No one commands the king, just as no one commands death. But Icommand both.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.” The words are a harsh exhale, like he didn’t mean to say them out loud. “Sometimes it feels like I’ve dreamed you into existence.”
He sways on his feet, and for a brief moment, I worry his pain has returned. But as I take in the pure adoration on his face, I realize it isn’t his pain that’s unbalanced him. It’sme.
That I stayed. That I want him for who he is, not who the world thinks he should be. I want the dark, the painful, the messy. Everything.
My entire life, I’ve never been anyone’s priority. Barely wanted, never cherished. Used up and cast aside when I was empty.
I’ve never had anyone look at me the way Niko does—like he sees beyond the immortality in my veins, beyond what I can do for him. He seesme.Just Willa. All the angry, ugly, wild parts.
And he’ll do whatever it takes to keep it.
It’s enough to bring a lump of emotion to my throat, one Niko swiftly forces back down as his fingers begin deftly working the apex of my thighs. I shudder and moan as he works me in soft circles, and I swear, I can feel the echo of his answering smile in my fucking blood.
My body sang for him before he’d ever touched me. And now, it responds to every caress, every kiss, like he draws every bit of pain and pleasure to the surface. I may command his death, but Niko commandsme.
His teeth dig viciously into his lip, as he watches his glistening fingers pull slowly back out. I whine, lifting my hips to meet his next thrust. Sweat has begun to bead on my skin, and my breasts have flushed a dark pink: all signs of my desperation formore.More of him to consume, more of his power—pain and pleasure combined in a potent elixir I’ll never be able to escape.
I reach up and thread my fingers into his hair, tugging his mouth to mine. He tastes of sharp mint and a hint of spice, remnants of the tea he drinks for his pain. I moan as he splays one hand at the small of my back, arching my hips further toward him.
It isn’t enough.
It’ll never be enough.
And once, I would have been ashamed of the voracious craving, of the way it pulses through me so viciously, I can hardly think beyond it. But with Niko, I’m safe enough towant.To dive headfirst into him, to let my obsession and my passion scorch everything else away.
“Niko,” I gasp against his mouth. “I need you inside me.” My lashes flutter as his thumb lightly brushes over my throbbing bundle of nerves. “Now.” It’s more of a plea than a command, but Niko needs no encouragement.
He’s already gathering me in his arms without breaking our kiss, his body steady against mine as he sits on the velvet bench with me on his lap. He tugs my nightgown down until it’s little more than a flimsy band of fabric around my waist, revealing my breasts to his waiting mouth. His hands splay out over my spine, grazing over the sharp bones of my hips. My skin burns beneath his touch, and shivers rise in its absence, the hot and cold sensations tightening my breath and feeding the growing ache deep in my core.
Our kiss is a desperate clash of teeth and tongues. I grip his waist harder between my thighs, dig my fingers into the muscles of his shoulders to claw my way closer. To steal his air, his taste, and make it mine. To get entirely lost in the sensations of him.
His eyes glint as they run voraciously down my body, devouring the tangle of hair haloed around my head, the heave of my breasts, the flush of my skin. He studies me with the same intensity he always has, and his breathing hitches as he takes in the state of me: flushed, sweaty, wanton. Entirely his.
“Fuck, Willa,” he murmurs, grazing both his palms over the curves of my calves. Up over my thighs to cup my ass, pressing and kneading until I wiggle desperately on his lap, furious and aching for more friction. “I have lived lifetimes, and nothing in this universe or the next feels like you. Likeus.”
His hard body is delicious against mine, hewn by the world he was thrust into. I run my hands over his tattoos, tracing the myriad of scars littering his back. My heart fractures as my fingertips bump over a particularly gnarled one knotted over his left shoulder blade. The world has carved so much from him, he’s learned not to expect anything tender.
Niko understands pain in a way no one else ever has. It’s what first drew me to him: the way he wielded it like a weapon rather than let it overtake him entirely. And now, here we are, with both our wounds splayed open and pressed together, made stronger and more beautiful by each place we’re intertwined.
As he hooks his finger gently beneath my chin and raises my mouth back to his, a mirror of the same awed humility he holds for me unfurls deep in my chest. I kiss him with abandon, before everything inside of my heart spills through the cracks he’s opened.
Because of course the place behind my heart—the pool of my magic—would be where Niko’s dug in; clawed through muscle and bone to make his home in the most magical parts of me. He is a wild dream, a dark fantasy of whimsy and wonder. He is possibility and power, care and compassion, and though mine is a power of imagination, I could never in a thousand years have dreamed him up.
I grip him tighter, determined not to allow him to slip between my fingers like wisps of smoke. I yank at his pants, pushing them down to his knees as he lowers his head to my breast, teasing the tip with his tongue before pulling it into the warmth of his mouth. I let out a breathy moan, arching my back mindlessly up toward him.
“Now, Niko,” I whine, my fingertips digging mercilessly into his back. He laughs against my skin, the vibration sending a tingle of pleasure radiating through me. The laugh dies in his throat, his breath catching, as I palm the hard length of his cock.
He stops breathing entirely as I run my fingers slowly over the ridges. Raising myself up slightly, I wrap my hand around his impressive girth and guide him to me. A gravelly groan escapes his throat as the tip of his cock slides through my arousal. As he feels just how wet and desperate I am.
“Star above, you’re fucking soaked,” he rasps. His eyes go lidded as I grip him more firmly, sliding the head of him slowly over my clit. “You feel so good…Like—”
His words cut off with a choke, as I position him at my entrance.
“Like heaven?” I offer.
“Like sacrilege,” he growls, before pulling my hand away and lifting his hips to enter me in one firm thrust. I throw my head back as my walls clench around him, adjusting to the delicious fullness. And isn’t that how it’s always been between us? Niko stretching my limits, stripping me down piece by piece until I’m the purest version of myself.
