Between the Moon and Her Night (Between Life and Death #3)

Chapter 26

Aurelia

F or the next month, something ate away at me, and as time went on, it only seemed to be getting worse—

It was the damn feathers that I’d left behind at the Golden Palace.

Ever since Zahra told me what they were for and that it was our job to collect them, some unknown instinctual part of my brain had been switched on and now retrieving the feathers was all that I could think about. Day and night. Night and day. It didn’t matter if I was training with the group, trying to sleep, eating food, or being eaten by Von—the feathers haunted me.

I suspected it had something to do with the bond.

Was it driving me insane? Yes.

Was that why I was standing outside of Zahra and Dameon’s chambers, knocking on their door in the middle of the night? Also, yes .

It wasn’t like immortals slept regular hours anyway. Von sure didn’t. In fact, I didn’t know when he slept, or if he slept at all. Some nights he would stay for a while, wrapping me up in his big strong arms, stroking my hair as his touch lulled me to sleep, but he never stayed the full night with me. I had a feeling that he was waiting for me to ask him to, but I . . . I just wasn’t there yet. Although with each passing day that need to ask became stronger.

I breathed a sigh of relief when Zahra opened the door, one hand on the handle and the other holding a book, her finger marking the spot where she left off. A dark-emerald dress embroidered with white flames adorned her sensual frame, her curly hair pulled back into a bun.

Her brows furrowed when she saw me. “What’s going on?”

“I need to talk to you about something,” I said, my body vibrating with urgency. This whole protect the feathers need was detrimental to my impulse control, and I was already impulsive enough.

Nodding, she took a step back from the door. “Come in.”

Swiftly, I stepped inside.

Their private chambers were huge—like a mansion had been stuffed inside. There was a large foyer that fed into a sitting area, warmed by a crackling fireplace. Various doors lined the interior walls, accompanied by a plethora of hallways that led to other living spaces. I imagined one probably led to their nursery.

The feathers! snarled that interior voice that would not leave me alone.

Fuck. Shut up. I’m working on it, I scolded it, wondering if I had finally gone insane.

Zahra closed the door and then gestured to the sitting area. “Make yourself at home. Can I get you something to drink and then we can talk?”

“I’m okay, thank you,” I said as I walked over to a chair and forced myself to sit.My knees started bobbing.

“Alright then,” she answered before she settled into the chair across from me. She marked her book with a piece of paper and then set it down on the end table beside her. She looked at my jumping knees.

I slapped my hands over top of them, forcing them to stop. Goddess divine, this whole thing is ridiculous.

“I thought you seemed a little weird earlier today during training. What’s going on?” Zahra asked, her voice soft and warm.

Indeed, I had been. I could barely concentrate as we went through our routine, Von’s stupid plumes on the forefront of my mind.

I took a breath. Creator knew, I needed it.

“Is Dameon here?” I glanced around.

“No, he’s at his temple, recharging. It’s just us. You are free to talk. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“It’s the feathers,” I blurted out. “I can’t stop thinking about them.”

“Okay, I mean, it’s not uncommon for mates to feel protective over them. They are rather important, after all.” She shrugged a shoulder.

“No, that’s not it. Back in the Immortal Realm, I had a small, wooden chest that I kept them in. I knew they were connected to Von, but I didn’t understand their meaning. When I fled the Golden Palace, I didn’t have time to go get them. Now, there’s this internal voice that is demanding that I do just that.” I forced myself to take another breath. “I kept the chest hidden in the back of my closet. I’m worried what will happen if Aurelius finds them—if he hasn’t already.” My teeth tugged at my bottom lip.

Zahra was quiet for a moment before she said, “Your bond is new, which means you probably can’t light walk right now. Is that correct?”

“That’s right.” I nodded my head, surprised she knew that. “Did it happen to you too?”

“It happens to all of us females, but not our male counterparts. It’s a bit primitive, isn’t it? Clipping our ability to port far away from our mates, while the bond makes us crave them desperately. No wonder I ended up like I am.” Her eyes shifted down, pointing to her belly before they returned to mine. “Anyway. So you need me to shadow walk you to the Immortal Realm so you can retrieve them, don’t you?”

“I couldn’t ask that of you. It could be dangerous, and I don’t want to put the two of you in jeopardy.”

“Nonsense. We’ll be quick. In and out,” she said without hesitation. She paused for a moment, thinking, and then, “Can I ask you something?”

I nodded.

“Why not talk to Von about this?”

“We’re just . . .” I looked for the right words. “Not there yet.”

“But you two are bonded.” She gave me a strange look like she didn’t quite understand my reasoning, like the bond should trump everything else .

“I didn’t choose the bond though.” I gestured to the walls around us—to the castle. “I didn’t choose any of this.”

