Page 120 of Of Spindles and Nightfall
His eyes met hers in desperation, his voice breaking with a rawness that caught in his throat. “I don’t know how it happened. It’s like a part of me was ripped away, and I’m left here, struggling to hold myself together. To lose you, Aryana, would be like tearing down the sky and watching the world crumble beneath me. It would ruin me. My purpose, my reason. It all begins and ends with you. You are everything to me.You are my weakness.”
His gentle gaze searched hers for a flicker of understanding, his hands trembling slightly as they reached toward her, as if afraid to touch, yet needing to. “Without you, I’m just... nothing. I can’t—I won’t let that happen.”
She stepped close and ran her fingers through his long, silken hair. “You needn’t worry. Your heart is safe with me.”
His brows furrowed in confusion, but as she bent, bringing her lips to his, something shifted. This kiss wasn’t the claiming, fiery ones from before. It was softer, gentler. Within the tender caress,they shared a quiet understanding and reverence for the fragile truths they had spoken.
In that moment, everything paused as they both acknowledged the weight of their words, weaving them into an unspoken promise. Parts that became a beautiful, tangible whole. In that brief touch, it was no longer about possession or desperation. It was a shared vulnerability that neither of them had ever fully allowed before.
Zarathos eased her back. “I really must go. I have an urgent meeting. Ernon and Mils have prepared a bath for you.”
He’d had everything planned out before the trial even occurred. He stumbled over to his closet and pulled on a shirt, then grabbed a bottle of potion and quickly downed it before proceeding to the door. Without looking back, he said, “I will return. Stay here. No doubt there are many that are unhappy with the recent turn of events.” And with that he whisked his way from the room.
Chapter 39
Aryana
The water in Aryana’s bath swirled in eddies, breaking and spiraling away in different directions.
Much like her thoughts.
Zarathos was the demon king. Her worst enemy. Her captor.
The one creature that may care for her more than anyone in this godsforsaken world.
More than humans, more than vampires.
A damn demon. Her Bloodbound. Her… love?
She mouthed the word, testing it on her tongue. She’d been in love before with a vampire who had betrayed her and ruinedher trust in everyone, even herself. She’d been in love with a human who hadn’t seen her as anything more than a monster.
And now a demon loved her. The arch king, no less, who ruled through deals and cold indifference, a master of aloofness and manipulation. He was everything Aryana despised: ruthless, calculating, a creature who thrived on power and promises. In every respect, he was the embodiment of all she’d fought to escape.
But under that icy façade, buried far beneath the layers of pride and ambition, there was more. It was in the way he fought to protect her, in the rawness that flickered in his voice when he spoke her name. It was a longing for something beyond power, beyond the games he’d spent years perfecting.
And Aryana, despite herself, found that she couldn’t ignore it. Beneath the demon king’s sharp edges, behind the walls he’d so carefully constructed, was a heart she hadn’t expected. Something capable of love, even if it was a love that terrified him just as much as it confused her. In him, she saw the very thing she had never anticipated. A vulnerability, a need for connection that ran so far deeper than anything he would ever admit.
The soft wet cloth felt wonderful on her skin as she washed off the grime from the last trial and cleaned her body from the aftereffects of Zarathos’s lovemaking. The trial that had meant to be Aryana’s end. And would have been, if not for him.
She ran the soap over her thigh, over the symbol of her Bloodbinding. The way it curled, the two serpents twining together, fighting to become one. She’d once believed it represented her bondage,and now it was an emblem of everything that had passed between her and Zarathos.
When she finished washing, she stood, letting the water run off of her body, leaving her fresh and new in her realization. She stepped out of the tub and pulled on his silk robe. She breathed in his musky scent and sighed. It was wild how calming it was to her.
This wasn’t his full scent. No, she knew what he really smelled like. She’d detected it before, but hadn’t understood its potential for such a dramatic change. She found she preferred his actual scent, just as she was coming to recognize the real Zarathos.
Reaching back down, she pulled the plug, letting the liquid drain. Then reached up and adjusted the lever on the mechanism above her head. Since she had recently waited for the water to warm for her own bath, she didn’t have to wait long until the indicator signaled it was the correct temperature. She tugged the chord, and the water poured out into the tub, filling it. Ingenious.
She spun around when she heard the sharp shutting of Zarathos’s bedchamber door. Creeping forward, she scented the air, but it wasn’t until she peeked out into the main room that she relaxed, seeing Zarathos looking disheveled, clutching yet another new potion in his hands.
This male. Always trying to hide so many secrets.
But as she drew near, she noticed the potion wasn’t the clear one he usually ingested. In the light, it reflected a slight ebony outline.
“Zarathos.”
He glanced up at her and didn’t resist as she slipped the vial from his hand and set it on the vanity. “You look exhausted.”
“Well, someone drank most of my blood.”
