His mouth, his hands, hisdeath—all of it mirrors my own insatiability. Like the feel of him has set me aflame, and now I happily burn at his pyre. With each orgasm, the wall I built between us crumbles a little more, until I’m bare before him, nothing more than shaking ruins and wreckage.
And when hefinally—mercifully—releases me from his ribbons and sinks inside me, my magic erupts from my skin to dance with his death. I am stretched, full, and I want to sob at the pure splendor of it. How had I not truly understood the numb hollow inside me until he filled it? How had I not understood that Niko, and his magic, has never been somewhere to lose myself? He is the anchor that grounds me when I’m lost; no matter his darkness, he is the light that calls me home.
Seated fully inside me, he pulls me up to his chest so that we’re face to face. And when we begin to move, it is in perfect synchronicity. A commandment; a penance; a reckoning.
Niko pistons his hips upward, his gaze devouring the bright flush of my skin, the sinuous twisting of my body. I rake myfingers through the silky strands of his hair, magic rippling from me as I ride him. No longer stained with shame or guilt, it shimmers with infinite possibility.
And when I meet his gaze, I drown in the depths of his death.
“We endure.” Though phrased as a breathless demand, Niko sees it for what it truly is: the most delicate dream I possess.
He nods. “Yes, Darling. Always.”
At his words, I let go—let go of everything I’ve held onto for the past year alone: the bitterness, the fear, the shadows, the burdens—until I am light as air in Niko’s arms.
He devours my cry of pleasure, sweeping his lips over mine as I fracture once more, finally free from the restraints I’ve held myself in. Digging his fingers into my hips as I clench around his cock, Niko thrusts once more, before spilling into me with a satiated groan.
We remain entangled for a few breathless moments, my hands still buried in Niko’s hair, his death still laced around me like silk. My heart is as raw as my body—like one word will shatter it to dust. And perhaps Niko feels the same, as he leans his head against my sternum, holding me quietly.
“I missed this,” he whispers after a few long moments. “The sound of your heart.”
The vulnerability of his words—the echo of my own longings in them—disintegrates whatever remains of the armor I’ve held up against him. Tears blur my vision as I pull back, allowing myself to take Niko in fully for the first time without fearing how I will be broken by it. The slash of dark brows and long lashes against his moon-pale skin; the sharp rise of his cheekbones; the soft pout of his mouth.
His is a cruel cut beauty, one that embeds itself in my heart. Because in a lifetime bereft of loveliness, his is overwhelming in its splendor.
I crinkle my brows, drawing my fingers along the tattoos beginning beneath the ridge of Niko’s jaw. The spiraling stories that speak not only to the wonder of the universe, but to the wonder ofhim.Tattoos that were inked only in black before his exile, are now entwined with soft whorls of color, woven through each of the tales. He shudders, as I trace a thread of deep purple beginning behind his ear and trailing lazily down his throat.
Niko tugs me into the crook of his arms, leaning us both back into the mattress, but I don’t let him tuck a blanket over us. I keep running my hands over the new ink, for just as he’d been denied my body, I’ve been denied his. And I’m determined to learn everything I missed while he was gone.
With a start, I realize all the new threads are connected—each color a part of the same tale, the interwoven lines all coming together above his heart.
“What is this story about?” I ask timidly, feeling as though I have no right. Something like dread twines around me as I wonder which tale he found significant enough to keep permanently. I’d once memorized everything about him, and I hate there’s so much I don’t know.
Though he doesn’t open his eyes, a faint smile graces his face. “Dark dreams and selfish passions, as the best stories always are.” His hand splays over my lower back, pressing me into the hard length of his body, molding me into him. And when his eyes flick open, I want to fall into what’s reflected in the obsidian depths. “It is the story of us, Willa.”
My heart stutters in my chest, like its beat is reordering itself to the rhythm of his.
“The truest of them all, and the only one that brought color to a lifetime of death.”
Chapter thirty-six
My skin is fire, a flame to consume anything that dares come too close. No matter how I contort, how far I retreat into myself, there is no relief from the heat. It scorches through me, eating away at my heart to leave only barrenness behind. Even when I wake, it does not abate. It burns behind my eyelids, at my fingertips, underneath my tongue.
“Sam!” My name in Adira’s voice is a breath of relief, and I turn my head toward the sound even though it hurts. “Thank the star above.”
The words are a muttered prayer, and I want to point out how wrong they sound coming from her. Adira does not praise the star—she is the wild, and that is what she worships. Until I realize perhaps the utterance isn’t for her at all.
After a few painful blinks, her face comes into view and the flame inside me gutters at the pure beauty of her. The dark curtain of her hair falls in silky tendrils to frame her face, her umber skin rich and warm in the soft light.
I reach for her—an instinct imprinted somewhere deeper than even my bones—but find my hands too heavy. Too unwieldy.
“Stay still,” she says, the command somewhat exasperated. “You’ll reopen your wounds if you move.”
Everything after I rushed to Willa’s side remains stubbornly out of reach of my memory. So, with a noise of frustration, I obey Adira, choosing, instead, to blearily gauge my surroundings.
“Am I…am I in your room?” I don’t mean it to sound nearly as stupid as it does, but my words slip from my grasp like wet stones, tumbling from my lips before I can measure them. My following grin is just as stupid as my words. “Am I in yourbed?”
Adira throws a hand on her hip, but a smile plays on the corner of her mouth. I want to feel it—to dip myself into the colors of that smile and revel in its softness—but as I reach for it, I only feel the lick of flame beneath my skin.
