33. Chapter 33
Chapter thirty-three
A dytum.
The word rolls through my mind as Niko draws me close, wrapping his arms around me. I wonder what it means as I breathe him in, all sandalwood and ice. And beneath it, the scent of me . His death is curled above our heads in a tangled heap, ribbons that had been wild enough to break a window only moments before, now limp with exhaustion.
My own weariness trails lazily through my limbs. Unlike the exhaustion that’s plagued me for decades, this one is not a hollow cold. It’s sated and warm, its heaviness a thick blanket tucked around me.
Despite the tremor of Niko’s hands, he caresses them slowly over the small of my back. And though all I’d like to do is curl into his touch, to let him take me again right here amidst the wreckage of broken glass and discarded clothes, I know he needs to rest. His lashes flutter as he watches at me, like it’s a struggle to keep them open.
“Take me to bed, Niko,” I tell him in a soft exhale, running my fingers over the tattooed planes of his chest. Tracing the ink spiraling over his throat, and up to his jaw.
He groans in response but makes no effort to move from the floor. He only grips me tighter, leaning into my touch like a purring cat.
I giggle, and then clap an embarrassed hand over my mouth, like I can trap the rest of the sound in my throat. Niko grins, leaning in to taste the blush creeping over my cheeks, as I wonder what the hell has gotten into me. I do not giggle. Ever. Nor do I turn into the simpering fool I am at the moment, desperate for more.
Normally, the act of sex is transactional—a scratching of an itch. And when it’s finished, I can’t wait to shove them out of my space and return to the comfort of solitude. I can’t stand their saccharine faces, nor the feel of their touches gone soft. It’s always made my skin crawl.
But with Niko, his tenderness feels just as good as his dominance, and I find myself happily languishing in the glow of his attention.
Most men take and take, and after it’s over, I’m left feeling more wrung out than before. And while Niko had taken every piece of me, he’d given back so much more. I’m not emptier for being with him, but filled to the brim, stretched new with everything I’m feeling.
I want more. More of his pain and his death and his relief. I want him to take me and use me until I shatter; until I am so overcome with pleasure, I am the master of my own pain. The way he knelt before me and devoured me whole—I’ll never get it out of my mind. I’ll chase the feeling of power he gifted me until the end of time.
His fingers spasm more violently, and a tight grimace pulls at his mouth as a tremor wracks his body. Worry threads through me that he’s pushed himself too far—that I’d been too lost in the euphoria he offered to consider what he needed.
“Or how about I take you to bed since I’ve already thoroughly debauched your virtue?”
Niko grins, his eyes flicking back open. That black stare felt too intense to bear when we first met, but now I want to drown in the way those eyes hold me. Obsessive madness and defiant challenge.
Worship.
“I did tell you it was my virtue that needed protecting. Apparently, I’m in need of a pillow wall between us at all times, or there will be no windows left in the Lunaedon.”
“About that—”
Niko waves off my concern. “The palace is self-sustaining. It’ll repair itself soon enough.” He purses his lips thoughtfully, his eyes drifting to the mess. “Hopefully before Rina returns, and I have to endure her lecture on being a courteous housemate.”
He scowls like he’s been subjected to the lecture a time or two before. With a laugh, I close my eyes to imagine us in Niko’s bed. Buried beneath the silky sheets, bare and entwined.
Before I can form my daydream fully, Niko pinches my chin softly between the pads of his fingers. “Don’t use your power. I can walk,” he says softly.
I roll my eyes and shrug him off primly. “You’d get about as far as the entrance hall, and then I’d just have to leave your ass to sleep on the stairs. Besides, I want to use my power. It feels…” I let out a breathy sigh of pleasure. “It feels almost as good as you do.”
Something flickers in the depths of Niko’s eyes; something close to sadness. Before I can question it, he pulls my mouth to his and kisses me deeply. His tongue sweeps gently over mine, softly tasting my mouth like it’s a delicacy.
I let the feel of him open up the well of magic residing behind my heart. It took Niko’s touch, and my desperation to keep it, to learn what it truly was. The feel of its edges, the free fall into its depths. I tug on it now, feeding it a different sort of desperation: one to protect the soft parts of him .
