Taste the Dark

by Tibby Armstrong

  “I’d like that,” Akito answered.

  “Good.” A smile played about Lyandros’s lips as he dipped down for another kiss. “As would I.”

  Akito glanced to the bed with its rumpled covers and thick hangings.

  Twisting, Lyandros followed his gaze before meeting his eyes again. “Tell me what you want, tribute.”

  One side of Akito’s mouth lifted in a saucy smile. “Depends on whether you’re ready to go again or not.”

  Taking Akito’s hand, Lyandros pressed it to his hardening shaft. Akito closed his eyes, relishing the feel of silky skin over unyielding flesh.

  Lyandros thrust forward, murmuring in Akito’s ear. “Tell me.”

  “I want you to own me,” Akito answered, breathing deep. “In every way.”

  “Do you know the meaning of your title?” Lyandros nuzzled Akito’s neck, speaking against his skin. “Of tribute?”

  Akito shook his head, unable to think, though he knew he should be able to parse the expression. It wasn’t exactly uncommon.

  “Gift,” Lyandros said, moving them to the bed and laying down beside Akito.

  “Gift…” Akito smiled. “I like that.”

  Running his hands over Akito’s bared skin a while later, Lyandros finished the thought. “Thank you, for gifting yourself to me.”

  Chapter 23

  Lyandros caught Akito eyeing him from his place on the settee. Sprawled, legs and arms akimbo, he lay with his head in the fae prince’s lap. The tribute relationship had relaxed into an easy companionship that, for the most part, Lyandros tried not to examine too closely. It was nothing like any of the hundreds of others Lyandros had in his lifetime, and this fact he found alternately puzzling and enthralling.

  “What is it, Akito?” Lyandros asked, playing at a sternness he didn’t really feel.

  Akito grinned lopsided, catching the tenor of the moment. “I’m bored.”

  By bored, Lyandros noted, Akito meant horny.

  “I wish I could take you with me,” Nyx said, obviously missing the undercurrent of lust in the exchange. “But I can only slip by the guards because I blend in.”

  “Take us with you?” Akito sat up quickly, accidentally elbowing Nyx in the ribs.

  “Ow.” Scowling, Nyx rubbed at his side.

  The fae wore soft soled boots and his habitual green jacket with fawn breeches. As he stood, the ensemble made him appear as a sapling swaying in a forest breeze. How Lyandros had ever mistaken Nyx for anything but one-hundred percent fae was beyond him. Even the quality of the magic that buzzed around him was different. Something had made the fae’s aura appear different now from when Lyandros had first seen Nyx.

  “You didn’t realize I leave every day?” Nyx asked.

  “No.” Akito looked from Nyx to Lyandros and back again while Isander remained watchful at his place by the fire. “And maybe you could have told us?”

  “Do not speak for me, tribute,” Lyandros chided gently.

  After the renewal of their intimacy, Akito had been given permission to leave off protocol. The only time Lyandros insisted he Akito observe formalities was when they had visitors. Not that they had many of those. Though, occasionally, an emissary was dispatched from the fae king. Each time, including yesterday, Lyandros’s answer to that emissary was the same. He would not put Akito on display for the fae court.

  “Sorry.” Akito stood, moving to the sideboard where a water pitcher and glasses lay. “Where the hell do you go, Nyx?”

  The singsong notes of water hitting crystal reminded Lyandros how much he itched to explore the fae wilderness in his corporeal form. At some point, he would return to Boston and the feeling of the air and rain on his skin would be lost to him.

  “To an ally’s cottage, to see if there’s any news on the Morgan or my mother.” Nyx held out his hand toward Akito. “Can I have one?”

  Akito gave the fae the first glass of water and poured himself a second. “Has there been any?”

  Nyx wiped a drop of water from his lips with the back of his hand, riveting Isander’s attention to him. Lyandros observed their eyes meeting, holding, and knew then that there had been much said on this subject outside of his hearing.

