edge of the sea beneath the night sky.
It’s open and airy. Not at all like the thick concrete of the lab or even the stifling walls of my apartment. With a contented sigh, I lay down on my own side, tugging one of the thick comforters up to my throat. I nestle into the pillow, breathing in the soft scent. Sandalwood. Him.
It calms my nerves, soothing the edges of the anxiety that seems to spike through me perpetually. I’ve never slept without nightmares, even before the camps. My mind was always a vivid, wild place, with no law, no peace. I’ve never found a quiet deep enough to soothe it.
“What if—what if I dream again?” I ask into the dark. It’s easier, somehow, to give voice to vulnerability in the cocoon of the bed. What if I dream? What if I can’t find my way back?
Niko’s ribbons slither over my makeshift wall, tangling themselves up on the pillow beside my head. They don’t touch me, but I feel their presence more than see it. A heavy calm. A smooth, endless void that slows my breathing and relaxes my tense muscles. There is nothing in death—not even nightmares.
“I promise I won’t leave you alone, Willa,” Niko’s deep voice rumbles in the dark. “You’re safe now.”
The truth of his words slides through me, and I give into the pull of exhaustion.
And for the first time in my life, there are no nightmares.