The spaces inside him he shreds apart and sacrifices to save everyone else; the darkness that will never let him forget, never let him forgive himself for his choices as a lonely child.
Stolen from his family, and raised to vie for a mad king’s affection, of course Niko would sacrifice everything for the first person who cared for him. He sees it as a weakness, as a terrible moment he’ll never atone for, but I see it for what it is—strength of heart.
A heart I find myself wanting more and more desperately by the second.
Loosing a breath, I dip into the pool of my magic where infinite colors swirl. The current of them rushes against me, just as it had in the Grove, a deluge of feeling and possibility. Niko runs his fingers over my hip, and I swat them away.
“Quit that. I have to concentrate.”
He chuckles. “Or else you’ll accidentally suck us into the ground as well, Darling?”
I shoot him a dark look. “Maybe just you.”
Niko hums against my throat, flicking his tongue lightly behind my ear. “I’d prefer to be buried inside something else.”
I ignore him, even as an insistent heat burgeons anew between my thighs. Instead, I slowly submerge into my power, imagining what I want as clearly as I can. In the Grove, I’d learned quickly that precision is important. Leaving even the smallest details open for interpretation makes dreams vulnerable to the wrong sort of influence.
Truthfully, I hadn’t imagined the earth swallowing up the Strayed. I’d imagined Niko safe, and my power had filled in the blanks. I granted it a dangerous freedom I’d do well to avoid in the future.
There’s a violent tug behind my heart as the pool of magic expands, and when I blink my eyes open, Niko and I are both lying on the floor of his bathing chamber. He blinks owlishly at our surroundings, having the nerve to look disappointed.
“This is decidedly not the bed I was promised,” he remarks sulkily, burying his face in my hair.
“Such a grumpy old man, Corpsey. We smell like fire and sex. We need a bath.”
“You keep calling me old, but by my math, you aren’t the picture of youth yourself.” Niko gives a shudder as his death curls over his chest. I watch as the black tattoos disappear beneath the even blacker ribbons.
“Has the senility affected your math skills? You’re like…a hundred years older than me,” I point out, leaping up to open the obsidian taps that feed the giant, sunken tub. “That’s a century!”
“In the span of centuries, I hardly think a few decades makes much difference.”
“I don’t agree,” I croon, wiggling my fingers at his ribbons. “You’ve practically robbed the cradle.”
Niko glares up at me scornfully, his mouth twisting as he fights his laughter. It spills out of him in a guffaw. Not the cruel sound he makes when he’s a ruthless king, but soft and melodic; addictive as everything else about him.
His confessions of the past hour roll through my mind— What do you think I’d do for you? I’ll get on my knees every day. Adytum. Their veracity has me feeling brave enough for another moment of vulnerability. “I like hearing you laugh.”
“Don’t get used to it. Your impertinence hardly needs encouragement. You’re a menace to society.”
“I didn’t hear any complaints about my impertinence a few minutes ago.”
“I am not, and have never claimed to be, part of good society,” he drawls in a manner that immediately takes me back to the savage way he’d touched me. Like he was drowning, and I was air.
I clench my thighs together, as the tub fills, curls of steam rolling off the surface of the water. I return to Niko’s side to assist him, but he brushes me off impatiently, dragging himself up with a pained groan. The muscles of his abdomen contract with the movement, and unbidden, I remember how they looked as he moved into me.
Niko cocks a brow. “I knew you liked me on my deathbed.”
“Oh hush,” I reply, ducking beneath his arm to help him into the tub.
He sinks into the water, his lashes fluttering, a stifled moan of pleasure sounding from his throat.
“Does it help?” I ask, turning off the taps, and gathering washcloths and soap from a shelf near the tub.
“No,” he replies honestly. “But you do.”
Niko watches me complete the mundane task with the same ardency he’d watched me take him, and a flush rises to my cheeks. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the way Niko looks at me. It makes me feel so full, like I’ll combust beneath it.
Heart fluttering ridiculously, I coax him forward and slip into the water behind him. The water is scalding, the wet skin of his back so sinfully good against my chest, that for a wild moment, I consider chucking the soap and throwing myself at him again. I thought the wanting ache would ease if I gave into it, but it’s done the exact opposite: rather than being sated, it’s been set on fire. A smolder whose intensity only grows with every passing moment; with every bit of himself Niko allows me.
