“What I do with my bonded is none of your business, that was our deal,” Auster said, turning to him.
Nightsdeath came closer, not even dignifying Auster with a glance as he kept those amber eyes on me.
“Until I have my full form, she does not belong to you.”
“I don’t belong to either of you,” I snapped.
That earned a slight curl of Nightsdeath’s mouth, more like approval than amusement, as he slipped a hand into his pocket.
“Leave us,” he said.
I could practically feel Auster’s outrage, but he became irrelevant to me in this room with Nightsdeath here. Even though I knew this wasn’t my Nyte, not the parts that loved me, it was becoming hard to keep believing this creature was only cruel and merciless and would have killed me by now if I served no purpose.
“We can’t waste time,” Auster argued.
“What did you plan to do? Strike her until she gave up Rainyte’s location? Whip her? I think you forget who you’re dealing with, to string her up here for such petty torture. So now that you’ve had your moment to fantasize about it, she’s mine.”
Auster audibly spluttered. I didn’t think he’d ever been so insultingly overpowered, but he wasn’t a fool who’d contend with the pure manifestation of death itself.
I caught Zephyr’s look of pained concern and gave a nod of assurance while the other two were occupied in their silent power battle. He and Auster left moments later, but I didn’t relax a fraction. Instead my skin pricked with more anticipation in the lone presence of this shadowy mirror of Nyte.
“Make no mistake, my star. You might very well wish for Auster’s methods of getting you to talk when you sample mine.”
I began to shiver stiffly. Then without warning, he sent a precise slice of darkness toward me. The chain suspending me broke, and I didn’t have a second to catch myself. I sobbed when my shoulder took the impact against the hard ground, in so much pain I could hardly stand to be conscious, yet the torture hadn’t even begun.
I will not break. I will not break. I will not break.
If it meant keeping Nyte safe, I could withstand whatever they could do to me.
I couldn’t get up and surrendered to lying there against the icy stone, hands hugged to my chest with my wrists still in thick manacles and bound with a shorter chain between. The nebulora within my system numbed my ability to reach for my magick. If I really focused, I’d be able to overpower its nullifying effects from my torturous practices to conquer the cosmic plant in my past life. Right now, I had no mental strength towantto fight.
Shadows flooded all around me as Nightsdeath crouched. He tenderly brushed the hair over my forehead.
“Such a fragile and breakable thing you appear to be, yet it is your spirit I need to break, and I feel how strong it is.”
I’d never been afraid of him. Even when he pushed to the surface of Nyte and threatened my life, I would always reach for his darkness.
“I feel you within me, you know,” he said, brushing his knuckles along my bruised cheek. His thumb collected the blood from Auster’s slap at the corner of my mouth and his lips parted, tasting it. His eyes closed briefly with a soft sigh, and I shivered at his pleasure. “Our bond. It lingers in me even without the weaker half of me.”
“You’re nothing more than a parasite he didn’t ask to be burdened with. One that delighted and fed on all the pain he never deserved.”
“Yet suffer he did, for many centuries, and here I am. He used my power andenjoyed it.Don’t fool yourself into believing he is better than what you see in me. I gave him the means; he carried out the actions.”
“He had no choice.”
“Choice, oh there is always a choice. It’s what made every transgression he indulged in that much sweeter. It’s human nature to blame the lack ofchoicein any wrongdoings to subdue their guilty conscience and avoid full ownership of the unsavory outcome. It’s sickening.”
I bit my lip with a whimper when he slipped his hands around me, pulling me up, and I couldn’t fight it. Not because of the pain shooting through my body with every carful maneuver until he sat there, cradling me to him, but because of the ache in my soul that yearned for Rainyte so terribly that I caved to the illusion of comfort right now. Shadows swirled around us, and that was what kept me knowing this wasn’t my Nyte. His touch, his appearance, was whispers of shadows.
“I could save you,” he said, so deceptively tender while he stroked tangled hair out of my face. Tears began to blur my vision. “Look how much you’re hurting, physically and by the emotions you let plague you. If you give over to Lightsdeath, like when Nyte gave over to me, you’ll be free of such weaknesses.”
“I thought you would be repelled by an entity of power that is your opposite.”
“The dark cannot exist without the light, and light cannot exist without the dark. Acceptance is everything.”
“You want to end this world.”
“I want to make it stronger. It may take sacrifice, yes. But it is necessary.”
