Taste the Dark

by Tibby Armstrong

“You are my tribute because you took the blood of the gods in a rite that was not yours to bestow upon yourself,” Lyandros explained. “Sinning against them was your crime. Not being tortured and duped by the Morgan into feeding him information.”

  “It’s what ultimately allowed the Morgan fully inside my brain—that stunt I pulled with the kylix.” Akito huddled in on himself, arms around his shins and lowered his cheek to his knees to stare into the fire. “That’s what allowed him to spy on the mora through me.”

  Lyandros clenched the leather chair arms in a bid for control. His heart ached, and he longed to reach out to Akito in reassurance. “You could not have known that this would be the result of your actions.”

  “You were the victim here, ‘kito,” Nyx said quietly.

  “Was I?” Lifting his head, Akito stared at Lyandros through eyes that glistened with unshed emotion. “I wanted so damned much to be the hero the mora needed—that my friends needed—but what bothers me most isn’t the Morgan or how stupid I was to go to him in the first place. Not anymore.”

  “Then what?” He spoke quietly, lest he disturb Akito’s willingness to tell his story.

  “That for five shining minutes, in your eyes, I was that hero.” Swallowing audibly, Akito shook his head. “And now, all I am is a bed warmer. Except, unlike with the Morgan, I fucking like it.”

  “You think…” Lyandros stood, grasping for words. “You think I abuse you like the Morgan?”

  “No.” Akito shook his head, the emphatic gesture sending his hair tumbling over his shoulders. “It’s the control thing. The ownership. That feels the same but not the same. But that’s not what I was talking about.”

  Lyandros, stuck on the notion that he was anything like the Morgan in Akito’s mind, stared at his tribute in mute horror. Visions of the Morgan, black turtleneck and leather coat looming over Akito pierced the veil between his and Akito’s minds. He felt the witch clawing at Akito’s sanity through Akito’s memories.

  “I thought you knew you had the right to say no to what happens between us in bed.” Lyandros stood. “I hadn’t realized that you believed I had taken your will in this, as he had.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant.” Akito stood, broaching the distance between them. “It’s not like that.”

  Lyandros backed away, hand out. “Stop. Stay there.”

  “What did I do wrong?” Hurt twisted Akito’s mouth, drawing his brows low.

  Shaking his head, Lyandros took another step backward. “It is not you. I can see now that you believe the power imbalance between us does not truly give you autonomy to refuse me. And perhaps you are right.”

  Though he’d known Akito had suffered at the Morgan’s hands, Lyandros had not realized how similar the situation had been when Akito had become his tribute. Though Lyandros could do nothing about the bond unless the gods ordained it, he could, however, protect Akito from himself.

  “I don’t want it to stop… Us to stop.” Voice raw, Akito pleaded with him. “I was just trying to make you see that I feel weird enjoying the things that I used to hate with him. That I wish we were like we were before. Equals.”

  Again, the comparison between himself and the Morgan nearly sent Lyandros to his knees.

  “You have opened my eyes,” Lyandros said, already beginning to wall off his heart. “You have my word that while you are under my care, I will never again compel you to give of yourself in that way.”

  “But—” Akito attempted to follow him.

  Nyx put a staying hand on Akito’s shoulder. “Leave him alone for now.”

  Unable to stomach the thought of living with himself a moment longer, Lyandros left the room and locked the door behind him. Brick by brick, he constructed the barrier that would keep Akito safe. Their tribute bond was mandated by the gods, and he would fulfill his duty. The rest, he saw now, he would have to learn to learn to live without.

  Chapter 22

  Silence and tension became the hallmarks of Akito’s relationship with Lyandros after his revelation of the Morgan’s brand. As usual, Akito entered the central chamber for breakfast, and Lyandros excused himself. He walked by the dining table, and their bedroom door closed with a click.

  Nyx regarded Akito with pity from under the fall of his bangs. “He’ll come around.”

  Glancing to the closed door, Akito shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  Isander poured a cup of coffee from a silver service and handed it to Akito. The King Ruler’s eyes were so like Lyandros’s, it pained Akito to consider them. “My brother can be a little rigid, but he means well.”