Pushing the thoughts away, I measure shampoo into my palms and slide my fingers gently through into his hair.
He freezes beneath my touch, whipping his head to stare at me with an unreadable expression.
“Is this okay?” I ask, suddenly feeling oddly shy. Though perhaps it isn’t odd at all. I’ve been physically intimate with men before, but this part—the softer, quiet moments—is entirely new to me.
And maybe I was wrong for assuming Niko would even want it. For thinking that because he’d given in to his desires, it meant he wanted to be known.
He stares at me for another long moment, before swallowing roughly.
“Forgive me, I—” Pursing his lips, he heaves a leveling breath before beginning again. “You caught me off guard.”
I start to pull away, but Niko’s faster. He grabs my hand and tugs it to him with his own shy smile. “I didn’t mean it as a bad thing, Willa. Your unpredictability is a breath of fresh air.”
Though his words soothe the edges of my worry, I glare at him. “Feral and uncivilized are the words I believe you used,” I remind him, sniffing primly. “More than once.”
His mouth quirks in a fiendish grin. “Is there any part of what just happened between us that would indicate your civility is what I find attractive about you? If so, please allow me the chance to try and imprint upon you again exactly how I feel about your vicious nature.”
My cheeks flush, and his eyes flare madly as he devours the color with his gaze. Appeased and more than a little warm, I turn back to the task at hand. Sighing contentedly, I slide my fingers between the silky strands of Niko’s hair, slowly massaging the shampoo into his scalp. He closes his eyes and leans his head back into my touch as the soap foams up around my fingers.
He winds my legs around his waist, pressing my chest further to his back with a hum of pleasure. He feels so good, so solid and warm, that I have to trap a moan behind my teeth. Trailing my fingers from his scalp to where his hairline meets the swirling tattoos, I take a moment to examine them closely. I’ve never had the luxury of studying them closely, and with a start of excitement, I realize that what appeared to be abstract designs from a distance, aren’t actually made of lines at all. His tattoos are made of words.
“What are all these?” I ask, tracing one with a soapy finger. It starts behind his ear, winding in intricate spirals over his shoulder and down his spine.
Niko shivers beneath the gentle touch. “Stories.”
“What kind of stories?”
“The ones that embedded themselves in my heart. It only seemed natural they should be on my skin as well.” Niko exhales a deep breath slowly. “Pan loved stories, as they are the smallest slices of dreams woven together. Listening to them was my favorite part of being with the Strayed. You can imagine with the magic of creation how well he could spin a tale. Heroes and villains, lands of gods and darkness, worlds of water and light. Epic battles and quests. It was my only escape from life in the Hollows.”
He bows his head, dropping his gaze the water. “It’s one of the reasons I never gave up on discovering a way to leave. I wanted to find out for myself if the stories were true.”
I’m breathless as I trace the endless spirals, thousands of words bled from the hearts of others that, through time and distance, have mingled with Niko’s own. It’s the most beautiful thing I could imagine, the sharing of something so intimate, and for a moment, I ache with everything my world has lost because of the death of imagination. The ability to not only create beauty, but to connect. On a cellular level, to change the very marrow of oneself by feeling another’s heart in their art.
“Do they all have happy endings?”
“No.” Niko is quiet for a long moment, the only sound the soft lapping of the water against the side of the tub. Then he says, “Sometimes words aren’t written to be happy. Tragedy can be just as beautiful.”
He turns to face me slowly, water beading on his dark lashes, clumping them together in an oddly innocent manner for such a cruelly beautiful face. And how fitting, for him to etch beauty onto his skin eternally, when he embodies art itself. His clothes, his demeanor—even his magic. Niko is living, breathing art.
Another reason I’ve been drawn to him since I first laid eyes on his dark beauty. I’d been so starved of anything lovely for so long, living in a drab world of monotony and function. There is nothing remotely monotonous about the Carrion King or the kingdom he rules. They both exist on the fringes of reality, following none of the same rules, and the wildness—the unexpected—is exhilarating.
“If you appreciate beauty so much,” I ask, fumbling my way back to a familiar dynamic. Challenging, bickering—those are far easier to navigate than the raw intimacy expanding between us. “Why haven’t you allowed any color in the Lunaedon?”
