A Light in the Flame, page 21
The nape of my neck burned. “If I’d known you were going to insult the gown that doesn’t even belong to me, I would’ve chosen to visit what’s left of the entombed gods instead.”
Nyktos’s eyes flashed to me, narrowing.
“I believe she’s saying she’d prefer their company over yours,” Nektas added helpfully.
“Thank you for the unnecessary explanation,” Nyktos drawled. The Primal sent him a look of warning before focusing on me. Some of the tension eased from his jaw. A moment passed. “I didn’t mean to insult your gown. I…apologize if…” He drew in a breath as I stared at him. “If that was rude of me.”
“If?” I questioned.
“Okay, it was rude,” he amended. “There’s nothing wrong with your gown,” he muttered. “You look lovely in it.”
My brows shot up as I saw Nektas rub at his mouth, attempting to hide his grin. My annoyance with both of them flared. Nyktos had sounded as if he were speaking of a barrat in a gown, and Nektas had definitely failed at hiding his smile.
“I need to get Jadis to sleep,” Nektas said, and the Primal nodded. Reaver launched off Nyktos’s desk as Nektas headed for the door.
I started to follow them but stopped. Nektas didn’t need me being a distraction while he tried to get his daughter to sleep. I remained behind as they left the office, even though I suspected that Nyktos likely would have preferred I hadn’t.
As the doors closed behind Nektas, I slowly turned to the Primal. He was still leaning back in his chair, fingers tapping slowly on his desk as he eyed me. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“Good.” I felt that damn warmth hitting my face again. “You?”
He lifted the hand from the arm of his chair, resting those fingers against his jaw and chin. “Perfect.”
Silence ticked by. “Did you sleep well last night?”
Nyktos went completely still. I don’t think he even breathed. “Like a babe.”
I stared at him. “You sure about that?”
“Yes.” Wisps of eather appeared in his eyes as disbelief crept in.
Was he really going to act as if he hadn’t been in my bedchamber the night before, watching me? Touching me?
“It appears you’ve had a rather eventful morning,” he said.
He was totally going to act like last night hadn’t happened. I tamped down my frustration. “That is one way of putting it.”
“Hopefully, for the sake of furniture everywhere, Reaver no longer shelters in places Jadis cannot yet reach.”
“I think that will be unlikely.”
“Probably. We went through this when Reaver was her age. I’m quite confident we lost at least two chambers’ worth of items to his temper tantrums.”
I had a hard time picturing Reaver having a tantrum in either form. “What…what happened to Reaver’s parents?” I asked, realizing that all I knew was that they were no longer alive.
“They died defending the Shadowlands. Before he was old enough to even shift into mortal form,” he answered, and several beats of silence followed. “Kolis grew annoyed when I didn’t answer his summons immediately. He sent several of his draken and, after that, I learned that I could only delay answering his summons for so long.”
My chest squeezed. “My…my sister? Ezra? She believes you can’t hate someone you’ve never met. She’s wrong. I’ve never met Kolis, and I hate him.”
Nyktos was quiet for a moment. “I don’t think you have to know someone to feel a certain way toward them. I don’t even think you have to truly know someone to miss them.”
“Really?”
“I miss many I barely know. The experiences never shared. The history never made.” His fingers stilled on the desk. “The memories never created.”
“The past that’s never mourned.” I thought of the mother I’d never been close to. The father I hadn’t met. The friends I’d never made. His heart. That thought was like a kick to the chest—both the realization that I wanted his affection, something I desperately couldn’t acknowledge, and that it would never belong to me. “And the future that’s never anticipated.”
“Then you understand.”
“I…I think so.” I blinked back the sudden wetness in my eyes, thinking about the guards who had fallen yesterday. “I’m sorry about those who were lost yesterday. I don’t think I said that.”
Nyktos nodded. “As am I.”
I curled my fingers around the edges of my sleeves. In the silence, I remembered what Saion had said on the Rise. “The Cimmerian? The one called Dorcan. He mentioned you had an army.”
“I do,” he said.
“Is that something all Primals have?”
He shook his head.
My mind started racing. “How many do you have?”
“The army is substantial.” His gaze hadn’t left me. Not once since Nektas had left with the younglings. “They’re stationed at the Shadowlands’ borders.”
“Why didn’t they give aid when the dakkais attacked?”
“They would have if needed.”
The attack had been rather large. To me, that should’ve warranted the involvement of his army. And the only reason I could think that he wouldn’t send for them would be because he’d rather not risk losing any soldiers. Perhaps because he believed he needed all of them.
Which could mean…
My heart turned over heavily. “What would you have done about Kolis if the embers of life hadn’t been placed in my bloodline?” I asked. “Based on what you said in the throne room, it’s clear you haven’t simply accepted this way of life. To live under someone who slaughters without reason and commits the gods only know how many atrocities.”
Nyktos was quiet.
I held his stare. “Are you planning to go to war with Kolis?”
Chapter 14
Nyktos’s fingers continued to tap, matching the tempo of my heart. I tried to keep the awakening frustration at bay. If he didn’t answer, I wasn’t sure what I would do, but it would probably be loud and a little violent.