  He bristled, but remained quiet. It was obvious that the two had a history and a connection. What form this relationship would ultimately take, however, remained unclear. Though Lyandros strongly suspected the two were now sharing a bed in more than a platonic sense, it would complicate things romantically when Isander resumed his role as King Ruler. Lyandros hoped, for his brother’s sake, that the liaison was of a temporary and indifferent nature.

  “Well?” Akito pressed, bringing Nyx’s attention around to him.

  “My mother—” Nyx began, only to be interrupted by a knock.

  “They were just here yesterday,” Akito observed, scrambling upright.

  They had shoved chairs under the handles as a makeshift lock. Isander removed these as Nyx flitted to a hiding place in the armoire in Isander’s chamber. Lyandros snapped his fingers, and Akito slid off the settee to kneel at Lyandros’s feet, head bowed.

  “Enter,” Lyandros called.

  The double doors swung open, and the fae king drifted in, along with a chill breeze. Up close, it appeared as if frost limned his hair and brows, dulling the blue of his veins. Lyandros and Isander bowed low, making their obeisance.

  “I have seen better displays from chimpanzees at a human zoo,” the king said, sniffing.

  “To what do we owe the pleasure?” Lyandros asked, as he and Isander straightened.

  The king swept the room with his gaze, as if searching for something. “We hear you have had a visitor.”

  At Lyandros’s feet, Akito stiffened.

  “Yes.” Lyandros placed a hand on top of his tribute’s head and stroked, his caresses slow and careful. “Your emissary brought your renewed request yesterday. I am afraid the answer is still the same.”

  Outside, the light changed, darkening to a hazy gray. When Lyandros glanced to the window, a fine snowfall swirled on the air—more an effect of the king’s mood than the season, which was high summer. The message was clear. Even the weather in Faerie obeyed the king’s whims, but not Lyandros and not his tribute.

  “You deliberately misunderstand me. Though we will discuss your stubborn clinging to this denial presently, I was not referring to your…human toy.” Stepping into Isander’s room, trailed by attendants wearing magenta robes, the king appeared to test the air. “My son has been here.”

  Akito jerked once under Lyandros’s hand.

  “Your son, majesty?” Lyandros feigned a frown.

  A mirror on the far wall reflected the king’s approach to the wardrobe. He flung open the doors with enough force to send them bouncing against the sides. He leaned in, and Lyandros tensed, preparing to fight. Though, without a weapon, it seemed unlikely he’d win, the fireplace poker might suffice for a while.

  Rummaging inside the wardrobe, however, the king came up empty handed. Thin lipped and livid, the fae monarch returned to the living area. Lyandros stared over the king’s shoulder toward Isander’s bed chamber. Now there was some impressive magic. It seemed being brought up among the coven had given Nyx the power to hide from the most powerful fae in the land.

  The king followed Lyandros’s bemused gaze with narrowed eyes. “You think you are clever, lying to me, but it is your world that will suffer Lady Morgana’s wrath. Not my own.” The king twisted his hand around his rod of office, wringing a shrill note from the crystal. “I might have helped you, had you not withheld my own child from me.”

  “You speak of Lady Morgana’s daughter, Nyx?” Lyandros asked, treading as close to a lie as he dared.

  Beneath Lyandros’s hands, Akito stiffened.

  “I speak of Nicolas. My son.”

  Lyandros shook his head, slowly. “He is not here.”

  “I know he has been.” The king sniffed the air again, nostrils flaring. “Your people will pay for your betrayal
.”

  “If the fae you speak of is your son,” Lyandros observed, pretending to choose his words with care. “Then you are foolish to believe the Morgan will not come for you eventually. Making a cuckold of a man with an ego so large is never a good idea. It will be your people who pay for your folly, not mine.”

  When non-fae fell in love with fae, they tended to fall hard, and the feelings were never returned with the same magnitude, and caused all sorts of problems. When powerful witches fell for fae, however? Well, apparently pride knew no fury like a coven leader scorned.

  “You realize…you speak of my wife.” Yellowed teeth, cracked with age, filled the king’s feral smile. “But this new topic bores me. The only information I am interested in from you—apart from my son’s location—is when I will see your gift to me.”

  “As I said, the answer to that question, I am afraid?” Lyandros, slid his hands to Akito’s shoulders, reassuring. “Remains never.”