  “Thanks.” Akito pulled the creamer and sugar to him. “But I’m not sure why I even care. It’s not like I know him all that well.”

  Except he did know Lyandros well.

  The Justice Giver-tribute bond had accelerated their relationship beyond acquaintance to, while not exactly friendship, something deeper. A connection had formed by emotional resonance and understanding. But, even with that understanding, Akito had been unable to knock down Lyandros’s new walls.

  Since the night Lyandros had discovered the brand, whenever Akito attempted to reach out to Lyandros with his mind, it felt as if a cold wind gusted through the chasm between them. Shivering internally, he tried again and quickly retreated. The stalemate was days old, and the pattern since had not varied. Lyandros slept in their bed by day and, by tacit agreement, the chamber belonged to Akito at night.

  Finished stirring his coffee, Akito looked up to find Nyx and Isander staring at him. “What?”

  “You’re as stubborn as he is, you know,” Nyx observed, cutting into his half of an omelet Isander had shared.

  “Me?” Akito gestured to himself with his spoon. “I’m not the one who makes the decisions in this arrangement, remember?”

  By rights, he shouldn’t have been interested in the sexual shenanigans with Lyandros. In the bedroom’s lonely expanse, Akito envisioned Lyandros owning him and forcing him to do unspeakable things. Then, in the light of day, he was ashamed. Truth was, he was glad Lyandros avoided him so he didn’t have to examine his depraved interest too closely.

  “You know…” Chewing and swallowing, Nyx frowned into the distance. “He never said you couldn’t have sex with him.”

  Akito snorted, remembering clearly what Lyandros had said. “Look, it’s not like I sit around crying because Lyandros isn’t interested in me. If he’s disgusted by the brand and what the Morgan did to me—if he can’t stomach that I’ve been used by him—then I have no interest in forcing the issue.”

  A boom sounded, and every item on the table jumped. Akito’s coffee sloshed over its rim to stain the white table cloth in a slowly expanding puddle. Startled, he looked to Isander whose fists still rested on the table’s edge.

  “My brother is not so shallow as to care what mark is upon your body,” the King Ruler ground.

  It wasn’t like Isander to succumb to fits of temper—or at least that had been Akito’s experience of the vampire so far. Not quite knowing what to make of the display, Akito regarded him warily. “Okay…”

  “I think what Xan is trying to say…” Tearing his gaze from Isander, Nyx blotted at his own coffee spill with a linen napkin. “Is that Lyandros’s issue isn’t with what the Morgan did to you or what you look like.”

  Whatever.

  Giving the King Ruler’s scowl the side-eye, Akito bit back the snarkitude. “I was there, remember?”

  “Akito?” Nyx put down his napkin, his patience clearly taxed. “You didn’t mean to, I know, but you all but accused Lyandros of…to put it delicately…doing things you didn’t want him to do, for his own pleasure.”

  They’d been over this before. Akito tossed his napkin to the table in frustration. “That wasn’t what I meant, and you know it!”

  “Yes, but that’s the way he took it.” Nyx leaned in. “And maybe that’s a good thing.”

  Fury licked at Akito’s heels in a way it hadn’t since the Morgan had lived in
his brain. He shoved away from the table, chair legs screeching against the marble. “What the fuck do you mean, ‘it’s a good thing’?”

  “You needed to figure out you could say no to him. Nobody has jurisdiction over your body but you—no matter what the Morgan taught you.” Fingers steepled, under his chin, Nyx considered Akito, then slid his gaze to Isander. “Your ball, Xan.”

  Isander glanced to the closed bedroom door and sighed. His concern for his brother wrote itself across his brow in fleeting furrows. He returned his attention to Nyx. A wordless conversation passed between them—a connection Akito wondered at briefly until Isander’s focused on him.

  “My brother likely thought he had told you this in one way or another—and the old bonding rites would have clarified this. There was no time, however, in the shortened ritual, for you to be enlightened fully. Lyandros thought you wanted the physical relationship, and believes you thought you were required to submit to him. It was an uneven power balance, and that has been rectified.”

  Understanding dawned like a cold bath, aborting his inhale. Akito sat back, stunned. “He thinks I accused him of raping me?”

  “In a sense,” Nyx answered quietly. “Yes.”

