The Night Everything Fell Apart (The Nephilim Book 1)(50)

“No, of course not, but...” She eyed the drop of blood welling in the center of his palm. “Who ever heard of an adept bonding with a dormant?”

“So what? I love you. You love me. That’s all that matters.”

She still didn’t look convinced. “Have you ever known a lifebonded pair?”

“My great-aunt, Morgana,” he said. “Her bondmate was—still is, I suppose—a human witch.”

Cybele eased the shard of glass from his fingers. “Are you sure you can handle the sight of my blood? Yesterday...the deathlust...”

He curled his hand into a fist, uncertainties rushing in on him. “You’re right. Maybe we should wait.”

“No.” She touched his jaw, urging him to meet her gaze. “Forget I said anything. I trust you. If you want to do it now, I want that, too.”

“Are you sure?”

She pressed her thumb against the broken glass, testing its edge. Then, with a decisive motion, she pierced her left palm.

“Yes.”

The scent of her blood made his nostrils flare. He hissed in a breath through his teeth. A fierce fire kindled in his gut. He wanted to grab her, wanted to... He shut his eyes and touched his mother’s moonstone.

“You okay?”

He opened his eyes. She stood before him, wounded, blood dripping down her palm. Her life was his for the taking. And he wanted to take it. Not in death, but in surrender. He wanted to dominate, control, own. The finest of lines separated sex, enthrallment, and death.

But she was Cybele, and he loved her. As long as he remembered that... “Yes,” he said. “I’m okay.”

She eyed him a little uncertainly. “How do we do this?”

He took her left hand and pressed it to his, palm to palm. “None but Thee, Cybele. Unto Oblivion.”

Her fingers curled around his hand. “None but Thee, Arthur. Unto Oblivion.”

The archaic vow, delivered in Cybele’s soft Southern drawl, caused his heart to clench. The lust to dominate hadn’t completely faded—it never would, he suspected—but he wouldn’t let it master him. If he did, he’d be no freer than she.

How long they stood there, palms clasped, eyes locked, he couldn’t have said. The press of their hands, skin on skin, blood mingling with blood, filled his senses. He held her life pulse in his hand. Each beat entwined their energy, their magic, and their lives.

Cybele was trembling. His own legs felt unsteady. The longer he looked into her eyes, the more he hated to look away. He’d thought he’d known the depth of his feelings for her. But until this moment, he hadn’t really understood how completely she’d become a part of him.

She spoke first, of course. She always did.

“I...your power. Your magic. I can feel it, Arthur, and it’s...immense.” She swallowed. “I feel like an ant, crawling on a massive oak.”

“It’s yours,” he said fiercely. “Myself, my magic. Everything I am. It all belongs to you.”

She wrapped her free hand around the back of his neck. He pulled her flush against his body, trapping their hands and their mingled blood between them. Her chin rose. His head dipped. Their lips met.

She opened her mouth and, moaning, sucked in his tongue. He delved deep, stroking, consuming. His cock hardened. White lights raced inside his skull...

The scent of her blood took on a new quality. No. That wasn’t it. It was his own nature, changing. The demon inside him was rising, expanding, demanding life in sacrifice to its power. Magic, dark and fathomless, surged. It tossed his human nature like so much flotsam, to flounder on a stormy sea, past control, past reason.

Deathlust surged, roaring in his ears, flashing in his vision, twisting in his gut. He wanted death. Needed it. But this was Cybele. He clung to the thought like a mantra. Cybele.

With the last shred of his humanity, he shoved her toward the bed. She slid across the coverlet and smacked her skull against the headboard. He lurched backward; his shoulders hit the door with enough force to crack the wood frame. Opal lights consumed his skin. His vision went red. White sparks erupted in his hands.

Cybele scrambled to her knees on the bed. Their eyes locked. Arthur’s chest heaved, his breath coming harshly. The scent of her blood surrounded him, consumed him. His eyes dropped, drawn to the red smear on her palm. She balled up her hand and shoved it behind her back.

Death tasted so sweet. He craved it. Fuck. He never should have risked this. Would he never learn?

“Bandage,” he croaked. “Now.”

After the briefest hesitation, she lunged toward him and snatched up the towel he’d draped over the footboard. As she had in T?’r Cythraul, she used her teeth and her good hand to rip off a strip and wind it around her wound.

He wrapped his fist around the moonstone and forced himself to look away, to shove his demon back into hiding. It was a near thing, but in the end, he succeeded. The lights under his skin faded, his eyes cooled. He slumped against the door. A shuddering sigh of relief left his lungs.

Silence reigned.

“Well,” Cybele said eventually. “That was interesting.” He looked up to find her tying off the ends of the bandage. She pulled the knot tight with her teeth.

He laughed weakly. “Only you would call nearly getting your head ripped off ‘interesting.’”

“You wouldn’t have done it. Not to me.”