by A. Vers
“You don’t, though,” he says. “You don’t know at all.”
I cringe back.
“Chol.” Nix’s voice holds a warning.
Chol huffs. “But she doesn’t, Nix. This is the first time she has even been away from the embassy. And that is our fault.” His inhale is sharp. “It’s my fault.” Desolation seems to fill the air around him.
Boots thud over the hardwood, and I barely move in time as Nix’s palm connects with Chol’s face.
The prince stands there, eyes wide and a bright red hue filling his skin. Nix’s chest heaves and his fingers flex once before he seems to remember himself. He steps back.
“Stop,” he snarls. “This is not your fault and you know it. You did not ask for this. Did not ask to be their son.” Chol’s body starts to deflate and Nix grabs him by the shoulders, shaking him a little. “You will not make Sayah’s sacrifice less than what it is because you feel sorry for yourself. Do you understand?”
Chol blinks.
I have an odd feeling no one has ever spoken to him like that. No one except me.
The Prince nods, the motion almost shell-shocked. “Okay, Nix. I’m sorry.”
Nix’s fingers open slowly and he steps back again, one inch at a time like he isn’t sure if he should.
Chol drops onto the mattress.
I sit down next to him and reach for Nix’s arm. He hesitates for a second before he collapses onto the mattress on my other side. The Hallow doesn’t pull away immediately, nor does he move back as I lean into Chol’s side.
We sit in silence for a beat, and my heart finally slows. There is a strange peace to being near them both. A lightness of spirit that leaves all the running weighing on me like a fog.
“How did you know about the Novendo, Sayah?” Nix’s voice is mild as he speaks, but I tense anyway.
“Yeah. How did you?” Chol prompts, no doubt feeling the tightness in my frame.
I ease out from between them, and my body grows colder. They both seem to run abnormally hot.
“Sayah, how did you know?” Nix asks again when I remain silent. “I know you’re mimir, but you said a Novendo is forbidden magick and no one else seemed to know that.”
“And you lied about using your power at the embassy. Why?” Chol adds.
I keep my head turned away, heart pummeling my ribs. Gods, I had hoped they had forgotten that part.
“Why, Sayah?” Nix’s voice is lower, but closer than before.
And there it is. The one question I can never answer. Not even to them.
Even with Earth’s technology, my other magick crackles down my fingers, zinging and zapping in answer to my anxiety. I clasp my hands before me. Anything to hide the glow.
A breath of heat pulses against my spine. “Sayah? What are you hiding?”
Nix’s voice is a velvet glide over my senses. His power seems to bleed into mine, dancing along my aura until the blood-red meshes with ice-blue. There is no fight now, between his magick and mine. They swirl and combine into a dark purple in my mind’s eye. My back arches against my will, leaving my lips parted at the sensation of so much raw, untamed energy. I try to yank away.
He tenses behind me. “Sayah? What—”
I open my mouth to tell him to move because I can’t. No words come out, just a strangled gasp. I can’t rein my power in. It won’t come to my call. Won’t abate.
Is it being here? On Earth?
Or is it him?
“Nix? Is she okay?” Chol moves into my line of sight, searching my face. His body pulses with silvers and golds, adding to the cloud in my head.
The spiraling brightness trickles from him, flowing over the distance to filter into the violet haze of Nix’s and my power. It brightens from royal purple to sweet lilac. Tempering the darkness.
They press closer, unwittingly filling me with their power even more.
I sag under the onslaught, vision darkening.
A set of powerful arms wind around me, holding me upright as a pair of long hands caress my face in concern.
Heat blossoms through my body.
I can’t cry out at the sensation of both of them around me, ash and sweet cookie filling my nose. My jaw is clamped too tight.
“Nix, she’s burning up,” Chol says, fear lacing his voice.
“Get into the bathroom. Now.”
They carry me into the bath, the dim light piercing my eyes. I’m lifted higher and then set down. Rushing water fills my ears. I pant, heart pounding and skin burning as their hands flow over me.
