“But…” My heartbeat picked up as I slipped a hand up his chest. His shadows weaved around my fingers, and there was a certain pleasure to their caress. “You’re right. I craved you because I wanted that part of him to love me as much as the rest of him. I wanted to showhimthat Nightsdeath didn’t frighten me. If you let me wake him, you’ll still be there in him. You’ll get to rule with me.”
“Why would I want to go back to being suppressed and ignored inside a vessel that refuses to let his pain be avenged like we deserve?”
“Because we all have that inside of us. A suffering we want to unleash upon the world, but, if we all gave up, this world would belong to no one. It would be in ruins.”
“That’s what you think I am? The embodiment of giving up?”
“Yes.”
Nightsdeath smiled, amused. “Oh my star, I haven’t even begun. I am not surrender, I am liberation.”
His lips brushed softly against mine, and it took all my willpower to not give in. The ways he touched me were always curious, as if he was searching for something though he didn’t quite know what.
We had been alone in the throne room all this time but now voices sounded outside. As they grew closer, I distinguished one of them to be Notus’s. My heart slammed and I clutched Nightsdeath with a surge of urgency. I was trapped between the bodies of two enemies, but I had to find a way to escape.
“I need your help,” I whispered.
His knuckle brushed along my cheek. “Those are beautiful words from you.”
My eyes closed, welcoming the peace, as my words escaped my lips in a few final breaths. “We’ll find the key together. But I need your help here first.”
His eyes flared a fraction at my offer right before the doors were thrown open and several footfalls marched inside.
“She was to be kept chained in the dungeons,” Notus bellowed.
Nightsdeath kept an intimate hold of me, tightening as Auster arrived close behind. As Auster noticed our proximity, his jaw tightened.
“So you’re a desperate whore even for the most despicable part of him,” Auster sneered.
Humiliation from being called that degrading term in front of so many guards standing by flushed me, but it quickly hardened to anger I hoped he felt from my piercing stare.
“Unlike you, I don’t need chains to be sure she’ll stay by my side.”
Nightsdeath goaded them both. Flaunting his power both in magick and the hold he had on my heart.
“You have no authority here,” Auster snapped.
“Go ahead, try to take her.”
No one moved.
“I thought we had an agreement,” Auster ground out.
“I’ve come to see you offer little to me, Nova,” Nightsdeath drawled. He held the power, and everyone knew it.
My mind spun, trying to calculate my own plan between their hostility. Auster had power over the people; Nightsdeath had the power to destroy everything. There was a scale to balance, and I had to have the cunning to hold them both in my palms.
“Men like to bicker over their power when the one with the most is a woman standing behind you both.”
Nightsdeath’s attention swung to me with mild surprise; Auster pinned me with challenge and caution; Notus could hardly contain his hatred.
As a demonstration, I threw up a sheet of light, separating me from them. Out of their sight, I stepped through the void onto the other side before the wall of light fell like water.
“Always behind you,” I said, making all of them whirl around to the main doors where I’d transported myself. The guards all drew their swords, but I smiled calmly. “So you might never know when I’m coming for you.”
“Restrain her,” Notus demanded to his guards in gold.
I didn’t resist, letting them approach with manacles carefully held in rags. I knew then they had to be laced with nebulora and braced for the sting. Gritting my teeth, I didn’t let them see my pain, instead widening my smile that might have looked manic considering the way Auster recoiled.
