Gilded Destiny

by Nola Sarina

Don’t Look.

  Calli

  It was dark. Nycholas had blankets and pillows strapped tightly across every window to block out the sunlight. When my eyelids finally fluttered open, I couldn’t tell the time; I only saw the light shade of Nycholas’ cool skin beneath my cheek. We were strewn across a bed, the enormous Vesper beneath me stretched corner-to-corner across the mattress on his back.

  Did I lay on him all day? I lifted my cheek. Crap, drool! I wiped his chest with a corner of the sheet that draped across us, and the cool air washed across my calves as the blanket slid up from my ankles with my movement.

  I stilled. I wasn’t wearing pants.

  He took my jeans off. My heartbeat pounded in my ears. Had he drugged me again? I licked my lips and detected no hint of his bitter fruit poison cocktail, and I shook my head as I stared at his face, soft with sleep and peaceful. I shifted up to get a better look at him, thrilled to feel that my panties were still securely in place where they belonged.

  As I shifted, I felt the flannel material of Nycholas’ sweatpants against my bare legs. He was still wearing his pants; I was not. I didn’t know whether to be angry or thankful… skinny jeans weren’t the most comfortable of pajamas. Relief took over my panic, but that familiar warring of danger and arousal started between my thighs again, as I lay half-naked in a bed with a freaking man-eating immortal.

  He took my jeans off. A grin crept across my lips as I stretched up higher to peer closely at the veins of his temples, which throbbed with a subtle slither of his heartbeat… pure black, like his eyes. My gaze wandered down to his neck, where a crescent half-moon scar marred his perfect complexion across his throat, directly over his jugular vein. I tried to see the other side of the scar, but I imagined it was all the way back along his spine, and my own pulse kicked up a notch as I grasped the size of a jaw required to do that sort of damage.

  I dared to inch closer and breathed deeply at the spot just behind his earlobe… God, such intoxicating steel… the aroma I drew off his skin, his hair, the base of his neck slid through my body in a familiar way, and I wanted to taste him.

  Would he wake up? I didn’t know. I counted the seconds between his breaths and found him only inhaling every twenty seconds or so, and his heartbeat was slower as I leaned my ear back to his chest. A deep sleeper. Good. Maybe he didn’t notice my drool.

  I pressed my ear down and listened to his heart for a while, his breathing so hypnotically slow that I might have dozed again but couldn’t be sure.

  I was the last request of an immortal killer on death row, sentenced by an immortal master whom I could only guess was far more terrifying than Nycholas. Nycholas was going to die in three nights, and all he wanted before he died, was someone to touch and taste.

  Someone like me. Specifically, me.

  My heart picked up in a sprint again and my eyelids fluttered open. Could I do it? He practically wanted me as a sex slave for a weekend, and sex was the only thing he wanted from me. Not a long-term relationship… he’d be dead before that could happen… and he promised my safety.

  I’d asked him what he would do if I said no, and he had dodged the question. Did that mean he’d kill me and eat me? Drug me and have his way with me for three days, half-coherent?

  I wanted to slap myself for how fucking hot that sounded in my thoughts. Crossing the line! Sleeping with an immortal who swallowed my friend whole was enough moral boundaries broken for one week.

  That, and if I was going to tell Nycholas to fuck me when he woke, I wanted him to really fuck me, and I wanted to experience every vivid second of it. Of course my answer was yes.

  As the darkness of what I could only assume to still be blocked-out daytime drew on, my thoughts racing madly along with my heartbeat and Nycholas still as the grave beneath my cheek, my fear was overtaken by my wanting. Lust burned in my heart, shoving away the terror of the reality of Nycholas’ existence and the things he’d done, and compassion overruled the conflict I felt at being a dying wish. If I was a dying wish, at least it was to this creature, this insanely muscled man with powder-soft skin wrapped over his steel, sculpted frame, who smelled like metal and nighttime and inhaled the scent of my colorful arms when I fell asleep standing up.

