“Thank fuck,” Zath muttered, marching across the room.
I intercepted him, knowing his natural response would be to all but throw himself at her in embrace.
“She’s gravely injured,” I warned. Then I stepped aside.
Zath approached more tentatively, his expression shifting between pain and relief as he scanned her over.
Astraea hugged him, though it hurt her, and I was on edge with an irrational want to rip Zath’s arms off for it.
“I’m so damn relieved you’re okay. Leaving you behind in Vesitire was the hardest thing I’ve had to do,” Zath said.
“Thank you,” she croaked. “For coming and helping to fight.”
“I’d have to be dead to sit it out.”
She gave a breathy chuckle. “I know.”
“I can feel the heat of your stare,” Zath mumbled to me.
Peeling away from Astraea, I didn’t bother to smooth out my expression when he glanced back at me. Zath only smirked, which made him grimace. I looked at his wound site, but he slipped a hand over it as if I wouldn’t notice he wasn’t fully healed yet. That he was alive at all from the fatal sword through his gut was a miracle, even for a Nephilim. He was admirably strong willed.
“I won’t take the chance of being suffocated by shadow if I tried to hug you, but shit am I glad you’re awake. How did you break the curse?”
“I killed Nightsdeath,” Astraea admitted quietly, letting go of Rose who’d hugged her next. I hoped her sorrow wasn’t because she thought it somehow hurt me.
“What do you mean? He’s right there,” Rose said. Her familiar irritation around me was strangely missed.
Astraea explained everything that happened with Nightsdeath, and it tore me apart to hear it. I didn’t think she admitted to all of what she suffered bymyhand. As much as Nightsdeath wandered without me, it was merely a source of power untilIgave it life. It was powerful enough to live without the rest of me.
The concept was difficult to digest. I wandered away from Astraea, not quite knowing how to process it all. Should I grieve? I wasn’t sure. I harbored this ache that plunged soul deep, but I didn’t know what it was for. Why this wretched self-pity started to fester inside me; I wanted to claw it out with my own hand.
“Nyte.” Astraea’s soft tone accompanied her warm hand sliding into mine from behind. Only then did I realize I was staring mindlessly right at a wall. “I’m sorry—”
“Don’t,” I said, it barely left me as a choked plea. “Please don’t apologize to me.”
“Come with me?” she offered gently, already tugging me, and I followed like a ghost.
Is that what I was now? A shell of weak parts left behind?
Did IwantNightsdeath back?
All my life I’d had that heinous power to blame. To use.ShitI used it without remorse and Ienjoyed it.
I was Nightsdeath. In name and glory and all wicked reign.
Now it was gone… a part of me was truly dead.
I didn’t know how I would cope without the vicious darkness holding me together. My fingers laced through Astraea’s, and I squeezed absentmindedly. As if she were the only way I wouldn’t float into a lost oblivion when I didn’t know who I was anymore. Or perhaps more frighteningly, who I could become.
25Nyte
Astraea slept, and while my mind spun in turmoil over leaving her just as I’d embraced her in my arms again, I couldn’t shake what I’d learned about my father from Auster’s mind.
I had to discover if it was true, and worse, if he’d already succeeded in his plan.
After lulling her mind into a deep sleep, hoping she wouldn’t wake until I returned, I headed down to the bottom level of Nadir’s home, finding the mage lounging by the fire, pipe in hand.
“I’m beginning to think you don’t sleep,” I commented.
