Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

FINN

The shadows lifted him, carried him, stretched him out. They winnowed their way through his clothes to the skin beneath. Finn gasped at the touch, cold and insistent, determined, and so frighteningly gentle.

The touch of the Nox. She was the Nox embodied in flesh, and she had come for him at last. Claimed him as she always meant to. He was hers through and through, her creature, her fated sacrifice. Hers…

She bound him with tangled vines made of shadow and stretched him out before her. And soon there would be a blade and blood and it was all he wanted.

Pleasure built up inside him, unbearable, ungovernable. It surged with his blood, the blood that rushed along his veins and sang out for her blade as well as her kiss. She was everything.

He'd been a fool to think swearing himself to her enemy, to the Aurum, would make a difference. He'd never belonged in Asteroth. Every vow had been a lie, every promise, every hope. Just as every guarantee Grandmaster de Silvius had made to him – every time he'd assured a terrified boy of his safety and promised to make him strong, to make him a holy warrior of the light who would drive away any lingering shadows – had been nothing but falsehoods. Just lies crafted from the vain and foolish hopes of a child.

Finn knew himself, knew what he was. Here now, spread out, helpless before her, bound with shadows and held in darkness, awaiting the end and the wild pleasure of her touch as she slowly destroyed him. Shadow kin clustered around him, waiting, laughing, hungry.

And then, all at once, they fell quiet with a terrible expectancy.

The forest stirred, peeling back like curtains, allowing another form through. A black horse followed in her wake, docile and calm.

Her creature. Just as he was her creature.

And for a moment, he thought he recognised the horse. Her new form was strangely familiar too. She wasn't so fearsome now, smaller, less… less all-powerful. Just a girl, his mind seemed to murmur in relief. She was just a girl.

And yet, she wasn't. Power surged through her, dark and terrible, drawn from the land itself and tempered in the dark fires of the Nox.

He knew her. He worshipped her. He had been a fool to think he would ever escape.

‘Let him go,' she said, her voice strangely loud in his ears. This wasn't the voice of a seductress, a dark goddess intent on making him her slave. This sounded… different… human…

He shuddered, trying to fix the world back on its axis, trying to grab hold of reality again before it was too late. She was no dark goddess incarnate, no shadow kin queen. She was human. He was sure of it. But even as he fumbled after understanding, it slipped through his fingers like smoke.

Around him the darkwood shivered, reluctant to obey the girl, distressed to be so commanded. Its grip on him tightened and pain sparked through him, amplifying his pleasure, making him gasp out loud, and lose that thread of sanity he had been grasping after. His struggles subsided again.

This was where he was meant to be. This was who he was supposed to obey. Why had he ever thought of fighting?

‘I mean it,' the girl said, irritably, as if speaking to a misbehaving hound. Her dark hair seemed to move around her pale face as if she was underwater, like a living thing. She said something else, something in a musical language he didn't know, but which sounded strangely familiar.

Like the song he'd heard. In his dreams, in his nightmares. Her song, which had haunted him all his life.

The tendrils of shadow released him and he fell before her.

On his knees. That was right too, wasn't it? Where he should be? Yes, this was where he should be.

But she knelt as well, her dark eyes keen and focused, and her voice was no longer soft and seductive. She sounded worried. That couldn't be right. What did she have to be worried about here, in her place of power?

‘Can you hear me? I'm going to get you out of here but you're going to have to help, understand? Can you get up?'

Her hand touched his face, flat against his forehead as if she was testing his temperature, but as he moved it slid down his cheek. He turned his face to it, pressed his lips to her palm. She started back, her eyes going even wider in sudden alarm. But she didn't pull away. She seemed frozen there, staring at him.

But this was what she wanted, wasn't it? Finn knew it in his heart of hearts, this was what she wanted from him. His submission. His obedience. And his life.

That had always been his fate.

He had to make her understand that he was hers, that he understood where he was and what was expected. He would do anything for her. Anything.

He would gladly die for her.

Slowly, Finn leaned towards her, seeking her out like a plant reaching for sunlight. She didn't pull away, as if she too felt the magic surrounding them both. The kiss was everything. Desperate to please her, he brushed his lips against hers. Her mouth was warm and welcoming and Finn felt himself falling into her. She tasted like spring and summer, like every dream of desire he'd ever had. Deepening the kiss, he slid his arms around her, tracing his fingertips against her pale skin, through her midnight hair. It seemed to cling to him, as if every dark strand of it wanted to draw him closer and keep him there.

‘Stop,' she whispered, breathless with desire, her body flush with his. ‘We have to stop. This isn't real.'

Not real? No, it was everything. There was nothing more real than this kiss, than her, than the raging need inside him.

He felt her body answering him, her desire making her heart pound against his chest, her heated skin shiver beneath his fingers. And he wasn't alone. She was exploring him as well. He could feel her tremble on the edge of surrender. Her eyes closed as he cradled the back of her head, let his thumb stroke the sensitive line of her jaw. She arched against him with a moan, her body pressed against him now. His erection strained between them, pressed against her so there could be no doubt of his need for her.

Abruptly, she grabbed his shoulder, her fingers digging in almost to the bone, and she forced him back from her. Surprise made him freeze and she dragged one arm free.

Then she slapped him, hard. The sound of her hand on his cheek echoed through the trees. ‘You have got to wake up.'