  My own attention-deficit Vesper. I suppressed a giggle, but a bit of it slipped out, and Nycholas finally stirred.

  He turned his head to peer down at me, and I was blown away by how fucking flawless he looked even when just rousing from a slumber so deep it mirrored death.

  “You’re not sleeping,” he said.

  I shook my head and propped my chin beneath my uninjured hand on his chest. “No. I’m admiring you.”

  Nycholas’ eyes narrowed as one side of his mouth turned up in a faint crooked smile. “I’m much more impressive alert and ripping trains into pieces with my hands to hurl at my furious master, than when sleeping.”

  I lifted my eyebrows. “You can do that?”

  “And many, many other things.”

  The sex-deal was on, so his charm was, too. I liked his confidence and the hint of boast in his voice.

  I scooted up so half of my torso rested atop his and my face was less than an inch from his. His breath washed icily across my lips and I licked them to enhance the chill, and my tongue caught his attention. “I want to ask you something.”

  Nycholas nodded at me to continue, but he stared at my lips, not at my eyes.

  I swallowed and licked them again before I spoke. “If our mouths meet while open, I’ll sleep.”

  He stilled, and if I hadn’t counted the time between his breaths for so long earlier, I wouldn’t have noticed how his respiration kicked up a gear as he glanced up at my eyes, and back down to my lips. “Yes.”

  “But if I kiss you… and you keep your lips closed… I’m not in any danger?”

  Nycholas frowned. “I don’t know how to kiss.”

  Wow! Straight face! No laughing! “You haven’t kissed before?”

  Nycholas shook his head.

  “You’ve never had sex before.”

  He stiffened and tried to pull away from me, but I grabbed his smooth chin with my hands – the splint clinking lightly on his hard cheek. “It’s okay!” I soothed.

  “No, it’s not… true. It’s not what you think.”

  I searched his eyes for an answer, but only found greater confusion there than before, more questions, his fear mingled with mine between us as our hearts pressed together, only shielded by meager ribs and skin.

  Nycholas swallowed hard. “No running away. You promised.”

  I stroked his cheeks. “Yes, I promised.”

  “No matter how bad it is… how bad I am.”

  I nodded and wished he’d just fucking tell me already, since my nerves skyrocketed through the roof with every moment that passed.

  Nycholas wrapped his hands around my wrists – to keep me from being capable of escaping. That battle between my legs heightened again and I ached with the urge to flee, to protect myself… and to glue myself to Nycholas and never let him out from between my legs.

  “I’ve had… sex… before.” He mouthed the word as though it were wrong of him to say. “Just not… the way I should have. Not right, I did things wrong.”

  I didn’t answer for a moment, and though he didn’t tighten his grip on my wrists, I knew I couldn’t get away if I tried.

  “You… did things to someone without asking?”

  Nycholas growled and looked away, and a moment later glared at me with determination, warning, and fear. “I asked. And she said yes, as you’ve said yes. But… I was weaker, then. Stupider.”

  “Weaker how?” The suspense was killing me. What had he done? Why was he afraid to tell me this?

  Nycholas released my broken hand and pressed his thumb and forefinger to his cheekbones beneath his eyes. “The pockets here.”

  He had a damn cold? “Your sinuses.” I toyed with the idea of telling him he couldn’t have any Nyquil until he was naked.

&nbs
p; “Yes, those. To store my poison. But when I… when someone else said yes, before, the pockets were too full. I knew I shouldn’t do it, but I bit her when we were…” Nycholas took a deep breath and blew it out, and then grumbled an apology that he blasted my face with ice-cold wind from his lips.

  “You killed her.” My voice sounded far away, as though the words were said by someone else, not by me, not by the woman with no pants on in bed with a killer who made me so horny I couldn’t fucking think.

  “No.” Nycholas shook his head roughly, and it was the most agitated motion I’d seen him make. “No, no. I didn’t kill her. I bit her, I drained her, and I poisoned her. I had too much, but I didn’t know that. My master never told me that was how it’s done. How more of us are made.”

