Page 68 of Garden of Poisoned Delights

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Azaiah lay on the chaise, naked and beautiful and already hard, and Nyx couldn’t breathe.

That wasn’t unusual, when he was confronted with Azaiah like this. He doubted anyone could see such a sight and keep their breath—that elegant, tall, long-limbed form with the moon-pale skin smooth as marble, hair the color of snow, the soft green eyes and the simple red ribbon of a collar around his neck. But there was something else beneath Nyx’s inability to find his breath, and he knew what it was. It was the knife in his hand, the weight of it, sickeningly familiar in a way that he would have thought might have faded by now.

He’d been Glaive two, three, four times as long as he’d been Nyx, and it was hard to come to terms with that, given the life he now led. He wanted to say that being Azaiah’s Grief suited him far more than being Death’s Glaive, but it was hard to forget all those years of Azaiah’s dark mirror laughing softly on those occasions he’d shown up to torment Nyx with what he’d never thought he could have again, whispering you’ll never be anything but this, my Butcher. Nyx’s hands covered in blood, screams echoing like waves on a shore, a man with Azaiah’s face but a cold, black void where a heart should be.

There were no screams, no menacing whispers or dark laughter here, just Azaiah spread out beautiful and waiting, smiling so sweetly in anticipation. When Nyx reached for the red ribbon and pulled it off, Azaiah shivered from the slide of silk against his skin, arching slightly and his cock stirring just from that. Sensation was one of Azaiah’s favorite things, and Nyx wasn’t sure if Azaiah could go under like a mortal submissive, but he was fairly sure he’d nearly put him there once simply by combing his hair. Astra, who was submissive only during daylight hours and only for Cillian, had once confessed the same. Gods and their hair, who knew?

The knife felt heavy in his hand, and there was a faint electric tingle as Azaiah did whatever strange magic allowed lightning to sink into the blade. Nyx stood over him, breathless and afraid of what would happen when he touched Azaiah with it—would it be worse if he hated every second of this, or if he liked it? What would that say about him, if he enjoyed doing to the man he loved what he’d done to so many others? If he’d ever wanted to use a knife on Azaiah, it hadn’t been the Lord of Storms who lay prone and bound for the blade, but the dark mirror who tormented Nyx with what he could no longer have.

“You are thinking too much, my soldier,” Azaiah murmured, idly reaching down to play with his cock. “Put the knife away and take me, if you’d rather.”

Nyx gave a slight shake of his head. His dominance was a softer thing here, but it was still present, and it rebelled at Azaiah trying to top him from the bottom—though of course he wasn’t, he was simply being conscientious about Nyx’s internal angst. They had spent far too long caught up in that, hadn’t they? If this banished those last vestiges, if Azaiah enjoyed it, there should be no problem. The darkness here was a comfort, not a torment.

“No, I want to do this.” For you. And that was the difference, wasn’t it? Azaiah wanted this. If he concentrated on that, that the sensation was bringing Azaiah pleasure, it would have to drive the last vestiges of those memories from Nyx’s mind. The house must have known. Azaiah must have known somehow, or how would this all have come to pass?

Nyx placed the blade on Azaiah’s shoulder, lightly drawing it down over his heart. His own thumped hard in his chest as fear and desire shivered through him at the sound Azaiah made at the touch of the knife on his skin, light with the slight electric spark of magic. Determination urged him onward, tracing the blade over Azaiah’s firm stomach and down to his thighs. Azaiah’s cock was hard on his stomach, and Nyx said in a gruff voice, “Put your hands above your head, cross them at the wrist.” He didn’t want to use cuffs or restraints, even though the house had provided them; it seemed a bit too close to what he’d done before.

Azaiah did, almost before the words were out of Nyx’s mouth. Heat curled low in Nyx’s belly as his dominance rose in response, and he gave a slight nod. “Good. Gods, you’re so beautiful, I can’t believe you’re mine.”

