He folded his hands together over his belly, pressing them down.
Lust. That was what he felt for Ember, wasn’t it? Consuming, mind-clouding lust, and he’d allowed it to metamorphose into obsession. Acting upon those desires only inflamed them.
He’d experienced a deluge of lust with Sarnessa. He knew its feel, its flavor. He recognized it in himself now, albeit a hundredfold purer and stronger than anything the succubus had roused in him.
Because it’s not mere lust, not simple obsession…
Nyte breathed deep. He could taste nightfall on the air, could feel the lunar magic of the coming moon thrumming allaround him. But it paled in comparison to this thing inside him. This immense, complex emotion that had spread into every mote of his being.
This enthralling, all-encompassing thing, at once so overt and so subtle, this feeling that was unlike anything he’d ever felt, anything he could ever have conceived, that ran so vast and deep. Wonderful and terrible and frightening and inspiring.
No, it wasn’t merely lust or obsession, not even close. This was new, and though he didn’t know how to hold it, how to tend it, he knew what it was called.
This was two souls reaching for each other across an unfathomable, unforgiving abyss. Two hearts drawn together by a force stronger than any other bond, whether magical or physical, transcending even fate.
This…was love.
He recalled the word Starling had used.
Soulmate.
And tonight, when the magical tether binding him to Ember dissolved beneath the glow of the full moon, he had a choice to make. He had to define what freedom meant to him, what it would look like…
As he lay here contemplating it, he was increasingly sure of what he wanted it to be. Of what he wanted to give his dear little witch.
Tonight, he would gift her?—
“My beautiful Nyte.”
That familiar, seductive voice resonated around Nyte. It swept through him, invading his senses, his body, his mind. Once, it would’ve enticed him, would’ve aroused him. Would’ve had him on his knees eager to obey.
Now it only made his skin crawl and his shadows roil.
Sarnessa’s scent enveloped him, fragrant and enticing. He felt weight pressing down on his pelvis and the brush of hairover his shoulders before she appeared over him, straddling his hips, her arms caging his head on either side.
Her pitch-black eyes stared into Nyte’s as she smiled. “Hello, my love.”
Sarnessa lowered her head, dropping her full, dark lips toward his.
Nyte shoved her off, dissipating to shadow in the same instant and rematerializing himself several feet away from the bed. His entire being buzzed with alarm, with wrongness, with fury.
She laughed, lying on her back atop the bed with her knees bent and thighs parted. All her crimson skin was on display. Curved black horns jutted from her long, raven hair, which was spread around her head.
She arched her back, clawed toes digging into the bedding as she ran her hands up her chest to cup her breasts and frame her hard, dark red nipples. “Ah, my Nyte, how I’ve missed you.”
He clenched his fists at his sides, battling the impulse to clutch at his chest, which throbbed with echoes of that old pain. “The feeling isn’t mutual, and I amnotyours.”
Sarnessa stuck her bottom lip out in a pout as she turned onto her side, propping her head on her palm. “You’re still angry with me?”
“That’s much too mild a word.”
“You were in the Pit of Despair for four hundred years. Had I known, I would have gone to you sooner to rectify what happened. To explain.” Her expression turned sultry. “To make it up to you.”
“To explain?” He laughed humorlessly, tail slashing the air as shadows coalesced around him. “I should tear the still-beating heart from your chest and shove it down your throat. You can explain while you choke on it.”
Her dark brows furrowed, and she pushed herself up, slipping off the bed to stand. “Do you know what it’s like to be a slave to hunger? To feel that relentless, gnawing ache, to be tormented by an unquenchable thirst from the very first moment of your existence?”
Sarnessa approached him, her hips and breasts swaying sensually. “You sated that hunger, my love. Left me feeling sofull. Didn’t you want that for me? To end my suffering?”