  “I just meant that…” Akito played his words back in his head and felt sick. “Maybe it is what I meant.” He lifted his gaze to Isander’s face. “I just wanted him to see me as more than someone to sleep with—we had begun as allies. And now…” He shrugged, at a loss. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “You should go to him.” Nyx nodded to the door.

  Akito laughed, the short huff of breath an ironic imitation of mirth. “He doesn’t want to talk to me, remember?”

  One half of Nyx’s full mouth quirked. “It wasn’t talking I had in mind.”

  “Um…” Brows drawn together, Akito squinted at Nyx. “What part of him not fucking me didn’t you understand?”

  “Are you completely dense?” Nyx stood and laid his palms flat on the table to lean over the table. “He said he wouldn’t come to you. He never said anything about you coming to him.”

  Rewinding his mental tape, Akito skipped his gaze over Nyx’s face and played back the conversation that horrible night. “Oh…”

  Nyx sat with an exasperated whump. “Right. Oh.”

  Isander smirked into his coffee cup.

  “Uh. You think I should…” Akito glanced to the bedroom doorway again.

  “I think you’d better, or I’m going to put you in there bodily and lock the door.”

  Akito shot Nyx a glare. “Shut up.”

  His friend answered with a tilt of his head and a pointed finger. “Go forth and copulate, you numskull.”

  Standing, Akito faced the door. He searched his feelings for Lyandros’s state of mind and found the Justice Giver quiet. Likely sleeping. Taking a deep breath, he approached the door and looked over his shoulder at Nyx.

  Nyx jabbed his finger again at the door. “Go.”

  “Fine.” He placed his hand on the brass handle’s lushly etched surface.

  Vine-like impressions bit into his palm. They scrolled from the metalwork up to the curved panel in tangled relief. He considered them for a long moment, before squaring his shoulders and testing the lever. To his surprise, the door swung open on well-oiled hinges. Quiet and cool darkness rushed out at him, and he stepped inside to pull the door closed.

  He detected the moisture from Lyandros’s bath as well as the vampire’s signature spicy musk. His eyes adjusted and he skipped his attention over the bed, separating Lyandros from mountain of covers and pillows. A naked arm draped over the side, leading upward to an equally bare expanse of muscled back.

  Mouth dry, Akito approached the bed on tiptoe. Lyandros’s rib cage expanded and contracted in the deep rise and fall that signaled sleep. Akito stared down at the crisp contrast of dark lashes against pale skin, and the softened line of a mouth he’d come to regard as unyielding. Severe. Yet, those lips, were he to bend down to sample them now, would pillow his tongue with sleep’s languid heat. He licked his lips as a panacea to longing.

  “You would wake the dead with your crashing about,” Lyandros mumbled, not without irony.

  Akito jerked, heart taking up a trip-hammer beat. “Sorry. I just wanted to talk.”

  Opening one eye, Lyandros regarded him. “About?”

  “I wanted to say I’m sorry for making you think you had acted like the Morgan.”

  “The subject is closed.” Lyandros rolled and pushed to a sitting position, covers pooling about his naked waist and molding suggestively to powerful thighs. “There is no more to be said.”

  “Yes. There is,” Akito insisted.

  Crossing his arms over his chest, Lyandros scowled at him. “Do not make me punish you.”

  “Well, I wish you fucking would.” Despair shredded Akito’s good sense. “At least then you’d be touching me.”

  Lyandros was out of the bed before Akito registered his movement. He loomed over Akito, his will eating up all the air in the room, its pressure a tangible thing. Akito gasped at the sensation, his chest constricting. Without knowing how Lyandros made him do it, he found himself on his knees before the Justice Giver.

  Head bowed, Akito stared at Lyandros’s bare feet. Arousal shot through him at the recognition of how much power Lyandros must have kept under wraps all this time. “How the hell did you do that?”

  “I do not require you to attend me, tribute,” Lyandros said, clearly unwilling to answer Akito’s question.

  Akito dared to lift his head. “Maybe it’s not about what you want this time.”

  “Get out of this room before I do something I will regret.” Lyandros stared down at him, gaze blazing with barely leashed fury and undisguised need.