“Word to the wise, love, none of us choose the bond—it chooses us on the day our souls are woven into the stars,” she said with a soft smile. “I know it can be scary at first—it was for me, but had I not taken a chance on what the universe had planned for me, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Dameon is the other half of my soul, the one who completes me, and the love of my immortal life. Just as Von is yours. You just need to take that leap of faith first. I promise you, your world will become so much richer for it.”

I sat with her words for a moment, letting them sink in. The trust part was easier said than done. I had trusted a male before and where had that gotten me?

Bruised and broken.

And now I was expected to trust another? Letting Von into my body was one thing, but letting him into my heart was entirely another.

“Shall we go get those feathers?” Zahra asked, pulling me out of my swirling thoughts.

I raised my brows. “Are you sure?”

She grinned. “I’m always up for an adventure.”

Moments later, we were standing in my old bedchambers back at the Golden Palace in the Immortal Realm. My room was just how I had left it. I wasn’t sure if Aurelius would have trashed the room in his rage when he’d found out I had fled. But, for some reason, he hadn’t. My traitorous heart—something that was of him, not me—kicked optimistically. I ignored it. That ship hadn’t just sailed—it had sunk into the abyss of never again and go fuck yourself.

Zahra stepped ahead, looking around. “It’s a bit gaudy, isn’t it?”

“Truly, it is.” I answered.

The gold-bricked walls were obnoxiously loud, screaming of Aurelius’s ridiculous amounts of wealth. Then again, that was him. He always wanted people’s eyes on him, to be the center of attention. How I stayed with him for so many years, looking up to him, I did not know.

Zahra continued to walk around as I made my way over to my old closet. Reaching the far end of the room, I dropped to my knees and began reaching behind the densely packed dresses, their scratchy material abrasive against my face. My fingers connected with a small wooden chest. I pulled it out and opened it up. In it were Von’s feathers.

All of them.

Safe.

Happy now? I asked the voice inside.

When it didn’t reply, I took its silence as a good thing.

I closed the lid, grabbed the chest with one hand, and stood up. I started walking towards the door, but stopped in the middle of the room when I reached the slender column that spanned from floor to ceiling.

Fingerprints were etched into the stone pillar. I ran my fingers over them—

A perfect match.

“I told you to hold on,” snarled a woman’s voice in my ear .

“I . . . can’t . . . breathe,” I huffed as I gripped the column, my body on the verge of passing out.

Still, she pulled on the ties of my corset, stitching my lungs closed with each merciless tug. “Well, if you’d quit spending so much time in that damn orchard and more time waist-training, we wouldn’t be having this problem, now, would we?” she growled, her voice as kind as a dagger against my throat. “No wonder the king doesn’t visit your bedchamber anymore.”

I snatched my hand back, breaking free from the memory. There were thousands more like them, some much worse. I stepped away from the pillar, looking around at the room I had spent so much of my life in.

It was filled to the brim with stuffy dresses and rib-breaking corsets. Hundreds of clothing options and not one was tailored to be comfortable. They were meant to restrict. To conform. I realized then how much I hated those clothes. They were the uniform of my oppression. The fa?ade of a perfect, doting wife. A smiling face and an empty head—just how Aurelius wanted me to portray myself to be.

Well, that person was gone now.

But I realized I had never had a funeral for her—for Aurelia.

I ran my fingers over the clothes as I walked, letting my ravenous fire seep beyond the surface of my fingertips. Dress by soul-crushing dress, I lit that fucking room on fire, leaving no piece of fabric untouched.

Like a phoenix, I was born anew as I strode out of the flames that engulfed the chamber, with the small box, full of Von’s feathers, tucked safely under my arm .

Zahra’s gaze roved over me. She stood with her hip cocked, her arms loosely threaded over her chest. “I don’t know what that’s about—” she eyed the flames coming from the room, “—but I know what a woman looks like when she just laid something dark to rest. So whatever it is, I’m proud of you.”

In truth? I was proud of myself too.

After I finished thanking Zahra for her help, I returned to Von’s pitch-black bedchamber. Squinting, I made my way over to the bed, my hand swiveling in front of me as I felt for it. A hand wrapped around my wrist, tugging me into a mountainous torso.

I screeched. My heart kicked up its pace, slamming into my ribs like a war drum at the end of its song, seconds before the clash of swords and shields.

Piercing green eyes, sharp enough they cut through the darkness, peered down at me.

“And where did you scamper off to, Little Goddess?” purred a deep, sexy voice as his divine masculine scent of sandalwood and amber enveloped my senses. The voice. The smell. All of it—him—was intoxicating. He let out a low chuckle. “I thought I put you to bed hours ago.”

