My heart sped up and then slowed as my body flashed hot before turning icy. I felt utterly nothing as I stood there, staring at Nyktos. At Veses. At them. I tried to make sense of what I was seeing—why he was with anyone, let alone her, the one he’d called the worst sort.
It didn’t make sense. It couldn’t.
Maybe I’d hit my head fighting the nymphs and was hallucinating because that seemed more plausible than this. Than her feeding from Nyktos. Than them together.
Because I’d told him that I wanted to be his Consort.
He’d called me liessa—someone he found beautiful. Someone he found powerful.
Someone who would become his Queen.
Then she moaned, the sound husky and sensual. The arm of the settee creaked under Nyktos’s tightening grasp, and the noise—the sounds— knocked me out of the shocked numbness.
My mind. My body. Every part of me processed what I was seeing. Emotions came in a rising tide, swamping me, and they were intense and sudden as Nyktos’s head jerked sluggishly. I shuddered under the hot, stifling weight of…of hurt. Raw, tangy agony drenched every pore. Suffocating, crushing hurt carved through muscles and bone. The crack in my chest shook as my skin prickled with heat.
With something else.
Veses’ golden head lifted at the sound of air wheezing from my parted lips. Two deep, angry puncture wounds marred the side of Nyktos’s throat. Thick, shiny hair slid back over one slender shoulder as the Primal looked at me. The pouty, blood-red mouth stood out grotesquely against the delicateness of her beauty. Surprise flickered over her features, then
luminous silver eyes widened and then locked with mine as her pink tongue darted over her lower lip. She licked at the blood there. Nyktos’s blood.
Bitter bile crowded my throat. I choked on it, still rooted in place, unable to move as Veses looked me over. Sized me up. The twist of her lip told me she found what she saw lacking, and, gods, I felt that all the way to the bone as I stared at her. At them. Two beautiful, powerful Primals. Together.
Veses’ eyebrow rose. That scathing curl transformed into a painfully beautiful smile. “So, this is her?” she asked, speaking in that throaty voice I remembered before she giggled.
Nyktos’s head turned slowly. His eyes fluttered open, and that—that was all I could take.
There was no thought behind my actions. It was instinct. I stumbled back a step, bumping into the door. Heart thumping once more, I spun around.
Veses laughed.
And that blade-sharp laugh followed me as I walked from the office. It clung to my skin because I’d never felt so naïve, so foolish. That laugh stayed with me as the crack in my chest shuddered violently. But it was Nyktos’s words that haunted me as I broke into a run.
She’s very important to me.
I ran blindly, my throat constricting.
You are one of the strongest people I’ve ever met.
I threw open the door as the embers in my chest pulsated, joining the throbbing agony.
You were never a ghost to me.
Some unknown need drove me down the narrow, musty stairwell.
Liessa.
My boots slipped on the steps. I went down on my ass, the flare of dull pain nothing compared to the sorrow crushing me from the inside. I’d never felt anything like it before as I scrambled to my feet and kept going. Not even when my family left for the country estates, and I had been too young to understand why they’d left me behind. Not even the stinging slap my mother delivered the night of my seventeenth birthday had hurt this badly. Wasn’t as deep. Didn’t steal every too-short breath.
I hit the gap between the last step and the floor with a grunt, but I didn’t slow. I raced past the cells, trying to outrun what I saw. Outpace Nyktos’s
words.
You are brave and strong.
The bars lining the cells were a blur as I passed them, reaching the end of the first hall. I went left as pressure clamped down on my chest.
You will be a Consort more than worthy of their swords and shields.
The shadowstone walls crowded me as I tried to escape myself. My stupid heart.
My foolish ideas of him—of Nyktos. Of what I could mean to him. Of what he meant to me. There was no running away from them as I fell against the door at the end of the hall. Each breath I took hurt as I pressed my forehead against the wood, squeezing my eyes shut against the welling dampness. But it was too late. My cheeks were damp, even though I didn’t cry. I didn’t allow myself that.
