Page 102 of Nocte

“Go!” He flicks his fingers dismissively in my direction. “I will tend the shop from here. Go! Let me have some time to think. Oh, but one last thing my dear…”

His voice calls me back before I can run into the main house and out of his sight. I suddenly, so very badly, need to be out of anyone’s sight. I can’t stand the sunlight on my face. Altaris’ gleeful, judging, curious looks. Collen’s wary, pitying glances. I can’t stand for anyone to look at me and not see what I’ve always been told.

A dirty fae, but fae. A dirty thing, but still fae.

What am I if I’m not even fae?

A nothing. A disgrace. An empty, nothing being.

“Give me your word that you will let me attempt to bring your boy back with my own methods, hmm? Even at risk to yourself? You will let me try?”

Will I let him? For Caspian, the only one to ever look at me and see a dirty fae creature but want me anyway. Would I risk myself for him?

“Of course,” I rasp before darting into the safety of the main house and its towering piles of stuff.

Of course, I’d do this for him.

Of course, I would do anything to bring him back.

Because if I have to wait decades, I may die before then. If I am not fae, but something else... I may not survive.

CHAPTER38

Caspian

Ican smell her. That sweet thing.

I can’t remember what she is or what she wants. What she looks like. Why she’s here, always near. I can’t even touch her—reach out and grip and grasp.

The smell of her is enough for me. Beautiful, terrible, lingering little scent. All mine to breathe in. The world’s to take.

She isn’t mine, not really.

But…

More than Cassius ever was. More than anyone I have ever tasted or tormented or fucked. More than any other soul I may have killed…

This one, I want. I want it so badly I’ll kill to have it. Bite and tear.

I want it so badly I will remember…

All of the bad things.

The many, many, many, MANY times I have sinned.

Mainly for him, but not always. Cassius wound up the key in my back, but I would dance like a little windup doll in their direction with glee. My many victims. Their cries are numerous, scratching and clawing, and scraping at my skull.

There is no collective to shut them out. No Cassius to keep their souls at bay. They haunt me: in memories and images and violent sounds and smells.

Oh fuck, I remember everything.

And her…

She is a light dancing in the darkness. She wandered to me willingly. Came to me willingly. Danced with my dangerous heart out of her own accord.

We will kill her,a part of me hisses and murmurs with joy.Kill her. Rip her. Taste her. Eat her.

However, there is another part of me. A forgotten part. It doesn’t know what it wants or why it even exists. I barely remember it.