  “If that is your answer come the morrow, then we will erect a scaffold in the gardens where your souls will be peeled from your bodies.” The king held out his arms, his robes shimmering with movement that Lyandros now understood were the souls of those whom he had executed. “A fine addition they will make, no?”

  “You have no honor.” The observation came from the usually careful Isander.

  Bristling, the king brandished his crystal staff, pointing it, crackling with power, at Lyandros. Wind and snow swept the landscape outside, blotting out the sun.

  “You will regret your disloyalty.”

  Lyandros stared the king down. “My only loyalty is to my gods, my War King, and my people.”

  Tension crackled, until slowly, the fae lowered his arm. “Twelve hours.”

  “My answer will remain the same.”

  “On your head be it.” With a last look around, the king swept out of the room, the doors booming closed behind them.

  Lyandros waited a full ten seconds before he sagged onto the settee. He tugged Akito with him, settling his tribute on the floor, between his knees.

  Nyx emerged presently.

  Akito looked up at him, wide eyed. “You’re supposed to inherit this pile?”

  Nodding, Nyx dropped onto the settee. “The whole damn world. Not that I want it.”

  Isander scrubbed both hands over his face and sighed. “I did not realize he had no other offspring. Did he not once have another son?”

  “Yeah. He died recently. I tried to tell you the night I arrived.” Nyx winced apologetically. “I pretty much only just found out myself. My mother had something to do with it.”

  Whistling low, Akito shook his head. “Now I know why there’s such a power struggle between your parents for you. Your mother doesn’t want to kill you. She wants to rule Faerie through you.”

  “Yeah.” Nyx glanced around with cat-eyed wariness, as if searching for the fae king’s lingering presence. “And my father might have the same idea.”

  “This whole vampire-witch war is really a fae-witch bid for a regency government, with you as its king?” Akito pressed.

  “Looks like.” Nyx game him a wan smile. “By fae standards, I’m young to rule on my own. Which creates the perfect power vacuum for my parents to leap into. If I hadn’t taunted the Morgan with the fact he wasn’t really my father that night—” Nyx’s gaze slid to Isander. “—this whole war wouldn’t have happened.”

  Akito whistled low. “Well, that explains the Morgan’s need for so much magic.”

  “True.” Nyx’s answering nod was grave. “There’s no way he could conquer and keep Faerie without it.”

  Lyandros massaged Akito’s shoulders, thoughtful, and met Isander’s gaze over Akito’s head. “What do you think, King Ruler?”

  “I think it does not matter why we have lost our home, but that we reclaim it by whatever means open to us.” Isander, arms crossed over his chest, flicked a glance to Nyx. “The fae could be a powerful ally if they had the right leadership.”

  “No way.” Nyx, holding up his hands, crossed his index fingers. “Ixanay on the objay”

  Isander nodded slowly at some internal understanding. “Yes, I think that would work.”

  Nyx made an exasperated sound at the back of his throat. “I wouldn’t have the support of the court or the king’s Golden Circle. It’d be a nightmare.”

  “You merely need the correct guidance,” Isander observed, thoughtful.

  Nyx swore under his breath and paced to the window. Back rigid, he clutched the sill and glared out at the freak snowstorm. All eyes followed him.

  “The Morgan doesn’t want to steal the magic from Boston to annihilate my mother. He wants to annihilate her people.” Turning, he drew himself up to his full stature. “If we close off his access to Faerie then it won’t matter how much magic he has.”

  “To do that,” Lyandros observed, “we need to get out of here.”

  They had been going around and around about this for weeks. So far, none of them had come up with a good way to get them all past the guards. The plan always seemed to falter around the idea of one of them sacrificing himself for the greater good of the rest.

  Akito, tilting his head up, regarded Lyandros. “I want to entertain the king. Accept his offer.”

  And…apparently, this time was no different.

  “No. Absolutely not.” No matter what else Akito believed of Lyandros or their relationship, over the past weeks, Lyandros had come to a single-minded determination. He would not be the cause of further harm or distress for Akito.

