in his head.
Three keys.
Three families.
It was all there, but Niko’s damned thoughts couldn’t grasp the pieces and slot them into place.
Amir’s fingers locked in Niko’s hair and yanked, dragging Niko back onto his feet. “The Yazdans bled us of power for their own personal gain for generations. They made us their slaves. So now I’m making you mine.”
Niko reached for Amir’s leering face and missed, falling into his embrace instead.
“I have you now, dog. Forever at the end of my leash.”
Blood.
It was blood inside that cylinder.
Amir’s blood. Caville blood. Infected with the dark.
And now it was inside Niko, ravaging his will, binding him to Amir, making him into something he despised. No, this was worse than surrendering, worse than enduring Amir’s sick appetites. He could feel it, the flame… spreading, feasting, infecting. And it laughed in Niko’s head, the sound so much like Talos’s laugh in his final moments.
“I don’t need an army,” Amir whispered, “when Nikolas Yazdan is all mine.”
Chapter 36
He drifted. Somewhere not awake and not asleep, somewhere between. In the between, the wolf from his dreams stalked him like it had before, circling around and around, coming closer.
And there was no escape.
“—My own concoction… with added spice—”
He recognized the voice as Amir’s, but he was so far away that his words couldn’t be important.
“He’ll offer you spice, take it.”
Vasili, yes. He knew that voice too. “I don’t want this.” Were those his words or Vasili’s? The prince had told him he cared, but in his dreams, he had laughed and made Niko a fool for believing it.
“I’ve never lied to you, Niko.” Amir again. “I’m the only one who’s always told you the truth. Not all of it. Because where’s the fun in that? But more than my brother ever has.”
The bastard Yazdan boy, Amir had told him that. Told him the truth. That he wasn’t his father’s son. He was a dirty secret. A hidden mistake.
A sharp jab of heat and tingling radiated from his neck, down his spine, and spread from chest to limbs, lighting him on fire with darkness. The pain plucked him from the dreams but just as quickly submerged him in them again. He saw Vasili in a starlit field, heard him rage that Niko had failed them all. He followed him through a gate, and behind them, a sea of elves poured in. Then the dream shifted, and the wolf was back, so close he could make out its rippling fur and dark, hungry eyes. Niko looked into those eyes, and his own reflection looked back.
That was when he knew: he was the wolf.
The between began to fade, and the edges of the room sharpened, coming into painful focus. His limbs were made of lead, his body of stone. A small voice at the back of his mind demanded he fight, but other voices were louder. Voices that told him this was right, that this was the way it should always have been, this was the purpose he’d been searching for, that the poison in his blood belonged to him.
Sunlight flooded the room, blurring his vision. Thunder rumbled. Dark and light, storms and sunlight.
Something was very wrong with everything.
The world had shifted sideways beneath him, and now he didn’t fit within it.
The weight on his wrists lifted, freeing his arms.
Soft lips touched his own. “Take it,” a familiar voice whispered. “Take it all.”
Vasili.
Niko plunged a hand into his hair, needing him like he needed to breathe the prince into his soul, but the kiss was all wrong, the taste sweetened by spice, the mouth too hard.
Amir.
He didn’t want this.
The king’s rumbling purr shuddered through them both. His mouth took and gave, and that small voice screamed at him to stop, but he wasn’t stopping, because there was something else in the king, something heavy, something powerful, and Niko wanted every last drop. More than want, he needed it. It belonged to him. Always had.
Thunder shook the world.
Niko pulled, gasping from the kiss. Shadows devoured the light in the room.
What… was this? He plastered a cool hand to his face. Gods, he was burning up. Who even was he?
“No, you don’t get to stop.” Amir’s hand grasped Niko’s impossibly hard cock, making him gasp. The king’s tongue thrust into his mouth again.
His thoughts spun, body ablaze.
This wasn’t right.
He didn’t want this.
Didn’t want Amir.
Didn’t want this weight slowly suffocating him.
Or the voice in his head, telling him to surrender.
A vast clap of thunder struck the palace walls. Plaster crumbled from the ceiling.
“Dammit!” Amir’s