Chapter 22
Nyx
I toweled off, my thoughts ricocheting between two impossible choices: Nazaire or Cain. Honor or love.
The fact that it even felt like a choice made my chest constrict. I wasn’t supposed to hesitate when it came to Nazaire. Hesitation went against everything I’d been taught to believe.
But it was time to face facts. The story I’d always told myself about my father—about what I was to him—was a lie. I was never going to earn his approval. He was never going to love me. I’d been a tool, at best.
What I’d called discipline had always been domination. What I’d told myself was training had always been control. And the way he watched me, corrected me, punished me—it hadn’t been about making me stronger. It had been about molding me into something he could use.
I’d spent years pretending his cruelty had purpose, that there was some logic behind it. But there wasn’t. He hurt me because he wanted to. Because he could. Because it pleased him to see me bend.
It was time to accept I’d never be enough for him, not as an heir and not as a daughter.
With the decision came a kind of peace, the weary clarity that settles in your bones when you stop resisting what you know is true.
Nazaire couldn’t “rescue” me if I refused to leave. This wasn’t his territory. Anyone he sent would be counting on my cooperation.
Well, fuck that.
I wasn’t completely powerless. I could disappear into the shadows, glamour myself. Even if my father came himself, he’d have to knock me out before I’d leave because I wasn’t going quietly.
Which left Cain. Some of the bravado drained out of me.
You could stay. He wants you to.
The Dark Gods knew I was tempted.
But not like this. Cain might want me, but his offer came with conditions.
I’d never come first with him. He’d said himself that his duty was to his syndicate. If I stayed on Lilith Island, I’d be tying myself to a man who hadn’t chosen me freely.
A man who’d never choose me, Nyx, over his syndicate brothers.
The thought left a hollow ache blooming under my ribs.
I hung up the towel and straightened—not much, just enough to feel my spine. I was done accepting second best. I deserved better.
If Cain couldn’t give me everything, then I was better off walking away.
The Maritime Syndicate couldn’t keep me on Lilith Island forever. Either they’d finally get to my father, or they’d get tired of keeping me prisoner. Either way, they’d release me.
And then I could finally enact my plan—take my cash and vanish into the anonymity of a big city, one without a powerful syndicate. Stay in at night, fly under the radar.
I twisted my damp hair into a messy bun and drifted through the suite, examining the art without really seeing it, picking up books and putting them down again.
My fingertips skimmed over the couch, the chairs, the cool granite counter—touching everything because I couldn’t touch the one thing I wanted.
In the kitchenette, I poured myself a glass of blood-wine and carried it to the bedroom doorway.
The gauze-draped bed blurred at the edges as I stared at it.
A trace of Cain’s spicy midnight scent still clung to the suite, faint but unmistakable.
I pressed my knuckles to my mouth, throat clogging as the memories rose.
How that night in London, his frost-blue eyes had locked on me like I was the only thing that mattered.
How, when he touched me, all that restless, kinetic energy in him went still. He’d gone quiet, intent, like wanting me cost him something he didn’t know how to give.
I dragged in a breath.
This is what you wanted. Freedom—from Nazaire, the syndicates, the games...
I padded back into the living room, sipping wine and gazing out at the moon-drenched garden, picturing how I’d paint it. Because that’s what I did when my heart hurt.
The garden must be gorgeous in the summer; even now it had a haunting, stripped-down beauty.
Fairy lights followed a path through skeletal trees and ornamental grasses, tiny stars in the darkness.
Grape vines clung like dark veins to the weathered stone walls, and fruit trees raised their branches among pots of dried-up herbs.
A white cat with a single black ear appeared out of the shrubbery and picked her way through the snow-covered path to butt her head against the glass. I tried the door, but it was locked, as Cain had said.
The cat sat on its haunches, regarding me through citrine eyes.
“Sorry,” I told her. Somehow, I knew the cat was a her.
Annoyed, she flicked the black ear at me and vanished back into the bushes. A few seconds later I saw her sleek body trotting along the top of the wall, and then she was gone.
A reel flickered to life behind my eyes, vivid as a movie. The moon casting silver shadows over a forgotten garden; vines creeping like fingers; and the snow-pale cat—no longer just a cat, but a shapeshifter, a guardian, a queen cloaked in fur and mystery.
Then one day, a vampire comes searching for the queen…
My fingers twitched, hungry to capture the scenes on canvas. To escape into a world where I controlled the ending.
I curled up on the couch, pad in hand, and began to sketch.