I clamped my jaw shut as I slammed my palm against the door, searching for anger. For fury. But all I found was grief. Hurt. Disappointment. In him. In me.
I shouldn’t have made that deal with him. It was never pleasure for the sake of pleasure. I’d been lying to myself then. I could see that now. I wouldn’t have been so torn up over what my betrayal had done to him if it was only about that. I wouldn’t have wanted him and only him.
And for him to demand that I seek pleasure from no one else? How
dare he?
Hands shaking, chest aching, I found the handle and yanked it open. I staggered into the dimly lit cavern of a chamber, closing the door behind me. I backed up, shoving my hands over my face as the pool trickled softly behind me. My fingers were wet, and I…I shouldn’t have allowed this.
“Oh, gods,” I whispered hoarsely, trembling.
I shouldn’t have let myself feel anything. I should’ve known better. I had been trained better than this. I was smart. Fierce. Empty. Cunning—
The image of Veses curled around Nyktos assaulted me, and I saw her moving against him. Feeding from him. And I remembered what his bite did to me. I couldn’t forget how shocking that pleasure had been. Had she made her bite hurt like Taric had with me? Or did she give him the same kind of pleasure Nyktos gave me? I saw his white-knuckled grip on the arm of the chair. She had his blood in her. Did she have anything else inside her? With her gown, I couldn’t—
Gagging, I spun around and bent, clasping my knees as the crack in my chest shook and shook. I straightened suddenly, staring straight ahead but seeing nothing of the pool’s dark beauty. His pool.
He’d told me there had been no one before me. And his supposed lack of experience? How I believed him to be a fast learner? I closed my eyes, but it didn’t stop me from seeing Veses again, so comfortable with touching him. I once more saw her in his lap, and I flinched.
I should’ve fucking known.
Nyktos couldn’t love. Maybe he could care, but whatever stopped someone from doing that had to come from the same place that love did. The same place attachments were held. Bonds that ran deeper than blood. I should’ve expected there would be no such loyalty to me.
I laughed, the sound shocking and strange. My eyes peeled open as I grew hot. Reaching for the clasp on my cloak, I tore it free, letting it float to the ground, where it trembled. I wouldn’t have given a damn if he’d slept with half the mortal realm and Iliseeum before me. But he had lied, and none of my lies made his sting any less. Because what I saw was today. Not before. He had her in his office, in his lap, and she had been feeding from him, doing the gods only knew what else. After me.
After he’d told me how brave and strong I was. How worthy I was. After he’d told me I had never been a ghost to him. After I’d felt safe with him. Slowly, I turned to the stone table and…I could see us there.
The anger finally came, pouring into me, filling my veins, and seeping through my bones. Rage flooded the crack in my chest, swallowing the vibrating embers, and what came rushing back felt as rotten and decayed as the nymphs. Fire swept through me, seizing my lungs as I stared at the stone table. Safe. I’d felt safe here with him. Safe enough to let myself want more. To feel. To live. To hope. Pressure built and built. Air charged around me and then stilled. The water stopped whispering. I trembled as I took a step forward, my mouth opening. The sound that came from me hurt my ears, and with it came a tidal wave of pain and fury and power—ancient, infinite power. Unleashed.
The stone table shattered into ashes.
Faint, flickering light and shadows danced against the now-bare wall. I looked down at my hands—at the widespread fingers lit from within. Silvery light pressed against the sleeves of my blouse as I shook, as dust drifted down, falling onto my wet cheeks. My blood and my lungs
continued to burn. I kept shaking—no, it wasn’t me shaking. It was the walls and the high, sweeping ceiling.
Heart tripping, I turned to the pool. The water tossed and tumbled violently but made no sound. Dust fell in thicker sheets like snow. Panic blossomed as the cloak appeared to vibrate along the floor. Pain lit up my chest. Real pain. I wasn’t breathing. I was holding my breath.
