Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
The sweetest of dreams faded away as Ember woke up to the sound of rain. Her lashes fluttered open. The morning sky outside her window was overcast, gloomy with dark clouds, and the rainwater streamed down the glass panes in rivulets.
She smiled.
What she’d experienced last night hadn’t been a dream. She recalled every kiss, every touch, every word that had been spoken. Recalled the feel of Nyte beneath her, over her, inside her, recalled the light in his eyes and the brilliant shine of the stars on his skin.
But most of all, Ember recalled the intense, bestial way in which he’d fucked her.
Her skin tingled and her core clenched with the memory. He’d possessed her body, mastered it, had laid claim to it, but it was the demand he’d made of her that had held the most dangerous, tempting promise of something more. Of something deeper, something profound.
Say you are mine.
It had been more than she’d dared hope for.
With a soft moan, Ember closed her eyes, rolled onto her back, and stretched, the blanket sliding down her breasts and brushing over her sensitive nipples.
Her body was sore, and she could feel the stings of the small wounds Nyte had left behind with his teeth and claws, but she loved it.
It was further proof of what they’d shared.
Most prominent of all was the sensation in her pussy and ass.
Both were tender with echoes of the pleasure his cocks had wrought.
God, but Ember wanted him again.
Today was her day off, and she was in absolutely no rush. She wanted to relish this moment and all the delightful aches and pains that had come from a night of euphoria.
Ember brushed her hand over the mattress beside her, seeking Nyte, but she found only unoccupied bedding that was cool to the touch. Turning her head, she opened her eyes. She was indeed alone on the bed.
That he wasn’t there with his arms around her, holding her while she slept, sent a pang through her chest and sapped some of her joy. But that was ridiculous. Nyte didn’t sleep. She couldn’t expect him to lie with her all night, bored out of his mind.
Yet that knowledge didn’t diminish her disappointment and the accompanying loneliness.
Ember sat up and blinked. It wasn’t her blanket draped over her, but one formed of shadow. Had Nyte done this after she’d fallen asleep?
It’s pretty obvious, Ember. Who else can summon and shape shadows?
Her lips curled into a smile. She could almost feel the phantom touches of his shadows like they were still moving over her body, stroking her intimately and binding her.
But this? Covering her with a blanket made of those very shadows to shield her and keep her warm as she slept? It was incredibly thoughtful and sweet.
She picked up the shadow blanket, moving it aside as she shifted her legs and scooted to sit on the edge of the bed. Her breath hitched. Warm liquid seeped from her pussy.
Ember looked down. The bitemark left by his fangs and the bruising around it were stark against her skin, but that wasn’t what caught her attention.
Sparkling silver glitter was smeared all over her inner thighs.
She reached between them, dragged a finger through her sex, and raised her hand.
Thick, glittery cum coated it. Her brows shot upward.
Well…that makes sense. He is a night demon, after all. Why wouldn’t he have stardust in his jizz?
She glanced at the bedding. The dim morning light shone upon it, revealing more sparkling evidence of what they’d done last night. She wiped her finger over the blanket.
Her first day off was usually laundry day, anyway.
Turning her face back toward the room, she sought out her demon. “Nyte?”
She spotted him in the most obvious place—the far corner of the bedroom, well outside the reach of the daylight, sitting with his back to the wall and a cloud of shadows around him. The darkness was thick enough that she could barely see the stars on his skin. Only his eyes were clear.
Smiling, Ember braced her hands on the bed and leaned forward. “Why don’t you come back to bed?”
Nyte’s eyes shifted to her. There was a coldness in them, icier than anything she’d seen since the night she’d summoned him. “No.”
His rejection hurt, but she didn’t let it deter her. Whatever had set him off and put him in this broody mood, she would help him overcome it.
She lifted her hand, and using the same finger she’d touched herself with—which was now sparkling with his cum—she brushed her bottom lip. His scent filled her nose. In a playful tone, she said, “If you come here, I’ll suck you off.”
On a whim, she slipped her finger into her mouth. His flavor spread on her tongue as she slowly pulled her finger free. It was like tasting the sweetest rain.
Nyte’s eyes flared and brightened briefly, and the shadows around him seemed to darken afterward. But he remained otherwise still, offering no reply.
Ember frowned. What had changed between last night and this morning?
Rising from the bed, she padded across the room. The air was cool on her naked skin as she neared her demon.
“Nyte?” She reached out to touch his bent knee, but before her fingers made contact, he disappeared, the shadows that had surrounded him blinking out of existence.
She whirled to find him standing in the center of the room with his arms folded across his chest, his shoulders squared, and his chin raised.
“Enough, witch.”
“Nyte, what the hell is going on? Everything last night was…was perfect. Why are you putting this distance between us like what we did didn’t mean anything?”
“Because it didn’t.”
Ember flinched, stricken by his words. “What?”
His jaw ticked. “It cannot happen again. Will not.”
Feeling suddenly vulnerable in her nakedness, she wrapped her arms around herself. It was like her chest was caving in, constricting her insides, making it hard to breathe. They’d given themselves to one another. He’d called her his. “Why are you saying these things? Why are you doing this?”
Nostrils flaring, he turned his face away. His already stiff posture tensed further, and she saw his claws biting into his biceps, saw his wings draw tight against his back, saw his tail lash down toward the floor.
The silence in the bedroom was stifling, a suffocating miasma dominating the air, making it only more difficult for Ember to fill her lungs.
Her eyes burned with the threat of tears.
This was it? After all the time they’d spent together, after one of the best nights of her life, he was just going to leave her with all this hurt and not a single answer, not a glimmer of insight?
Not a single reason?
She couldn’t be in here with him like this, couldn’t stand it. The pain was too raw, the silence too loud, and if she was going to break down and cry, she didn’t want him to witness it.
