37. Chapter 37
Chapter thirty-seven
N iko’s touch is more than sanctuary—it’s the altar on which I worship. A pyre on which to burn. And though death should be cold, right now, Niko is pure flame as he sweeps his lips over mine and threads his fingers through my hair to tug my mouth closer. The spark beneath my skin ignites, and every part of me blazes in response. Incinerated entirely, a burnt offering to the Lord of Death.
He’s insatiable in the way he possesses me, like every touch is both his first and his last. His mouth slides over my throat, his breath a hot breeze over my bare skin as he drags the thick cloak from my shoulders. When he pulls back to admire the tiny satin night gown, I grin wickedly at the strangled growl that sounds in the back of his throat.
“Took you long enough to notice,” I laugh. “Vision going in your old age, Corpsey?”
His eyes glint, devouring the starlight, as his fingers run so softly over the material, goosebumps rise on my skin. He doesn’t bother to respond, only grabs my waist and spins us around so I’m the one pressed up against the palace wall.
“You have two seconds to imagine us somewhere more private before I haul you up on that railing and fuck you senseless.” Niko raises a dark brow, and heat pulses through my core as I realize he’s entirely serious.
I consider testing how deeply my fear of heights truly runs, but the idea of having Niko to myself is too hard to resist. Mine, I think as he sweeps his tongue along the seam of my lips and palms the curve of my breast. Mine, I think as my eyes flicker shut. As his other hand dives beneath the short lace hem of the nightgown to find me bare and wet beneath. Mine, mine, mine, as his fingers press into me and a sharp curse shoots from his mouth.
Forever.
My power simmers up from behind my heart, and floods through my veins. I sloppily paint Niko’s bedroom in my mind, and then the world spins around us. After another quick blink, I’m stumbling backward into his piano.
He chases after me with a dark laugh as a deep, chaotic note echoes from the instrument and bounces off the angled glass walls of the atrium. Niko’s tongue slips into my mouth, and as he leans the full weight of his hips between my legs, pressing me further into the keys, another wild note reverberates after it.
“Your piano,” I yelp. But I only kiss him harder, my hands restlessly roaming over the carved muscles of his shoulders, down his spine to yank at the hem of his shirt.
“Fuck the piano,” he murmurs, his hair sticking up wildly around his head, as I toss the shirt to the floor.
He winds my legs around his waist, and leans his hips more firmly into me, until I can feel the hard ridge of him against my core. More discordant music sounds from the piano as I leverage myself against his weight, the sound as tumultuous as the feelings racing through my body.
“Besides,” he whispers, nipping at my throat and then soothing the sting with the flat of his tongue. “I like the sound of our music.”
The words are innocent enough, but in Niko’s mouth they’re decadent; filthy.
He takes my lips beneath his once more, every dance of his tongue, every sweep of his lips, heating my skin with the polarity of us. We are both carnal wickedness and sacred divinity; a beginning and an end, creation and void. The rightness has me moaning into his mouth, grinding against him, clawing closer and closer.
His ribbons slither toward me to wrap around my ankles. A sound between a gasp and a whimper echoes in my throat, as the feeling of death—a bite of pain followed by the sweep of relief—slides over me in a tempting caress.
More notes reverberate around us as the ribbons pull my legs wide, splaying me over the keys. Niko’s eyes flash, as he steps back to admire me entirely bared to him. And though I’m the one restrained, spread and vulnerable before him, there is nothing weak about it. The way he looks at me—pure possession mixed with humble awe—has heady power racing through my veins.
No one commands the king, just as no one commands death. But I command both.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.” The words are a harsh exhale, like he didn’t mean to say them out loud. “Sometimes it feels like I’ve dreamed you into existence.”
He sways on his feet, and for a brief moment, I worry his pain has returned. But as I take in the pure adoration on his face, I realize it isn’t his pain that’s unbalanced him. It’s me.
That I stayed. That I want him for who he is, not who the world thinks he should be. I want the dark, the painful, the messy. Everything.
My entire life, I’ve never been anyone’s priority. Barely wanted, never cherished. Used up and cast aside when I was empty.
I’ve never had anyone look at me the way Niko does—like he sees beyond the immortality in my veins, beyond what I can do for him. He sees me. Just Willa. All the angry, ugly, wild parts.
And he’ll do whatever it takes to keep it.
It’s enough to bring a lump of emotion to my throat, one Niko swiftly forces back down as his fingers begin deftly working the apex of my thighs. I shudder and moan as he works me in soft circles, and I swear, I can feel the echo of his answering smile in my fucking blood.
