Page 69 of Fallen Nocturne

Instinctively, my arms circle his neck.

His wings beat once. The force sends dust and fallen leaves spiraling across the clearing.

On the second beat, the ground drops away.

“Don’t look down,” he says.

I look down immediately.

I tighten my grip on him. The cottage shrinks below us, then the forest canopy swallows it whole. My stomach lurches.

“You can loosen your hold,” he says near my ear. “I won’t drop you.”

“I am not holding you that tightly.” I refuse to loosen my arms.

At first, every movement makes my heart leap. But as we climb, I begin to understand the rhythm. His wings rise and fall with powerful, measured strokes, and his body shifts naturally with the currents.

Soon, my fear settles into something almost familiar.

Every time his arm shifts beneath me or my body brushes against his, the memory of the cottage returns.

I cannot stop thinking about you.

Heat rushes into my face.

Enough.

The silence between us feels different now. It remains awkward, but purpose charges it. We are bound together by a shared mission, flying through the darkness to expose a traitor.

I force my attention back to Kharlis.

Arescaine breaks the silence. “When we arrive, stay behind me. Let me assess the situation first.”

“I’m not hiding.”

“I didn’t say hide. I said stay behind me.” He looks down at me. “The Painted Moth is a pleasure house. Kharlis will have guards, and his fae contacts may already be there. I need to understand the layout before you walk inside.”

“I want to be the one to confront him,” I say. “When the time comes. He answers to me.”

Something that might be approval flickers across Arescaine’s face. “As you wish, Your Highness.”

We fly the rest of the way in silence. The dark countryside passes beneath us, forests and rivers silvered by moonlight.

Despite the mortification, the awkwardness and the impossible tension between us, I feel something shift.

I think about the evidence he showed me, the months he spent uncovering a traitor no one else had noticed, and the way he could have kept all of it to himself.

I think about every assumption I made the day he arrived. Every reason I found to distrust him simply because he was a vampire.

Maybe I have been wrong about the Nightwalker.

Chapter 10 Rhianelle

Iwake to the slow beat of Arescaine’s wings and the warmth of his arms around me. For several disoriented seconds, I do not know where I am. My cheek rests against his chest, and one of my hands is curled loosely in the fabric of his coat.

I fell asleep.

Not merely while flying, but while being carried by a vampire. I am hundreds of feet above the ground, with nothing between me and death except his grip. Yet I allowed myself to become completely defenseless in the arms of a creature I had once believed wanted me dead.