It’s an innocent enough question, but as something like shame washes over Niko’s features, I feel as though I’ve pried into something painful. I expect the familiar flare of his temper, a cutting remark to draw my attention away from the things that hurt him. But instead, his gaze remains faithfully on mine as he smiles sadly.
“I was angry—when I first realized what killing the Aeternalis had done. Everyone was so thankful at the time…they thought I’d saved them all. But I couldn’t be grateful, not when I’d sacrificed my freedom, my ship.” He laughs darkly at the surprised ‘O’ of my mouth. “Yes, Willa, the Indomnitus was mine. Killing the Everlasting stole the ocean from me. I’d never again find the relief of being in other worlds. Away from my magic. Away from my pain. I am anchored to Letum for eternity.”
For a moment, he appears far away from here. But with a shiver, he draws himself back to the present.
“The entire kingdom wanted me to build my palace at the center of Caelum, a shrine to the defeat of the Aeternalis. But I wanted no reminders of what I couldn’t have.”
At my confused look, he clarifies, “There is no color in the Lunaedon, because everything I touch blackens and dies, and I couldn’t live somewhere I was constantly reminded of my destruction. So there are no plants, no color…nothing living for me to inadvertently ruin.”
He slides his hand beneath the water, skimming his fingers along my thigh before pulling me into his lap. “You are the only beautiful thing I’ve allowed myself since my return,” Niko murmurs. “That is why I said I would be pathetic to want you, Willa. I knew well enough what happens when I do—and I wanted you anyway.”
He winds my legs around his waist, settling me against him. I thought I was filled, but it is nothing to what spills from my heart now, as he continues, “Fiercely. Desperately. And without reprieve.”
Niko drops my gaze to lather shampoo between his palms. And then, with a tenderness that steals my breath entirely, he begins to massage my scalp.
Tears spring to my eyes, and my throat squeezes closed at his touch, his words. Now I understand why Niko was so affected by my care of him. It’s been so long since anyone has taken care of me, that I can hardly stand to allow it—hardly stand how wonderful it feels, lest it be stolen from me. And Niko— taken from his parents and thrust into a world of brutality—has probably never been taken care of.
I don’t know which is worse: never having someone who loved you or having it and losing it.
Niko watches as I shiver in his arms, warm pleasure rolling from the top of my head, down my chest, and through the rest of my body. For the first time in two centuries, my heart is settled where it is. There is no rage palpitating through me, no fear urging me to keep moving. Content to be still. To be seen.
I’m safe with him. And I only want to be exactly where I am.
Niko rinses my hair clean, and then pours some of my favorite scented soap onto a cloth. He runs it softly over my throat and then down my shoulders. Over my collarbones and breasts, and then sweeping over my stomach. He washes me carefully, with such tender attention, another lump of emotion lodges thickly in my throat, along with a modicum of fear. Fear that I want to stay in Letum, so long as Niko wants me here.
If he is an anchor, I want to be anchored too.
I thought it was only his power and his obsession I craved. But the way he cares for me is neither of those things, and I want it far more. Something soft—something I was terrified of ever letting myself have. A piece of him, a ribbon much like his power, tethered in my chest. Irreversible. Enduring.
And what a terrible thing to hold something so vulnerable. A fragile part for the world to tear apart.
“Niko,” I say breathlessly, his name a plea and a prayer. Let me go before I fall too far to save myself. The words sound in my mind, their rhythm winding along another, more tender thought: Don’t ever let me go. Keep me forever.
His death shudders in the air around him at the sound of his name, darting toward me. He winces as he tries to shake the ribbons away, to keep them from touching me out of habit of having to shield those around him from his magic. But my fear of pain is no longer so sharp. Not when it’s now his to hold.
I reach up and brush a gentle fingertip over the nearest ribbon. Just like on the beach when I felt the ribbons’ sentience, I feel it now. Brutal iciness, cruel dark. Cool relief, and gentle night.
Niko’s eyes widen in wonder, in fear, but for once, he doesn’t try to protect me from himself.
Because the ribbons, the death—terrible and beautiful—it’s all a part of him.
And I want every part.