The Songbird and the Heart of Stone (Crowns of Nyaxia #3)

Chapter 32

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

T he next moments— minutes? hours? days? —ran together like the beach sands through my fingers. Asar helping me walk, even though soon he, too, struggled to put a foot in front of the other. Luce barking at us, running through the lush greenery of the jungle. She looked like a deer, or a forest spirit, as she dove through the leaves— good girl . Asar letting out a hiss of pain as he tore one of his wounds open on a branch, the ensuing burst of blood so agonizingly potent that my fangs bit into my lip. I remembered, too, the way he stared at my mouth—the blood trickling down my chin.

“Quickly, Luce,” I heard him say. “Quickly.”

The next time I forced my eyes open, I was lying on the ground. I stared up at a ceiling of broken stone, the blue peeking through like a beak through an eggshell. Vines covered the rafters, and moss blanketed the floor—part tile, part stone—beneath my body. Despite the broken roof, it was oddly dark in here, as if the light from the hallucination of Vostis’s sun-drenched sky couldn’t pass into this room. When I lifted my head, I immediately recognized Morthryn; it had the same bronze, rib-like rafters, the same ancient stained glass windows, the frozen ivy winding up its walls. But it was a shell of the version I’d spent the last months in, the ceiling shattered, one wall partially collapsed. The furniture in here—a single couch, a broken coffee table—was rotted, sinking into the ground, as if the Descent was reclaiming it by force. I was lying on a rug that was now half-consumed by a bed of fluffy greenery.

I tried to push myself up and mostly failed.

Asar was saying something, but it took a moment for my mind to decipher his words.

“—safe here for now,” he said. “Luce is guarding us. But I don’t think souleaters would come in here.”

I wasn’t sure if my mind was slurring his words, or if he was having a hard time speaking, too.

“Where are we?” I forced out. I managed to push myself up just enough to rest my back against the ivy-covered wall. My head protested being upright, but I preferred to see.

Asar was doing something at the doorway, which was little more than a crooked board of rotting wood over a broken stone arch. My skin reacted to his magic, which sparked darkness at the frame. Protection spells.

When he looked over his shoulder, he seemed surprised to see me upright. And I noticed how he carefully avoided my gaze as he dragged himself back to me, practically collapsing at my side.

Drip, drip, drip, taunted his blood.

Pop, as my fang reopened the cut in my lower lip.

Asar’s gaze, heavy lidded, lingered on it. “You need to drink.”

“I’m—”

“You’re not fine.”

He pulled up his sleeve, revealing a slice across the open eye of his Heir Mark, and my entire body had such an intense reaction to it that I nearly bashed the back of my head against the wall in my frantic attempt to look away.

Gods, why did he smell like that? No vampire should smell like that.

“An animal,” I forced out. “I’ll get an animal.”

“There are no animals here.”

My lashes fluttered. That’s not true, I wanted to say. I saw a bird. A firefinch. But I couldn’t make my mouth work.

“None of that is real,” he said. “Nothing down here is alive but us. You need blood. I’m the only one here who has it.”

I wasn’t sure if the twist in my stomach was hunger or revulsion.

“I don’t do that.”

I’d never drunk from live prey. Certainly not human or vampire prey. I’d managed that even when it was hard—even when it felt impossible. Clung to it. That one shred of humanity.

“You are a vampire,” Asar said, annoyed. “Next you’ll tell me you don’t breathe.”

He threw that statement at me so casually. And why shouldn’t he? It was simple fact. Still, I so rarely thought of myself that way.

Everything hurt. My eyes stung.

“I can’t.”

“You will die if you don’t do this.”

I’d already survived so many would-be deaths. I should have died a child of starvation or illness, like countless other children just like me. I should have died when I came to Obitraes’s shores, shredded by the teeth of vampires or beasts, like Saescha and Eomin were. I should have died in the Kejari, when my god damned me.

Maybe I was already on borrowed time.

I looked up at the sky through the cracks of the ceiling. The blue sky, drenched in the perfect warm sun of my memories, that I would never feel again.

“Iliae.” Asar sounded furious. “Look at me.”

I shouldn’t, I told myself.

But I did anyway.

He didn’t look angry. He looked terrified.

