Page 178 of Nightshade

A blue-eyed boy with black hair. Lying in a meadow with him. Legs wrapped around his body. Holding him. The fear of being caught. Love. So much love it swells in my chest. His scent. His hands. His whispers. “I love you, Lustina.”

My whole body shook beneath his, a cold sweat breaking over my already damp skin. “Oh, God. Oh, God, I remember everything! Jericho, I’m scared.”

“Shhh,” he said calmly. “Let the memories return to you, my love.”

The water. So cold. So quiet. The blood moon. Air waning. The silence.

Everything made sense. His obsession. His fears of me leaving. His love. “I understand.” Everything I’d believed shattered for the impossible reality that I’d been reborn.

More tears sprang to my eyes, and he gripped my throat, kissing me fiercely. Passionately. Possessively. Tongues and teeth and heavy breaths that felt like a battle for the sublime. More passionately than I had ever been kissed before. He dragged his nose over my throat and bit down in the crook of my neck, as his fingers curled in my hair. A sharp sting faded into the gentle sweep of his tongue, and he held me tight against his body, thrusting into me with unbridled vigor.

God help me, I surrendered to it. I surrendered to him.

“Do not ever leave me again. I will not survive the loss of you twice.”

“I promise,” I whispered.

My body tightened and quivered, as the climax neared. Higher and higher I climbed, until at last, I broke. A flash of light rippled over his wings, and he threw his head back on a roar of ecstasy. The warmth that filled me spilled across the back of my thighs.

When he pulled out, I looked down to see the fluids dribbling down my thigh—white but speckled in what almost looked like thousands of microscopic diamonds.

Those sparkles of energy carried up inside of me, jolting me from the inside out, and I arched again, crying out, as another climax crashed over me.

A drunken intoxication claimed my muscles, while an overwhelming satisfaction settled deep into my bones. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

Jericho lifted me from the bracket, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, clinging to him like a fragile, trembling bird.

“I was there. I remembered everything. Her. Us.”

He held me tight, stroking his hand down my hair, and whispered in my ear. “Now you know why I can never let you leave.”

54

Farryn

The warm water of the bath trickled down my back, as I lay against Jericho’s chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. The sensation from before still warmed my insides, softening me with a cozy, tingly feeling. Before we’d returned from the tower, he’d retracted his wings, which lay hidden beneath his flesh, concealing his true nature. Still baffled me.

He scooped up more water from the black quartz tub into his palm and poured it over me. Because of the deep color of the stone, the bath water appeared black. Unnerving, but fascinating at the same time. Lost in a trance, I stared at the soft glow of the luminescent stone he’d said had been mined and carved from Blackwater rock. The very mountain on which the cathedral stood.

I traced the edge of a tattoo, noting the tiny, intricate symbols embedded within it, and as the pad of my fingertip swept over them, they flickered. “These aren’t just tattoos, are they?”

“No. I was born with bare skin, like any child. But these are the markings for every life I’ve taken.”

“There are so many,” I whispered.

A long silence hung on the air, as I took in the number of tattoos on his biceps, chest, stomach. So many lives.

“What are you thinking about?” His husky voice echoed through the room, breaking my thoughts.

“I don’t know how to process this.”

“It will take some time.”

“She wasn’t afraid to die, you know. To the very end, she believed in your love.” I glanced up to see his head turned away and the tic of his jaw. I reached up to cup his face. “She was not afraid.”

“If I could kill them again, I would.”

“No. I wouldn’t have wanted that.”