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

Chapter 49

Von

S tanding in front of hundreds of people was something I had gotten used to over the eternal span of my life. It didn’t matter if I was speaking privately to one person or an army of ten thousand, leading and commanding had always come naturally to me.

That’s why I had been made.

With the crown that was bestowed upon my head, I was supposed to be the Creator’s iron fist, supposed to bring rule and law to the realms. But when they forged me on their great anvil, they hammered that need to control a little too deeply into my metal-derived bones, and in so many ways, it backfired on them. Because that meant that they could not control me—could not get me to do what they wanted.

I was not like anyone else. I was the bringer of death, and I did as I pleased, while answering to no one. Not even the Creator. And that was how I had lived my life for thousands of years.

But then—I looked up to the dark night sky, up at the moon— she was made.

A frightened blue-eyed goddess with hair as white as January and skin that glowed like silver moonlight. She had been so terrified of me back then as she hid behind the God of Life. Everything about her was intoxicating—adrenalizing, arousing. I was like some sick, sadistic animal who wanted to sink my teeth into her and never give her up, despite how much she fought. I wanted nothing more than to take her. To drag her into my darkness. To devour her entirely and never let her go.

I became obsessed with her. Obsessed in ways I didn’t understand.

So I cursed her. Cursed her so that she would need me to survive.

Looking back now, it all made sense. Those intense feelings were because my soul knew who she was long before I ever did—she was my bonded.

I would kill for her. Die for her. Destroy for her.

Anything that she needed from me, I would do.

Including standing at the end of an aisle in the middle of the forest where we were first bonded, under the watch of the moon and her night, waiting for my bride to come to me.

Just as I was doing now.

Sage had been planning this day for months and it showed. I might be a crusty old bastard, but I could appreciate beauty when I saw it, especially when it was presented in a form I could understand.

Large arrangements of moody flowers— all made by her—waterfalled from the trunks of the towering oak trees, spilling out onto the mossy forest floor. A string quartet played a slow, dark melody, lending a sense of intimacy. Thousands of candles were placed along the long expanse of an aisle, lighting her path to me.

On either side, rows and rows of wooden chairs, full of both familiar and unfamiliar faces. Among them, a great deal of Old Gods whom I recognized, the notable ones being Folkoln, Ismay, Zahra, Dameon, and their baby boy, just shy of a year old.

The only request I had for this wedding was the number of people in attendance. I wanted there to be hundreds of them. The more witnesses, the more mouths to spread the word that the Goddess of Life had joined herself to the God of Death.

I wanted it to be known by all—Sage was no longer Aurelius’s wife.

She was mine .

My wife. My mate. My queen. My everything.

And someday, the mother of my evil little spawns. I smirked at the thought.

A family was something I never really gave a whole lot of thought to, but when she came to me just over a month ago with a pretty plea on her pretty lips to give her a baby, I took her into my lap, kissed her senseless, and told her that I would. Ever since then, I’d taken every opportunity to do just that. To say the least, I was a happy, happy male and—

A bitter sweetness spiked on my tongue, one that swiftly turned acrid—sour and metallic. The potent concoction formed a ball inside my mouth. I tried to swallow it down, but I couldn’t. I made a face, my hand going to my stomach, which churned with unease and something else that I could not place.

Fear, unlike anything I had ever felt before, washed over me, but it was not my emotion I was feeling.

Sage! I roared through our bond, desperate to hear her voice. At the same time, I let my shadows sweep around me, taking me to her.

I strode into our bedchamber, back at the castle.

“Sage!” I shouted again, but only an eerie silence answered in reply.

The scent of her ichor filled my nostrils, sending every nerve ending within me burning with fiery rage and intense fear. The beast within roared against its cage, begging to be unleashed, begging to find her. I refused to let it loose. I was no good to Sage if I didn’t stay in control right now.

I turned to the tattoos I had given her, trying to use them to track her, but it was of no use—something was blocking them. Whatever it was must have been administered here, which was why I was only able to track her to this point.

I traced the smell of her ichor into the bathing chamber.

My eyes widened as soon as I entered the room.

On the floor and against the walls were small pools of water—

She had tried to defend herself, but something had made it so that she was unable to fully use her power. In the middle of it all, on the floor, were a few droplets of her ichor.

