The Stars are Dying : (Nytefall: Book 1)

It was the second time in far too soon that I was sprinting faster than my lungs could cope. I didn’t have the luxury of leisure. When the king discovered the shattered keys and found me gone, he would figure out where I’d headed.

I clutched the key tightly, feeling its desire to aid me, but I wasn’t sure how to answer it, use it. I only prayed through my exertion it would hear my desperate call to free Nyte.

The castle came into view, and I took the same route around it. I had no bow this time and no choice but to dart right past the guard. He called out, alerting the others, but his large body couldn’t chase me through the fence. I tried to keep out of sight as more guards grew alert and the courtyard became a hunting ground.

The main doors were sealed, so I darted around for the cellar entrance. Fire tore through my thigh, and I cried out, falling instantly. My palms froze against the snow. It seeped through to the skin of my knees, and though it stung I was glad for the contrast that distracted me from the arrow protruding from my thigh.

Raising a shaky hand, I whimpered. Dizziness swept over me as I realized I needed to pull it free the same way it had gone in since it hadn’t struck right through.

I was running out of time.

With a cry I tried to pull the arrow out, but with the resistance and pain I swayed on my knees. Instead all I could muster was wrapping both hands around the arrow to snap the length with a sob.

Calls around me surged my adrenaline, smothering the pain enough for me to get back to my feet. I took a limp step.

Then another.

And another.

Then, with clenched teeth, I ran.

It couldn’t end here.

Voices grew, and I knew the guards would be closing in. I could have cried with relief as I made it to the hatch, hauling it open and slamming it shut behind me. I didn’t have a chance to notice if anyone had seen where I entered. I hastily descended, my grip tensing as my wet boots slipped.

Only a few meters down, my clumsy, slick footing became my downfall. I braced in time for the impact. The vibrations slammed through me, stunning me still and jolting a wave of disorientation through me that didn’t pair well with the dark. My body ached so badly I wished for it to be gone. For a second my mind was content to give up here in the lonely dark.

Drip, drip.

I tuned in to the familiar sound of leaking water.

Drip, drip, drip.

My chest warmed, pulsing in time with that sound. It grew, becoming urgent, and with the next pulse it stole my breath as if it had almost broken free from its cage.

“Get up.”

I turned entirely still as those two words came in a voice I’d thought I’d never hear again.

“Get. Up. Astraea!”

I surged upright. “Cassia?” My eyes filled, but I couldn’t see a thing. My chest was so warm and bright.

“You’re almost there.”

Her voice didn’t sound full. Not even close. It was like a whisper from within, and even if it was my own mind shaping my will to live and a determination to see this through, I clung to it with everything I had.

The wound in my leg was growing with intense pain and still bleeding, but I got to my feet, and without using the wall I walked, then jogged, then raced, down the passage. I was so close to Nyte. And even though he hadn’t shown for some time, I had to believe he still cared. That this wasn’t all a trick, and he would be able to save us all.

Light broke through the darkness, and a sharp sob escaped me. I didn’t stop to find him, somehow knowing he would be there waiting.

He wasn’t the only one.

I didn’t think I’d ever be able to explain what overcame me at the sight.

Nyte on his knees.

Three guards.

All holding a whip that restrained him like some animal.

By his wrists, stretching his arms wide. And around his neck.

I saw white. Both from my all-consuming rage and the key that flared to life. As the guards turned at my intrusion—shadowless—I detonated.

The key became a blade, so featherlight it was as easy to direct as a throwing dagger. My speed—I didn’t know where that came from, but they didn’t fall from the strike of the blade; a sheet of light surged from the key I’d made, and I watched in fascination, then horror, as it cut through all three of them.

I didn’t get a chance to react to the gruesome sight when the power that had sliced through them kept flying. It hit the veil, and my hands covered my ears at the high-pitched collision.

My blood raced as I watched the iridescent sheet crack like beautiful glass.

This was it.