My body sang for him before he’d ever touched me. And now, it responds to every caress, every kiss, like he draws every bit of pain and pleasure to the surface. I may command his death, but Niko commands me.
His teeth dig viciously into his lip, as he watches his glistening fingers pull slowly back out. I whine, lifting my hips to meet his next thrust. Sweat has begun to bead on my skin, and my breasts have flushed a dark pink: all signs of my desperation for more. More of him to consume, more of his power—pain and pleasure combined in a potent elixir I’ll never be able to escape.
I reach up and thread my fingers into his hair, tugging his mouth to mine. He tastes of sharp mint and a hint of spice, remnants of the tea he drinks for his pain. I moan as he splays one hand at the small of my back, arching my hips further toward him.
It isn’t enough.
It’ll never be enough.
And once, I would have been ashamed of the voracious craving, of the way it pulses through me so viciously, I can hardly think beyond it. But with Niko, I’m safe enough to want. To dive headfirst into him, to let my obsession and my passion scorch everything else away.
“Niko,” I gasp against his mouth. “I need you inside me.” My lashes flutter as his thumb lightly brushes over my throbbing bundle of nerves. “Now.” It’s more of a plea than a command, but Niko needs no encouragement.
He’s already gathering me in his arms without breaking our kiss, his body steady against mine as he sits on the velvet bench with me on his lap. He tugs my nightgown down until it’s little more than a flimsy band of fabric around my waist, revealing my breasts to his waiting mouth. His hands splay out over my spine, grazing over the sharp bones of my hips. My skin burns beneath his touch, and shivers rise in its absence, the hot and cold sensations tightening my breath and feeding the growing ache deep in my core.
Our kiss is a desperate clash of teeth and tongues. I grip his waist harder between my thighs, dig my fingers into the muscles of his shoulders to claw my way closer. To steal his air, his taste, and make it mine. To get entirely lost in the sensations of him.
His eyes glint as they run voraciously down my body, devouring the tangle of hair haloed around my head, the heave of my breasts, the flush of my skin. He studies me with the same intensity he always has, and his breathing hitches as he takes in the state of me: flushed, sweaty, wanton. Entirely his.
“Fuck, Willa,” he murmurs, grazing both his palms over the curves of my calves. Up over my thighs to cup my ass, pressing and kneading until I wiggle desperately on his lap, furious and aching for more friction. “I have lived lifetimes, and nothing in this universe or the next feels like you. Like us.”
His hard body is delicious against mine, hewn by the world he was thrust into. I run my hands over his tattoos, tracing the myriad of scars littering his back. My heart fractures as my fingertips bump over a particularly gnarled one knotted over his left shoulder blade. The world has carved so much from him, he’s learned not to expect anything tender.
Niko understands pain in a way no one else ever has. It’s what first drew me to him: the way he wielded it like a weapon rather than let it overtake him entirely. And now, here we are, with both our wounds splayed open and pressed together, made stronger and more beautiful by each place we’re intertwined.
As he hooks his finger gently beneath my chin and raises my mouth back to his, a mirror of the same awed humility he holds for me unfurls deep in my chest. I kiss him with abandon, before everything inside of my heart spills through the cracks he’s opened.
Because of course the place behind my heart—the pool of my magic—would be where Niko’s dug in; clawed through muscle and bone to make his home in the most magical parts of me. He is a wild dream, a dark fantasy of whimsy and wonder. He is possibility and power, care and compassion, and though mine is a power of imagination, I could never in a thousand years have dreamed him up.
I grip him tighter, determined not to allow him to slip between my fingers like wisps of smoke. I yank at his pants, pushing them down to his knees as he lowers his head to my breast, teasing the tip with his tongue before pulling it into the warmth of his mouth. I let out a breathy moan, arching my back mindlessly up toward him.
“Now, Niko,” I whine, my fingertips digging mercilessly into his back. He laughs against my skin, the vibration sending a tingle of pleasure radiating through me. The laugh dies in his throat, his breath catching, as I palm the hard length of his cock.
He stops breathing entirely as I run my fingers slowly over the ridges. Raising myself up slightly, I wrap my hand around his impressive girth and guide him to me. A gravelly groan escapes his throat as the tip of his cock slides through my arousal. As he feels just how wet and desperate I am.
