A shadow in the ember

He stared at me. His features were too heavy with need for me to read anything else from them. “Don’t lie to me now, even if you do so in such a pretty way.”

“I’m not lying,” I swore. I wanted him to believe me. It was the truth. “I’ve never felt this either. Never.”

A muscle ticked along his jaw. “I don’t have very much control right now,” he stated thickly. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t.”

A pulse ran through him, every part of him, and I felt it deep inside me. “You don’t know that. I don’t.”

“You didn’t when you fed,” I reasoned, smoothing my thumb across his jaw. “You won’t now.”

“Your faith in me…” His hand curled into my hair. “Is admirable but reckless.”

“Your fear is misplaced,” I returned, drawing my legs up to his hips. Both of us lost our breath. Pressing my knees against his sides, I rolled him onto his back, an act that was only successful because I caught him off guard—an act that punched the air from my lungs at the exact moment it sent pleasure thundering through me as the change in position intensified the feel of him, somehow bringing him even deeper. I planted my palms on his chest, steadying myself. “But I am reckless.”

Nyktos’ answering growl spun its way around me. “Good gods…” He stared up at me as my hair slid forward, brushing his chest. The wounds were gone there, and almost completely invisible on his lower stomach.

Relief spun through me as I looked up at him. His eyes were a kaleidoscope of silver and white. His features had lost some of their sharpness, but I could still see the shadows under his skin, causing a beautiful marbling effect. I moved tentatively, rocking forward. “Is this…is this how you plan to kill me?”

“No.” I lifted until just the tip of him pressed in and then slid back down until there wasn’t an inch between us.

“You sure?” he asked. “Because I think you are.” One of his hands went to my waist. The other gathered up one side of my hair, holding it back as I rolled my hips. His heavy-hooded gaze held mine and then shifted to the mass of curls he held, before moving to my breasts and finally to where we were joined. “And I think I’m going to enjoy this ma

Heart thumping, I let my head fall back as I reached up, curling my fingers around his wrist. I drew his hand to my mouth, where I pressed a kiss to the center of his palm and then slid his hand down, over my breast. I shuddered as I rocked in a slow, torturous tempo, still dragging his questing, exploring fingers down over my belly, to where we were joined. I pressed his fingers against the tight, sensitized bundle of nerves there, crying out as a sharp curl echoed from deep inside me.

“Fuck,” he groaned, his hips rearing off the bed, lifting both of us. “You feel too good, liessa.”

Liessa.

My head snapped forward, and my eyes opened. His words, the friction of each withdrawal and subsequent return, his teasing fingers built a storm of sensations that quickly turned into a swirling knot of deep tension. I was close, my fingers spasming around his, and my nails digging into his shoulder as Nyktos followed my lead, his hips rising to meet mine. Soon, there was no real sense of rhythm as we moved against each other. It was pure instinct, driven by a shared need, one that pushed us closer and closer to an edge that I toppled over. I called out his name as the tension broke, and waves of release rippled through me. I slid forward, both hands on his chest as he thrusted faster, angled deeper. Shocks of pleasure cascaded through me when he wrapped his arms around me, pulling my chest to his. Holding me tight, he rolled me under him, his hips thrusting deeply, just once. He came, his head buried in my shoulder as he shuddered through his release.

I held him through it, ru

And it didn’t.

Nyktos slowly lifted his head. My hands stilled on the length of powerful, corded muscles lining his back. He stared down at me. Was he counting my freckles again? Seeing if they’d mysteriously changed? Or would he kiss me? I wanted him to kiss me.

His lashes swept down, shielding his eyes, and then he rolled off me onto his back, lying beside me on the bed.

I didn’t move. Not for several minutes. I couldn’t. It took everything in me to push the knot back down my throat, to hastily stitch up the cracks racing across my chest. Had I honestly thought he’d kiss me? After what he’d learned? He wanted me—my blood and my body. He needed that as badly as I needed to know what it felt like to have him inside me. That didn’t include kissing. Kissing felt far more…intimate and forbidden now.

Swallowing through the burn, I looked over at him. He was on his back, one arm tossed above his head, and the other resting in the space between us. He wasn’t staring at the ceiling. He was looking at me.

“How?” Nyktos demanded. “How can you be so convincing?”

I tensed, thinking at first that he was talking about what we’d just shared. But then I realized that he wasn’t looking at me. He was watching, prying into me. Reading. “You’re reading my emotions.”

“All things considered, that act doesn’t even register against what you pla

“That doesn’t make it any less rude,” I retorted.

