“Take it, Willa,” Niko growls, the rumble of his voice sending wave after wave of pleasure through me. “Without apology. Without remorse. Take everything you want without shame.”
His words strip me more surely than his hands ever could. I release myself from the binds of shame, giving over fully to the pleasure without worrying what it will cost. Without wondering whether I’ve earned it. I dig my nails into his scalp and tug him close enough to feel the curve of his smile against my center, thescrape of his stubble against my swollen lips. He sucks at the apex of my thighs, scrapes it gently with his teeth.
The ribbon at my throat squeezes in a steady pressure, others slipping over the tips of my breasts. The bite of pain mingled with the pure decadence of Niko’s mouth sends me careening wildly over the edge. I scream out, as warm pleasure spills through me and my magic bursts from where it’s been hiding behind my heart to dance with Niko’s death.
This time, it is not tinged with the shadows of anger or ruin. It is the pure magic of my heart—the magic of dreams. It shimmers around us, and together, we glow with the infinite color of the stars.
Niko’s strokes are languishing now, slow and soft, and I shudder as he drinks the last of my pleasure. My heart swells uncomfortably at the tenderness, and when he finally stands, dragging his body over mine, I think it stops beating altogether.
Because for a moment, it felt like Niko had given me my power back. But as the pleasure subsides and shame resumes its place, I wonder the cost of allowing him beneath my armor once more.
For so long, I defined myself on my ability to survive, but the Carrion King undoes any sense of reason I’ve ever possessed. A survivor does not lay their throat open before a predator, and certainly not one who has already lethally wounded them once.
Niko draws up to his full height, and suddenly, I’m sure I’m not ready for what he’s going to say next—not ready for his words to shatter through whatever walls remain around my heart. Because that’s what will happen: he will find his way into it, and then he will leave me, just as he did before. Just as everyone always does.
I open my mouth to say something first—to throw him out before he can decide to leave—but the words are lost as Niko leans down to kiss me. The taste of him and I swirls together along our tongues, as I fist my fingers in the collar of his shirt. Idon’t know whether it is to push him away or pull him closer—only that both will break me in the end.
Niko’s lashes flutter as he ends our kiss to rest his forehead against mine, the gesture oddly vulnerable. He exhales softly, a sound of relief—of respite from his pain. It is a reminder of the agony he endures, and it pulls something vulnerable from beneath my hatred and fear. Something I’ve tried so hard to keep buried since I saw him lifeless on the ground; since the absence of his heartbeat resounded louder than anything else in the universe.
This time, when I open my mouth, I know it’s to keep him here; to keep myself from ever having to endure his absence again.
But Niko shakes his head, the movement near imperceptible, even pressed together. “Don’t Willa,” he says sadly. “Don’t give because you’ve taken. Keep what is yours.”
I stare at him. Does he mean the pleasure? The kingdom?
Or far worse: Does he mean my heart?
“Promise me,” Niko says, his voice suddenly fierce and desperate. He grips both my hands in his. “Promise me you won’t let anyone take anything else from you. Not one more piece.”
I stare at him, the emotions in my chest warring so furiously, it’s impossible to name any of them. They rise up, stealing words from my tongue and reason from my mind.
“Promise me, Darling. You give up nothing. Not even to me.”
His words are a caress as pleasurable as anything he’d done with his hands or tongue. So, I find myself saying, “I promise.”
Niko’s eyes flutter shut for a brief moment, and then he is untangling himself from me. Straightening his clothes and smoothing his hair; removing any evidence of my touch.
“Does—does this mean…” I furrow my brow as my voice wavers, hating the uncertainty lingering at the edges of mymind. In Niko’s arms, I’d been sure of who I was, but now, standing bare and vulnerable before him, I feel the echo of my shadow behind me.
Malicious and hungry. Empty and shameful.
“Does this mean you’re going to stop fighting?” I finally ask.
I don’t know what I want him to say because I don’t even know what I’m referring to. Is he going to stop fighting for the island? Or is he going to stop fighting for me?
My shadow lingers above me.Death is selfish. It takes and takes and gives only emptiness in return. Its king is no different.
Though the whisper is just as saccharine in my ear as ever, in the wake of what just happened between us, something about them feels wrong. Foreign.
When Niko turns back to me, his gaze is indecipherable. It volleys between me and the shadow at my back, between rage and sorrow. “I will not ever stop fighting for what’s been stolen from me, Willa. In that, at least…you and I are twin flames.”
I open my mouth to reply, but the sentiment is lost along his lips as he touches them to mine. And suddenly, it is my own thoughts that overwhelm me instead of my shadow’s:Every beat of my heart sounds hollow without the accompaniment of his.
The words resound, even as a blade slices clean across my throat.
Chapter twenty-five
The betrayal in Willa’s eyes will be seared into my memory for the rest of my cursed life.
