Troubled (The Binding Chronicles #4)

24. Inky Shadows and Crimson Eyes

Inky Shadows and Crimson Eyes

V ivienne tasted like cool ice and the darkest night.

Marius was frozen for one heartbeat as his bodyguard’s lips pressed against his. Just long enough for him to realize that this was real and not a dream. Vivienne was finally kissing him, rules and vows and everything else dividing them be damned.

As soon as the shock wore off, he moved.

The ache in his right foot was a steady throb, but he ignored it, focusing on the vampire in front of him. His left hand rose, finding the back of her neck through feel, and he threaded his fingers through her hair.

She sucked in a breath, and her lips lifted off his. “Marius, if you don’t?—”

He swallowed the rest of her words with his lips, a groan rumbling through him. He wanted this in the same way that his heart yearned for adventure.

This kiss was… everything.

It was barrier-breaking, world-changing, and utterly consuming. It was everything he’d ever hoped it would be, and he never wanted it to end.

She kissed him like she knew it was a bad idea but couldn’t help herself. Like she’d been thinking about him just as much as he’d been thinking about her. Like she wanted to know every part of him as much as he wanted to know her.

Gods above. Marius had been thinking about how Vivienne would taste since the night she pinned him to the ground in Hoarfrost Hollow. He’d remained awake many nights since then, wondering if she would feel as good kissing him as she had straddling him.

The answer was a resounding yes.

He groaned, tightening his grip on her hair. Their kiss deepened. Every single part of him came alive from this touch. Had anything ever felt as good?

He wanted more.

Angling her head so he could kiss her more deeply, he moved closer. His right hand found her knee again, squeezing as he shifted. The touch was small. Not nearly enough.

And then his bodyguard’s tongue flicked against the seam of his lips.

Gods.

Marius had been with others before. Stolen kisses and secret moments that were clumsy and far too short. None of his prior experiences had prepared him for this.

It didn’t matter that he couldn’t see her, nor did it matter that the king would disapprove of this. Not even their location could ruin this moment.

For days, Vivienne had crowded his thoughts. She was all he could think about from the moment he woke up until when he lay his head down to sleep. Even asleep, she remained on his mind.

Everything about her intrigued him. The anger that flashed in her black eyes. Her scowl, and the adorable way she crossed her arms. The power and grace in her movements when she battled her adversaries. The fire that burned within her.

And when he added in her beauty?

She was perfect. Made to be admired.

And she had kissed him.

There was something incredible about that. He’d wanted to kiss her from the moment she tackled him to the ground in Hoarfrost Hollow, but something told him she wouldn’t have been okay with that. But now…

Now, she’d broken past the divide between them to steal this moment with him. She was a stunning creature of darkness, and he was lucky to be in her fierce presence.

Marius parted his lips and swept his tongue against hers. Flames burned through him at her cool touch, a juxtaposition he would never forget. Darkness had never tasted so good.

More.

He drew her closer, ignoring his throbbing foot as he kissed her. She moaned, and he drank in the sound as if he were a starving man.

Fire consumed him from the inside out as they embraced. Every part of him felt like it would be destroyed if he didn’t experience more of this. Of her.

This was?—

A wail lilted through the air. It was hushed at first, nearly inaudible. He would’ve thought the sound was nothing more than a figment of his imagination, except Vivienne stiffened.

She whispered against his lips, “Did you hear?—”

The ghoulish sound rose once again, the cry going on and on and on. The hairs on the back of his neck rose, and his magic strummed a warning in his veins .

Vivienne pulled away.

It took everything Marius had not to draw her back to him, but as the air shifted, he knew she’d fallen back into her role as his protector.

He palmed his daggers. “What do you think that is?”

“I don’t know,” she replied.

Unease laced her words, and his heart beat even faster. What was out there?

“Can you see anything?” Even if he squinted, he couldn’t make anything out in the darkness.

“Barely.” Vivienne’s hand landed on his, but the movement lacked any hint of the heat they’d shared moments ago. She was distant, and her tone was the same one she’d used when they first met.

Right now, she was his bodyguard, nothing more.

His heart twinged. He wanted to explore more of her with his lips and devote endless hours to learning every part of her.

Another time, he promised himself. That couldn’t be their only kiss. He wouldn’t allow it. It would be like tasting the finest wine, then being relegated to plain water for the rest of eternity.

