He watches my every miniscule reaction with zealous fervor: the way my lashes flutter and my lips part; the way I squirm on top of him; dig my nails into his skin.
When I’m fully adjusted, my breath ragged and heaving, I lock my gaze onto his. I raise myself up, and slowly lower back down. Niko’s hands are at my hips, pressing into my skin, guiding me greedily, but his eyes never leave mine. I clench my muscles, and something akin to a snarl escapes him that drives into my brain and lights my veins on fire. I revel in his disarray—the way the Carrion King, normally so composed, comes entirely undone for me.
His lips skate over my throat and as I roll my hips, his answering moan of pleasure vibrates against my skin. “That’s it, Darling,” he purrs, the deep cadence of his voice sending tendrils of heat spiraling through me like an explosion. “Bury me inside of you.”
His ribbons begin to resonate in the air, wrapping around us until the room disappears from view. Cocooned in his power, the only thing I can see is Niko—moon-pale skin, the slash of dark brows over even darker eyes. Kiss-worn lips and disheveled hair.
The room grows ice cold as his death cages us inside our own world, and for a brief moment, through the devouring obsession and ardent worship, I feel his question. An open wound in his skin that leads straight to his heart below. An offering I understand in the depths of my bones.
He’s laying his heart in my hands and trusting me not to slice it wide open. Trusting me not to leave him alone and broken; as I’d trusted him when I told him I wanted to stay and prayed he’d fight for me. A vow never to give the other up. To hold tight eternally—through blood and death and pain.
I give him what he needs; what I’vealwaysneeded. Not power, or hope, or peace—but home.
People speak about home like it’s something gentle: a soft whisper, a warm fire. But it’s rooted too deeply to be so ephemeral and delicate. Home is something with roots that spear through your heart, and wind around your bones until the very shape of you is changed. It’s something that calls to your blood, that speaks to violence should anyone threaten it.
Niko and I are all these things. We are both a haven and a wilderness; a place to rest and a place to kill for.
Home was never a trap. It is the purest form of freedom.
The feeling threads through me as I ride him faster, sweat-slick skin and the smell of our arousal lingering in the air around us.
“Tie me here, Niko,” I whisper breathlessly, my voice feral and wanton. Nearly unrecognizable to my own ears as pleasure ratchets up my spine, twists low in my stomach. Building like a surge of fire.
Niko moans in response, lifting his own hips to meet mine with rhythmic thrusts. My blood goes hot, and his fingers dig more firmly into my hips, as a ribbon wraps around my wrists to pin my hands around his neck. I gasp as the pain of it edges the pleasure of being filled by him, the world spinning with the ravening need sparking through me.
“Don’t ever give me up,” I plead, my legs going weak beneath me as Niko fucks me feverishly, marking and claiming me just the way I need. I cling to his neck as he devours my breasts like a man starved, his mouth hot and his tongue slick against my nipple. “Tell me if I try to run, you’ll chase me to the ends of the earth.”
Another thrust, and I throw my head back with a moan, clenching around his wide girth.
Niko laughs into my mouth, and it’s the most darkly decadent sound I’ve ever heard.
“Do you see the way I fit inside you, Darling? How perfectly your body grips mine?” His arms wrap firmly around my waist, and he grips me to him, leveraging himself to drive into me even harder. “You’remine,Willa. Your vicious, your savage, your fight. All of it belongs tome.”
Another ribbon winds around my ankles, pulling me harder against his every thrust. I can’t think beyond the pleasure he offers, beyond satiating the hot ache ravaging through me. His breath grazes my feverish skin like a cool breeze as he whispers, “As I belong to you. Wholly.”
My eyelids flutter as he wraps his fingers around my throat, firm enough to restrict my breathing. Because my king knows that I chase pain with the same fervor I avoid it: knows that only the sharp blade of agony can edge pleasure beyond comprehension.
He angles his hips, fitting himself perfectly against the spot that makes stars explode behind my eyes.
No. Not behind my eyes. From my skin.
Actual starlight spills from me, lighting up the darkness in the womb of Niko’s death, bathing us both in ethereal color as we move together. Sparks fly through me, a storm of lightning building higher and higher until I am entirely electric.
His hand stays firm on my throat, the other moving between us to deftly circle my throbbing core. I writhe desperately, yearning and undone. His name pours from my mouth over and over.Niko, Niko, Niko.A chant, a prayer; a desperate plea for more. Harder. Closer.
“Willa,” he purrs, my name in his voice restless and wild. A song, just like the one he’d played me on the piano. Both sadness and hope, savage freedom and calm sanctuary. And that’s what Niko is—a soft place to land and the edge of a blade.
I’ve never had either—never had someone who understands me so fully. My darkness, my pain, and beneath it all, the hope weaving together the delicate filament of dreams.
“Willa,” Niko says again, as my nails dig into his skin hard enough to draw blood. A beautiful onyx, just like his eyes—like his magic. Likehim.
My core pulses, pleasure ratcheting up my spine, sparking over my skin until I’m dizzy with him. The taste of him on my tongue, the tug of his fingers woven through my hair, the icy feel of his ribbons at my wrists and ankles.
“Look at us,” he breathes in wonder as more shimmering colors pour from me. Not starlight at all, but the essence of dreams. The ones built by hope and held tight by desperation. Because who is more desperate than a dreamer?
It spills from me, iridescent and sparkling against the pure, consuming black of Niko’s death. Irrevocably woven together, light and dark, nothingness and everything.
“Niko,” I gasp, holding on for dear life as he takes me in a relentless rhythm.
