I wanted to reach into him and pull it out. He let me walk right up to him with the wolf behind me. He didn’t run like the others. Instead, he approached me too.
“The darkest night,” I whispered, lifting a hand to his chest.
His body tensed and a hiss escaped from him. I was hurting him. The light burned through the dark. Yet still he didn’t run. His hand lifted to my cheek, and I wanted to feel it.
“My brightest star.”
I was captured by his eyes, so brilliant and blazing despite the whorls of shadow that made his soul. His lips found mine… and the night shattered the stars.
My immediate repulsion dissolved with the scent that soothed my pain. The warmth that comforted my anger. The name that severed the control Lightsdeath had over me.
“Nyte,” I whimpered, incredulous, against his lips.
Had I died again? Had I done something terrible in my irrepressible state?
“I’ve got you, Starlight.”
“It’s not real. You can’t be here.”
“I’m real, Astraea; I’m right here.”
He kissed my forehead and I cried. I broke. My knees gave out, but he caught me. His hold was so strong and sure, but my mind struggled to believe this wasn’t a trick I would wake from.
What a beautiful dream,I thought.After all my nightmares, this is such a beautiful dream.
But in a world of monsters, dreams were always illusionary, and nightmares were reality. All it took was catching a glimpse of the crimson-tipped arrow over Nyte’s shoulder aimed for his heart, to make Lightsdeath surge to the surface and take over once again to save him.
22Nyte
I’d just reached Astraea through the overwhelming force of Lightsdeath, but something made me lose her to that power again, so fast I couldn’t help her.
Even as the air around her began to crackle with raw energy, I held onto her, feeling the heat of her magick thrumming against my skin. She was radiant, a blazing force, as her magick surged up and out, wrapping her in a halo of blinding light that pulsed like a heartbeat. She looked almost otherworldly, fierce and untouchable, every inch of her glowing as though she’d swallowed the stars.
But her bright silver eyes were sharp; fury was carved into her expression with a cold, determined edge. She wasn’t just angry—she was ready to unleash whatever storm was building within her. I felt a chill as I looked behind me to see what had seized her furious attention.
She held an arm outstretched; a tendril of light snaked around an arrow that would have struck through my heart… and killed me.
Scenting Astraea’s blood on the arrow tip washed me with horror; a kind of real terror I’d never felt before slithered through my core.
Because I could die.Trulydie.
There was a certain relief with that enlightenment. A sense of mortality I’d never had before that made everything in this world seem so much more precious. It made this woman in my arms that much more desperately fragile to me. No, not her;Iwas fragile.
Astraea, harnessing Lightsdeath, used her magick to splinter the arrow, which dropped into the snow, leaving us facing off with Auster Nova.
“Rainyte.”
The moment he called my name, a rush of pure rage-filled loathing washed over me.
In my next breath, I stepped through the void, gripped Auster by his clothing, and reached to unleash my full merciless vengeance through Nightsdeath.
Until I felt nothing but an emptiness where that shadow being once resided in my mind. The voice I’d battled with all my life, against its taunts and dark notions, it was silent.
Austersmiled.As if he knew.
That curve of his mouth only made my hatred burn hotter. Pushing aside my confusion, I reached for the dangerous ability in me that was my birthright. Auster choked when I shattered clean through his mental barrier, and I threw his body carelessly into the thick snow.
“I don’t need anything but breath to make you suffer for all you’ve done,” I snarled, pacing around him like a wild beast.
