Page 8 of Lux

I could do the same to her. Mold her and manipulate. Give her an ultimatum and enforce it. Slip into her thoughts and make me the only thing she will ever want to see.

But even in her skull, she evades me. There are parts of her coiled like a snake—a rarer breed of viper than Cassius. Her anger is a slow-acting poison. Should I harm her, she will come to hate me. Those others in her life—the stupid elder fae, and the ones who ignored her—she hates them all. Just doesn’t know it.

Her hate doesn’t fester in her soul like mine does. Those she hates are reduced to dust in her mind. They cease to matter.

If I bend her to my will I will cease to matter.

So, I will coddle her. I will feed her and dress her and wipe her clean. I will swat away those who seek to harm her.

As a result, I will be the only one she can see.

Caring for a mortal, however, requires more skill than I thought. I must store her food before it rots. Unfurl the clothing sent for her. Set aside the ugly bits.

The building itself has more to it than the bottom level. There is an upstairs with a rickety floor and narrow, empty rooms. One has a dusty mattress and dirty, old sheets.

I make her sleep downstairs instead. I sit on the floor with my back to the wall. Pull her toward me. Marvel at how naturally she fits, coiled into my side. A puzzle piece that went missing.

A strange thought. Silly thought. It’s something that Cassius would have sorted away through his sieve of filth, never letting anything too sentimental in.

I hate it.

I…

I sigh and lean into her. She smells nice. Feels nicer. A warmth emanates from her that goes beyond that little mortal heart. One touch, and she sets even this dank, dark place ablaze.

If I’m not careful, she’ll set the world alight.

They’ll all want her then.

And she will have no need for me.

CHAPTER 4

Niamh

When I wake up, I am both burning alive and freezing cold. Limbs of ice encase my body. Warm air trickles through the gaps, trying to coax life into this frigid form.

The truth is I would rather freeze to death like this in his arms, safe from all who seek to harm us.

Because there are plenty. Unease taints the air as the unseen heat does. Prickling and looming. A constant reminder of the threats that haunt us.

A bounty lies on both our heads. Retribution for Day’s death—a pain I will endure later. Address later.

For now, Caspian is a prison that binds my body tightly to his. He doesn’t sleep, I know that much about the vamryre. True to his nature, he is still and quiet in the dark. He scarcely makes a sound. Yet his mind is wondrous and teeming with life.

I love to explore it, for his mind is so alien from mine. My thoughts are orderly, beaten into submission. For years, all I had in my skull was a secret, tiny space to store a few precious things. Just a few.

Caspian’s mind is a garden, scorched and stripped raw, but now overrun with seedlings long since buried in the dirt. It is beautiful, terrifying chaos. A maze of new recollections and old memories. Like a valley of ice, glass, and stone, it is a frightening, twisted place. He has yet to navigate it all himself. I doubt he even wants to.

I do. I would scale the highest mountain and crawl to the ends of the earth for him. For him, I will tiptoe through the mess his master made of his mind and help him salvage whatever is left.

I will do this all somehow while avoiding the council and helping him silence Cassius forever.

Maybe…if I do so, he will want to help me.

He will stay.

Yes.I nod to myself and peel my eyes open to the room we’ve found ourselves in. The bottom floor of Altaris’s supposed new Safe House. One inhabited by just a vamryre and a wayward not-fae.

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