As Nyte freed his wrists and unbound the whip around his neck, I was running again. Braced, exhilarated.

Clutching an arm around himself, Nyte rose weakly. Those beautiful amber eyes flicked up to me, momentarily stunned as if he didn’t believe I’d truly come.

A current began in my fingertips. My markings flared with the streaks of silver and gold that swirled around us. As if we existed in our own time. Our own void.

The electricity grew, the veil rippled to distortion, and my palm grew hot.

The key glowed so brightly I didn’t know how I was doing it, but I twisted it in my hand and didn’t think twice as I braced, slicing at the veil.

The world erupted.

White light stole my vision. I couldn’t feel the thump of my heart. I was floating, and during those seconds where I was suspended I wondered if this was death. Peaceful oblivion. Until I was unwanted by its claim, cast out to face my punishment instead, and then I was falling…

And falling…

So fast I thought the impact would shatter me.

Something wrapped around me like a tether urging me to reach back and slow myself down. So I did, giving over to the aid, and then all at once I was caught. Breath returned to my body, too much to inhale at once, and I spluttered. The sensations of the real world returned to me one by one. And they were all him.

The scent of mint and sandalwood. I thought I’d known it before, but this was so much more embracing. My fingers flexed against the thin material, but beneath I shivered at the solid feel of him that was unmistakably real compared to every other touch we’d shared.

I feared opening my eyes, but the moment they fluttered and I saw my hand on him, my pulse returned as a racing beat. I shivered violently with the cold that came back, demanding in its force.

As he shifted, I panicked. My fist clenched his torn shirt as though he would drift away, and so would the only thing I craved in the world.

His warmth.

I realized with a flood of emotion it was all that was keeping me from breaking against the agony of the freezing ice. Nyte pulled my cloak tighter around me and I fought the desire to slip my eyes closed, encased in his heat. Instead I finally looked up to find twin suns staring back at me. Concern and rage waged war as a fiery tango in those irises that burned so ethereally bright.

“Nyte,” I whispered.

His firm brow eased. “Starlight.”

He spoke with such clarity, and I didn’t want him to stop talking with the vibrations I felt under my palm.

“You’re real,” I said, my teeth bashing together.

Nyte tried to hug me closer as though it would transfer more heat. “After all this time, did you still doubt it?” he mused.

I chuckled, my vision blurry.

“I need you to keep your eyes on me,” he said.

I did, but my face was pained when I felt his hand approaching my thigh. “It hurts,” I breathed through the panic of him reaching for the arrow.

“I’m going to take it all away. Then kill every hand responsible for harming you.”

My teeth clenched as his hand curled around the broken end, but pain didn’t explode like I anticipated. Instead gentle notes lapped over me, a sense of calm and numbness.

“That’s it,” he said.

All I focused on was what he offered me within. I winced at the sensation of the arrow slicking out of me, but it only stung superficially.

He tore the cloak, wrapping the strip tightly around my thigh to quell the bleeding. Nyte remained on his knees, and I shuffled upright before easing up to straddle him, my heart galloping at the position. I was too greedy for his heat, pressing our chests together, and he didn’t move—not even when my frozen hands touched his face. He didn’t even flinch, allowing me every decision and action.

Under his collar my breath stuttered. He tensed when my fingers brushed the abrasions around his neck.

“What did they do to you?” I choked out.

He took my hand, brushing his lips to my bruised knuckles, which he noticed with a flex of wrath. His tender care fluttered in my chest. “Nothing I haven’t felt before.”

That didn’t help the ache that swelled within me. I pressed my forehead to his, not knowing how to release all my hurt for him. “I’m sorry they did that to get to me. I think I know why, but I don’t know how they knew about you. How I feel—” I stopped myself, stumbling with the confession I’d almost let slip, too afraid of what it meant.

Nyte took a deep breath, his fingers tangling into the back of my hair. “Don’t ever say you’re sorry. Not to me. There are still things you need to know.”