Nix tugs at my shirt, peeling it from my skin with a wet sound. My hands hit cool water and steam billows free.
Gods no. Not now.
Silence.
Then, “What the—” Nix breathes.
I whimper, unable to answer for fear of letting the taut hold on that leash free.
Strong fingers grip my face, forcing me to focus on brilliant fiery irises. “Sayah? What’s wrong? Do I need to get your parents?”
I weave in place, trying to think about it.
My head shakes once, but even that motion is too much.
I’m hauled back against a warm body and cradled in a gentle embrace. “Nix.” Chol’s voice rumbles through my back. I tremble and the leash slips a bit more.
Icy flames seem to unfurl out of the edge of my vision.
The Hallow stares at me, eyes wild and real fear glimmering in the depths of his irises. “Her magick is like mine,” he mutters. “But I don’t understand how.”
Something in what he says filters through my foggy mind. Like his?
He drops abruptly and kneels beside the tub’s edge. His hands flow through my hair, and the touch is so gentle it rocks the very core of my being. “Sayah…” My head swims.
I gaze at him, beseeching. Begging for help that he can’t give.
The strong line of his jaw ripples as he searches my face. “Chol, I’m sorry.”
His words puzzle me a moment before his mouth closes over mine.
The fire building in me does not burn. It explodes.
Sunshine, ash, and leather fill my nose in wondrous aromas of Nix. I arch into his mouth, pressing closer as he devours me in more than just lips, tongue, and teeth. His passion fills me, searing and burning until his very name seems embedded into my soul.
I wrap my arms around his neck, rising to get closer, to taste him.
Gods at the taste of him. I sway into his embrace, burning from the inside out.
He nips at my lower lip with a hard growl. “Let your magick go, Sayah. Let it go.” His prompt is dominant, commanding, against my lips.
My magick bubbles up through my stomach and into my skin. I whimper at the wash of heat. He growls again and slips one hand into my hair as the other finds its way to my bare waist. His fingers clench into my skin with force.
I open my mouth to cry out, and my power bursts from me in a wave.
It slams into Nix and Chol, hot and filled with the other side of me. The side awoken with my blood in the embassy. Battle born.
Blood sacrificed.
Calloused palms flow over my bare back and onto the soft skin of my stomach. Chocolate-chip cookies bleed into sunshine and something warm and featherlight presses to the base of my neck. I gasp into Nix’s mouth.
He pulls away.
My eyelids flutter and I stare up at him.
Hints of ice blue fire burn in his eyes before his flames devour them too. I gaze into his face from so close, waiting for the horror. The disgust.
But he just watches me with a strange kind of awe.
One russet finger flows over my cheek. The caress is heartbreakingly soft, timid even. “Seraphim,” he breathes.
I shiver.
He holds up his free hand and real flame flows over, around, and between his fingers. No longer tempered by the collective shadow of a Hallow, it is dark blue, orange, and gold. “So am I,” he whispers to me.
My eyes widen. “Phoenix,” I gasp, the name resonating thr
ough me.
He nods, expression sad.
We stare at each other, two halves of a line that was never meant to walk on Earth. Phoenix and chalkydri.
The fiery bird of rebirth and the dragon of resurrection. Though neither of us will ever possess either form, looking into his eyes from so close is like staring into a mirror.
His head starts to lower again. My pulse skips and I can’t pull away. Don’t want to even try.
“I know that was to take some of her power, but damn that was hot.” Chol’s voice is languid but like ice dumped over my head. “In every sense of the word.”
Nix backs away. Rising to his feet, he scrubs the back of his neck, gaze averted. “You would know, huh?” The teasing is simple, easy. But I alone may notice the tension cording his frame.
Mainly because I can’t take my eyes off of him.
Chol nuzzles my spine, and gooseflesh flows over me. “You smell so good right now.”
I snort and pull away. There is something about being pressed against him after his best friend kissed me that leaves a guilty taste in my mouth.
Nix pulls down a towel and wraps it around my still bare shoulders. I flush.
