“All the things that cross your face that you leave unspoken.”
That he noticed… did Nightsdeath have the capacity to care? No. He wanted to know my thoughts to manipulate and find advantage. Yet my soft heart wanted to believe there could be something tender in his desires.
“Nyte would never read my thoughts.”
“How can you be certain he hasn’t?”
“I trust him.”
“Another—”
“Mortal flaw,” I finished for him, casting a teasing smirk he didn’t react to. “But you’re wrong about that one. I trusted Nyte before I fell in love with him.”
“I have freed you from Auster, but you don’t trust me?”
“You freed me because you want my power. Nyte freed me because he wantsme.”
“You think I don’t want you?”
Nightsdeath slipped in front of me, and I nearly collided into him. Our eyes connected, and I couldn’t deny the pull to him I felt.
“You want what we could become together,” I answered.
“As does the other half of me—Rainyte.”
I pondered that for a moment, staring into the golden eyes that were the center of my universe. Even in all his darkness.
I said, “With you—when Nyte gave over to you at times—I always trusted you didn’twantto kill me. I understand that in our darkest places we are repelled by the idea of light and hope, but at the same time we don’t want it to disappear.”
Nightsdeath erased the space between us slowly. My hood blew down with the next gust of icy wind, but he caught it, slipping it back over my head tenderly.
Could there be something to reach within Nightsdeath? Could the pain and suffering he embodied be soothed of its sharp edges?
“You’d be a fool to think yourself safe with me. That I wouldn’t kill you—trulykill you if I had the means.”
“I didn’t say you wouldn’t kill me, I said you wouldn’t want to.”
“All parts of him that loved you are gone.”
Though that squeezed like a fist in my chest, I didn’t believe that.
He captured strands of my loose hair tangling in the wind and tucked them under my hood. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking I can be merciful, even for a creature as breathtaking as you.”
I’d already experienced how merciless he could be. The memories of his torture in the throne room brought back an ashy taste and a sensation of icy flame in my veins.
When we came to some civilian life, I stared longingly at several inns, but Nightsdeath didn’t seem in the mood to stop. Hours must have passed, and the cold seizing my body was becoming too much to bear.
“I need to heat up,” I said, so grumpy and pathetic from the weather. “Just for an hour at least.”
He dragged a lazy look to me, not pleased at all by the idea.
“So we must stop every few hours for you to bask by firelight? Are there any other shortcomings I should prepare for?”
I glowered at him. “I also need to eat every now and then,” I groused.
“Ahh yes, as must I. Very well, we shall stop for one hour.”
Heading toward an establishment called Starlight Haven, Nightsdeath was about to wander in without a care when I pulled him to a stop. His amber eyes flared a shade brighter on me as if it was a personal offense to do so.
