He wanted to ask. He thought, in this moment, that Nyx would agree. And that was why he couldn’t. He had to wait until they were both certain this was more than just a flirtation, an attraction with a natural end. No rain fell, yet, from the clouds that followed the Lord of Storms. He still had time. They both did.
“I would like you to take me, my Nyx,” Azaiah whispered, as Nyx shifted above him, cock teasing at Azaiah’s hole. Azaiah’s cock was hard, aching, wet from Nyx’s mouth and his own growing desire.
Nyx kissed him quickly, then sat back… and swore inventively, staring around the chamber at the flickering lights as if waiting for them to do something. He looked at Azaiah. “I don’t have any oil.” His eyes flickered to the scar on Azaiah’s throat. “I don’t want it to hurt. It shouldn’t. You shouldn’t have to lie there and take it.”
“Ah, my Nyx.” Azaiah took his face in both hands. “Look at me. You don’t need it. What you want, you can have. My body will accommodate you.”
“But you said it’s been some time since you… How do you know it won’t hurt, now,” Nyx asked, almost desperately, and there was something so lovely about this soldier who could cleave a man in two with an axe but who wept over warhorses and left enemies with their swords to send home to their families, who played card games with a god and wept over a man no one else loved enough to grieve.
I would hurt for you, if I had to,Azaiah thought.If it would help you. If you wanted it. If you asked it of me.“I just know. Trust me, Nyx. Take me.”
And so he did.
There, in the witches’ Crypt beneath the Palace of the Moon, Nyx fucked Azaiah on a couch before a sacred shroud. Azaiah had not been wrong; there was no pain when Nyx pushed into him, only the sweet pleasure of being filled by Nyx’s cock, which felt hot inside him, strong and pulsing,alive.
Nyx braced himself on the frame of the couch, staring down at Azaiah as he eased all the way in. “You feel so good,” he whispered, face flushed and damp with sweat, body gleaming in the firelight. “I think I… wanted you… that first night we played Winter.” He started to move, carefully at first, drawing out and sliding his cock back in as if worried it might be too much for Azaiah to bear.
Azaiah wrapped his legs tighter around Nyx’s hips, squeezing to show it was all right. “You cursed me, Nyx.”
“But I wanted you.” Nyx blinked sweat out of his eyes, moving faster, staring down at Azaiah. “Who wouldn’t?”
Anyone,Azaiah thought.Everyone.But he drew Nyx into a kiss and let himself drift on the feeling of being fucked hard, the spike of pleasure that echoed up his spine and through his body when Nyx slammed into him. Nyx wasn’t a talkative lover, but he wasn’t quiet, either, breathing harshly and not bothering to hide the sounds of his enjoyment.
When he put a hand on Azaiah’s cock and started to stroke in time with his thrusts, Azaiah cried out, head tipping back as he bared his throat again. Nyx groaned and pressed his face there, tickling over the scar left by the Oracle’s knife.
While Nyx’s body was sweat-slick and hot, Azaiah’s remained cool, which seemed to further enflame Nyx’s passion. Touching Nyx felt a bit like holding fire to his breast, or a shield newly emerged from the smithy’s flame, strong and safe and so very, very warm. He had not noticed how cold he was, compared to mortals. Or perhaps he’d only forgotten.
Nyx’s hand was frantic on Azaiah’s cock now, driving him closer and closer, as if determined to make Azaiah come first. Which didn’t take long, and Nyx seemed to know when it was about to happen. He drew back to watch, saying, “That’s it, let me see you,” as he stroked Azaiah to a shuddering orgasm.
The world went hazy, and Azaiah came over Nyx’s fist. He cried out, and there was another, distant noise, like thunder… and then the room filled with the scent of the air before rain fell, mixed with something vaguely floral. Azaiah went tight around Nyx’s cock, and while Nyx stilled inside him until Azaiah’s ecstasy ebbed, he could feel Nyx watching him.
When he blinked his eyes open, the candles were ablaze, filling the room with more light than they should. But no, the light wasn’t from the candles. It was from Nyx, who was so bright he was his own small sun, resting safe in Azaiah’s embrace.
The air between them stirred, a spectral wind that made the candle flames dance and rustled the shroud. Azaiah slid his hands down Nyx’s back, drew him closer, felt him as he came in the cradle of Azaiah’s thighs.
Nyx shuddered, cock pulsing, holding himself up on trembling arms. He stared down at Azaiah, disheveled and gorgeous and so very human. “Your eyes,” he said after catching his breath for a moment. “They went white.”
“Ah. Yes. Well.” Azaiah stretched, enjoying Nyx’s weight, the warmth of him. “I am sorry if it disturbed you.”
“That’s not— It didn’t,” Nyx muttered, then shook himself. He kissed Azaiah before very carefully pulling out. Instead of climbing off him, though, he turned his head… and went still, the way he did before the war sirens blared, when he sensed some danger lurking. “Look.” Azaiah turned his head, following Nyx’s gaze.
The shroud hanging on the wall was no longer blank.
There was an image on it, like one of the witches’ memory shrouds. But this was no memory. It was a skull, eyeless and smiling its rictus grin, but as they stared, all the empty places filled up with flowers. It held there, the image, before the candles lining the room suddenly went out.
“Azaiah,” Nyx chided.
“No,” Azaiah said. “Not me.” Before he could explain, or try to—ithadn’tbeen him—the candles came back, a gentle illumination once more.
The room looked the same. But the shroud was once again blank, the image vanished as if it had never been.
ChapterSeven
When Nyx emerged from the chamber where Death’s Shroud was kept, he was alone.
Azaiah had disappeared after a last, breathless kiss, before Nyx could ask him what the image of the skull filled with flowers had meant, whatanyof it meant. Nyx felt like he’d been pried open, digging past years of fighting for an empire that barely tolerated him, through the grief of losing Tyr and the drifting restlessness of his days at the palace. He’d nearly asked, once, while he was moving over Azaiah—Would you take me as a companion, would you want to, if I said yes?—but he couldn’t bring himself to say the words. Only now, as he blinked in the sudden brightness of the Crypts, he could feel the truth of that impulse like a line tugging him toward Azaiah.
Thena dropped down from the next floor, floating to the top of a desk covered in books. Nyx helped her to the floor, and she squinted at him suspiciously.
