Page 120 of The Stars are Dying

Still, I hesitated.

Nyte looked up as though praying for patience. “Or walk away now. But you are on your own, and I warn you, the lamb will never survive in a cage of lions. Perhaps it will outsmart them, remain hidden for a while, but on its own its fate is to be devoured.”

I didn’t want to be the lamb. I didn’t want to depend on anyone, but that wasn’t what this felt like. Nyte guided more than he saved; he encouraged more than he told.

“What do I have to do?” Reckless words, but I had nothing else to lose.

“Cut your palm and pass the rock through to me with the drops of your blood on it.”

The first nip spiked my adrenaline. I had never felt so brazen or darkly seduced. My teeth clenched as my skin broke and the sting intensified. A little deeper and I whimpered.

“Good,” Nyte said, and it was enough of a distraction to steal my sight so I could slice fully.

“I don’t need your praise,” I hissed. I squeezed my fist and the warm trickle of crimson slipped over my pale skin, landing on the rock.

“Maybe not here.”

“Not ever.”

“But you would enjoy it.” He said it with such certainty and promise I wanted to drown in the lake all over again to smother the heat creeping over me. Nyte fought a devious smile that triggered violent thoughts.

My blood stopped dripping, and with a huff I slipped the rock toward the veil. So close we almost touched. Sparks skittered over my skin, and I retracted at the electric shock when it was through enough for him to retrieve it. The drumming in my chest beat harder, louder, as I acknowledged there was no going back now.

I had officially signed myself over to the devil.

Nyte picked up the stone with a small pooling of my blood on it. Those eyes of dawn I swore darkened to a burned amber, so filled with hunger and desire, and I might have made the biggest mistake with the darkness I felt creeping toward him.

I didn’t know what I expected he would do with it. Draw a marking, chant a spell. What never crossed my mind…

Was that I would watch in horror as his lips parted and three drops of crimson landed on his tongue.

I was transfixed.

Every move he made was a danger of the most lethal kind. Because it was alluring, desirous, and even though he drank my blood my horror was quickly subdued as pleasure relaxed his face. The thought of what it would feel like for him to take it directly…tobite…

I launched to my feet in shock at my thoughts.

“You didn’t say you would drink it!” I choked.

“You didn’t ask.” Nyte’s voice took on a darkly enticing tone I shivered at. He kept himself turned away from me, the back of his hand resting over his mouth as though he were collecting himself. “Recite the words on that page. Now.”

My mind roared to object as my body locked itself in place. Only when his eyes flicked to me did my knees weaken enough to ease back down. His irises came alive, burning brighter than I’d seen them before, but the fire in them was sputtering out quickly.

“Now,” he growled.

I saw the words but knew no meaning. I spoke them but I couldn’t hear them. This was wrong, so dark and wrong, and I was a fool out of my depth to have placed my trust in a chained being as my savior.

My forearm tingled as I continued to recite the words. Then it burned, and I stumbled on the words as I whimpered with pain.

Nyte crouched before me. “Keep going. It’s almost done.”

I breathed long and deep and finished the final line of the verse.

The silence echoed with the impact of a siren.

The same heat scorched hot on my skin, and I cried out, needing to see what it was. I undid the sleeved garment I wore over my dress, peeling out of it, and stared at the silver constellation that had been etched over the moon phases I wore.

The shift of material drew my attention to Nyte as he finished rolling up his own sleeve. The waning moons on his skin had also been decorated with a constellation.

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