Gentleness has never existed in the spaces between Niko and I—only desperate hunger and wild compulsion, both of which rage through me now. My skin is flushed and my head swims, and for the first time since I brought Niko back to life, I don’t feel the emptiness of shadows.
Only the fullness ofhim.
I yank his shirt open, sending a few gold buttons scattering to the floor. His skin feels so good beneath my nails as I run them down the carved planes of his chest to dip beneath the waistband of his pants. When I wrap my fingers around his length, he groans into my mouth. I consume the sound of his approval like its sustenance, as together, we careen back against the glass panes.
Niko presses me into the window, his body merciless, his ribbons slithering over me in time with his hands. He tears his mouth from mine to run his tongue along the lines of my throat, eliciting a desperate shudder that makes him laugh again. The low sound vibrates over my collarbones as he yanks down the flimsy lace of my nightgown.
The chilled air skates over my skin, pebbling the tips of my breasts as Niko devours the sight of me beneath him. His lips are tipped in that same wicked smile as I arch my back with a needy whimper, urging his mouth closer to where I need it.
I have spent so many months devoid of anything but fear. Fear of not being enough, fear of someone finally discovering the holes in my soul. But in Niko’s arms, beneath the obsessive attention of those onyx eyes, I don’t feel inadequate or ashamed. I feel whole.
I don’t think of what it will cost me, nor how long it will be mine to keep. I merely allow myself to drop into the depths of it and revel in the relief.
“Please, Niko,” I beg.
An abiding heat tightens at my core as Niko watches his death run lazily between my breasts, a slow, torturous caress that has me squirming beneath it. When he lifts his eyes to mine, my heart lurches up into my throat at the wild madness sparking through the fathomless void. Without breaking my gaze, his death slices through my nightgown and the fabric flutters to the floor at my feet.
Niko is still but for the slow roll of his eyes as he takes in every bare inch of me. It feels like flame erupts beneath my skin everywhere his gaze touches, and I writhe beneath him, pressing myself closer. “Please,” I plead again, not even sure what I’m pleadingfor.
Pleasure? Relief? Pain?
All of the things only he’s ever been able to give me.
Niko’s mouth twists at the word. “I have no interest in your manners,Your Highness.”He drags his finger lightly up my thigh, the motion as mocking as the title in his mouth. “I already told you…I want your hatred.”
He leans into the juncture of my throat, running a finger over where I ache for him. His touch is infuriatingly light over my clit,the hot tease of his breath over the curve of my neck igniting another spool of heat at the base of my spine. “Your violence. Yourfight.”
I whimper in frustration as he deliberately misses my clit; as the hold of his death lightens until every touch is only an echo.Not enough.
His eyes consume every bit of light as he whispers over my lips, “Give me your ruthlessness, Darling. Or get nothing at all.”
I feel his arrogant smirk more than see it, but it is enough to loosen my last tenuous tether to reason. I thread my fingers through his hair and drag his mouth to mine, kissing him with a fervor bordering on hysteria. It is a clash of tongues and teeth, of obsessive hunger and something far deeper I refuse to name.
I tighten my grip in his hair, and whisper, “Kneel before your Queen, Niko. Or get nothing at all.”
His wanton laugh still echoes sweetly between us, as I shove the Carrion King to his knees before me.
My heart stutters in my chest at how beautiful he is at my feet—all contrasts of shadows and light, soft and rigid. His hair tumbles over his forehead to frame the deep onyx of his eyes, the tattoos running down his throat stark against his pale skin.
He doesn’t move; he simply kneels, staring up at me from behind that dark curtain of lashes with cruel amusement. The bastard has the nerve to lick his fucking lips, a languorous draw of his tongue. Like he’s waiting.
“My Queen,” he drawls with a wicked tilt of his head.
Before I can replay his words in my head over and over, a siren’s melody designed to draw me into the insanity of beinghisanything,I pull his mouth to my core. Niko’s groan of satisfaction the moment he tastes me is deep and guttural, vibrating deliciously through my whole body as he runs his tongue from my clit to my entrance. It is the sound of a man starved, so I drape a leg over his shoulder to pull him closer.
Feeding him as he fed me, I grind on his waiting tongue, and take the pleasure I’ve been aching for. The kind that’s woven between the threads of every dream I’ve had since I banished him; that’s woken me up night after night, wet and hungry for something only the Carrion King has ever been able to deliver.
Satiation.
I no longer feel the ravenous hunger of my shadow tearing through me; the only pain now is the pain Niko deigns to give, as his ribbons wrap tighter around my throat, squeezing the air from me as his tongue works my clit. He wraps his hands around my waist, pulling me tighter against his mouth, sucking and licking in turn. My vision tunnels and my skin heats, as pleasure tightens and then unwinds through me, building and building until I think I’ll combust.
And when Niko adds a finger, I can’t help the loud moan that slips from me.
“Fuck, Willa,” Niko groans against me, his voice as undone as I feel. “You look so good above me,” he purrs, his praise warming me as thoroughly as his deft tongue. “So good when you take what is yours like the queen you are.”
I’ve hated the title since the moment it was bestowed, but as Niko whispers it over the my most intimate places, it sounds different. It sounds likemine.
Another finger, and I nearly collapse, as wanton heat wars with the ice of his death.