As she stepped toward the bathroom to leave, Nyte spoke. His voice was thick and low, as though he were fighting to force out words that had no desire to be uttered. “I was involved with another female, long ago. A succubus named Sarnessa.”
Ember froze. Confused waves, at once hot and cold, coursed over her skin, making it crawl. A succubus? She turned her eyes back toward him, frowning.
Nyte lowered his chin, fixing his gaze on the floor.
“Though I had observed humanity for millennia before I encountered her, I remained na?ve regarding many things. I’d seen so much, but I had experienced so little.
I’d witnessed love and lust but had never felt it, had watched sex but had never partaken.
I’d had no such emotions, no such desires.
I was intimate with human fear, but…not with intimacy itself.
“I first saw her while she was fucking a hapless mortal. She exhibited such unbridled passion, such…life. I was entranced. Of course, she was feeding from him. Drained him nearly to death. And as she stepped away from her victim, smiling, satisfied, and glowing, she noticed me. And her smile grew.” The faintest tremor ran through his wings.
“I was taken by her immediately. She exuded what I’d only observed before then…
desire, lust, and raw, confident sexuality.
And for the first time, I felt it. Felt those stirrings.
Having never dealt with her kind before, I foolishly thought both those feelings and her interest were genuine.
“My world had been cold and dark for as long as I had existed.
Night was a time of fear, isolation, and stifling quiet.
But she showed me it could be a time for passion, for heat, for closeness.
That quickly, my world expanded infinitely.
She showed me new pleasures, and I must admit, I grew fond of her.
Doted upon her. Allowed myself to be vulnerable in ways I otherwise never would have.
I gave her my trust, my attention, my time…
and in so doing, gave her power over me without realizing it.
I was her prey. As an immortal, I was a bottomless well of sustenance for her.
“But I did not understand that at the time. Didn’t recognize the signs that surely had been there all along.
I knew only that I’d been somehow…kindled.
Ignited from within. Made brighter. And at the peak of that feeling, she…
” Nyte’s shoulders rose as he drew in a deep breath, and his lips twitched to reveal his fangs when he exhaled harshly.
“She tore out my heart, just as she’d planned all along. ”
Ember gasped softly, her eyes flaring. Surely he didn’t mean… “She…tore out your heart?”
He held out a hand, palm toward the ceiling, and curled his fingers as though clutching something within them. “Right from my chest. And devoured it before my very eyes.”
“Why?”
Nyte clenched his fist, and it trembled in the air.
“Because her gluttony compelled her to. She’d fed from me for years by that point, and the more my heart brimmed with lust and affection, the more tempting it became to her.
Why have a taste when she could gorge herself on an entire feast?
Infused with my magic, with my stolen lifeforce, she became stronger than ever, and I doubt she would’ve had to feed again for a long, long while. ”
Ember gaped at him. “That fucking bitch!”
He looked at her, a crease forming between his eyebrows as he lowered his hand.
She clutched at her arms as anger burned in her chest for what had been done to him, for what he’d been through.
He’d been so… God, he’d basically experienced a form of love for the first time, and the person he’d come to care for, the person he’d trusted, had literally stolen his heart from his chest and fucking ate it.
Ember attempted to temper the rage brimming within her. The succubus wasn’t here, and there was nothing that could be done about her now.
“Is that why you secluded yourself in the Pit of Despair?” she asked gently. “It was because of her, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. I was left…diminished. Vulnerable. I needed time to recover, time for my heart to regenerate.”
Sadness washed through her, and she touched her fingers to her chest, unable to imagine what he must have felt. How alone he must have been.
Ember stepped toward him, wanting to touch him, needing to comfort him. “I am not Sarne—”
He cut her off with a hiss, eyes blazing. “No. Do not sully your lips with her accursed name.”
“I’m not her, Nyte. I would never hurt you.”
“I was foolish enough to give in to lust once before.” Nyte straightened, both his body and expression hardening. “I will not do so again. I will not leave myself exposed to such a betrayal. I’ve no need for attachments, for caring and affection.”
“You may say you don’t need them, but I believe you want them. And more than that, I know you deserve to have them.”
Crossing his arms, Nyte scowled and notched his chin up, spreading his wings behind him. “I am a nocturnus. I am darkness and emptiness given form.”
Ember snorted at his air of superiority and gestured to her thighs, where his dried cum still sparkled. “You sure weren’t empty when you came last night.”
Nyte opened his mouth as though to speak, but his gaze dipped to her thighs, and no sound emerged. The light in his eyes brightened with the same heat, lust, and primal possessiveness that had been in them last night before he snapped them back up to meet hers. “I will not be mocked.”
“I’m not mocking you, Nyte, I’m telling you the truth. We shared something last night. I felt it, and I know you felt it too. Your ex was evil, manipulative, and cruel, but you’ve already given her four hundred years. You shouldn’t waste any more time because of her.”
He clawed at his own chest. “What difference can time make to such a wound, mortal?”
Back to mortal, huh?
So much for him saying her name.
It’s him trying to put distance between us.
“You’re seriously going to give up on love because of some nasty succubus who wasn’t worthy of your heart?” Ember asked.
“Love?” he scoffed, eyes flicking aside. “There’s no such thing.”
“There is, and I’ll prove it.” She closed the distance between them, and this time, he didn’t disappear on her, didn’t move away, though he remained wary.
She stroked her fingers down his cheek and along his jaw in a gentle caress. As though unable to help himself, he subtly leaned into her touch, lashes drooping.
Smiling, Ember stood on her toes to brush her lips over his. “I’m not giving up on you, Nyte.”
She withdrew and walked past him toward the bathroom, leaving him speechless as her lips tingled with the want for more.