“Maybe we should move,” Vivienne suggested.

He glanced up, taking in the sky beyond the veil of shadows. Shards of brilliant sunlight glimmered beyond their overhang.

It was beautiful… and it would spell certain death for Vivienne.

“We can’t leave,” he decided.

She sucked in a breath. “That’s not smart, Your Highness. If we stay here, that creature could find us.”

“It might not.” The ruins were massive.

She kept going as if he hadn’t spoken. “We should try to locate the heart of the house now.” According to Luna’s research, that was where they’d find the water. “There’s a chance the sunlight won’t hurt me. After all, the shadows seem to be getting thicker. ”

Marius’s gut twisted in warning. “No.”

Another scream rose. It sounded closer.

“Marius—”

“No,” he repeated as the hairs on his arms lifted, and he shivered. “I refuse to risk your life.”

She had quickly become one of the most valuable people in his life. He couldn’t chance losing her.

“You should,” she argued. “The sooner you get the vial of water, the better.”

He gripped the hilts of his daggers tighter, frustration running through him. Why was she arguing with him about this? “We’re staying.”

“Marius—”

“I said, ‘no,’ Vivienne.” He infused his voice with princely authority. “I refuse to put you at risk. If the creature comes to us, so be it.”

A frustrated huff came from beside him. Even though he couldn’t see the vampire, he imagined fire flashing through her gaze.

“My job is to put myself at risk to protect you,” she said, as if he wasn’t already aware of that. “That’s our relationship. I keep you safe.”

The air thickened, and Marius slid one of his daggers back into the sheath.

“Is that so?” He stepped towards her, catching her wrist. She was far colder than him, but heat flared at the contact. “There’s nothing else between us?”

She hitched a breath, and a long moment passed before she whispered, “Nothing at all.”

The shaking of her voice and the trembling of her hand in his gave away her true feelings.

He leaned down and inhaled her scent. Gods, he could drown in her unique aroma. “Do you know what, Viv?”

“What?” she breathed a heartbeat later .

“I don’t believe you.” Memories of the heat that had run through him during their kiss flashed through his mind, and he bit down on the groan that threatened to rise from his throat. “Not after what we just shared.” He raised a brow. “Unless you go around kissing all the men you’re duty-bound to serve?”

Her hand tensed, and an endless moment seemed to pass.

“No,” she whispered, her words barely more than a breath. “I don’t.”

He smirked and lifted her hand to his mouth, kissing the back of it. “That’s what I thought.”

“But—”

“No ‘buts.’ My word stands, and we stay here. I won’t endanger you.”

Her hand twitched, but before she could argue, another wailing shriek rose in the air.

When silence fell upon them once again, she hissed, “Fine.”

He was a little surprised she agreed that easily. “Good.”

“But I want it on the record that I think this is a bad idea,” she hastily added. He imagined that her jaw was set as she glared at him. “It might be your worst one yet, which is saying something.”

There was his grumpy bodyguard.

He chuckled, drawing her closer to him. “Noted. So should we…”

She smacked his arm. “Quiet, Prince. If we want to survive this day, we need to hope that whatever’s out there doesn’t hear us.”

Biting his lip, he stopped himself from pointing out that she was being much louder than him. After all, he was getting his way. Pushing her further didn’t seem wise.

Nodding, he released her wrist and turned slightly so his side lined up with hers. His pack was on the ground, and his foot still ached from where he’d hurt it earlier, but he’d never admit it .

Besides, between the kiss and the resulting conversation with Vivienne, the pain was barely noticeable.

They fell into silence, and minutes became hours.

Long ago, when he’d been sick, Marius had grown accustomed to sleeping in short intervals. He used to wake at every sound, and he’d trained himself to fall asleep instantly. That skill came in handy now as he slept on his feet, gathering as much strength as he could.

Wails rose and fell in an eerie symphony of dark, shadowy death. Each was more discordant than the last.

The inky shadows seemed to ebb and flow as though they were alive.

Stranger than all that was the air. The temperature should’ve warmed as the day crept on. Ipotha wasn’t as cold as the Northern Kingdom. Sweat should have been dripping down Marius’s back by midday, making him regret wearing his cloak and many layers.

That didn’t happen. The temperature dropped.

White clouds frosted the shadows in front of them. The air chilled.