I forced my mouth open to inhale, but my throat felt bumpy and scaled now. Only thin wisps of air got through as I desperately went through Holland’s technique, struggling to control myself.
A fissure cracked along the wall, startling me. Another formed in the floor, sounding like thunder.
Oh, gods. I was doing this.
I needed to breathe, but I needed to calm first. I frantically searched for the veil in my mind as I sank to my hands and knees. In the distant part of my brain, I knew I was breathing too fast. That was the problem, but I couldn’t find the emptiness, the blank canvas I hated so much. I couldn’t find myself in the calm because I wasn’t sure I would even recognize myself if I did. That I would even know who or what I was.
A series of shivers ran up my neck and along the back of my skull. My fingers curled against the shadowstone floor as thin cracks spread out beneath me like a fine spiderweb. The embers in my chest vibrated as the fractures in the floor deepened. The corners of my eyes turned white. Stars began bursting all across my vision.
Something…something was inside the cracks in the floor, growing and spreading—
Roots snaked out of the split stone and soil, unfurling over my hands like vines, wrapping my wrists, arms. My stomach seized. What…what was happening?
I could see the ashy roots, but I couldn’t feel their weight against my skin. I couldn’t feel my legs or my face. Oh, gods, was this it? Was I dying now, and the ground was rising up to claim my corpse? It felt like that—felt like the realm was disappearing beneath me, and I could no longer feel myself. I was detached. Floating. Falling away—
Arms swept around mine, hauling my back against a chest, breaking the roots on my arms. They shattered into ash upon hitting the ground. Sera. I heard my name. I heard it spoken over and over until it broke through.
“Sera,” Nyktos shouted, hauling us backward as roots reached out from new cracks beneath me, falling over my legs—over Nyktos’s. He cursed, letting go of me long enough to grab one of the roots, snapping it off. “You need to slow your breathing. Listen to me,” he said, his voice softening. “Put your tongue behind your upper front teeth.”
The order caught me so off guard that I did as he ordered.
“Keep your tongue there and your mouth closed.” He leaned back, keeping me close as he straightened my posture even as the roots crawled up our bodies, crossing my chest. I jerked, whimpering as the vines encircled our waists. He grabbed at the roots again, wrenching them away. “Ignore them. Close your eyes and listen to me. Focus only on me. I want you to exhale to the count of four. Don’t breathe in. Just exhale. One. Two. Three. Four. Now inhale for the same count.” His hand went to the side of my neck and his thumb moved in short swipes against my pulse, to his counting. “Now breathe out for the same count. Don’t stop.”
I followed his instructions, not too different from what Holland had taught me. I breathed in for four counts and then exhaled for the same length. Nyktos quietly repeated the instructions, his chest rising and falling against my back in time with mine. Inhale. Exhale. Rise. Fall. Over and over as the roots wound their way around us, slapping over the hand at my neck, our shoulders—
“It’s not working,” a voice scratched from the shadows, sounding so very far away. I opened my eyes then, finding Rhain crouched before me. His eyes were wide as he broke off pieces of root. “You’ve got to stop this, Nyktos.” Black dust fell against his cheeks and into his reddish-gold hair. “Before it’s too late.”
Nyktos cursed behind me. The hand at my throat turned my head. Nyktos stared down at me, his skin too pale and too thin, but there were no shadows beneath his flesh. No eather filling his veins. Red marked his throat. Puncture wounds.
I jerked, pulling against his hold.
“Do it.” Rhain tore another root free. “Do it now, or she’s not only going to get herself killed but bring this whole damn palace down on our heads.”
“Fuck,” the Primal snarled, clasping the back of my head. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” His forehead touched mine briefly, and then he pulled back.
“Listen to me, Seraphena.” Eather swirled through his eyes, and his voice… it was deeper, slower. “Stop fighting me and listen.”
I stopped struggling. I listened.
Waited.
Once more an empty vessel. A blank canvas.
And when Nyktos spoke again, it was just one word, both a whisper and a yell that reached deep inside me, seizing me. Taking control.
Sleep.
