The Dead and the Dusk (The Nightmare Court Book 2)

by Val Saintcrowe

  Then she turned on her light, and it healed as if nothing had happened.

  The light reminded her of the jewels, and so she sought out Absalom for his jewel to ward off the nightmares.

  And they fought on.

  At another point, there were tentacles wrapped around Eithan’s legs and he was being held upside down by one of the nightmares. Nicce cut at the tentacles, freeing him.

  But then he fell to the ground, stunned, and the angry creature wrapped other tentacles around Nicce.

  She spent the next interminable period of time cutting herself free from tentacles, amid shrieks from the creature, which also spit some kind of horridly painful liquid out of its wounds, and she kept getting burned everywhere.

  Finally, she found its center, a gaping dark mouth, and she plunged her sword into it over and over until the thing was still.

  Panting, she searched for Eithan, but he had not helped her because he was fighting two of the creatures himself.

  And there was no time for her to rest.

  She had to get to her feet and continue to fight as well.

  They fought on and on and on.

  Eventually, the palace stopped falling. Half of it was completely gone, but the throne room and the main tower above it still stood.

  Closing the doors to the rooms of the part that was still standing meant that they eventually were able to barricade out the nightmares and secure the place.

  They rested in the throne room, lying on the floor and catching their breath. Nicce was there, and so was Eithan, Absalom, and about a dozen members of the court.

  Everyone needed blood, and Nicce wanted to give it to them, but Eithan reminded her that the immediate reaction they’d have to the blood was pain, and that they should do it near the portal, so that they could go into the sunlight and be healed right away. And they didn’t know if the sun was even shining on the other side of the portal. Furthermore, he said that she should probably eat something before she did anything like that.

  All of that made sense to her.

  She went down to the kitchens with him, which were still intact. There was a sink down there and they used the water to clean their faces and arms, which were covered in gore from Ciaska and from the nightmares they’d fought.

  She ate, and then they left the palace to go to find the rest of everyone else, who were all gathered at the portal. Through the purple light that surrounded the hole in the air, she could see that dawn was stealing over the human realm.

  Nicce cut her palm and everyone lined up, and she squeezed liquid light into their mouths, and Eithan caught them and helped them through the portal because they had trouble standing after they’d ingested it.

  It was a lot of people. She didn’t count, but she guessed it was something like a hundred thirty or so. It took a long time, and when she was done, she felt very, very tired. She put out her light and sank down to the ground.

  Eithan caught her. “You all right?” he murmured.

  She looked up at him, smiling wanly. “We did it.”

  “We did,” he said.

  She touched his face.

  He kissed her.

  * * *

  Through the portal, it was chaos again. The fortress was full of people coming and going. Everyone was confused about what was happening, and everyone was equally excited about the sun. Half the people were following the knights around, asking them questions about what was to happen next, and half of the people were dancing and laughing in the sunlight.

  Nicce and Eithan walked amongst them all, their fingers laced together as they looked for the other knights. It was difficult to gather them up, but eventually, they were all up in the highest room in the fortress, the room where Nicce had met Eithan.

  Now she leaned against him and he had his arm around her. The casual closeness made her feel happy and pleased. They had spent so much time at court having to keep their distance. This was better. Of course, their clothes were still disgusting, covered in blood and gore, and she was tired and her skin was sticky with dried sweat. She didn’t want to be on her feet.

  She wanted a bath.

  “What are we going to do with all of them?” said Jonas, who was leaning against the door.

  Septimus was sitting at the table. “Who else wants to relive Ciaska’s last moments?”

  Absalom sat opposite him. “We have to do something with them, don’t we? They have nowhere to go.”

  Septimus chuckled. “Boom. Pieces everywhere. It was… insane.”

  Everyone turned and looked at him.

  “Really, Septimus?” said Absalom.

  “She was like, ‘It hurts,’” said Septimus, grinning, “and I was like, ‘Let me help you with that,’ and then I stabbed her. Then she exploded.”

  Absalom sighed. “Can we discuss the court? And Lian? We all want to get to Lian.”

  Eithan threaded a hand through his hair. “Why don’t you three go after Lian and Philo, then? I assume they’re not here?”

  “No, we sent them to the Guild keep,” said Absalom.

  Nicce raised her eyebrows. “You what?”

  “I figured Ciaska didn’t know about that,” said Absalom. “And that you two did, so if we all died, and you were looking places, you might think to look there.”

