Astraea’s eyes pleaded silently with Zephyr. She wanted to tell him about Nyte so badly the confession strained in her chest. He would keep her secret, but she feared he might judge her harshly despite their close friendship.
Zephyr read her deliberation, taking hold of her upper arms.
“You can tell me anything,” he said.
She nodded, but her lips remained sealed. She would find the courage to tell him soon. Right now, she only had one person on her mind as she discreetly left the castle.
Astraea waited for Nyte in the bell tower—a place that had become their secret home above the world. She sensed him near, but he was being stealthy, trying to catch her from behind unawares as she watched the city spilled with moonlight. Astraea spun, thrusting a hand to his chest with a surge of magick. Nyte tensed but held firm against buckling, grabbing hold of her wrist and yanking her against him.
“Always so violent,” he said with a low lilt.
They shared breath through their heated stare.
“Why did the vampires attack?” she demanded.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, reaching to tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear.
She pulled her arm free and tried an attack with her magick again. Herflare was swallowed by starry darkness. Nyte’s wicked smile curved through the dissipating shadows.
“Tell me you had nothing to do with it,” she said, pinning him with a glare.
The amusement dropped from his face.
“Do you think I would lie to you?”
“I don’t know.”
But her heart did. It pushed against her ribs, at war with her mind’s uncertainty.
Nyte erased the small distance between them when he pressed her to the wall next to one of the open archways.
“Then I haven’t made myself transparent enough for you toknow,without hesitation, that there isn’t a thing I wouldn’t kill, a realm I wouldn’t break, or a god I wouldn’t forsake for you.”
His hand wrapped around her neck as he stared her down with the intensity of the sun blazing in those amber irises.
“Blood will always run thicker than water,” she said.
“As my mate, you are my blood. Though I can’t bleed out my heritage, or for you I would. Tell me where this is coming from?”
His hand on her neck curved around her nape, angling her mouth perfectly to his.
“You are my damnation,” she whispered across his lips.
“Oh my Starlight, our collision may be a masterpiece crafted for the walls of Hell, but should that be next where we meet, you would rule the underworld triumphant.”
His lips slanted over hers and she was lost to him. Found in him. She was his eternally, and that’s what frightened her the most.
Planting hands on his chest, Nyte yielded to her push, and she slipped around him. All her life she’d only known duty. To the people. To Auster. Before Nyte she’d come to terms with being as good as betrothed to Auster.
Nyte said, “My father claimed the attack was merely a test of your resources and strategy. He had spies watching the slaughter.”
Astraea gauged the hesitation in his explanation. “You don’t believe him?”
“I’m not certain. I don’t know why he would lie to me, but he’s never called for an attack without my knowledge. He claimed it was because I’ve been absent in my diligent pursuit of your capture.”
“You can’t lose his trust.”
“Let me worry about my father.”
