The Dead and the Dusk (The Nightmare Court Book 2)

by Val Saintcrowe

  The rocks rattled free, plummeting, hitting the creatures, smashing their tentacles, squishing their bodies, crushing their teeth.

  He yanked on Nicce and they scrambled over the rocks, even as they collided with the monsters.

  A rock fell on her foot, and she cried out but pulled herself free.

  They dove headfirst through the hole that had been made when the rocks fell, and they slid down the other side, landing hard on the ground.

  He panted, lying with his cheek against the stone floor.

  Nicce wasn’t moving. He thought her eyes were closed, but it was hard to tell without light. His eyes had adjusted to it some time ago, when her light had gone out, but that didn’t mean he could see well.

  He felt panic rising up in his battered chest, and he moved closer to her, shaking her shoulder.

  She let out a moan.

  He looked up at the hole they’d come through. Nothing seemed to be following them, but that wouldn’t last. Some of the creatures had been killed by the rock slide, but not all. They’d be coming.

  “Can you stand?” he said to her.

  “No,” she said.

  “Why?” he said. “What’s broken? Where are you hurt?”

  “It’s not that,” she said. “I’m just done. I’m going to stay here and let them take me, I’ve decided.”

  “Oh, gods take you,” he growled, wrapping an arm around her and hauling her up.

  She collapsed against him.

  “We need to move,” he said sternly. “Now walk.”

  She laughed. “Bet you’re wishing you’d done more than kiss me now that we’re too tired for it and hours away from death.”

  “You’re not dying,” said Eithan. “And I…” Well, maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe he wouldn’t welcome death after all. Maybe he wanted… He tightened his grip on her. “Do you want me to carry you?” he said softly.

  “You can’t,” she said.

  “I’ve done it before.”

  “You weren’t wounded and exhausted then.”

  He hoisted her up over his shoulder like a sack of grain.

  She let out a yip and then a giggle.

  He staggered forward four or five steps. He wasn’t in any kind of shape now, it was true. The fight, it had been endless, and he was sweat soaked and scratched and bleeding. He had very little strength left. And this wasn’t over. They needed to put space between them and the opening, because the nightmares would surely be coming after them soon enough.

  She was still laughing, and the sound made him feel alive. “Put me down.”

  He did. He rested his forehead against hers. “You’re not dying,” he whispered.

  She touched his face. “All right, then. I’ll do my best to stay alive.”

  He kissed her.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck.

  They stood still for too long, and then he forced himself to move, and he pulled her with them.

  They made their way through the darkened caverns, leaning against each other, holding each other up.

  And then, they heard the sound of water.

  When they heard it, they both paused.

  “Do you hear it?” he said in a hushed voice.

  She laughed again. “This way.” She tugged on his arm.

  They staggered in the direction of the rushing water, and then they found a stream that was winding its narrow way through the caverns.

  They both dropped to the floor and put their mouths to it, drinking, and Eithan hoped it was safe, that it wasn’t fouled or dirtied, but it tasted pure and sweet and good. So cold and quenching.

  They drank and then they got to their feet. They followed the stream going the opposite way it was flowing, back towards the source, and they both seemed to have found some final well of energy, because they went faster now, and they didn’t need to lean on the other.

  The ground went steadily upwards, and the cavern narrowed.

  They ran into creatures, now and again, but they were mostly solitary things, and they were dispatched without too much effort. It was nothing like the fight earlier.

  Eventually, they were rewarded when they found the place the stream came in, an opening, a way out of the dungeon.

  It was small, but that was because it had been bricked over, forcing the water to flow through a tiny hole. The bricks were old. They came free when the two of them used their swords on them. Water was already flowing through the cracks in the bricks. It had pushed some of them free already.

  When they got the hole big enough, a rush of water pushed them back, but they were undeterred by this, and they climbed through, holding their breaths, and emerged in a pool of water outside the palace. It seemed that a stream collected here before it went down into the dungeons.

  Soaked, they climbed up on the shores and wandered around the palace.

  Eithan asked Nicce if she thought she could summon any light against the guards.

  But when they got there, the guards were dead, lying on the ground with their throats cut.

  “What happened?” said Nicce.

  “Absalom?” he said. “Maybe…” His heart leapt, thinking that perhaps the other knights had managed some kind of rebellion without him.

  But upon entering the palace, it didn’t seem that way to him. Everything was dark and silent and surely—if Ciaska had been beaten—there would be some kind of celebration.

  They went to the kitchens, and they ate.

  Nicce sat in the pantry, spooning canned apricots into her mouth and making moans that stirred him.

  He scolded himself, the way he usually did, thinking of the horrors he’d wrought on her, how it was shameful to want her the way he did.

  And then he remembered what she’d said to him in the dungeons when she’d kissed him, how he was dangerous and that made her want him.

  He had recoiled from it, because it was his fear. He didn’t want to be that to her, didn’t want to hurt her. But hadn’t he pursued her with no thought of her pain since the moment he’d seen her?

  He had told her that her attraction to him didn’t make sense. He had pressed her to reject him over and over again, but maybe he was simply hiding from whatever it was that bonded them together.