  “No,” said Eithan. “I would never have thought of that. They hate us there. You sent Philo there? He’s probably killed half the Guild by now.”

  “Well, we should go, then,” said Absalom.

  “Yes,” said Eithan. “And Nicce and I will deal with the court.”

  “We will?” said Nicce.

  He shrugged.

  “What exactly will we do?” she said.

  * * *

  What they did was to take almost everyone back through the portal and break out the wine. The palace was half destroyed, but there was still enough room there for everyone to find a room to sleep, if they wanted. The throne room was big enough for a celebration, and with entrances sealed off, it was safe from the nightmares.

  Then Eithan and Nicce went to Eithan’s room—because Nicce’s had been in part of the palace that had fallen down—and they took a bath.

  A very long, very hot bath in which they filled and drained the water several times to get all the muck off their skin.

  For a while, they didn’t talk much, and when they did, they spoke mostly about what they’d do with the court, saying that the people could go elsewhere if they wanted. They could go back to the human realm, and speculating on whether some of them might not want to, since everything they’d ever known there was gone.

  Nicce was of the mind that if they wanted to stay there, she didn’t care about it, but she wanted to negotiate something with them so that they understood that they would have to fend for themselves. She and Eithan couldn’t stay here and watch over these people as though they were children.

  Eithan had brought up a bottle of wine, and he eventually opened it, and when he did, they stopped talking about serious subjects and spent some time passing the bottle back and forth and reminiscing about parts of the battle, like the time that Septimus had slid beneath the tentacles of one of the creatures and sliced with this sword the whole time, making the thing scream even as it was bisected.

  It reminded Nicce of the camaraderie she would sometimes have with the members of the Guild after a hunt or a particularly intense training session, that sort of feeling that they were brothers and sisters in arms.

  Except that she and Eithan were in a bath together and they were neither of them wearing any clothes.

  It was this thought that quieted her. She slid down in the water so that it came to her chin, and she studied him. His hair was wet and slicked back from his face. His shoulders were half submerged, and they were powerful and bare. He really needed a shave at this point. His stubble was threatening to become a beard, and it was wet too. Droplets of water clung to his face and his neck. He was beautiful.

  He seemed to notice her silence and he raised
his eyebrows questioningly at her.

  “You didn’t tell me you were going to kiss her like that,” she said.

  He looked away. “I didn’t know I was going to. I just… I was making it up as I went along.”

  She sank further into the water. It covered her chin. It came up to her bottom lip.

  “I didn’t know if I’d be able to do it, but it didn’t… it felt like nothing. And when I pushed that blade into her…” He gritted his teeth and his nostrils flared. “That didn’t feel like nothing. That felt… it was good.”

  She nodded.

  He swallowed, turning his gaze on her. “She deserved it. That and worse.”

  “That’s not even a question.”

  He drew in an audible breath.

  “You don’t feel guilty?”

  “No.” It was immediate. Forceful.

  They were quiet.

  He shifted in the water. “It bothered you that I kissed her.”

  “I…” She shifted too, sitting up a bit, raising her shoulders out of the water. “No, I know why you did it. And I know it didn’t—I couldn’t be jealous, so—” She lifted her fingers out of the water and looked at her fingertips which were wrinkled from having been submerged for so long. “It bothered me.”

  “I’m sorry.” His voice was raw.

  “No, you don’t have to…” She reached for him.

  He seized her hand and kissed her fingers. “I hate that you had to see it.”

  “I hate that you had to do it. I hate that she did so many things to you and Absalom and the others. I hate that it was so quick. I hate that she’s dead and I can’t kill her again.” Her voice was choked.

  His face twisted, and she thought for a minute he might be on the verge of tears. But he didn’t cry. When he spoke, though, his voice wasn’t strong. “I want to pull you into my arms. Can I do that?”

  “You don’t have to ask.” She was already moving toward him. But maybe he did have to ask. Maybe she was glad that he did.

  And then they were close, and everything was better, somehow, just because of that. His body was warm from the bath, and their skin was slippery and wet against each other, and even though the embrace started as only comfort, she felt things inside her starting to wake as she slipped and slid against him.

  She felt apprehensive about that.

  Maybe he wasn’t—

  But then they were kissing, and the kissing was getting heated, and he had his hands on her breasts, and she could feel that parts of him were waking up too, and she surrendered to it all.

