His grip slackened, slipping around my nape and bringing our faces intimately close. The warmth of his breath blew across my lips when he answered.
“So I can feel,” he said quietly, a whisper of longing. “If I take his heart I will have a true form. Not this—cursed in shadow. I cannot feel a single sensation like this. I know what I should feel, having been tied to Rainyte’s form for centuries. Like your flesh; oh how he craves your touch more than anything else when it triggers so much within him. What a peculiar thing you are. Something that can inspire almost as much pain in him as you do pleasure.”
That twisted a knot in my chest.
With his proximity, I thought he might kiss me. He spoke privately while my heartbeat pounded over what he might do next.
“He deserved better than to be plagued by you,” I seethed.
Nightsdeath smiled cruelly. “I am the darkness that lingers in the hearts of all. There is ameinside ofyou.All you have to do is look in the mirror long enough to see your darkness smile back. It’s not my fault that he was never given enough light to keep me weak.” Then the curve of his mouth fell; his amber eyes searched mine with more thought. “Until you. Things were better when you were gone.”
“Release her,” Zephyr demanded.
I didn’t know how to feel being held by the tormented shadow of Nyte. Maybe I was a fool for thinking there could be a warmth, however small and guarded, to be reached even in Nightsdeath.
“Are you ready to accept my proposal?” Nightsdeath said, stepping away from me to address the High Celestials.
“You want an alliance to find and kill Rainyte?” Zephyr reiterated, the only one still regarding the notion with complete abhorrence in his expression.
“Exactly.”
“And what happens to you once we succeed?” Auster asked.
I grappled for composure, hearing how confident Auster was that they would achieve the task. “I will have Rainyte’s ability to bend minds. I can make the Maiden forget him,me,entirely and she will be yours. In exchange you will return to Althenia and leave the rest of this gluttonous, spiteful world to me.”
“What will you do?” Auster dared to ask.
“Purge it.”
Horror so piercing staggered my steps back. With Auster’s silence, and his shifting gaze to me, I saw him truly contemplate the proposal.
“I will never be yours. With or without my memories, Auster Nova, I will never want you.”
My declaration infused his gaze of longing with sinister intent. “We would have wed were it not for Rainyte’s poison that swayed you away from it.”
I blinked, reaching through my mirage of memories. Had I really accepted the fate of marrying Auster despite my uncertain feelings toward him before I met Nyte? I remembered Nyte’s own memory that he’d shared with me, where I’d confessed I didn’t harbor the lust and affection of a lover for Auster even though I thought I should. I’d come to develop such feelings and so much deeper for Nyte instead.
In all my tunneling into the past… I recalled the engagement with a shallow gasp. White gowns, flower arrangements, the Goddess Temple he insisted on for a venue. There was a time I ran out of reasons to deny a life partnership with Auster, when he was my Bonded, a High Celestial, and we were, in the eyes of everyone, a perfect union.
Seeking out Nyte, the first day we’d met when I’d let myself be captured and held in his prison, hadn’t just been out of my concern for the quakes, going to my enemy as a last resort. It had been my final rebellion, an act of desperation to delay the wedding as long as possible. I never anticipated how eager for Nyte’s company I became. How addicted to every fascinating thing about the realm’s nightmare I became.
“I never truly wanted to marry you,” I said, barely a whisper.
Auster reacted as if I’d struck him. I didn’t want to feel anything for him after all he’d done, but I did. I thought that would be my eternal punishment: to always be plagued with guilt for my choices. I looked at Auster as if he were a monster I’d created in my selfishness.
“We have a deal,” Auster said coldly, not taking his eyes from me.
“You may as well kill me. I’ll never tell you where Nyte’s body is,” I hissed.
Nightsdeath hooked my elbow, but I ripped it away, glaring at him with hatred that tore me apart from seeing him wearing Nyte’s face through the shadows.
“You make this too fun for me,” he mused.
My teeth clenched tightly as he closed the distance between us. I expected him to use the void to take me inside against my will, but to my horror, he leaned down and swiftly threw me over his shoulder.
“Put me down, or so help me I’ll burn you from the inside out,” I said, losing pieces of my dignity as I wriggled, but his hold was iron.
“I don’t think you have that capability in you right now.”