  Maybe he was afraid to let it in.

  Maybe he had been repressed too long.

  Nicce handed him the nearly empty jar. “I’m going to put my light on for a moment and heal,” she said. “Do you want some of my blood?”

  He swallowed and he didn’t answer, looking into the fruit jar.

  “Eithan?” she said again, raising her eyebrows. Suddenly, she was brilliant light everywhere.

  “I always want your blood,” he said in a tight voice.

  She offered him her wrist.

  He didn’t take it. “We need… time now,” he said in a soft voice. “I remember when I was seeking you at the Guild keep, when you were at Castle Brinne, I thought to myself it would have been intelligent to hide in the most obvious place. We should go to your room. Ciaska will never think we’d be so stupid as to go there. Even if she discovers we’ve escaped the dungeons, we should be safe there.”

  Nicce shrugged. “All right. Does that mean you don’t want blood?” She extinguished the light.

  * * *

  Absalom and Septimus followed Ciaska back into the palace. She walked right by the guards that Absalom and Philo had killed and didn’t say a word. She didn’t seem to see them.

  Absalom knew it wouldn’t last. Eventually, she’d want to know how the guards had died, and she’d want to talk about Eithan’s treachery and how all of them were involved. They really hadn’t figured out what they were going to say.

  He didn’t think they could deny it. Ciaska wasn’t stupid. She would know they had to have been involved.

  But they had bought themselves some time, it seemed.

  Ciaska didn’t speak to anyone. She went straight to her chambers and Absalom didn’t follow. He and Septimus went into the throne room and open
ed a bottle of wine.

  He wondered if they should try to go to the dungeons, to look for Eithan. But he was tired, so godstaken tired, and so he just drank and that was all.

  He wasn’t sure how long it had been when Jonas found them.

  “She wants us,” said Jonas. “She’s summoning us.”

  Septimus sighed, picking up the bottle of wine and going after Jonas.

  Absalom took another bottle of wine, an unopened one, and followed the other men to Ciaska’s chambers.

  She was sitting in the middle of her bed, sniffling. When they entered, she looked up at them and beckoned them closer.

  They all approached, stopping at the foot of the bed.

  Septimus slugged at the open bottle of wine.

  Absalom looked down at the bottle he’d brought.

  “Do you remember?” said Ciaska, looking at all of them. “I used to have you all like this, all of us together, even Eithan, even though he wouldn’t—” She furrowed her brow, sitting up straight. “Where’s Philo?”

  “Couldn’t find him,” said Jonas, which was their agreed-upon story about Philo. “He’s probably still out there looking.”

  “Or maybe he’s been eaten too,” said Ciaska, her voice trembling. She climbed off the bed and snatched the bottle of wine out of Septimus’s hands. She hurled it at the wall and it broke. There wasn’t much liquid left in it, so it was mostly shattered glass, not spattered wine.

  Septimus blinked. He reached over and took Absalom’s wine bottle. He used his teeth to take the cork out and spit it out.

  Ciaska whirled on him. “Take your clothes off.”

  Absalom felt revulsion crawl through him. Not like this again.

  Septimus took a slug of wine and thrust the bottle into Absalom’s chest.

  Absalom reached up to take it.

  Septimus tugged his tunic over his head. He tossed it behind him and took the wine bottle back.

  Absalom wished he’d drunk more.

  “We should all be together tonight,” said Ciaska, her voice thick. “All of us, like old times.”

  Absalom looked down at his feet. He hated this. She hadn’t forced them to do this in a long time. It was worse, somehow, witnessing the others’ debasement, having them witness his own. It was one thing to be with her on his own. Then it could be different. He could pretend that it wasn’t him, that he had ceded his body to some other entity, a different Absalom, one who could be whatever the goddess wanted, one who wasn’t affected by what she did to him.

  With the others here, that seemed impossible.

  Ciaska crossed the room to Absalom. She put her hands on his chest and looked up at him. “I want you to know that I forgive you.”

  His face twitched. “Exalted One—”

  “You would never have knowingly hurt him. You loved him,” she said.

  He couldn’t help but meet her gaze, and he didn’t like what he saw in there, because she truly seemed sad, and—against all reason—it stirred pity in him for her. And she didn’t deserve it, not when she was in the process of raping him. He wanted to vomit. He kept his eyes on her, but he groped for Septimus, tore the wine bottle away from the other man. “Thank you, Exalted One,” he said in a ravaged voice.

  Then, he drank.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Nicce peered down the hallway, looking this way and that. She and Eithan had made their way haltingly through the halls of the palace, stopping and hiding whenever anyone might see them. But now they were only a few feet away from her room, and the coast was clear.

  They darted over the carpet to her door. She opened it and went inside.

  Eithan came after her and shut the door.

  She sighed, looking around. “Well, now that we’re here, what should we do? We need to talk to the others. We need to find out what happened. If we can keep up the ruse that we’re still in the dungeons, that would—” She looked up at Eithan, and her voice cut off because of the way he was looking at her. She couldn’t breathe.

