Page 48 of Devoted

No, no, no… Fucking gods, I was going to die. I was going to…

A strong hand caught my arm, the palm rough with well-earned calluses.

The grip warm and unyielding.

Alive.

“You cannot fucking have her,” Nico growled into the abyss, his voice amplified back tenfold. “Emberline is mine. She belongs to me.”

Darkness erupted around him, even darker than the Underworld’s. Darker than Death itself, and all I felt was relief. For a moment, I was little more than the mortal bone in a surreal game of tug-of-war, then Nico planted his feet and hauled me back into the mists, the shadows shrieking as they shredded apart, raking invisible tracks along my arms.

The Underworld collapsed back into silence, and the dreamscape returned to shifting white mist. My breathing was ragged, our bodies crushed together, and I couldn’t let go, breath sawing in and out of my starved lungs.

Nico kept his arms around me, our hearts beating a jagged rhythm. “What were you thinking?”

I blinked up at him. “What?”

“You came here alone when you knew the risks.” His voice cracked sharper than a whip. “Death is waiting to claim you, Emberline, and every time you tempt her, the danger grows. You cannot come here again. You must stay away from your parents.”

“I had… questions only they could answer.”

“Your questions will keep for later.” His wild eyes searched mine, then he buried his face into the crook of my neck, breathing deep, as though he was grounding himself in my scent.

“Not these,” I argued softly. No, these questions rebuilt the ground I stood on, reordered my reality once again. Reaffirmed my uncle was even more of a snake than I ever suspected, and then there was Ottavia’s warning, which…

“Nothing is important enough for you to risk your life. Nothing.” His voice dropped. “Don’t you understand? I can lose you here as easily as I can out there. If you cross that threshold in your sleep, you die in the real world.”

The words hit me like a punch, and for a moment, neither of us moved.

Then Nico grabbed the back of my neck and kissed me.

Hard and desperate and ruined, he kissed me like it was the last thing he’d ever do, as if he was hanging on for dear life, unwilling to let me breathe lest I’d slip away for good.

My fingers tangled in his shirt. He was real in this place.

Somehow, among the mist and the shadows and my mother’s cryptic warnings…

When he kissed me, Nico was the most real thing I’d ever known.

17

EMBERLINE

Nico’s tongue stroked mine, deep and seeking, lips pressing my mouth wider, demanding more and taking everything. My body melted into a lump of softened clay for him to squeeze and pinch, aching for him to fill every empty hole.

Then he broke the kiss, spun me around, trapping me with one hand on my belly so his erection pressed into the seam of my ass. We were no longer inside the misty nothingness, but a square room of stone, no windows, no doors, only a square padded platform in the center, and at each corner… a metal ring.

“I warned you what would happen if I found you down here again. How I wouldn’t be responsible for my actions.”

A dark, needy shiver went through me at his commanding tone, my body reacting to… what, exactly, I didn’t know. I certainly didn’t understand this unraveling feeling inside of me, the way everything seemed tight and loose and hot and cold at the same time.

Was I turned on by the unknown?

Or to all the wicked places my mind went, wondering how those rings could be used?

“I’ve been thinking, princess.” Nico cupped the underside of my right breast, fingers pinching my nipple as he kept me pinned tight against him. “Of what you would look like, all spread out and bound, ready for me to use however I wanted. To lick and bite and fuck. And I very, very much want to do all of those things.” His fingers paused their work, shadows wrapping around my ankles, cold drifting higher as they wound around my calves like immovable vines.

“The question is… do you?” He ran his tongue up the side of my throat. “You’ve been so very curious about my shadows. Would you like to see what I can do with them? All the depraved places they can go? I can make them fit practically anywhere.”