Right. The shirt disappeared.
Nix offers me a hand up. I climb from the cool water, jeans plastered to my skin. He extends a hand to Chol and the Prince rises beside me.
He’s drenched too, his shirt tight over his abs. With casual motions, he pulls it off and drops it on the floor with a splat.
I turn away as his hand dips to the waistband of his jeans.
“I may have a shirt for you to wear,” Nix murmurs and walks from the room.
I ease away from the tub and try to hold the towel and shimmy out of my jeans and boots at the same time. Boots I will mourn the loss of.
Chol scoffs. “Just take them off, Sayah. I won’t pounce. Promise.”
My eyes raise to find his gaze filled with warm amusement, and a towel hung low over his chiseled hips. The narrow v of his muscle draws my eyes against my will.
If possible, I blush harder but offer a stilted nod.
Setting the towel down on the sink to keep it dry, I kick my shoes off and work the sodden denim off.
His eyes darken from silver to gold and then black as his pupils expand in the dimness. “Shit.” He shakes his head.
I try to grab the towel, to hide. “Chol—”
He is across the floor in one erratic beat of my heart. His hands close over the backs of my thighs and he lifts me.
I squeak before his lips slant over mine. The kiss is demanding, fiercer than any of the others. It burns through me, pulling at the dwindling heat from Nix and igniting it once more.
He sits me on the edge of the sink and pulls my legs around his waist. His towel begins to slip.
“Chol.” My voice is breathless as his lips move from my mouth to my jaw and down.
He nips the skin of my neck, and something hot and wet replaces it. His tongue swirls over my flesh, like a cat lapping at cream. My nails dig into his shoulders and he grinds between my legs.
The towel slips more, leaving his heat pressed tight to the sodden material of my underwear. Cookies and spice fill my head in a cloud and it no longer seems wrong to have him so close to me right now.
I climb his body, seeking his mouth again as one slim digit flows along my hipbone, teasing and tickling.
The sound that leaves me is part need and part surprise. But more surprise. I swim through the fog in my head. “Chol. Chol, stop.”
He presses against me and more of that delectable spice fills my nose.
Saliva flows over my tongue, like I can taste the cookies straight from the oven.
Some of the scent fades on a wash of heat I don’t understand. It fills my belly, scalding my navel. Too hot. It’s too hot.
“Chol.” I push at his shoulders. “Chol. Stop.”
He sails across the room and into the wall.
Nix stands between us, face shadowed and filled with something lethal. Dangerous. Here is the Hallow from Midnight.
His chest heaves and the temperature in the room builds until sweat beads along my skin. The source of the heat that drew me from the amour.
I jump down from the sink, the fragrance of my body’s need still filling the air. My legs quake. I have to grab the sink to remain upright.
Chol shakes his head, storm cloud irises swirling with something akin to fear. “What the fuck was that for?”
Nix snarls. “Were you going to rape her?”
Chol blinks and looks at me, towel clutched to my chest and my body shaking. He blinks again. His tan skin goes from glowing gold, to pale ash, to green. He rolls in a motion too fast to follow and vomits into the toilet.
“Shit,” Nix swears, his body seeming to sink inward. “Guess that’s a no.”
I tremble.
Nix looks at me. “There’s some clothes on the bed.”
“But—”
His fiery irises shimmer. “Go, Sayah.”
I glance worriedly at Chol’s hunched form one more time before slipping from the too small bathroom.
Everything shakes. Even my knees seem wobbly. Adrenaline and nausea roll through my insides, but I strip quickly out of the wet garments and slip on the too big shirt.
Nix’s scent pours from the fabric, filling me with a calm I should not feel. I don the shorts with the shirt and have to keep a hand on the waistband as I sit down. Otherwise they try to fall from my hips.
Low voices trickle from the bathroom as I huddle on the bed. Within seconds, the door closes, leaving me alone.
I pull the comforter up around my shoulders. Would he have stopped if Nix hadn’t interfered?
Chol’s reaction to what he did flashes over and over in my head. The green hue to his skin. His wide eyes.