  There were glowing lights in the room, but because of the way they floated, half of Eithan’s face was in shadow. He advanced on her, his expression intent and purposeful. He closed the distance between them and he undid the belt at her waist that held her sword. He took it off and threw it on the floor. “I’ve been thinking.”

  She finally managed to take a breath. It sucked in like a question mark.

  “I’ve spent a long time holding everything in,” he said. “Decades. I kept myself in check. I was stifled and strangled and smothered. I did it to myself, though. It seemed like the only way…” He gathered the edge of her tunic, which was dirty and bloody and torn, and he pulled it up an inch at a time, exposing her skin.

  Now her breath came in sharp, strange gasps.

  “And then you,” he said. Suddenly, he yanked, pulling her tunic over her head.

  She let out a sound that might have been a laugh, and she felt embarrassed. She brought her arms up over her chest.

  He took both of her hands in his and gently pried them away. “The things you said in the caverns down there, about how I made you feel alive?” He surveyed the strip of fabric she had used to secure her breasts, and then stuck a finger under it—his fingers were cold—and he loosened the strip, and it fell away.

  She was exposed.

  He looked at her, and there was that look in his eyes again, that eager, greedy look, the one she used to call up in her mind when she wanted to climax, and she shuddered. When he spoke again, his voice was husky. “The minute I saw you I felt it too. Alive. In a way I haven’t felt in… maybe ever. You said in the dungeons, that I felt like danger to you?”

  Her lips parted.

  He rubbed his thumb over her bottom lip, and then he dragged it over her chin and down between her bare breasts, all the way to her navel. “You feel like danger to me too. You terrify me.”

  “I-it’s not bad, Eithan, it’s—”

  “Exciting, I know.” His hand was coming back up, and his chilly fingers crawled over her skin to close over her breast.

  She let out a huff of air, arching her back into him.

  “I don’t know what happens to me if I stop holding myself in, if I give in to this.” His thumb had found the tip of her breast and he was rubbing it absently, but holding her gaze.

  She felt like her entire being was concentrated on the place where he was touching her. It felt like a gathering storm, as though something tumultuous was waking inside her.

  “But I had a thought, I thought… what if it’s not danger, what we feel, what if it’s just… power?” His other hand on her other breast now.

  She moaned.

  “Shh,” he said. “The walls are a little thin. We don’t want anyone nearby to know we’re here.”

  She bit down on her bottom lip.

  His fingers danced over her sensitive flesh. “I don’t want to hurt you, but—”

  “I won’t let you,” she gasped.

  His mouth quirked into a smile. “No, I don’t guess you would.” He gathered her breasts up, kneaded them.

  That felt good too. A dart of pleasantness went through her. She locked her hands behind his neck.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, but I’m thinking about giving in to it,” he said, squeezing her flesh. “Just… letting go.”

  She let her head fall backwards, sagging against him. Was he asking for her permission?

  His teeth were at her neck. He bit her.

  She wanted to cry out, but she stifled it, remembering they were supposed to be quiet.

  He dragged his cold tongue over the wound he’d made. “So, if you want to stop me—”

  “I don’t,” she whispered.

  He sucked at her neck.

  She groaned.

  His hands moved on her breasts.

  She wriggled her hips against him, pressing closer.

  His hands went under her bottom, lifting her, and he moved them across the room. He set her down on the lip next to the tub
, and he kissed her again. “I like drinking your blood,” he said in a gruff voice.

  Her lips curved into a smile. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  He was unlacing her breeches. “I’ve thought about what you’d look like without clothes since that first night. I felt ashamed of myself and did it anyway.”

  “Eithan…” She tugged on his tunic.

  He raised his arms and let her pull it off him. Then he went right back to her breeches. He lifted her again, pulling them down to her knees.

  She wanted to touch his chest, all the swells of his hard muscle, and so she kicked off her breeches and put her hands on his stomach, rubbing her fingers over his ripples. His skin was firm and solid and cold.

  He tilted her head and put his teeth back in her neck.

  She arched her back, tangling her hands in his hair, running her fingers over his back, which was muscled and cold as well.

  They explored each other. His hands were everywhere. He kept returning to her breasts, to the aching tips of them, but he ran shivery fingers over her waist too. He dragged his fingertips over the outside of her thighs. He pressed between them, and she could feel his arousal against her, and it spurred something within her.

  She pulled away, yanking backwards so hard that she dislodged his teeth from her neck, and it hurt.

  He let out a sound of dismay, hand covering the wound. “Gods, I’m sorry, I—”

  “I did it. I’m all right.” She lit up, light seeping out of her, knitting up the skin even as he touched it. Liquid sunlight spilled out as the skin closed up.

  He touched the liquid light with one fingertip. He dragged it down over her chest, down to her breast, making a luminous trail over her skin. And then he put his mouth to it, tracking his tongue over it, lapping it up.

  She sighed, and she reached for his breeches.

  He was straining against them.

  She ran her palm over the ridges of him beneath the fabric.

  He grunted, hanging his head, resting his forehead on her shoulder.

  She unlaced him, freed him. He was huge and thick and cold in her hands, and she used both of them to stroke him.

  He made a strangled noise in the back of his throat and claimed her lips.