“I think the same of you,” Azaiah murmured, which seemed impossible to Nyx, battle-scarred in more ways than one. “You can—You needn’t be so light with the blade, Nyx.”

Nyx raised a brow at him. “When I want your instruction, I’ll ask for it.”

Azaiah smiled, eyes sliding half-closed. “Of course, yes. Do as you like to me.”

He shook his head, amused despite himself. Azaiah’s submission was second to his godhood, and as kind-hearted as he was, he still was a god. He wasn’t quite as bossy as his brother the Tempest, but perhaps only in a quieter, less chaotic way. Nyx didn’t mind. It kept things interesting.

Just for the attempt at domming him, though, Nyx took his time tracing the knife over every inch of Azaiah’s gorgeous body. The spark was stronger the more pressure he applied, but he kept it light as he traced the insides of Azaiah’s thighs, down his long legs, even up the arches of his feet. The way Azaiah gasped and squirmed without removing his arms from above his head made Nyx’s own cock stir, and that helped drive the darker thoughts and memories even further from his mind.

“This was a good idea,” Nyx said, as he carefully, carefully, drew the blade up Azaiah’s cock. It wouldn’t have cut a human, but a human probably would have stayed far more still and not tried to arch up toward the blade. “I think maybe you were a masochist.” He gave Azaiah’s thigh a light smack with his other hand, and felt a jolt of lightning sing through him and spark, the scent of ozone permeating the air. “I thought that was just the knife.”

Azaiah looked up at him through his lashes. “The lightning does what it wants, Nyx.”

“Uh-huh. I think, sometimes, in your own special way…” Nyx gently traced Azaiah’s full mouth with the blade, “you’re as much a brat as your brother Astra, and as greedy for pleasure as your brother Arwyn.”

Azaiah licked the knife, and Nyx nearly dropped it in surprise.

And oh, but now—now it felt like a challenge.

Despite feeling far more comfortable, Nyx still avoided tracing the blade over the scar on Azaiah’s throat. He wasn’t sure if he were avoiding it as a tease or because it made him uncomfortable, and until he knew which, he wouldn’t do it. Azaiah could tell him over and over how he’d smiled when he’d bared his throat for the sacrificial blade, but that didn’t mean Nyx liked the idea of it. Though he wouldn’t have had Azaiah, would he, if that hadn’t happened? Or would they have met as mortals reborn, like Ares and their long-lost love?

Thoughts for another time, perhaps, as Nyx was far more interested in the way Azaiah writhed beneath the tip of the blade as Nyx traced his nipples, the corded muscles of Azaiah’s abdomen, the soft skin of his balls and sensitive inner thighs. “Widen your legs,” he ordered, and there was a rush of relief as he realized he felt more like Nyx the military commander than Glaive the Butcher.

Azaiah did so, and Nyx dared to increase the knife’s pressure even more. The spark of electric magic was a violet flash, and this time, Azaiah’s skin did break beneath the blade. That gave him a pause, but there was no blood, and the wound vanished almost immediately.

“Ah,” Azaiah moaned, head tilting back. “Oh, that— Yes, please, more–”

“You’re already begging, are you?” Nyx did the same thing on Azaiah’s other thigh, thrilling at the response it earned. “I can feel it, you know, the spark of the storm when the blade goes deeper.”

“Do you like it?” Azaiah’s voice was breathless and lovely, fingers curling into his palms above his head. “Feeling the storm?”

Nyx leaned down and kissed him, then bit lightly at his lower lip. “You’re the storm. When don’t I like feeling you?”

“So poetic, who would have known,” Azaiah murmured, against his mouth.

Nyx bit him again, a little harder. “No one—just as no one would believe this is your version of backtalk.” He leaned back, then used the knife to draw the shape of a flower over Azaiah’s heart, similar to the tattoo that had become Nyx’s companion bond. He let himself push hard enough to see the skin turn red for just a moment, lightning dancing between them and over Azaiah’s skin. Azaiah was breathing fast and loud, and Nyx couldn’t remember why he’d been reluctant to try this in the first place.

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