I touched my scars.

“He’ll hate me,” I whispered.

I was a bride of the sun. I knew that Atroxus would smell that corruption on my soul. Not the blood—I could justify that, if I had to. But just how much I’d wanted it.

Already, my loyalty was a dirty, cracked thing, barely worth keeping.

Could I still call myself loyal, if I put my lips to Asar’s throat?

Understanding fell over Asar’s face. Not pity, but sympathy. When he looked at me that way, it made me feel like I was letting him see too much.

“I won’t let you die here because you’re too ashamed to live, Mische,” he said. “You are so much more than this. And it would be a waste to throw all that magnificence away—for what? Because the sun told you to hate yourself? No. I won’t allow that.”

I won’t allow that. So simple.

I appreciated that about Asar. He liked to set wrong things right.

Before I could answer him, I felt the world tilt. My head lolled. Asar cursed, and then he was pulling me onto his lap. He held my head against his shoulder so that my face was against his throat—the right side, unscarred. The scent of his blood beckoned my consciousness back to me.

“It’s all right,” he whispered. One hand stroked the back of my head. The other settled between my shoulder blades, holding me to him, chest to chest.

It felt right. Smelled right. I was so tired. I wanted so much. I swallowed. My lips brushed the tender skin of his throat, and I felt his muscles flex against the touch.

Still, I clung to the edge of that cliff.

“Five,” I whispered.

“Hm?”

“Five drinks.”

Just five. I could handle that.

It took him a moment to understand what I meant.

“Ten,” he countered. Then, before I could argue, “Don’t even say it, Iliae. You need strength. The sin only starts at eleven. I promise.”

My laugh was a pitiful, pathetic sound. I couldn’t argue with him, especially not when I inhaled and the scent of him filled my lungs like smoke.

He guided my head closer, and that nudge was all I needed. I bit down hard.

His blood, thick and sweet, flowed over my tongue.

Oh, gods.

Gods, gods, gods.

A lifetime wielding the magic of the sun, and yet, I had never felt so aflame as I did in this moment. Goosebumps broke over my flesh at the first taste of him, rich and dark. The moan dragged out of me without my permission. I felt his heartbeat quicken the flow of his blood, like he wanted to offer me more in response to my pleasure.

Instantly, strength flowed through me.

No, I thought. It isn’t supposed to be like this. A vampire shouldn’t taste this good. Feel this good.

But all logical thought and protest drowned in the next taste, the next breath, the next beat of his heart. My fingers clutched fistfuls of his shirt, even though I wanted skin.

“Good girl,” Asar whispered. The words vibrated against my lips, serrated with a hunger sharp as mine.

In my blind want, I barely remembered to count each swallow. His blood dribbled down my chin and I would have stopped to lick it off, rescue every magnificent drop, except that I couldn’t tear myself away. The flimsy nightgown had been made flimsier by the journey, and my skin was hot and sensitive. Asar’s hold had gotten firmer, pulling me tight against him, his fingers tangled in my hair.

After five gulps, I forced myself to slow.

“Take what you need,” he said, misreading my hesitation.

It was an offer, but it was also a command. The dark edge to his voice sent a shiver over my tongue, up my spine, between my thighs.

I slowed myself, my next drink long and deep.

He let out a low groan.

His pants, still the light clothing from Esme’s, did nothing to disguise the rigid length of his erection beneath me. It jumped against me, rubbing against my hip. It wasn’t where I wanted to feel it.

Venom, I told myself. It subdued vampire prey. Often, that could manifest as sexual desire.

But did venom have such a strong effect on other vampires? And why was I feeling it so intensely, even though I was the one feeding? I was drunk with it, logic drowning under mindless desire. My hands clutched blindly at him. Somewhere between my sixth and seventh gulps, one of my hands decided that his shirt wasn’t enough, reaching beneath it to the bare flesh of his shoulder. And gods, I loved the sound he made at that.

“Dangerous, Iliae,” he murmured.

Yes. All of this was so, so dangerous.

Dangerous like the way he’d kissed my scars in Esme’s living room.

Dangerous like the way his hand had slid up my skirt in Psyche.

Dangerous from that very first night, when I saw him with his wet shirt clinging to him and couldn’t get the image out of my mind.