  The puzzle pieces clicked together one by one in my brain as I stared at Nycholas, who stared back at me, his own fear as thick as mine and tangible in the atmosphere of the room. He bit the woman he slept with, and he had too much poison, so she didn’t crumple and die… she became a Vesper.

  Oh.

  Nycholas let go of my other wrist and his hand came down on the back of my head – again, just that touch too hard, that little bit that slammed through my core because he wanted me so much he could barely restrain himself, even at the expense of my safety. I continued to stroke the silk of his jawline with my thumbs.

  “It was the first of my crimes to my master’s rule,” Nycholas whispered. “He beheaded her, my woman, my Maid.”

  “Maid?” Like, French maid?

  “Women like us. Female Vespers. We men are called Gents.”

  Oh. I nodded and smiled sheepishly, embarrassed that I’d interrupted with such a stupid question.

  Nycholas continued. “I hated him for killing her, but for many years, I feared breaking the rules again. And then four years ago, he caught me in my second crime.” He clenched his mouth shut tight and I watched the space in front of his ears, the soft place of joining of his massive, unhingeable jaws, vibrate as he ground his teeth. “He threatened too much. I killed two of my brothers in that fight… I ran away… and now, I will die for my crimes.”

  “What was your other crime? Four-ish years ago?”

  Nycholas shook his head. “It wouldn’t do for you to know.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Despite what he wouldn’t tell me, what he did tell me rocked my heart. I ached for him. His master killed the woman he accidentally turned into a Vesper when he got carried away during sex. Nycholas wanted to know the kind touch of a woman again, the healing of his pain for a love lost so long ago, and he wanted it from me. He picked me.

  And I picked him. The danger of him losing control… of biting me… it wasn’t enough to quell the lust low in my belly, burning as I squirmed beneath his glare.

  So I closed that final inch of space between us and wrapped my lips around his lower lip, tasting him, tugging lightly, respecting the reservation of his tightly-closed mouth and the danger he posed to me. I kissed him, though he couldn’t safely kiss me back, over and over again.

  When I pulled away to gauge his reaction, to see if he liked it… there was a hunger brewing in Nycholas’ eyes that I didn’t expect.

  He slowly sat up, bringing me with him, and reached beneath my armpits to lift me into his lap. I slipped my legs on either side of his waist, and… oh, yes, that’s what I thought it was… his arousal pressed against me through the scant barrier of his flannel and my panties.

  I wrapped my arms around his thick neck, the cords of his hair rough against my forearms, and then Nycholas’ hands grabbed onto my back and he spun me down to the mattress, rested his weight against my pelvis, and oh, it felt so unbelievably cold and good.

  His mouth found my throat, and I thought it must have been instinct that led him there, because he inhaled sharply and then growled against me, pressing harder between my legs. His lips pinched my skin as he kissed me, and he stroked his fangs upward along my skin – not biting, just sliding the cool ivory of the rounded fronts against my flesh. It was as though he wanted to sink his teeth into me and taste me, but he didn’t do it… he just licked me and washed that ice-cold breath down my neck with every heave of his enormous chest over me. I shivered and reached down to shed the last bits of our clothing, and as his hands pinned me down by the hips, I was his.

  His pleasure was stunning, and not just for his size – he moved with the pace of a man who knew the stakes, who knew what was at risk… slow, his hands possessive but only on the still-okay edge of pain, and whatever remained of my fear of Nycholas was replaced with the blazing burn of desire and need. I cried out as he filled my body and soul, and he moved with precision, his eyes focused on my mouth as I gasped and trembled with his touch.