Every hour, it grew colder.

On Marius’s twentieth birthday, in a rare moment of freedom, Luna and Sebastian took him to the Black Sea. The three of them had skated on the obsidian ice from dusk to dawn, exploring the frozen expanse of the tip of the Northern Kingdom. The air up north had been so cold that breathing had been like inhaling shards of ice determined to rip his lungs apart from the inside out.

This felt just like that.

Marius shivered, biting back the urge to clatter his teeth. His foot was still throbbing, but he ignored the pain.

The arch’s warning echoed through his mind.

Beware, beware, beware.

He’d forgotten about it for a time, but now it seemed more important than ever .

The wails crescendoed, coming closer and closer.

What kind of creature sounded like that?

Marius was equally excited and terrified to find out. He tightened his grip on his daggers, refusing the call of his magic to walk the silver planes. He needed to stay with Vivienne.

He felt a sense of responsibility towards the vampire, and he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. She was his bodyguard, but he was the reason they were on this expedition, with the dangerous sun a few feet away.

He wouldn’t let her down.

By the time evening approached, the wails were so close that they were like clanging cymbals in his ears. They came at scattered intervals, a few quick bursts of alternating screams and wails followed by long lulls of silence.

They were in one such lull now.

The waiting was worse than the screaming. Marius’s heart raced in his chest, and the hairs on his neck and arms prickled.

Vivienne was stiff beside him. She seemed on edge, and she hadn’t spoken for hours.

Nearly a half-hour had passed since the last wail. He’d been counting the minutes. The sun was slowly setting, but it wasn’t fast enough.

And then it happened.

Another scream ripped through the silence, but this one was closer than the others. Marius sucked in a breath as he searched for the source of the sound. He didn’t see anything in front of him. His eyes swung to the left. Nothing but darkness met his gaze.

A second screech came from his right. It was completely dark, but this time, the shadows moved. Thick swaths of ink swarmed, gathering together and forming a creature of pure night. It was there, but not. Black, but darker than the rest of the shadows. Corporeal in a place where nothing had been moments ago.

It shouldn’t have existed, and yet, it did.

Marius’s stomach curled in on itself as the darkness evolved yet again.

A pair of blood-red eyes blinked to life as a mouth curved into a gruesome, macabre smile. Four arms that were somehow there, but also not, flailed towards them. Sharp claws decorated the ends of inky hands, glimmering in the darkness.

The sun was setting, but it didn’t matter.

Death had been hunting them all day, and now, it had found them.

The creature cocked its head and opened its mouth, revealing rows upon rows of black, serrated teeth. Its tongue was made of shadows, and a red ember glowed from within its body.

The air around the beast was icy, and Marius realized the temperature had been dropping all day because of this creature.

It was the storm, the ice, the cold, the shadows.

Had it been stalking them from the moment they arrived?

Scarlet eyes blinked, and then, the creature lunged. It was a bolt of crimson lightning as it darted beneath their overhang, screeching at the top of its lungs.

“By all the gods,” Vivienne swore beside him. “Fight!”

The command was unnecessary. Marius’s dagger was already flying through the air.

He held his breath, his arm still outstretched, as the blade landed in the creature’s left retina with a gruesome squelch .

Blood poured from the creature’s eye, illuminated by the ember within the beast.

Time slowed to a crawl.

Drip, drip, drip.

Onyx blood pooled on the ground .

The shadow monster’s right eye slowly blinked.

Knots twisted in Marius’s stomach.

Vivienne said something, but he couldn’t hear her over the monster’s wail.

But it didn’t fall over. It didn’t die.

Midnight ribbons reached up, yanking out the blade. Ice formed around the dagger, and inky blood poured from the wound.

A half-scream, half-laugh ripped through the air as the creature tossed the weapon aside. The dagger clattered against stone, but Marius didn’t pull his gaze away to see where it landed.

Vivienne shouldered past him, her sword held high.

“No more wasting weapons. On my command, we fight,” she hissed. “Got it, Prince?”

He drew his remaining dagger, settled into a familiar fighting position, and nodded. “I’m ready.”

At least the monster’s peculiar red glow meant he could see Vivienne and their opponent.

Even now, in this place of darkness where the early evening air tasted like death, Marius couldn’t help but smile. This was the kind of adventure he’d always dreamed of.