Eight.

My bare skin was covered in goosebumps, desperate to be touched. His hand traveled down to my bare thigh. One fingertip traced the crease of my backside, and I let out a sigh against him that made his fingernails dig into my flesh.

What are you doing, Mische?

Nine.

My fingers slid down, relishing the topography of his body, until I felt his length—hard and straining, a bead of moisture soaking through the painfully thin fabric separating us.

His muscles strained, trembled. Like it was taking that much effort to keep himself from pulling me on top of him.

Ten.

I swallowed. I breathed heavily against him, my teeth still buried in his throat, my fingers still lightly, so lightly, touching his tip.

Still hungry.

Ten. You said ten.

I forced myself to open my mouth, teeth sliding from his vein.

Our breath mingled between us in rough pants. His left eye was darker than I’d ever seen it, the clouds roiling within. I felt that way, too. Like a storm was raging inside me, ready to rip down the walls that contained it. It felt intrinsic, natural, and that terrified me.

“I like how your pleasure looks.” His thumb traced circles against my thigh. I wanted to open it, let him inside. Let us find out what real pleasure was.

Instead, I did something else nearly as risky.

I lifted my chin. “Your turn.”

I felt—actually felt —his all-consuming desire then. Perhaps our magic, linked as it was, had left ourselves raw to each other. Perhaps I could just sense it in the way his fingernails dug into my thigh, or the way his cock strained against my hip, or the ragged groan that shuddered, barely audible, from the back of his throat.

“May not be a good idea.” It sounded as if it took all his effort to get out those six words.

No, it was not a good idea.

I had not let anyone drink from me since Malach. It shocked me just how much I wanted it now. My vows to Atroxus held on by a single thread, and my body was begging me to sever it. Once Asar’s mouth was on my throat, his venom in my veins?—

Allowing that was more dangerous than any trial in the Kejari. Than any Sanctum of the Descent. A beautiful blade hanging right over the throat of my eternal soul.

But Asar had been starving for as long as I was. He needed the strength, too, and he would just continue to weaken if he kept on going without blood. We wouldn’t make it through whatever was ahead without him at his best.

All rational reasons. All true.

But they were not the things I was thinking about.

“You need it,” I whispered.

“I’ll be fine.”

“We don’t have to lie to each other right now.”

I held his stare as I slowly slid off his lap and lay back against the dilapidated remains of the couch. His blood cooled on my chin, mixing with mine from the wounds my fangs had left on my lower lip. Some of it had dripped down onto my chest, beads rolling down to my breast.

Asar watched me, eyes sharp. This, I thought, was what he must have looked like at the height of his power—every predator’s instinct pressed right up against the surface.

He lowered his body over mine. One hand cupped my face. The other fell to my hip.

But he paused a few inches away from me. And that touch was still so gentle, so tentative, despite what I knew was overwhelming desire.

“I will be fine,” he said again.

He meant, Are you sure?

But I had already decided. I turned my head slightly, offering my neck. My chest rose and fell a little too quickly, nipples beaded against silk.

Dangerous, I warned myself.

“Do it,” I said.

He let out a breath, and he lowered himself over me like a beast untethered. I braced for him, ready for his teeth in my throat.

Instead, I felt a soft, wet touch on my breast.

I drew in a sharp inhale. Asar’s tongue licked our mingling blood up, to my collarbone, then my chin. He paused there, breath shaking. I carefully did not move my head; if I did, I would be kissing him. And gods, I wanted to. I wanted to taste our blood together.

“Just five,” he whispered. “Don’t argue. You’re too weak for more.”

I didn’t. He was right that I was weak. But the shameful truth was that my vows, I knew, could not handle ten. So I just nodded.

He brought his lips to my throat and bit.

The pain was exquisite. The rush was instantaneous. The weight, the warmth, of Asar’s body over mine became all-consuming. His hand tangled in my hair, cupping my face, thumb at the corner of my open mouth.

Like mine, his first few gulps were frantic. He groaned a wordless curse, the vibration running down my body and settling between my legs. My back arched, though he held himself up over me. Probably good. If he lowered himself, I would have wound around him like ivy, pressing all my aching wants to his.

