“I’m fine.” She sent an infusion of heat into the water, allowing it to encircle them both and sighing when Niko stepped back, as if intent on punishing himself. “Or at least, I’ll be better when you’re honest with me. Were you simply sleepwalking? Or is this something more?”
Niko had never lied to her, at least not by commission, and he didn’t start now. Folding his corded arms across his chest, he said, “Define more.”
By the damned Saints. “You know what I mean. I know you dream of her, but this—having her command your body this way—is this not the first time?”
Shame heated her Shadow’s cheeks. “I hear her all the time. Waking, sleeping.” The admission was reluctant, each word barbed, as if dragged from him by fishhooks. “The closer we get to the time I’m cursed to return to her, the louder her voice becomes. The stronger her pull. During the day, I can fight her. I can block her out. But when I’m asleep, when my guard falls…”
His voice trailed off, but Katerina didn’t need him to complete the sentence. This much, she’d known, even if Niko hadn’t voiced it before. “She invades your dreams,” she said. “She calls to you.”
Niko ran a hand through his hair, sending water droplets splattering. Above them, branches bent in the wind, as if in response to his frustration. “She makes me promises,” he said at last. “She tells me you’re better off without me. That I belong with her. That I am nothing more than what she made of me, and that if I come to her now, she will spare you.”
Katerina spluttered, too furious to speak. The wind gusted harder, and this time she only had herself to blame. “Elena is a liar,” she bit out at last. “You know that, right? That she deals only in threats and falsehoods?”
Her Shadow did not reply.
“Niko.” She dropped her voice. “Tell me you don’t believe her. Tell me you don’t think you need to protect me from her. I bested her once, and I’ll do so again.”
His form shimmered in the moonlight, the way it did on the verge of his Change. For an instant, Katerina thought he intended to shift into the form of his black dog and end this conversation once and for all. A moment later, she wasn’t sure that was what she was seeing at all. Under the splintered, cloud-stained moon, darkness seemed to outline his body, blacker even than the night. Then he drew a deep breath, and was himself once more.
“You are so beautiful.” The words were a low rumble. “You are all I ever wanted. No matter what happens, please believe that.”
Oh, Saints, no. “Don’t say goodbye to me, Niko!” Her voice was sharp, carving through the air between them. “Don’t you dare do that. Is there nothing that silences her?”
He sighed, the movement stirring the water. “I sleep better in your arms.” His gaze met hers, raw and searching. “But I can’t ask that of you, Katya. I won’t use you to drive her back. I’m a danger to you; when will you accept that? What happened tonight proves it.”
Tears pricked her eyes. Her presence, her touch, drove Elena away. And what had Katerina done when her Shadow begged for her help, asked her to take his life to save them all? Hurt and afraid, she’d abandoned him when he needed her most.
She would never do such a thing again.
“When I hold you,” she said, her voice soft, “when we’re together, it loosens her grip?”
Niko’s silence was his assent.
“Do you hear her now?”
Her Shadow shrugged. “With you this close, her voice is muffled. Something about your presence…if she’s poison, you’re the antidote. As hard as she pulls to drag me down to her, you exert equal force to keep me here. The closer I am to you, the clearer I feel. But?—”
She cut him off before he could go any further, opening her arms. “Then come here, Niko. Come here and kiss me, and let me erase her touch.”
Stubbornly, he shook his head. “You have to go.” He gestured desperately at the shoreline. “Get dressed. And I…I’ll take care of this.” His gaze fell to the lower half of his body, concealed by the water. “I won’t trouble you again, Katerina, I promise.”
Oh, for the love of everything they held holy.
She brought the flat of her hand down hard on the water, sending a spray through the air. “And who will take care of me?”
Niko’s eyes widened. “I?—”
“I’m serious, Niko. You’re awake now, and you clearly still want me…”
“That’s an understatement,” he muttered.
“And I want you,” she pressed on. “I want you inside me. I want your mouth and your hands on my skin. In my mind, I know why we had to stop. But my body and my heart? They know only that we started something we didn’t finish.”
His gaze found hers at last, dark with lust and pain in equal measure. “Katya. I can’t.”
“Please,” she whispered. She wanted him, yes. But more than that, she wanted the space that separated them gone. The need to show him that they belonged together was visceral, as if her body and soul knew something her conscious mind did not. She trusted it, the way she trusted her own magic. And so she stepped forward, closing the gap between them, and gave him a slow, wicked smile.
Niko’s gaze slid over her again, but this time, it wasn’t solicitous. This time, it scorched, as if he were the firewitch. “Don’t beg me, Katya. Or I’ll do something we’ll both regret.”
