Page 72 of Nocte

There is no creepy male fae to watch. No master looming overhead. Here in the mortal realm, there is just my body and hers.

Even without Cassius’ rage to tempt me, she feels so damn good. More than ever, I want her. Harder. Harder. Deeper. More. I take her until I see stars. Until her body clenches around me like a fist, squeezing out all I fucking have.

It’s not enough.

I push deeper into her. When I put my mouth to her throat, I can taste the pulse that surges beneath the surface of her skin. I want so badly to bite.

But I can’t.

She doesn’t want me to. I can feel her intentions coil through me, snaking along my mind as if they were my own. Touching is important to her. She longs for me to caress her. Cradle her like the mortals Cassius plied would want me to.

Don’t want to.

I must,if I’m going to get what I crave from her: another dose of her twisted, sinful magic.

I drive her into me by hooking my hands beneath her waist. Press my mouth to hers and kiss her deep. Only then, broken and hoarse, does she give me my payment.

“Caspian…” She whimpers against my lips. “Oh, Caspian.”

She goes limp, her eyes closed, chest heaving.

But I’m the one grinning now. Grinning in triumph. Grinning in fucking hatred.

Now she may have some power, but one day I’ll take it back. I’ll make her as desperate to hear her name leave my mouth as I am for mine to leave hers.

Only I’ll never give it.

She will never fucking hear it.

Never.

CHAPTER26

Niamh

Iwake up in his arms, at peace when I should be afraid. It’s terrifying, this unnerving, persistent feeling. Like I’m standing on the end of a precipice, and he is below.

Jump,he says.

My body still remembers the first time he issued such a dare. He let me fall.

Let me hurt.

Then he left me again.

Now he’s inside me again, and all those aches and pains feel as though they never happened. He can get inside my skin so easily. It must be a vamryre skill.

You let them inside your body, and they crawl into your head. They whisper secret desires you weren’t aware of. Start fires in your soul.

It hurts, and it burns to feel parts of you that you thought you knew turn to ash and fade away.

But left in their place are new spaces, aching to be filled. Demanding to be filled.

I’ll let him break me if he wants to. I’ll give him my pain if only it means that…

He won’t lose interest. He’ll stay near. Won’t leave me again.

He can’t leave me again.