Her shoulders hunched, and the pain of her loss echoed in Niko’s own chest. “I should have ripped out his tongue by the roots rather than stabbing him in the heart,” he muttered. “Death would’ve been too good for him.”
To his surprise, Katerina laughed. It was a bright, chiming sound, at odds with the growing gloom, and his eyes widened in startlement. “What?” he said.
“Nothing. It’s just good to have a champion again.” She smiled at him with so much genuine affection, his eyes stung. “Even one who takes such pleasure in dismemberment.”
Despite himself, Niko smiled back at her. “I will always fight for you.”
Silence settled between them, more comfortable than before. Katerina broke it. “Well, the fighting’s done, for now. We’re here, my Shadow. We survived. We’re together. Tomorrow is a new day, but for tonight…” She ran a languid hand through her hair, working through the tangles, and looked up at him from beneath her lashes. “Perhaps we can finish what we started earlier, to pass the time.”
Was she flirting with him, after all that had transpired? “You’re in the mood for that?” he queried, just to be certain.
His Dimi shrugged, giving him the arrogant smirk he’d missed so much. “Well, they do say that, after a fight, Shadows seek release in a bottle or a lover’s bed.”
Amused, he quirked an eyebrow, remembering the last time she’d said those words to him. Then, she’d lobbed them at him in fury, an accusation. And in return, he had bared his heart and knelt at her feet, then claimed her body with a ferocity that had marked them both.
“Do they now,” he said, his voice husky.
A flush rose on Katerina’s cheeks, and he was sure she was recalling the same thing: the way she’d pressed her hand to his Mark, unraveling his control with a single touch; the way he’d worshiped every inch of her as her magic caressed his skin.
She tilted her head, looking up at him from beneath her lashes. “We haven’t so much as a dram at our disposal. And I have no bed to offer you,” she said, gesturing at the leaves on which they sat. “But perhaps you’d be amenable to an alternative.”
She reached for him, and by the Saints, he wanted nothing more than to bury himself in her body. To sink into the only place where he’d truly felt he belonged, more than Kalach or Iriska or even his pack. He wanted to feel her heat clutching at him, her nails scoring his back, her breath heating his skin. More than anything else, he wanted to feel her love. Maybe in her arms, he could forget, at least for a little while, what he’d become.
But how could she forget? How could she ever accept him now?
You are nothing, Elena’s voice snarled inside his head. Nothing but what I made of you.
She’d said it again and again, when he refused to do her bidding. Was he to be haunted by her still, even here, aboveground where she couldn’t follow?
Inside him, his black dog growled, sensing a threat. But the Vila was mere voice and vapor. The dog was a creature of action, and there was nothing for it to kill.
Rage and despair pulsed through their bond, and Katerina winced. “I can imagine what you’re thinking of, but you’re here, with me. You are safe now.”
His Dimi’s voice was soft, careful. He’d never heard her speak to anyone this way before, and certainly not him, as if he were fragile, to be safeguarded. Self-hatred spiraled inside him. How had it come to this: coddled like a child, huddled in the woods outside the village he’d laid down his life to protect over and over again?
“Tell me what’s troubling you, Niko, beyond what happened in Kalach tonight.” She cupped his face in her hands, and it was all he could do not to jerk away. “Talk to me, so we can work through this together.”
He shook his head, not wanting to speak. Words had power, and once loosed in the world, they could take shape and form. Elena had taught him that well enough. Crawl to me, my Shadow. Worship me. Tell me I am your queen and you will never love another.
He hadn’t wanted to do it. Every inch of him had recoiled. But in the end, he had crawled, as she’d demanded. Heedless of the splinters in that cursed cottage’s floor that stabbed his skin and the shards of agony that pierced his heart, he had crawled to her on his hands and knees and done exactly what she demanded. Bile had risen in his throat and sickness had permeated every inch of his body, but Saints help him, he had obeyed.
Touch me or I will find a way to hurt her, she’d snarled at him when he faltered. Pretend I am her and I will know. And when he’d closed his eyes, desperate to escape, to believe he was somewhere, anywhere else, she’d forced them open. Look at me. See me. Worship me until I scream your name.
He’d wanted to make her scream his name, all right, for entirely different reasons. One day, he would. One day, he would make her bleed. The last words on her lips would be his name, right before he tore out her throat. He had vowed it, night after night. That anger, that promise of revenge, had been the only way he’d survived. But it had eaten away at him, he could see that now. Above and beyond his bond with the creature of Darkness that Elena had become, his need for revenge had become a sickness. It had gnawed its way into his frayed soul and let more shadows in. The irony of it—that he, a Shadow, destined to cleave to his Dimi and fight forever at her side—should be felled by his very namesake was thick enough to choke on. Or it would be, if he wasn’t already choking on shame and regret.
Katerina brushed his hair back from his face, her touch feather-light. He couldn’t help himself; he leaned into it, each caress of her fingertips sending lightning forking through his veins. He wanted impossible, contradictory things: for her to hold and comfort him; to cradle her like a child and promise to keep her safe; to rage at her for saving him and endangering herself; to thank her; to kneel at her feet and worship her body like a Saint’s shrine; to strip her bare and take her, fast and hard and vicious, reminding them both that they had survived.
He looked away and answered her question, instead. “That one day, you’ll look at me and see only Darkness. That it will eat away at the man you love—and that in turn, it will destroy you.”
“That will never happen.” She leaned her forehead against his, so that they breathed the same air, thick with the scents of the forest, the fading reek of demon blood, and the current that ran between the two of them, fast moving and dangerous as any tide. “I look at you and I see goodness, Niko. I see strength. I see you. And I choose you. Always.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” He pulled back, though it pained him to do it. “I called the Darkness to me tonight, for Saints’ sake. And it came, as if it belonged there. It’s as Baba always said: like calls to like. I’m corrupted, Katya. Baba sees it, and you should, too. You should leave me?—”
Rage flashed in her eyes, and he felt her magic flare, heating his Mark. The bond between them was tighter than it should have been, somehow, their connection more intense. Was this the fault of the Darkness? He had no time to reflect on what it meant, though, because Katerina had grabbed him by his shoulders and was shaking him, as if to shake sense into him by force.
“Don’t you ever say that again! You wish to rage at me, fine. Yell at me for risking myself to save you, tell me all the ways I am careless, impulsive, arrogant, a fool. I care not. But I will never leave you, do you hear me? I strode into the depths of Hell to save you, armed with nothing more than my own will, and I would do it again. I would do it a thousand times if it meant I could free you from that bitch’s clutches and have you by my side. I will take you in any form, in any way, and I will heal you, because we are meant for each other.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Or do you no longer believe that? Did she carve your faith in me from your soul, when she stopped your heart?”