  From his vantage point, Akito had a level view of the vampire’s burgeoning arousal. As if approaching a feral animal, Akito kept his movements slow, telegraphing his intent. If Lyandros didn’t want this, then there would be ample time for retreat. Skimming Lyandros’s thigh, crisp hair abrading his palm, Akito found his way upward. The heavy weight of Lyandros’s sex pulsed in Akito’s hand as he curled his palm around Lyandros’s shaft.

  Lyandros groaned, hips shifting forward. His hands fell to his sides, clenching.

  “Maybe you don’t have to do anything at all,” Akito whispered.

  Lyandros’s abs rippled and moisture pearled at the tip of his cock, compelled upward by a brush of Akito’s thumb. Akito drank him in with his eyes, unable to disguise his wonder, as he pumped the vampire’s shaft in slow, tantalizing strokes.

  “Last chance,” Lyandros said through his teeth. “Or I swear, I will take this as permission to have my way with you.”

  Akito grasped Lyandros’s cock more firmly and wrapped his lips around the head. Arousal trilled along their mutual connection, filling Akito’s awareness. His own cock pressed painfully against the seam of his trousers, and he shifted, not out of discomfort, but to compel the pleasure-pain of that sweet tension. He widened his throat and Lyandros palmed the back of his head. The message was clear: Akito could not escape now if he tried. Adrenaline’s heady kick fluttered through Akito’s stomach, tightening his breaths and singing along his veins until every drop pooled in his sex.

  Lyandros swore in Greek, taking control of and correcting Akito’s haphazard rhythm. Akito swallowed to increase the pressure and pleasure. Lyandros’s pace picked up, forcing Akito to dig his fingers into flexing muscles or lose his balance. Jaw aching, breaths coming in fitful sips, Akito hummed, leaving no room for doubt that he was exactly where he wanted to be.

  Lyandros’s fingers clenched, tangling in Akito’s hair, bunching and tugging as his movements lost their controlled tenor. Frenzied and rapid now, the slurp and slap of tongue and flesh filled the room. Lyandros rocked backward, held his position for a telltale second, and then thrust forward with a groan. Akito swallowed greedily.

  They remained joined as Lyandros softened slowly in Akito’s mouth. Breaths pa
nted from Akito’s nostrils, filling the room with a guttural tension. He remained motionless, his awareness filled with the Justice Giver’s taste, smell, and touch. Gods, he couldn’t think of a better way to spend his time than at this vampire’s feet.

  Lyandros pulled away, leaving Akito’s mouth. Akito stretched his jaw, working out the tightness. Disappointment and loneliness welled, their twin rivers threatening the levy of his desire. Bending, Lyandros took his hand and drew Akito to his feet. Their gazes met and held. Lyandros considered him for a long time. Akito didn’t dare move, barely blinking for fear of breaking the spell. He attempted to convey his desire with his gaze.

  “You want this?” Voice thick with emotion that Akito felt in the answering tug at his sternum, Lyandros finally spoke.

  “I always did,” Akito answered.

  Lyandros cupped Akito’s head, his palms on either side of Akito’s face, and held him immobile for a plundering kiss. Tongue and lips, fang and moist heat, consumed Akito’s thoughts and stole his air until he believed he might pass out from lack of oxygen. When Lyandros released him, he wobbled.

  “Never, have I been so ashamed of myself,” Lyandros said, looking away with an audible swallow. “You wrecked me, tribute.”

  Throat constricting, Akito nodded. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  Laying a finger over Akito’s lips, Lyandros shushed him. “I never said my shame was your doing. It was my own.”

  “But—” Lyandros muffled Akito’s protest with his palm.

  “I am sorry,” Lyandros said. “Both for what you went through with the Morgan and for any pain I added to your already heavy burdens.”

  Akito nodded, eyes welling.

  He recalled the days after his escape when all he had wanted was to sob in Nyx’s arms. No one had understood what he’d been through—no one knew—and there had been no way to tell them. No way to be seen. Indeed, Akito realized, he had felt more invisible in those days and weeks after his return than he ever had as an orphan, a sidekick, or as the Morgan’s prisoner.

  Lyandros, removing his hand, said, “I cannot lift your sentence, but I can change some things between us.”