But gods—gods, those aching wants ached . It was painful, to feel so good, to want so much.

I whispered, “Slow.”

He stopped immediately. He started to pull away, but I put my hand at the back of his head.

I understood his question: Am I hurting you?

And I was glad he didn’t speak it aloud because I would be too ashamed to say the truth: No. Make it last. Let me live in this pleasure a little longer.

As the understanding fell over him, he let out another long, shaky breath. “Mische,” he growled against my skin. He licked my throat, slow and languid, before drinking again.

I squirmed against him. My nightgown bunched up around my hips, his palm now flat against bare flesh. My legs opened in an -attempt to feel his length where I wanted it most.

Four.

The sensations surrounded me. He still held himself above me, but somehow, I felt his touch everywhere, sliding up the inside of my thighs, swirling around the sensitive peaks of my breasts. I opened my eyes to see clusters of smoke surrounding us. Magic. Whose? Mine? His? Both, whipped into a frenzy together? I didn’t care. I just wanted more, harder, firm sensation.

I wanted release.

Your vows, a voice—Saescha’s voice—in the back of my head reminded me. You are a bride of the sun. You must not betray him.

But gods, I wanted more. I needed more.

“Asar,” I choked out. I wasn’t sure what I was trying to tell him—that it was too much or not enough.

I could feel how much he wanted me. How much he wanted to push up my slip and sink between my legs. How much he wanted to taste my lust with his mouth or strum it free with his fingers. All lines I desperately wanted to cross. All lines that led to damnation.

But instead, he pulled my arm from his shoulder and guided my hand down—guided it between my thighs, leaving it to me to close the distance.

Five.

And I did, sliding my fingers inside myself as his teeth speared me deep, as his tongue coaxed forth that last devastating drink from my veins, as my maddening desire reached an impossible apex.

I cried out, back arching, as my orgasm consumed me. His self-control collapsed. He pressed himself against me at last, cock grinding against me through our clothes. He drank my pleasure as if it were wine.

When the final aftershocks of my climax faded, he pulled away, leaving my throat cold with the ghost of his lips. He sat back on his heels as I panted, exhausted, my torn dress hiked around my waist, blood trickling into my cleavage.

I had done the impossible.

He had unraveled.

His hair was messy where my hands had run through it. His mouth was smeared with my blood, which he wiped with a thumb at the corner of his lips. His shoulders rose and fell heavily. I knew that he was imagining what it would be like to tear this scrap of fabric off me and sink into me. I knew it because I was imagining it, too.

To be a vampire was to be only a few steps away from an animal, driven by carnal hungers. I’d let mine out of the cage tonight.

I should be ashamed. But maybe his venom still held me, because instead, I just felt a giddy delight in the way he looked at me. Like witnessing my pleasure had driven him to the brink of his sanity.

“That’s enough,” he said quietly, as if to himself.

It didn’t feel like enough. Not even close.

I liked seeing Asar disheveled. I wanted to see how much it would take to see him obliterated.

But my eyelids were sagging. The blood I had taken and the blood I had given both weighed heavily on my body. I tried to sit up, but Asar’s lust fell away, leaving behind concern.

“You have to heal. Rest.”

“Luce—”

“Luce is fine.”

“We need to walk.”

“Not yet.”

Asar settled beside me. He looked exhausted, too—the circles dark beneath his eyes, the storm in his left one calm.

I frowned. “I took too much.”

“You didn’t take enough.” He pushed a stray curl out of my face. “You’re beautiful when you take, Mische.”

He was wrong. I was a giver, not a taker. But I didn’t have the energy to argue with him.

He started to sit up, but I pulled him back.

“Stay,” I murmured.

He hesitated.

“Do you want me to?”

It was strange that we were both thinking the same thing. I’d drunk his blood and he’d drunk mine. He had held me as I came. And yet, it was offering him a place to rest beside me that felt like the great temptation, the closest I’d ventured to breaking my vows.

My stomach was full, but I still felt so hungry. So sinfully selfish.

“Yes,” I whispered. “Stay with me.”

Once he decides he cares about you, Esme had said, he will never stop.

He settled beside me. “As you wish, Dawndrinker.” His eyes were already closing. As we both faded away, the words echoed like a vow.