“Star above, you’re fucking soaked,” he rasps. His eyes go lidded as I grip him more firmly, sliding the head of him slowly over my clit. “You feel so good…Like—”
His words cut off with a choke, as I position him at my entrance.
“Like heaven?” I offer.
“Like sacrilege,” he growls, before pulling my hand away and lifting his hips to enter me in one firm thrust. I throw my head back as my walls clench around him, adjusting to the delicious fullness. And isn’t that how it’s always been between us? Niko stretching my limits, stripping me down piece by piece until I’m the purest version of myself.
He watches my every miniscule reaction with zealous fervor: the way my lashes flutter and my lips part; the way I squirm on top of him; dig my nails into his skin.
When I’m fully adjusted, my breath ragged and heaving, I lock my gaze onto his. I raise myself up, and slowly lower back down. Niko’s hands are at my hips, pressing into my skin, guiding me greedily, but his eyes never leave mine. I clench my muscles, and something akin to a snarl escapes him that drives into my brain and lights my veins on fire. I revel in his disarray—the way the Carrion King, normally so composed, comes entirely undone for me.
His lips skate over my throat and as I roll my hips, his answering moan of pleasure vibrates against my skin. “That’s it, Darling,” he purrs, the deep cadence of his voice sending tendrils of heat spiraling through me like an explosion. “Bury me inside of you.”
His ribbons begin to resonate in the air, wrapping around us until the room disappears from view. Cocooned in his power, the only thing I can see is Niko—moon-pale skin, the slash of dark brows over even darker eyes. Kiss-worn lips and disheveled hair.
The room grows ice cold as his death cages us inside our own world, and for a brief moment, through the devouring obsession and ardent worship, I feel his question. An open wound in his skin that leads straight to his heart below. An offering I understand in the depths of my bones.
He’s laying his heart in my hands and trusting me not to slice it wide open. Trusting me not to leave him alone and broken; as I’d trusted him when I told him I wanted to stay and prayed he’d fight for me. A vow never to give the other up. To hold tight eternally—through blood and death and pain.
I give him what he needs; what I’ve always needed. Not power, or hope, or peace—but home.
People speak about home like it’s something gentle: a soft whisper, a warm fire. But it’s rooted too deeply to be so ephemeral and delicate. Home is something with roots that spear through your heart, and wind around your bones until the very shape of you is changed. It’s something that calls to your blood, that speaks to violence should anyone threaten it.
Niko and I are all these things. We are both a haven and a wilderness; a place to rest and a place to kill for.
Home was never a trap. It is the purest form of freedom.
The feeling threads through me as I ride him faster, sweat-slick skin and the smell of our arousal lingering in the air around us.
“Tie me here, Niko,” I whisper breathlessly, my voice feral and wanton. Nearly unrecognizable to my own ears as pleasure ratchets up my spine, twists low in my stomach. Building like a surge of fire.
Niko moans in response, lifting his own hips to meet mine with rhythmic thrusts. My blood goes hot, and his fingers dig more firmly into my hips, as a ribbon wraps around my wrists to pin my hands around his neck. I gasp as the pain of it edges the pleasure of being filled by him, the world spinning with the ravening need sparking through me.
“Don’t ever give me up,” I plead, my legs going weak beneath me as Niko fucks me feverishly, marking and claiming me just the way I need. I cling to his neck as he devours my breasts like a man starved, his mouth hot and his tongue slick against my nipple. “Tell me if I try to run, you’ll chase me to the ends of the earth.”
Another thrust, and I throw my head back with a moan, clenching around his wide girth.
Niko laughs into my mouth, and it’s the most darkly decadent sound I’ve ever heard.
“Do you see the way I fit inside you, Darling? How perfectly your body grips mine?” His arms wrap firmly around my waist, and he grips me to him, leveraging himself to drive into me even harder. “You’re mine, Willa. Your vicious, your savage, your fight. All of it belongs to me. ”
Another ribbon winds around my ankles, pulling me harder against his every thrust. I can’t think beyond the pleasure he offers, beyond satiating the hot ache ravaging through me. His breath grazes my feverish skin like a cool breeze as he whispers, “As I belong to you. Wholly.”
My eyelids flutter as he wraps his fingers around my throat, firm enough to restrict my breathing. Because my king knows that I chase pain with the same fervor I avoid it: knows that only the sharp blade of agony can edge pleasure beyond comprehension.
He angles his hips, fitting himself perfectly against the spot that makes stars explode behind my eyes.
No. Not behind my eyes. From my skin.
