Page 96 of The Powers of Nyx

But that told me everything I needed to know.

Ry was here. At the academy. My first love, firstmate, was walking the same halls I was.

And as much as I hated him, I was going to find him.

He was not running from me again.

35

ORION

SHEwas more beautiful than I remembered.

Seeing her in dreams, wrapped in my shadows and warped by sleep had only fuelled my desire to lay eyes on her again. Seeing her in reality, under golden light like the Goddess she was, awoke something within me. A fierce hunger, one that would be unsated by its usual preference—death.

I watched from the sidelines as she struggled with the blocks I had Blythe reconstruct between us. Her pain tasted terrible, but it had to be done.

“Pathetic,” Layla muttered, eyeing my little flower in disdain. “They’ll let anyone in here.”

I lifted my chin, though my rage wanted to rip out her throat. “If you can’t taste the power in the air, then that is a fault of yours, not the witch.”

Layla sneered up at me. “I only sense a whisper of what you callpower, Orion. Maybe it’s you who has a problem.”

She was goading me for her own desires. She wanted to bechosenby me. She wanted me to grab her by the throat and remind her thatIwas prince of Luna Court, not she, and that her place here at my side was fragile. I knew she got off on it, like the others before her. So, I did none of that.

Let one of her playthings sate her desire.

It would never be me who did such a thing.

I turned back just as my flower was guided away by another witch. Soon, the two shadows she’d arrived with followed. I clamped down on my own need to see her. That break in the block between us had been more difficult for her than I realised. It also told her I was here.

Hopefully she would see it as a game. I still had work to do before I could be hers again. And I hoped it would be enough to sate her until then. I shuddered at the reminder of what happened the last time I reached out. The scorching pain that followed testing our bond.

It still remained a frayed, darkened mess on my end thanks to Blythe.

The corridor emptied and I started for the dorms. The fourth floor was ours, and as the lowest number of students, the Fae had more space. It was part of the agreement between the Courts and the Queen. I welcomed the space away from these...leeches.

The only one I remotely liked was Blythe. But she would be off to her own floor.

A floor she’d be sharing withIvy.

I couldn’t wait to say her name again, to feel it roll off my tongue. Over the years, I hadn’t given myself permission to say her name. If I spoke it, I feared she would appear, and that would mean danger for her.

Blythe parted from our group with only a nod and started for the left stairwell that would take her to her dorms, while the rest of the Fae and I took the right. The vampires—Born and Changed—lived on the floor below us, so their bloody scents clung to the stone. We passed their floor and continued up to our hall. One half belonged to the Seelie, the other to the Unseelie. But I longed for the silence of my room.

I started towards my Court’s door, but a body appeared in my path. Layla fluttered her lashes, but she didn’t move in closer. Like the others, she knew better than to touch me.

“I’m sorry, Orion,” she purred. “Let me make it up to you?”

“You have nothing that interests me, Layla,” I replied, cocking my head. “You should know that by now.”

Her jaw clenched, and her eye twitched. Like the rest of her Court, she could take the form of the Wild. She fought against that instinct now, despite it twisting across her olive-toned face.

“Control would suit you well,” I muttered, stepping around her. “Best learn it before it gets you killed.”

As I stalked off, I heard her huff, and the muffled sound of laughter followed in my wake. They might have been leeches, but they understood I held all the power. More than I ever had before. Since the awakening of Ivy’s magic, my own had responded out of need. It was a terrible, dark entity in my chest, one that ate at me every day I wasn’t with her, but it was pain I was used to.

Pain I would accept so long as she never had to feel it.

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