“I suppose not, but you didn’t answer my question. How are you so convincing?” Nyktos asked. “Were you also taught that?”

A wave of prickly heat washed over me. “I was not taught how to force emotion.”

One eyebrow rose. “But weren’t you? Tell me, Sera. Would that not be a part of the seduction? Of leading me to love you? To make me believe you feel something for me?”

Guilt crowded some of the anger, but not all. “First off, we didn’t know you could read emotions. If we had, then I probably would’ve been schooled on how to feel something so deeply that even I began to believe it was real.”

His eyes flared a bright silver.

“Secondly, why would I fake anything I’m feeling now? There’d be no point. It wouldn’t save my people, even if I succeeded,” I pointed out. “And, finally, need I remind you not to tell me what I’m feeling?”

Nyktos’ jaw hardened, and a long moment passed before he turned his head away.

I stared at the harsh lines of his face, fighting the urge to yell. To just scream until my throat went raw. Somehow, I managed not to. “Did you take enough blood? Honest?”

A heartbeat passed. “More than enough.”

“Good.” Tangled hair fell over my shoulders as I sat up.

He went on alert in an instant as I looked around for something to put on. The clothing was ruined, but at least all I had to do was walk through a door. I started to scoot toward the edge of the bed—

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Stopping, I looked over my shoulder. “To my bedchamber?”

His eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Why…wouldn’t I?” My heart tumbled. “Or am I supposed to be sent somewhere else? To those cells you referenced?” I stiffened. “If so, can I at least find some clothing you didn’t ruin?”

A strange thing happened then. He seemed to relax. And a faint grin appeared, softening the angles of his features. “Yeah, I did ruin that gown.”

I stared at him, caught between disbelief and a mess of a hundred other emotions. “I’m not sure why you’re smiling about that.”

“It will be a favorite memory for years to come.”

My eyes narrowed on him. “Well, I’m glad to hear that, but it’s not like I have a lot of clothes for someone to be tearing them off me.”

His molten silver eyes shifted to me. “You weren’t complaining when I did it,” he purred. “If I recall correctly, you were quite eager to get rid of that gown yourself.”

I was, but that was beside the point. Was he teasing me? Or was he…? My pulse kicked up. He couldn’t be. I dared a quick peek below his waist, and a shock went through me. He was more than just semi-hard and that was…well, that was impressive. Was that a Primal thing? Muscles deep inside me clenched as I lifted my gaze back to his.

His eyes met mine and then lowered. “You are sitting next to me, gloriously naked, and I am intentionally staring.”

“I can see that,” I remarked acidly, a

One side of his mouth tipped up again as he drew his teeth—his fangs—over his lips. “My mark on your unmentionables is quite fascinating to me.”

I looked down and sucked in an unsteady breath at the sight of the purplish-pink patch of skin and the two puncture wounds. A bolt of sharp-edged arousal darted through me as I remembered the push of his cock and pull of his mouth. “Pervert,” I tossed out half-heartedly.

“Can’t even argue with that.” He turned his head away. “I’m not putting you in a cell.”

“You’re not?”

“Why would I?” he countered, closing his eyes. “You should rest. So should I. We need to be prepared for whatever comes next.”

Kolis.

I swallowed again, somehow forgetting about that the moment I decided to feed Nyktos.

“Rest means sleeping, Sera, which usually requires that you lay down, unless you’re able to sleep sitting up. I would find that impressive if so,” he said. “But it would also be distracting.”

I opened my mouth and found myself at a loss for words. “You want me to sleep beside you?”

“I want you to rest. If you’re beside me, I don’t have to worry about what you may or may not do.”

I wasn’t exactly sure what he was worried about me doing if I wasn’t here, but being beside him when he was in such a vulnerable state as sleep seemed like the last thing he’d want since he obviously believed that the guilt I felt wasn’t real. That my unwillingness to carry through with my duty was just pretty lies. “Are you not concerned?”

“About?”

Shaking my head, I looked away from him. “Oh, I don’t know. Me attacking you?”

Nyktos chuckled deeply.

My brows flew up. “I’m not sure why you find that suggestion fu

“Because it is.”

I didn’t move.

“Go to sleep, liessa.”

That word again—one I knew could no longer mean something beautiful and powerful to him. It couldn’t mean Queen. I would never be his Consort now. A word that was now a mockery. Or worse yet, never meant anything to him.

An unexpected, dark pain flared in my chest at that realization—at how much it bothered me.