  Akito closed his eyes and sighed. His dark hair had begun to turn a brown-red where the dyed strands had grown out. It was a gorgeous color, and one that complemented the gray of Akito’s eyes. Lyandros’s fingers curled against his desire to run his fingertips through the strands.

  Keeping his demeanor stern, he asked, “You think you know better than I?”

  “If Tzadkiel were here,” Akito observed, opening his eyes. “He would say something about the greater good being more important than one man—especially one who is under a traitor’s sentence.”

  Isander tensed at mention of the War King. “Your tribute tells the truth.”

  “Yes. Very prettily spoken, Akito,” Lyandros agreed dryly, shooting Isander a quelling look. “But we have other options open to us yet.”

  “Such as?” Nyx sat with one leg crossed over the other. Green riding breeches and a snowy shirt showcased supple limbs and rangy muscle to advantage.

  “Your magic, for one.” Lyandros said.

  “It will draw too much attention for me to use enough power to get you out of here.” They had been over this before, so Nyx’s headshake came as no surprise. “We need to open the portal to Boston without letting my mother know I’m here, or she’ll prevent us from leaving until it suits her purposes.”

  Lady Morgana, as the fae ambassador to Boston, also held dominion over the comings and goings from Faerie. It was always dangerous to cross under her nose. Besides, they had no way of knowing if the Morgan had gained control over the portal while they’d been gone. Even now, he could be amassing his army on the other side.

  “So…” Akito searched Lyandros’s face. “We agree that I’m the best solution for getting us out of this room?”

  Akito stared up at him, trust giving his eyes an inner glow Lyandros had seen often of late.

  Don’t look at me that way Lyandros wanted to say, when you are about to ask me to feed you to the lions.

  Lyandros caressed Akito’s cheek with the back of his hand. “You truly would put your body on display for the fae?”

  Akito dragged the point of his tongue over his lower lip. “If it’s what gets us out of here so we can help Tzadkiel and Benjamin? You bet.”

  Lyandros left the room without waiting to see if Akito followed him. When they reached their chamber, Lyandros shut the door, and asked leaned his palm against the portal, shoulders sagging in defeat. “Why will you not let me protect you?”

  “Why w
on’t you let me atone for my sins?” Akito asked quietly.

  Gods help him, if this had been any other tribute, Lyandros would have done so, and with pleasure. He made one last effort to assert his control and offer his protection to the one man he’d met who deserved it most.

  “It is my job to care for you,” Lyandros tried.

  Hurt laced Akito’s countenance, thinning his lips and drawing down the corners of his eyes. “Your job?”

  The sentiment turned to ash as Lyandros realized he had spoken a lie. The goddess Themis would be displeased if he did not atone. Without his altar and shield, there was only one offering, however, that might suffice. Notching his chin, Lyandros breathed deep and looked Akito in the eye to pledge the only remaining gift that was his to give.

  His heart.

  Chapter 24

  “I care for you.” Lyandros’s features took on a ruddy hue Akito recognized as a blush. “Duty or no, I would protect you. And I will not be used as an instrument against you.”

  Akito gawped from his place by the fire. The swirling winds of the fae king’s summer blizzard had nothing on the chaos in his head. Nothing made sense. Up was down and down was up. The world had spun off its axis, leaving his understanding and everything else in jumbled disarray. “I thought you hated me?”

  “No. Never that.” Lyandros, gaze dropping, examined his hands in thoughtful contemplation. “Or, if I did, it was for but a moment when I did not know your heart as I do now.”

  “Wow. Okay.” Akito let out a breath that puffed his cheeks. “Does that mean you think you might, someday, be able to forgive me?”

  Silence lengthened between them, and when Akito finally had the guts to look at Lyandros again, the Justice Giver sat on the edge of the bed. Gaze soft and distant, he looped one arm around the bedpost and stared out the darkening window. “It really matters to you?”

  According to vampire lore, forgiveness, in the realm of tribute and Justice Giver, was not a possibility. Only Themis could break his bond with Lyandros, when and if she decided Akito deserved to be forgiven. Emotionally, however, Lyandros had always had a choice.