He wasn’t in control. At all.
Was he?
I draw my knees up and rest my chin on my folded arms.
The door opens slowly. Chol’s huddled frame slips around the jamb. A towel is tight around his lower half, sodden clothes pressed to his body like a shield. He looks at me, guilt and dejection written into every inch of his face.
“I’m so sorry, Say—” His voice cracks, and his eyes close. “It doesn’t make it okay. And gods it wasn’t right. But, I’m sorry.” He turns away, grabs his bag, shoves the armoire back with an earsplitting screech, and leaves the room.
I stare at the empty doorway.
“I told him to go.”
I glance toward the bathroom.
Nix leans against the frame, arms crossed and his expression empty. He pushes free and walks to the door.
His fingers alight over the open panel, and he presses it back into the cradle with a final sound. Closing us in. With his back to me, he asks, “Are you okay?”
My lips tremble. “I don’t know.”
He exhales. “I won’t condone what he did. Ever,” he whispers. “But he hasn’t fed since Wicked and you… You are hard for him to resist.” His shoulders seem to ripple. “You’re a virgin, aren’t you?”
Face on fire, I gape at him.
He peers at me over his shoulder. “That’s what I figured.” He swipes his hair back as he turns to me. Color rests high in his face, adding to the rich hue of his skin. “Most of the Asmodean caste can sense it. Virgins are like the sweetest dessert. The unclaimed, the untried. Pure.”
“I think, with Chol especially, what you are drew him in as much as who you are. He doesn’t want to hurt you. Didn’t even mean to just now,” he says. “That’s why he’s going to let them do the spell.”
My stomach falls. “What?”
His jaw flexes. “He refuses to ever be ruled by what he is. With you, just now… I think it was the last straw. He already thinks he’s a monster. But hurting you--scaring you...”
Incredulity rolls through me. “But—”
He crosses the floor and sits slowly on the edge of the bed. Far from me. I want him to close the distance. To h
old me. Even with everything that’s just happened. I keep my mouth shut.
“Did you know what I was?” he asks into the silence. “Before now?”
I shake my head. “At the embassy, your power turned on mine. That’s never happened before. But it was so blanketed by Hallow magick, I wasn’t able to get a good read on what you are.”
He searches my face. “You had one of those spells on you, didn’t you? The novendo.”
There is no sense denying it, so I don’t.
“It was placed on me as a baby,” I say softly. “And since seraphim magick can only be awakened by battle—by bloodshed...” I trail off. My power was never supposed to come awake. But he seems to get it.
His mouth mottles. “I know.”
And as a Hallow, he does.
Our lines are too primal, too untamed. They have to be awakened in combat. It’s like the first feeding of a newborn babe. Over time the power grows, evolving. Becomes uncontrollable.
Staying away from battle is how father survived for so many years. He made sure that his recessed bloodline never saw the light of day. Hence why he stayed in the Void at Midnight with Mother. And why he has only ever fought with spellcraft. From a safe distance of his opponent.
But me?
I rushed headlong into battle the moment Chol and Nix were in danger. Then did it again, and again.
“Chol will keep your secret, just like he has kept mine,” Nix says into the quiet.
“I know.” And I do.
Those amazing eyes roam over me, almost like he is absorbing every detail. “You’re going to be in danger, Sayah. As much as Chol is. What you are--what we both are… No one can ever know.”
“I know.”
He offers me a small smile and climbs to his feet. It’s not much, but the curve of his mouth is solely Nix. Real. Solid. He comes closer and leans down. His hand brushes back my hair, the motion so sweet. My eyes burn and something clogs my throat. “I know you do. And if anyone can handle it, you can,” he whispers into the quiet. His hand clenches, and he backs up.
I watch him walk to the door, wanting him to stay and heartbroken because I do. His words echo back to me. Louder than before.
Phoenix.
He opens the panel and Mother stands on the other side, fist raised to knock.
She looks between us, a touch of fear in her expression. “Am I interrupting?”