  Like feather-tipped razor blades, so sharp and lethal, so soft and comforting, familiar and soothing and hurting and Oh…

  And when I was spent, lost in an oblivion of his immortal body and the touch of his iron perfection, he lowered his chest down, gripped me by the shoulders and pressed harder with each fluid motion of his hips, meeting the back of me with a steel rod wrapped in the thinnest of silk, the pain increasing, the pleasure fighting against it, lust dancing with danger, as he worked himself deeper into me. As his thrusts peaked, so did my shrieks, the pain winning out over lust, and Nycholas’ eyes bored into mine, his jaw unhinged, a satisfied snarl ripping forth from between his fangs. He hovered above me, enormous, menacing, his mouth dripping neon poison, as he growled and fucked me harder, faster. He threw his head back to with his last, final grind of his solid hips between my aching thighs, and the sight of a demon – an immortal, a creature so unsurpassed I’d never dared to imagine him – unraveled by ecstasy, was enough to press back the pain. I slid my palms up his chest and stroked the bulging, black veined skin of his muscled neck. I panted, hurting, burning with greedy satisfaction, and thrilled beyond any thrill I’d felt in my life.

  Nycholas lowered his head to my chest, still covered by my shirt, and kissed the hollow of the base of my throat. I hummed and stroked his temples, the intricate veins there, and then he rolled with me to our sides and held me fast. I closed my eyes, exhilarated, spent, and energized all at once by our union.

  I fucked a Vesper. Hell yeah, I did. I shivered in the aftermath, partly from pleasure, and partly probably from shock.

  When his breathing slowed, Nycholas stroked his thumbs over my eyelids, brushing away tears I hadn’t noticed.

  “I hurt you,” he said, his voice taking on that quizzical, worry-free tone I adored, though I shook like a leaf in the wind against his embrace.

  I nodded. “It’s okay. You didn’t do anything that I didn’t want you to do.”

  He shook his head slowly. “I frightened you, too.”

  I giggled at that, wiping away the residue of my tears. “You have frightened me since I first set eyes upon you, Nycholas. It was okay then… and it’s okay now.”

  His fingertip found my chin and he pulled me up to meet his eyes. “May I have you more?”

  “Now?” God, I didn’t know… I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. A sexy, deadly truck. Between my legs.

  Nycholas’ grin showed up again, excitement in his eyes. “After I feed you, of course.”

  I watched his eyes. Was he serious? He wanted me again after he fed me…

  “Okay.” What else could I say? I wanted him, too.

  Nycholas rolled away from me and sat. He reached off the side of the bed and passed me my jeans, and then crossed the room and threw a blanket off a large window, letting some moonlight into the little place as he tugged on his flannel pants and secured them loosely with the drawstring. “You should wear things that are easier for me to take off,” he said.

  I blushed so hot I almost asked him if I could have his hands to cool down my face, but instead, I just dressed in quiet, taking note of all the sudden aches and pains in my body.

  I wasn’t sure if the throbbing in my shoulders was from his hands gripping
me to the mattress when he was inside me, or if it was from falling all over a muddy hill and a rocky shore. My hips felt loose and weak, and I wondered if it was from the massive size of his body between my legs, or if they were simply still fatigued from such a trek and two blackouts.

  One pain I knew for a fact was from Nycholas: the ache in my lower belly, pressing downward as I stood, and the tenderness of swelling where my thighs met my pelvis. It hurt to walk, and every step I took shot a new pain through me, but each pain was a reminder of who had been there, what we’d done, and I loved it.

  I loved pain when he delivered it, solid steel penetrating my most sensitive places, and I loved the pain when he was done. Normal. Yep, totally normal. I rolled my eyes at myself as I walked to the kitchen, where Nycholas stood in his shirtless, satisfied perfection, leaning on one elbow on the counter, watching me limp with a grin on his face.

  “I’m sure it’s very funny,” I teased him.

  Nycholas shook his head. “I want to see you naked.”

  Holy crap! Yes, he really just said that. Would I ever tire of the way he surprised me with his words? My knees tried to melt, but I drew a sharp breath and forced my feet to support my weight. “Um, I seriously need a shower before we get… back to it,” I said.

  Nycholas’ eyebrows raised and he straightened. “Of course. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I just… don’t feel clean.” I rumpled my hair with my good hand and frowned when a piece of grass fell out and drifted to the floor.

  Nycholas’ enthusiasm dwindled to concern. “I didn’t think first. I would have taken you in the shower, had I known you felt I was unclean.”

