Page 38

Akemi chuckles.

“What?”

“Oh, you are full of opposites, you know that?”

I feel my canine poke into my bottom lip as I grin. “Why’s that?”

“Like the way you pin me up against the wall one moment, just to carefully place me on the bed like a princess the next.”

“My Sunrise, you are so wrong about that.”

Her eyebrows tilt. “Why?”

“I can’t give you the princess treatment, darling,” I say as I crawl over her form, lining myself up to her entrance, “when you are a queen.”

I push myself inside her, inch by glorious inch, relishing in the way she feels around my cock. I had plans to fuck her hard and fast after holding back for so long, but now, all I want to do is look into those sunrise eyes and worship her the way I know she deserves.

Leaning forward so that our foreheads touch, I pull out and press in once more, further this time. “I love you.”

Her breath mixes with mine. She rests both of her hands over my cheeks, looking at me in a way no other has before. Not as her lord. Not as a lethal Underworld warrior.

Just me.

“I love you too.”

Tomorrow, Akemi goes back to the Watch, and we’ll have to say our goodbyes. But for tonight, she’s with me. Mine to cherish and hold. Mine to pleasure and worship, and because time is a fickle thing, I plan on wringing every ounce of pleasure from her before the night is over.

The room is dark when I leave. Akemi fell asleep quickly after our bath, and as much as I needed rest, I wanted to spend every last moment memorizing her, committing her to memory. The way her nose curves. Those freckles dusted on her cheeks. The scent of her sweat mixed with perfume. Those cute little noises she makes on occasion while she’s dreaming.

Nightmare had barged into the room twice after I shooed him away, so whatever Damaris and Cadex were calling me for must be important.

I sneak one last glance at Akemi sprawled in my bed. I want to trace a finger down the column of her spine and kiss every vertebrae. Dark grey sheets drape perfectly around her naked form, gathering at her waist.

“This better be damn worth it,” I mumble. I ease the door shut with two fingers, holding my breath until the latch settles into place. Akemi does not stir. Her dark hair spills across my pillow, her breathing slow and even, human-soft in a palace carved from glowing stone and warm rivers of light. I will be back before she dreams of me missing.

The corridors breathe as I move through them, bioluminescent veins pulsing along the walls, heat rising from the springs beneath the floors. Outside, the city of Baiabella hums at night, quieter than day but never asleep. I find Cadex first, broad-shouldered and armored even now, and Damaris beside him, cloak pulled tight, eyes sharp.

“It’s the baker’s boy,” Cadex says. “Third this week.”

We walk together through the market lanes, where stalls are shuttered and lanterns glow like captured suns. A woman kneels in the street ahead, rocking back and forth. Her son lies across her lap, skin slick with sweat, breath coming in ragged bursts. The white dots are already there, a constellation blooming along his calf, bright against brown skin, pulsing faintly as if answering some call beneath the earth.

I kneel. The mother’s eyes are wild. “Please,” she says. “Please, Lord Atlys. He was fine this morning.”

I touch the boy’s forehead. Heat. Too much. The dots creep as I watch, multiplying, climbing. The sickness has a rhythm now, a way of moving that feels almost intentional. It makes my stomach tighten.

“He’s scared,” Damaris says softly. They crouch opposite me, palms open, voice steady. “You’re here. He can feel it.”

I draw power up through the stone, a low warmth that usually soothes. I let it spill into my hands, into the boy’s chest. His eyes snap open. For a moment, there is recognition, a flicker of relief. Then his pupils blow wide. He snarls, a sound too big for his body, and his back arches violently.

“Hold him,” I tell the mother, and she does, sobbing as his limbs jerk. The dots flare, white-hot, and he bares his teeth. Feral. Whatever this virus is, it eats the mind last.

“I’m here,” I murmur, pressing his head to my chest when he thrashes. “I’ve got you. Breathe.”

He claws at me. His nails draw blood through my sleeve. Then, as suddenly as it began, the fight drains out of him. His body goes slack. The light along his leg stutters and fades to a dull chalk.

His mother’s scream splits the street. I hold the boy as his last breath leaves him, feeling the small weight of him, the unfairness. Cadex looks away. Damaris closes their eyes, jaw tight.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her, and it is the weakest offering I have ever made.