“I’m glad you’re back,” she whispered. “Stay with me until I’m asleep?”
Nyx glanced at the window. Clouds were starting to obscure the moon, but they were still thin, and there was no thunder. “Yes, I can stay.”
Kelta grinned and wriggled under the covers. Nyx sat against the wall between the beds, and Kelta stared at him, clutching her blankets to her chest.
“I’m trying to remember you,” she said softly. “So I can close my eyes and see you when you’re gone again.”
Nyx felt as if someone had reached inside him and squeezed his heart in their fingers. He got up and kissed her on the forehead, and she hugged him, holding him there. Slowly, she fell asleep again, and Nyx unwound her arms from his neck and tucked her in. Then he turned to kiss the top of Andor’s head, half buried in plush animals. Outside, thunder rolled, and the clouds were heavy and dark.
Nyx took the witch stone back into the hallway.
When he left the palace, he took a side path toward the gardens. They had been beautiful and ornate in Emperor Andor’s time, but neither Nadia nor Lamont cared much for flowers, so the stone path was overgrown, and the wooden gate groaned as Nyx pushed it open. A peal of thunder drowned out the sound, and when Nyx closed the gate behind him, he saw a dark figure standing in the garden, looking up at the overgrown jasmine trellis.
“Azaiah.” It came out rough, weary, as though it had been years since they’d met instead of a few weeks, when Nyx had been aching from a hammer blow to his shield. The bruise on his arm was still fading, but when Azaiah pushed back his hood, he felt another ache in his chest, as though it would burst if he didn’t close the distance between them.
Thunder shook the air as Nyx waded through the high grass. Azaiah smiled when Nyx kissed him, Nyx’s fingers twining in Azaiah’s soft hair.
“Are you well, my soldier?”
“No. Yes. I’m back, at least, but the children…” Nyx groaned, bowing to press his forehead to Azaiah’s chest. “It never ends. But it should soon. Once Nadia can send them to school. They’ll be safe by the sea, with people who love Nadia. Then Nadia can join them, and Lamont can do whatever he likes.”
“You are still far away,” Azaiah said, and Nyx sighed. “Come out of your plans and worries for a time, and let me see you.”
“Gods, yes.” The thunder roared as Azaiah started working the buttons of Nyx’s uniform. He moved quickly, pulling hard on the jacket as though trying to strip Nyx not only of his uniform but of the whole fucking mess in the Palace of the Moon, the war, the endless fears and threats. Nyx’s dominance pushed back against the weight of Azaiah’s commanding presence, but Azaiah always made him too desperate to care.
“You’ve gained another scar since I saw you last.” Azaiah ran cool fingers down a fresh scar on Nyx’s chest, a shallow sword wound that had only just healed. Even though Nyx knew Azaiah found him lovely despite it all… or perhaps because of it… he still looked away as Azaiah kissed the scar tissue.
“And you’re still beautiful.” Nyx wanted to push Azaiah to his knees, feel his cool mouth on Nyx’s cock, but the storm above them rumbled as Azaiah bore Nyx down instead, pushing him onto the grass. The air was charged as Azaiah moved over Nyx, and strands of his silver hair drifted about his face. He kissed Nyx harshly, possessively, and Nyx groaned into his mouth. Nyx slid his hands up under Azaiah’s shirt to feel the taut skin of his belly, and Azaiah shed his cloak, glancing down at the grass.
“Leave it,” Nyx said. “It’s not important. Just fuck me.”
“I want you to be comfortable, my soldier.” Azaiah lay the cloak out over the grass like a blanket, and Nyx stripped off the rest of his clothes as Azaiah folded his shirt and started to undo his pants. Nyx wrapped his fingers around his own cock, but Azaiah crouched over him, pushing his hand away. “I want there to be no distractions when I make you cry out, when pleasure takes you.” Nyx’s dominance surged at the memory of Azaiah taking his cock, submitting his body to Nyx’s pleasure. It was a strange push and pull, his dominance and Death’s overwhelming power, but Nyx couldn’t imagine fucking a mortal submissive again. He understood why some dominants liked the tension of fucking another dom, but Azaiah—Azaiah was something else. Something magnificent.
“Azaiah.” Nyx tipped his head back as Azaiah kissed his neck, his throat, brushed cold fingers over his nipples. “Why is it… why is it every time we meet, it feels like it’s been an age?”
“It has been an age,” Azaiah said, his mouth on Nyx’s chest. “But I will make you forget our time apart, soon enough.”
* * *
Although they had not made their companion bond, Azaiah could feel the potential of what they could be to each other.
It had been almost a decade since the night when he’d knelt for Nyx, and he still ached when they met like this. As an immortal, Azaiah had a different concept of time than mortals did, but he knew that they could not make a bond if Nyx were killed in battle, say, or by poison slipped into his cup at dinner. He would have to take Nyx across the river, and then he would have to wait for him to return.
Azaiah was Death, but he had not experienced loss. He understood grief in a way few others ever could, but losing Nyx would be personal… and that made it terrifying.
But now was not the time to think of that. Nyx was wound up tight, his dominance bleeding from him like an open wound as he lay on the ground and stared at Azaiah with pure challenge. Azaiah was eager to give Nyx what he wanted, to ease the tension from his muscles and turn the spark in his dark eyes to desire. He kissed Nyx, sighing into it, settling on top of him and feeling the warmth of Nyx’s skin against his own.
“What do you need, my soldier?” Azaiah asked, looking down at him, his hair drifting over Nyx’s cheek.
“You.” Nyx’s voice was gruff. “I need you.” His hands slid up and over Azaiah’s chest to his shoulders, fingers tight. “Make me forget all of it. Like you promised.”
The command in Nyx’s tone fell harsh as a hammer strike, and Azaiah shivered under its weight. Dominance affected him differently than it would a submissive mortal, but it still felt good, a delicious rush of intensity that had his cock swelling. Nyx, who was already hard, gave a soft moan and rutted against him.
Azaiah kissed him, then bit down his chest, nipping at Nyx’s nipples and tracing the myriad of scars with his mouth, his tongue. “You’re so beautiful.”
“Fuck, not—not like you are,” Nyx managed, as Azaiah lovingly ran his tongue over the knot of scar tissue at his hip. “Everything about you is perfect.”
“I’m glad you think so,” Azaiah said. He knew his own body was… smooth, cool to the touch, skin ghostly pale, the only distinguishing mark the scar across his throat. He took Nyx’s cock in his mouth, and whatever Nyx had been about to say dissolved into a moan as Azaiah took him deep.