  Unclean? It sounded like a Biblical term when he said it, and I remembered his words about apples and the Garden. I stepped closer to him, threaded my fingers through his, bent a little to reach the well-carved planes of his stomach with my mouth, and dragged my tongue from his navel to his throat, delighting in the velvety taste. He sucked in a gasp as I stretched up to kiss his chin. “You misunderstand me. I don’t find you unclean. I’m covered in grass and mud and lake water. I want to be clean for you.”

  Nycholas’ hands wandered from my wrists to my neck and then he cupped me on either side of my throat. He tilted down, his golden cords sweeping across his shoulders and brushing mine, and he kissed me with a reserved mouth, his lips closed, just touching mine in little, delicate grazes, over and over. I closed my eyes, and I couldn’t help but moan.

  And then he let go of me and I panted with shock at the vacancy of my skin without his. I blinked at him, and he smiled.

  “Apparently, I did misunderstand you.”

  I cleared my throat. “I thought you didn’t know how to worry,” I said, breathless.

  “You’re teaching me a few things.” Nycholas turned and threw open a cupboard, and then another, and then another. “What do you like to eat, lately?”

  Lately? I shook my head, trying to clear the fog of arousal and focus on food. My stomach growled at the thought, and I stepped forward to look inside the cupboards. I found a box of crackers and checked the expiration date, and when Nycholas reached for the handle of the fridge, I jumped to stop him.

  “No! Leave it closed.” I showed him the box. “This food is all old, and it will smell bad.”

  Nycholas glanced about for a moment. “We will go get some elsewhere,” he said. “Would you shower with me first?”

  I shook my head. “I want to, Nycholas, but I need hot water, not cold.” I sounded like a prissy little bitch when I said it, but the fact was I’d probably been dangerously close to hypothermia paddling a boat with numb fingers yesterday, so if I wanted to make it through tonight and two more nights with ice-cold Nycholas, a frigid shower wasn’t the smartest of survival tactics.

  But he only smiled, no matter how wimpy I sounded. “I forgot that.”

  Nycholas grabbed his brown leather coat and wrapped it around my shoulders. He took my hand and drew me out of the trailer without a second glance.

  On the porch, he stopped and pointed to the little porch light. “Explain this,” he said, cocking his head to the side with curiosity, the music of the crickets playing in the background.

  I glanced at the light and then back to Nycholas. “It’s… a light?”

  “No lights in the house work. I tried the switches. Why the one outside?”

  Oh. I reached up to tap the small, silver square on the top of the fixture. “Solar. It charges in the sun. Not many people have them, but look…” I pointed down the dark street in front of us, where a half a block away, more identical lights were lit on the front steps of better houses than this one. “The neighborhood probably provides them.”

  Nycholas watched me talk, his eyes still locked on my lips. “You’re not making any sense,” he said, “but keep speaking.”

  I laughed and kissed him on the cheek, stretched up on my toes. God, he’s tall.

  I remembered that taller Vesper from the night before with the long, black hair, and shivered, wondering how high he’d loom over my head if I stood next to him.

  “It just means the light is powered by the energy it soaks up in the sun all day. The sun is…” I grasped for words. He understood trains. “It’s like fuel. Fuel for the lights, stored inside of them so we can see at night.”

  Nycholas’ eyes grew distant. “The sun is strong. But I can’t imagine the sun being so thoughtful, and helping you like that.” There was anger in his tone, or resentment.

  “You said you’re not allowed to experience sunlight. What happens if the sunlight touches you?” I asked.

  Nycholas focused on me again and sighed. “I burn. Like when you sunburn, but faster.” He said it as though he’d seen me sunburned before, and I squirmed with the forbidden erotic thoughts that rose in my mind as I imagined Nycholas watching me in secret.

  “Will sunlight kill you?”

  Nycholas cracked a grin and tugged lightly on my hand to pull me forward. “Yes. Now, quiet. I’m not used to sneaking with someone who talks so much.”