I shook my head. I couldn’t hear anything else right now. Drawing back, my eyes dropped from his golden gaze to his mouth. I’d kissed him before, and though it had been a masterful illusion that bent the laws of reality, this would be different. Stars, there was nothing I wanted more.

Maybe he heard that thought, because finally his hands touched my waist. They moved over me with careful precision, and I came alive at his touch.

Gravity needed no words, and as we both gave in at once…

The stars collided, and the sky became our palace.

Nyte was right. In this moment, I didn’t care if the stars fell and the world cracked. I didn’t care about anything but him. The taste of him, so raw and passionate; the way we moved as if centuries of resistance were pouring out violently. I whimpered against his mouth, opening mine for our tongues to clash feverishly. A low groan of pain emitted from him as our bodies pressed tighter together, my hands fisting his hair, and the same ache of explosive yearning tightened inside me. I didn’t want to ever part from this salvation he’d become.

Nyte took my pain and thawed the ice of my skin with blazing desire. His hands dipped under my shirt, and my brow pinched with his warmth. His warmth. I didn’t think I could get enough, and despite where we were, I wanted to feel every inch of his skin on mine for the heat we would create.

The hard length of him pressed to my core as my hips moved against him. He groaned into my mouth, and I shamelessly chased the pleasure. He hit my apex with every stroke.

“Astraea,” he breathed, leaving my lips to kiss my jaw, my neck. Though he’d told me he wasn’t a vampire, I couldn’t explain my urge for him to bite, feeling it was his desire too. His teeth scraped along my collar, and I moaned softly. “Not here. But fuck, I can’t tell you everything I’ve thought of doing to you.”

“I want you to tell me,” I said. Feeling bold, my fingers released his hair to travel over his shoulders and chest.

Our mouths collided again, turning demanding like time was fragile, both of us consumed by the fear something could pull us apart at any moment and we were prepared to be defiant.

Nyte slowed our kiss, turning soft and searching before his lips trailed along my jaw, and I caught my breath. Our hearts hammered against each other’s. My thighs tightened around him with scattered desire as he planted kisses back down my neck.

I had never felt like this. Never before had I been so wholly compelled that Nyte became a need, not a want. A dangerous drug to desire, but a sweet addiction nonetheless.

“I would have waited an eternity just for this,” he said.

I shivered at the delightful gravel of his voice blowing across my skin. My palm slipped from his nape to hold his jaw. He pulled back to allow me to look over every inch of him. Though we had come this close before and it had felt exhilarating, it was nothing compared to the real feel of him. As I reached my fingers toward his scar, his gaze remained thoughtful, pinched with notes of sorrow and vulnerability.

Brushing a strand of his midnight hair, I traced the long scar from his temple over his cheekbone. “Where have you been?” I asked quietly.

“Right here,” he said, reaching for a tangled silver strand, which he tucked behind my ear. “I’ve always been right here. Waiting for you.”

My mouth impulsively leaned down to meet his. I moaned at how easily we came together, the flutter in my stomach sending me flying, and my rage of desire burned against him.

Nyte gripped me, sure and tight. When I felt a familiar pull, I tightened around him as if we would be torn apart in this void. It stilled just as fast, and when the shadows dispersed we broke apart.

I knew exactly where we were.

The bell tower.

“Why did you bring us here?” I asked, not stepping away, but my breath was stolen by the view. The sun was setting, spilling serene warm hues like glitter on the top level of the city, and this time nothing in me surged with the urgency to be somewhere I’d never wanted to be anyway.

The castle glinted darkly alluring in the distance.

Right here and now, with the sky bleeding orange and pink, I was thrilled to welcome the twilight, then nightfall. I wanted to spend every hour of the stars awakening in the arms that held me now.

“Don’t tell me you forgot where we were interrupted,” Nyte said huskily.

My eyes fluttered with the warmth of his breath across my ear.

“Because I haven’t. Not for one damn second.”