“I was with Zahra,” I panted. Now I had two reasons for my lungs to stumble for breath—having the living daylights scared out of me and the delicious, dark god whose muscular arms were wrapped firmly around me.

Although I couldn’t see it, I could feel it as Von lifted a ribbon of my hair. He inhaled softly. “I rinsed your hair with lavender tonight, and yet it smells like smoke.” He let the tendril go. Slowly, his knuckles brushed down the length of my arm, over my hand that held the small chest.

Tap. Tap.

His fingers thumped against the box. “And what might this be?”

The spell was broken. Embarrassment crawled across my cheeks, turning my ears red. I was no better than a mortified child whose secret about who they fancied had been shared with the other children, so naturally, I blurted out the truth of it. “It’s your feathers, you big brute.”

Smooth, my inner critic seethed.

Swiftly, I tried to shift the topic. “You nearly scared me to death when you grabbed me like that.”

“That’s an interesting choice of words,” he remarked, pausing for a moment, lowering his face to mine. “My feathers? Have you been collecting them, little mate?” I didn’t need light to see it—I could hear the smirk he wore.

Of course he would find this entertaining.

I pressed off of him. “If you must know, yes, I have been.”

“You know what that means,” he said sensually—so sensually I was certain my ovaries kicked out an egg.

I snarled—the bond was ridiculous.

“It means nothing.” I dropped onto my knees and shoved the chest under the bed, stashing it under there like a squirrel stocking her cache with food. Except this wasn’t food. This was a box full of feathers destined for a babe I did not plan to have. All of this served me no purpose, and yet here I was, obsessing over them, protecting them like some lunatic . . .

Damn bond!

A raspy chuckle. “I wasn’t going to say that .”

“Then what were you going to say?” I looked up at him, just barely able to make out his masculine silhouette, my eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness.

“I was going to say that a wise female once told me that killers collect souvenirs. Which leads me to wonder . . .” He lowered his voice. “Are you plotting my murder, darling?”

“Most definitely.” I stood up.

He let out a soft laugh and I couldn’t help but grin.

His hand wrapped around my lower back as he guided me between his parted legs. “I need you to promise me something.”

“What?”

His thumb and forefinger clasped my chin, tilting my face up to his. Even when he was sitting and I was standing, I had to look up at him. “The next time you go to the Immortal Realm, you let me know so that I can accompany you.”

If he hadn’t been holding my chin, my mouth would have fallen open. “How did you know I went there?”

“I followed you.”

“Why? Did you think I was running from you?”

“No. You are too content with me and my cock right now to run.” An unbridled amount of swaggering arrogance infiltrated his words.

I had to give it to him—the bastard wasn’t wrong. But he and his legendary-sized ego didn’t need to know that. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but I think it might be the latter that is doing the heavy lifting there.”

He let out a low chuckle. “Oh, really?”

“Mhm,” I teased, nodding. My smile faded as my thoughts returned to the whole point of this conversation. “So then why did you do it? Why did you follow me?”

“I followed you because I was worried about you. Now that Nicholas knows what you are to me, the Immortal Realm is not safe for you anymore. So if you feel the need to scamper back there again, to find some long-lost something or other, I ask that you come to me first, so that I can go with you. To protect you.”

“Oh.” His words touched a soft spot. A spot that made me want to smile, because his admission made me feel . . . good.

He lowered his lips just above mine. “Promise me.”

“Fine,” I spoke softly, a smile caressing my lips. “I promise.”

“Good girl,” he praised in that voice that made me want to strip off my clothes and race him to the sheets. “Now . . . do you need me to put you to bed again? Tell you a little bedtime story?”

I draped my arms over his broad shoulders, one by one. “Only if you write it with your tongue.”

“Done.” His fingers played with the fabric at my waist, twirling it softly. “What do you want it to be about?”

“Hmm.” I thought for a moment. “About the wicked, sexy, tall, tattooed villain that everyone fears.”

“I like how this is starting. Go on.”

“And the princess who is trapped in a palace. She stands by her window every night.”

“She is a beautiful creature.” He tucked a tendril of hair behind my ear. “Just standing there, waiting to be taken. Then what happens?”

“He watches over her for a time, until one day, he decides to steal her away, taking her back to his dark castle.”

“And what does he do with her once they get there?”

I whispered against his lips, “That’s your part of the story to tell.”

“With this, yes?” He swiped his tongue across my lower lip. The act was so primal, so territorial, like he was marking me. I ate it up.

“Yes,” I groaned softly, pulling my lip into my mouth, sucking on the taste of him.

“Mmm.” A sensual, deep purr. One that I felt rumble all the way down to the apex of my thighs— Creator above, this male .

Without another word, he pulled me back onto the bed with him, my excited squeal getting lost in the night.