  Sneaking. It seemed like a dramatic understatement for the way Nycholas found every shadow and simply blended into it as we slipped along the street. I shut up and let him lead me ahead, though I nearly had to jog to keep up with him, squeezing his cold fingers and using my splinted hand to clutch closed the leather trench coat. I was quite certain I looked completely ridiculous, darting in and out of the shadows with Nycholas, but to anyone watching us, they would have only seen me. Nycholas literally disappeared into the shadows, his form masked by the darkness, as though night wanted to shield him from sight.

  We crept along in silence, and Nycholas moved with such swiftness and stealth that had I not been clutching his fingers like life itself, I would have altogether lost track of him in the dark. We stopped along the side of a house – a much nicer one than the trailer on the corner – and Nycholas brought me down to a crouch in the shadows behind a thick, prickly bush.

  “Be quiet,” he whispered, the sound more of a hiss than anything else that pricked goosebumps up along the back of my neck. “Wait here. I will be back for you.”

  “No!” I grabbed his bare forearm. “There are people in there. Don’t you hear the TV?”

  Nycholas puzzled at me. “Yes. One is near your size and will have clothes.”

  I shook my head furiously. “Nycholas, don’t!”

  He silenced me with a kiss, and I shivered harder, afraid, mortified at what he was about to do, and lost in that soft caress of his closed lips along mine. I didn’t dare try to speak while he kissed me, afraid of those toxic fangs behind the silken doors to his beautiful speech. When he broke away from me, I wanted to cry again, for so many reasons, half of which I could not name.

  He whispered again. “I am going inside. I will come back for you, and we will get you clean and warm and ready again. That is my only concern.”

  I didn’t want to let go of his hand, but he slipped out of my grasp and moved swiftly up the ba
ck stairs of the house, taking them five at a time. Two massive steps and Nycholas disappeared into the house, and I cringed and bit my lip to keep quiet.

  It was only seconds and Nycholas was back, completely unmarred, and the house was still silent save for the television glowing through the windows. He helped me up by both of my armpits, and I apologized softly when I realized how hard I was shaking. He took me up the back stairs and at the door, paused.

  “Eyes down,” he ordered me. “Don’t look.”

  Don’t look?! I wanted to shout at him and shove him and demand that he tell me what I might see if I looked. But my voice was nowhere to be found, and I knew, somehow, that all I’d see was death.

  My stomach clenched and I was glad I hadn’t eaten. I squeezed my eyes shut and grabbed Nycholas’ hand with both of my fists as he pulled me into the house.

  Inside, it didn’t smell like the digestive mist of a human body dissolved, as I remembered from Freddy’s ghastly death, so I dared to peek my eyes open. Relief washed through me when I saw no blood on the floor by my feet. Of course not! I’d allowed my imagination to run wild and conjure up horror stories from movies and books. I glanced to my left, and the sight beside the couch shook my reality down to the bones, and I shrieked.

  On the floor lay a man and a woman, crumped together in a heap, gasping and dehydrated, crinkled up like rotted corpses. Their eyes gaped as widely as their slack mouths as they watched me, alert and coherent but helpless and doomed.

  Nycholas’ massive arm crushed me by the waist as he scooped me up and swept me down the hallway. A shriek ripped through the walls of the house, and I grabbed fistfuls of the skin of his shoulders at the intensity of the sound.

  Then, I realized the shriek was coming from me.

  “Ssh!” Nycholas insisted, setting me on a bed. I ran out of air to scream and I sucked in a breath, the air scraping my throat like blades, and Nycholas climbed onto the bed and knelt before me, smothering me in his embrace. All I could do was sob.

  “I said not to look! Do you forget how to listen, too?” His tone was angry, and I cried harder, disappointed in myself and overwhelmed at the horror of two lives ended so abruptly by the monster I cherished, the Vesper who cradled and scolded me like a child.

  He sighed harshly into my hair. “How will she love me again if she hates what I am?”

  I froze. Did he mean to say that? Love?