“To openly speak of such a thing against the King of Gods,” he finally said with a slight curl of his upper lip, “would earn one, even a Primal, a sentence in the darkest parts of the Abyss, where even a god of death would not willingly travel.”
And to speak of actively working against Kolis wasn’t? Like he’d done in the throne room? I smirked. “I doubt that has stopped you from planning just that.”
“What do you think a war of Primals would entail?” he countered instead.
“Something unimaginable.”
“That would be accurate.” He pushed off the desk and walked to the credenza. “No Primal in their right mind would attempt to go to war against the King of Gods, false or not.”
I watched him pull the tome I’d seen him with before the Cimmerian showed closer. I knew I was right, and he wasn’t speaking the truth. He just didn’t want to talk about whatever plans he may have made or still plotted.
He didn’t trust me.
It wasn’t like I expected him to. Not after everything, but it still…bothered me. Stung. And the sting made me think of that unfamiliar thing again—a future. If Nyktos’s plans regarding the embers worked, I could be Nyktos’s Consort for hundreds of years—if not more. That was if we all survived Kolis. But would we continue this way once I was crowned in a day’s time? Would we still live like this? Separate beds? Separate lives? A Consort in title only, uninvolved in the politics of Court and possible battles sure to come? Would I be left behind as he ruled as the King of Gods? A knot lodged in my throat. Or cast aside, no longer the Consort at all?
“What are you thinking about?” Nyktos asked.
Jarred from my thoughts, I looked up. “Just your plan.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“Why?”
“Because you just projected…sadness.”
I stiffened. “I did not.”
“Tell me something, Sera?” His head tilted. “When is it that you speak the truth?”
“When I’m comfortable doing so,” I retorted.
An eyebrow rose. “I think that was actually the truth.” He eyed me for a span of a few heartbeats and then opened the tome. “There are things I need to attend to…”
In other words, I was being dismissed. Without him even making a single reference to what had occurred between us last night. And, yeah, his refusal to acknowledge what’d happened was a nonissue compared to everything else. But I’d rather be frustrated with him over that than dwell on a future that may or may not come.
So, I welcomed the rising frustration. “When I first arrived, you said I could go wherever I wanted inside these walls and the courtyard. Does that still stand?”
“It does.” He turned to a blank page.
“You’re not worried about me making a run for it?”
“Not when I’ve made it so every guard who patrols the Rise and the palace is sure to watch the gates.”
My eyes narrowed on his bowed head. “So I can go anywhere?”
Nyktos nodded.
I moved quietly toward him. “Even here? Your office?”
“I’m sure there are more interesting places to be.”
“I’m beginning to doubt you actually live here if you think that.”
“I live here, Sera.”
“Well, you said anywhere. And I choose here.” I paused by the chair. “With you.”
The breath he exhaled practically rattled the walls as he looked up at me.
Fighting a grin, I tilted my chin at the tome. “What’s that?”
“One of the Books of the Dead.”
My heartbeat tripped as I eyed the book as if it would leap from his desk and choke the life from me. “The book that lists those who will die the day it’s opened?” I whispered. “I was never sure it was real.”
“It’s real.”
“Is no one going to die today? The page is blank.”
“For now. I have yet to write the names.”
“Do you need something to write with?” I glanced at his otherwise bare desk. “I’m sure I can get you something. I wouldn’t want to delay you from ripping people away from their loved ones.”
“I’m not killing people when I write their names,” he replied dryly. “They would die with or without me doing so.”
“Then what’s the purpose of writing their names?” I picked up several curls and began twisting the strands together as I edged around the chair.
“Their souls cannot cross through the Pillars until I write their names.”
“You left that part out when you told me that bodies do not need to be burned for their souls to leave them.”
“I didn’t think it was something you needed to know.” His attention dropped and lingered where my fingers toyed with my hair.
I drifted closer. “Do you need me…” His gaze flew to mine. “To retrieve something for you to write with?”
“I have what I need.”
“Is it invisible?”
“No. I haven’t summoned it yet.” He lifted his hand. A slender, shimmering swirl of silver-white energy appeared, and a second later, a thin black stylus lay in his once-empty palm.
My lips parted. “Did you…just summon a stylus from thin air?”
“I did.”
That was somehow more mystifying than watching him conjure Odin from his cuff. “What about ink?”
“The names of the dead are not written in ink. They’re written in blood.”
“Your blood?”
Nyktos nodded.
My lip curled as he lowered the stylus to the bound parchment, and crimson appeared as he began to write. “Does it hurt?”
Nyktos shook his head.
I came even closer, stopping at the edge of his desk. I watched him in silence. He wrote name after name in neat, flowing lines of red until he turned the page and began to fill that one, too. “Your penmanship is beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
He filled another page.
Then a third.
“How…how do you choose who dies?”
“I don’t.” Another name. “The names come to me as I write.”