  He got out of the bath and helped her out, too, and they used one towel to help each other dry off. Maybe certain areas of their bodies got especially dried.

  She slid under the sheets of his bed next to him and they kissed and wrapped around each other and gasped and smoothed their fingers over each other’s skin.

  When he pressed inside her, she was swollen and ready and eager for him, and they rocked softly against each other, and it was overwhelmingly good.

  He picked up her hand and guided it between her legs, putting her fingers against her own skin. His voice was rough at her ear. “That promise I made you about lasting longer? I’m going to break it.”

  She laughed, and it was like it bubbled out of her, like she was leaking joy.

  “I want to feel you climax around me,” he breathed. “I figure you can make that happen faster than I can. Touch yourself like you said you did when you thought of me.”

  She did, kissing him as her fingers moved. Kissing his too-long stubble and his neck and his beautiful shoulders and then finding his lips and gasping and writhing against him.

  When the pleasure came for her, it was bright like the light that lived within her. It was molten. It drenched her, seeping inside her bones and wrenching the brightest goodness from her.

  She was making a lot of noise, which is probably why she didn’t hear that there was someone knocking on the door.

  But then, as she was relaxed and melting into the bed, there was a voice from the other side of the door. “Sir Eithan? Can you hear me?”

  Eithan pushed himself up on his arms, grunting. He raised his voice. “Go away.”

  “Trust me,” said the voice, which was a man’s, one of the former guards, obviously. “I would. But there’s someone here. You should come down to the throne room. And Nicce too. Actually, it’s Nicce he asked for.”

  He? Nicce furrowed her brow. Who could possibly be looking for her?

  Eithan shut his eyes, looking pained.

  She touched his face, her voice soft. “Hey, you finished, right?”

  He laughed. “Yes.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Good.”

  They were kissing again.

  “Eithan?” came the voice. “He said he’d come looking for you if we didn’t have you down there in ten minutes.”

  Eithan broke the kiss with an annoyed sound in the back of his throat. He raised his voice again. “Who is it?”

  “It’s… well, I don’t… I think it’s… Please? Come to the throne room?”

  Nicce kissed his collarbone. “We better go. See what this is about.”

  He sighed. And then he climbed out of the bed.

  She climbed out after him.

  He crossed the room to his wardrobe, and he took some clothes out.

  “You think I could borrow…?”

  He turned to her. “Oh, right, I guess you don’t have any clothes except the ones that were…”

  “Bloody,” she said.

  He grinned at her. “I think my clothes might be too big for you.”

  She stalked over to the wardrobe and started sorting through it.

  He was looking her over. “I really do not want you to get dressed, can I just say that?”

  She bit down on her lip, wishing they were still in bed, having trouble holding onto her concern over this mystery person in the throne room. It should probably be worrying her, truly, but it was hard to feel frightened of anything.

  They’d just killed the goddess of nightmares, after all.

  Eithan stepped into a pair of breeches.

  She pulled a tunic over her head.

  They kissed again.

  Frantic banging on the door. “Sir Eithan!”

  They pulled away.

  Bright yellow light appeared under the door and it strained against its hinges. A deep voice from without said, “Is she in here?”

  Then the door burst open.

  The man there seemed to take up the entire doorway. He had bright golden hair and glowing yellow eyes. He was tall and muscled and tanned, and he stepped inside, looking them both over.

  Eithan stepped toward the man. “What is this? What are you doing here?”

  The man looked back and forth between them. “I think I’ll ask the questions here. And what I think I want to know is what exactly you think you’re doing with my daughter.”

  Nicce’s lips parted.

  Eithan let out a long, low chuckle. “Sullo?”

  The man made a little bow. “At your service. Well.” He considered. “Really, I suppose it’s the other way around, isn’t it? And if you helped my little girl with dispatching that slutbag Ciaska, I’m prepared to be grateful.” His gaze bored into their bare skin. “To a point.”

  Nicce couldn’t breathe.

  Sullo spread his hands. “Oh, what am I saying? We need to be focusing on your triumph, Nicce. You did it. Just as I always knew you would. Could any father be more proud?”

  * * *

  Thanks for reading!

  The Nightmare Court is a trilogy.

  The final book is entitled The Pang and the Power.

  Book Three picks up minutes after we left off.

  Find information here.

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