  To a Vesper, love might mean something different than to a human, and he was probably only referring to sex rather than true love. Old-fashioned-style. But the words distracted me from my meltdown of fear, and I let him just rock me for a moment, apologizing softly.

  When I was calm, he pushed me back to look into my eyes. “When I tell you not to look,” he said, “do not look. If I tell you to run, run. And when I tell you it’s time for you to let go of me, you do it, without question. Is that understood?”

  I nodded. I had no will to argue with him. These things were bigger than me… Vespers and masters and murder and apples… I didn’t know what else to say.

  Nycholas sighed. “Now, stay here. Find clothes, but don’t change into them. Do not open that door until I open it for you, do you understand?”

  I swallowed, shivering. “I thought I was a friend, not a prisoner.”

  Nycholas’ expression battled between frustration, adoration, and… pain? Shit. I regretted my words as he stared at me, offended once more by my careless tongue.

  “Friends protect their friends,” he finally said, “inside and out, no matter how much they protest. Stay here.”

  He didn’t argue any more. He slipped out the door and closed it behind him.

  I took a huge, shaky breath, and pressed on my eyelids with my fingertips. Nycholas was going to eat that poor couple in the living room, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Did I want to do anything about it? I understood he needed to eat. What I didn’t understand was why this strange, adorable man, this stunning Vesper, gave a shit about keeping me warm and healthy, and why he cradled me so close and spoke about love.

  I shook my head and opened the closet door, still a bit unsteady on my feet. Sure enough, the clothing inside was my size and close to my style, though I chose sweatpants over jeans. I tried not to admit to myself how much I chose them because they would be easier for Nycholas to remove, as he’d requested I wear.

  Nycholas opened the door as I grabbed a hoodie from the top shelf to layer over the sleeveless black top I chose. He stepped inside the room with humility in his solemn gaze, like he was haunted by his existence and frightened of my reaction, the mist of his digestion still clinging to his hair like sweat.

  I faced him and felt my shoulders slump. “I’m sorry. I was shocked, that’s all. This is… a lot to take in.”

  “I knew this was a mistake,” Nycholas said. “You’ve only just gotten healthy. And now I’m making you ill again.”

  Healthy? “What do you know about my health?”

  Nycholas’ eyes widened, and he looked startled. “You said you had an accident. I don’t… want to interfere with your mind.”

  “Yet you drugged my memories away.”

  His jaw quivered, and he boomed at me with such force that I flinched. “To protect you! To protect your mind, to make you forget me! To ensure you didn’t know anything dangerous…” He snarled and paced from side to side, raking his fingers through his hair, agitated.

  I stepped back, my heart pounding with a remorseful ache that I didn’t want to feel for another moment if I could help it. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to argue with you. I didn’t mean to pick a fight.”

  Nycholas held out his palms to me. “Can you set aside how bad I am for two more nights, to be with me? If you find it eats at you, I can blank it from you when we’re finished.”

  When we’re finished… when he was dead. My stomach rolled again and dizziness swept through me, so I started to lower myself into a crouch on the floor, but Nycholas moved me to the bed before I touched down. I breathed slowly, heat washing over me, fear and conflict prying at my heart. I didn’t want him to die, but what say did I have? I was nothing more than a final request, to him.

  I wanted to tell him to fight this fate, to run away again, to live, because he was so damn gorgeous and unique.

  But that wasn’t what he wanted.

  For reasons I didn’t understand, reasons I might never understand, I was what he wanted, and then he wanted to die.

  I threw myself onto him where he crouched by the bed, climbed onto his lap and kissed him, feeling the smoothness of his skin against me, his hands sliding up beneath my shirt again. I couldn’t stop my frantic mouth, and he groaned against me, so I slipped my tongue out from between my lips and swept it across his lower lip. I did it again… and then I fucked it all up, because I pushed beyond the border of his lips, tasted the electric tang of his citrus poison, and blackness swirled in around the edges of my vision.

  “Calli!” Nycholas gasped, and I slept.