My body ran cold as I rushed over.

I dropped down to my knees, sweeping my fingers over one spot—still wet. I brought it to my tongue—I had fed from her enough times that I knew the chemical makeup of her life’s essence like the back of my hand. There were two things different about her blood—the first was something I had begun to detect over the past few weeks, and the second was something . . . metallic. Not the usual copper, but . . . iron.

I ground my teeth together, my molars threatening to combust.

Iron suppressed divine powers, which explained why I couldn’t find her through our tattoos. There was one group well known for their use of iron collars—

The New Gods.

Aurelius. I was going to kill the fucker.

Roaring, I let my umbra take me to the Immortal Realm.

Wings flared out, I thundered into the throne room of the Golden Palace, full of hundreds of people. My winds tossed them backwards, snapping their pitiful bones as I strode towards the empty throne, the floors shattering beneath my feet.

“Where is your fucking king?” I yelled at them all, my veins threatening to pop out of my neck. Every nerve ending in my body was on fire, heated and ready to explode.

People screamed and cried as they tried to scamper out of my path.

“Where is he?” I shouted, my voice crashing against the gold-bricked walls with such force, they began to form spiderwebbed cracks. I would reduce this place to dust, decimate them all in a bloodbath, if that’s what it took to get her back.

I grabbed one of the gods by his collar, my fist clenched as I hoisted him from the ground as I brought my face to his. “ Where is the fucker?”

“He, he, he’s d-d-dead, my king,” sputtered the male, his face a ghostly white.

Dead?

My neck swiveled as I looked at the empty throne, my gaze drifting to the altar that sat at its base, surrounded by flowers. A white sheet was placed over top.

I dropped the male on the ground and reappeared in front of the altar, ripping off the white linen. Beneath it lay the God of Life. His cheeks were hollow, his skin ashen. Not a speck of life to be found on the miserable parasite.

Heavy footsteps sounded behind me.

“What are you doing here?” snarled a familiar voice, riddled with emotion. “Get away from him!”

S chiiing. A metal blade was drawn.

I dropped the cloth, not bothering to cover Aurelius up.

My shadows snaked around me as I flashed in front of Arkyn, my hand locking around his blade. I growled over it. “Where is my mate?”

“I do not know who you speak of,” Arkyn grunted as he tried to pull his sword from my grasp.

“Sage, you little prick.” I grabbed him by the throat, my fingers slicing into his neck as I cut off his air. His halfling ichor trickled into my hand.

“Blood King,” said another voice, a diplomatic one, steeped in propriety. Malachai. “Release my nephew. He doesn’t know where she is . . . but I do.”

I tossed Arkyn onto the floor, his useless sword clattering beside him. He glowered at me.

“Take me to her,” I demanded, looking to Malachai .

“Alright.” His voice was weary. “But before I do, all I ask is that when you end Nicholas, you do it swiftly.”

“I agree to nothing. Take. Me. To. Her.” I grated out the words, my last nerve ready to snap.

He nodded solemnly and then gestured to an arched doorway. “This way.”

I followed behind him, walking through this hallway and that, my fists clenching and unclenching the entire time as I fought with my rising anger. It was brimming to the surface, seconds away from erupting and consuming everything in its path. I had felt anger before, but it had never been like this.

Never to this extent.

To the point where I craved to destroy everything. And I think if it weren’t for her, I would have. She was the only thing tethering me to my sanity right now. There was nothing more that I wanted than to have her tucked safely in my arms, under my protection.

We walked down a spiral of loosely winding stairs that led out into a courtyard. When we reached the bottom, Malachai led me through a grove of trees. As soon as I caught the scent of her ichor hanging heavily on the air, I charged past him, following it until I came to a clearing, and there I saw her—

Roots stretched up from the ground, breaking through the soil, winding around her body, strapping her to the trunk of a tree, a tree with snow-white leaves . . .

When I returned to my castle with my bride’s corpse in my arms, the white roses she had made began to fade to black as we passed by them.

They, too, were mourning the loss of her.

Thousands of years had gone by, and my eyes had never produced a single tear, but for her, for my mate, now they were.

Even in death, Sage was still giving me the gift of life.