I leaned my hip against the desk, curling my leg just enough that the panels of the gown parted, revealing my leg from the calf to just above the knee. “What if you make a mistake?”
He stopped writing, his gaze slowly sliding up the length of my exposed leg.
“What if you’re making names up and don’t realize it?” I asked as I untwisted the strands of my hair. “Or what if you misspell a name?”
“I don’t make mistakes.”
“Ever?”
“Not with this. In other things?” he muttered, the edges of his fangs dragging over his lower lip as his gaze lingered on the curve of my hip. “Far too often.”
“Really?”
“I can think of a few right now.”
“Like what?” I asked, knowing I was being a brat and thoroughly enjoying myself.
“Like not having Nektas take you with him when he left.” He returned to writing. “He could’ve put you down for a nap. I’m sure Jadis and Reaver would’ve enjoyed the company.”
I pressed my lips together to stop from laughing. “That was rude.”
“Was it?”
“Yes.” I watched him write several more names. Seconds ticked into minutes. Good gods, how many would die today? “Perhaps I should’ve left with Nektas. I wonder if he would’ve…enjoyed putting me down for a nap. He did seem to like my gown.”
That got his attention.
The stylus stopped moving. His chin lifted, and thundercloud eyes pierced with lightning met mine.
Very purposefully, I placed my hands on his desk and leaned forward. The slight bend of the waist was enough to test the limits of the gown.
Nyktos’s eyes lowered. The stylus vanished from his palm. I hoped that meant he was finished.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Am I being distracting?”
“You don’t sound sorry at all.” The line of his jaw flexed as he slowly drew his gaze to mine. “And you know exactly what you’re doing.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re purposely being distracting.”
“I would never.”
“And seductive.”
“Why would you think that?” I asked, blinking wide eyes.
“Your breasts are inches from my face, Sera.” His gaze dropped and then returned to mine. “I don’t think. I know. And it’s not going to work.”
“Your failure to keep your eyes from straying to inappropriate places is not a reflection on my actions,” I told him, tipping my head and letting my hair fall forward onto his hand. “But if I were trying to seduce you, Your Highness, it would most definitely work.”
“You think so?”
“I don’t think.” I smiled then, bright and wide. “I know.”
That muscle began to tick in his jaw. “Well, you would know how to be successful in that endeavor, wouldn’t you?”
“Ouch.” My fingers pressed into the smooth surface of the desk. I’d most definitely opened the door and walked right into that comment.
“Did that offend you?” Those wisps in his eyes swirled.
“Not really. It’s true,” I said, glancing down. “I know all the ways to…” My eyes narrowed on the book. I frowned. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but is it not odd that so many with the same exact name died today?”
Nyktos said nothing.
A grin tugged at my lips. “You were pretending to still be writing names, weren’t you?”
“I thought you’d realize that I was busy and decide to be less distracting,” he told me. “Obviously, that didn’t work.”
Losing the battle against a smile, I let out a throaty laugh. “Maybe I will find someone else to distract,” I taunted, pushing off the desk.
I didn’t make it far.
His hand snapped out, closing around the nape of my neck. My breath caught as my gaze locked with his. “I want to make one thing perfectly clear, Seraphena.”
The pressure he used was slight, only enough to force me to place my hands on the desk as I bent until we were at eye level, our mouths inches apart. My pulse skittered recklessly. His hold wasn’t painful. I could slip out of it if I wanted to, but I didn’t. I’d wanted his attention, and now I had it.
“As long as you’re my Consort,” he said, his tone deceptively soft, “you will be very selective about how you spend your time with others.”
“I assume when you reference how I spend time with someone, you’re speaking of what typically comes after the act of seduction?”
The Book of the Dead slammed shut and slid across his desk. Neither of his hands had moved. “You know exactly what I’m speaking of.”
“Then I’m confused,” I said in the little space between us. “You said I was to be your Consort in title only.”
His gaze dropped again, just for a brief second, but I knew where he looked. “I did.”
The breath I inhaled was all him. My blood heated and my skin flushed. “Then what of my needs?”
“Your needs?” he repeated, his voice smoothing to a decadent drawl that I wasn’t even sure he was aware of.
“Intimacies. Touching. Skin-to-skin contact. Sex. Fuc—”
“I think I get it.”
“So, what of them?”
He curled his arm, and it stretched me even farther. There was a really good chance my breasts would exit the gown. His head tilted. It was only a slight move, but it lined up our mouths perfectly. If either of us leaned forward an inch or two, our lips would meet. “I’m sure you can resist those desires or handle them yourself.”
“Because you watched me do it.” I wet my lips. Nyktos said nothing, his gaze now on my mouth. “You watched me last night. You touched me,” I whispered, feeling a faint tremor in the hand on the back of my neck. “I felt you. Inside me. That was highly inappropriate of you.”
“More inappropriate than you fucking your fingers while you knew I was watching?”
The breath I took went nowhere as liquid heat flooded my veins. The way he said “fucking” conjured images of silk sheets and tangled limbs. “What would’ve been more inappropriate was if you hadn’t taken care of it, and I had to do it myself.”