Actual starlight spills from me, lighting up the darkness in the womb of Niko’s death, bathing us both in ethereal color as we move together. Sparks fly through me, a storm of lightning building higher and higher until I am entirely electric.
His hand stays firm on my throat, the other moving between us to deftly circle my throbbing core. I writhe desperately, yearning and undone. His name pours from my mouth over and over. Niko, Niko, Niko. A chant, a prayer; a desperate plea for more. Harder. Closer.
“Willa,” he purrs, my name in his voice restless and wild. A song, just like the one he’d played me on the piano. Both sadness and hope, savage freedom and calm sanctuary. And that’s what Niko is—a soft place to land and the edge of a blade.
I’ve never had either—never had someone who understands me so fully. My darkness, my pain, and beneath it all, the hope weaving together the delicate filament of dreams.
“Willa,” Niko says again, as my nails dig into his skin hard enough to draw blood. A beautiful onyx, just like his eyes—like his magic. Like him.
My core pulses, pleasure ratcheting up my spine, sparking over my skin until I’m dizzy with him. The taste of him on my tongue, the tug of his fingers woven through my hair, the icy feel of his ribbons at my wrists and ankles.
“Look at us,” he breathes in wonder as more shimmering colors pour from me. Not starlight at all, but the essence of dreams. The ones built by hope and held tight by desperation. Because who is more desperate than a dreamer?
It spills from me, iridescent and sparkling against the pure, consuming black of Niko’s death. Irrevocably woven together, light and dark, nothingness and everything.
“Niko,” I gasp, holding on for dear life as he takes me in a relentless rhythm.
“Come for me, Darling.”
His voice is little more than a rasped groan of pleasure, but his eyes never fall closed. He keeps them faithfully on me and consumes my every reaction, adjusting each thrust, each touch until I’m making noises I’ve never made. Until the only thing that matters is him, us. Niko pushes me closer and closer to the edge, a wave poised to overtake me entirely.
My eyes roll back as I buck my hips, meeting his hard thrust with one of my own, and my climax drowns me entirely. Power pulses from both of us, shimmering waves of death and life, as Niko slams up into me one last time, finding his own release with a guttural moan.
As my heartbeat slows, the dreamlight slowly sinks back into my skin and Niko’s ribbons slump to the ground around the piano. Still, he holds my gaze, his cheeks flushed and his mouth parted as he takes me in.
“I truly thought you’d leave,” he says softly, pushing my sweaty hair off my forehead, tracing my cheeks and lips and brows in soft circles. “That you’d leave me, and I’d spend eternity remembering what it felt like to—”
He cuts himself off, pressing his mouth into a thin line.
My heart stutters in my chest as he drops his gaze for the first time. I study the thick fan of his lashes over his cheekbones, my heart feeling like it’s made of glass. Like I’ve filled it with too much, and one crack will send it shattering to pieces.
“Felt like to what, Niko?”
After a moment, he returns his eyes to mine.
“To be known by someone like you. To know the feeling of your heart beating next to mine—unmasked, unarmored—only as they are. Broken, scarred, dark.” His hands run softly over my face. “I know what it costs you to trust, Willa. What it means for you to remove your armor. To stay still and be vulnerable.”
He brushes his lips softly over my forehead. “I fooled myself into hating your self-preservation, when really, it was that I’d never be worthy of the strength of your fight.”
“Niko—”
He kisses me again, before resting his forehead against mine. “All this time I thought I was praying to the star above. But I’ve been praying to you.”
Niko’s gaze is fierce, but his touch is gentle as he presses a hand to my chest. My heart leaps like it’s straining toward his fingers. “The world could burn, and the heavens could turn to dust. But you and I endure, Willa. This…this is eternal.”
When he kisses me, his lips are softer, but no less demanding. And I return it with the same passion, slowly tasting him, feeling his words in the depths of my bones. In the heat of my blood, and the make of my skin. Everlasting, abiding. What exists between Niko and I is not fated by the stars, or some long lost god—it’s eternal because we’ve decided it is.
And in this moment, I realize: love doesn’t reside in your heart. It lives in your jugular vein, mingles with your blood. A heart, even a glass one, can survive being shattered, but one nick of that vein, and everything inside you pours out. And if there’s no one there to staunch the wound, you’ll be left with nothing.
A few months ago, that would have terrified me, but with the King of Carrion—his violence, his power, his obsessive care—for the first time in over a century, I know my eternal life is in safe hands.