Chapter 14: Swelter - Hunger & Harmony

Heat stifles the air. Clinging to my skin like sweat, red dusts down my neck and chest. I’ve put my hair up in a disheveled bun, and my sleeves are pushed to my elbows. It shouldn’t be this hot when it’s almost November.

Maybe it’s the swell of the crowd’s palpable ecstasy. Or Niko’s vocals weaving through the whir of electric fans, haunting the quiet chaos back here. Halcyon Fields showed out for Arteria, and judging by the bass rattling my core backstage, the members met that energy. I’ve spent this time pacing in a dressing room bathroom. I’m not . . .hiding. I just need to think.

The show must’ve wrapped by now. I’m surprised Lorelai isn’t blowing up my line. I check it, and the nonexistent signal stares back at me. Shit!

Unlocking the bathroom door, I hurry out into the connected room.

Uh-oh.

I skid to a halt, my pupils working to dilate and take more of this view in. It has me swallowing hard, and my fingers twitch at my sides. A sudden urge to run my hands over strong, flawless marble erases my mission and writes over everything with only him.

Whoa. No matter how many times I’ve been in his dressing room, I've yet to see Niko’s bare arms, let alone his entire back. He’s shirtless in the faint amber glow.

I’ve never wanted to touch moonlight before. The taper of his waist is irresistible, and from such broad shoulders. He’s lean and defined in the way that makes my knees weaken.

Obsidian ink draws my eyes. He doesn’t have a lot of tattoos like his bandmates, and the only one I’ve seen so far is the crescent on his inner forearm. This one is similarly subtle, but instead of a moon, the clean lines form a sun where his spine meets his shoulders. Rays of light jut out in fine spires, with a sword piercing straight through the middle.

I force my hands to stay at my sides. No matter how badly I want to touch it, trace it, and know everything about it.

How silly I was to think any pop singer could be better than this. This visceral heat that pulls me to him without another thought. Or maybe that’s him, his phantom hands guiding me closer.

“Hey there, cherry cheeks.”

His voice sizzles in my ears, like a phonic ache and wrong notes turning right. Goosebumps erupt over my flushed skin. He finally turns to face me, and I’m pinned by his crimson gaze. His eyes have never burned so brightly, and I swear, I can taste his lips against mine as we stand only a foot apart.

I’ve never been boy-crazy. Temptation never looked this good, either.

“Hi,” I say, my brain working overtime to say something else.

A joke to cut a slice out of this tension? An excuse to get back to work?

Or the truth?

“You’re hot.”

Amusement brightens his face, and he directs his flirtatious smirk right at me.

“Oh, yeah?”

“You . . .I-I mean, you look like you’re hot!” I glance around, trying to find a towel to aid my lie. “The show must’ve been⁠—”

“Cadence.”

No, no, no. He can’t look at me like that and say my name like it’s the answer to all his desires.

“Let me . . .”

I snag a random towel, and a sense of déjà vu hits me. Only this time, there isn’t a knock at the door as he backs me up to the couch. This time, I understand how much we shouldn’t give in.

I’m spellbound by his electric irises, and his cologne isn’t helping when he leans in. My weak legs give out when they bump against the couch, and I sink onto black leather, breathless and wanting. I’ve already lost the towel, so there goes the flimsy excuse. Not that he was ever convinced.

“Your Majesty . . .” I whisper, and he shakes his head.

“None of that.”

He places a hand on the back of the couch as he leans in, and shivers run down my body. There’s a red scorpion inked onto his right collarbone, and it’s his only tattoo with color. A chain hangs around his neck, too, with a marbled black and red guitar pick as the pendant. It swings forward between us, almost bumping my chin.

If I’m ever going to be trapped, he’s not the worst thing to confine me. I just have to remember to breathe. Especially when his other hand cups my face.

“But you said⁠—”

“Fuck what I said.” He leans in closer still, our noses brushing for a heart-stopping moment. “Say my name.”

I don’t think my eyes can get any wider. My mouth works on its own, not paying any attention to the warning bells in my mind.

“N . . .Niko,” I whisper, and a shudder rolls through his body.

He doesn’t say it out loud, but I hear it.

“Your scent is everything I’ve never been allowed to want.”

His voice is formed of wrong notes, molded into something beautiful, powerful. I have to take in a shaky breath. His desire is so potent, I feel dizzy.

“It’s impossible,” he murmurs. “It’s impossible to think straight around you.”

As he says it, my mind returns to our history. How he insulted me the day we met, and recoiled like I was a threat. Was that it? His enmity and avoidance weren’t hate, but hunger? It would answer a lot of questions.

And unlock an entire crypt of new ones.

“Then . . .don’t,” I breathe.

It’s against my better judgment, but I’m losing sight of that the longer we’re this close. His muscles flex, like my words are splintering his resolve.

“I’m not fragile. I don’t need protection from you,” I say, letting my hands work on their own.

“I know,” he says, eyes closing for a moment as my arms wrap around his waist and rest on his back. “That’s the problem.”

The temperature swelters further. My world has narrowed down to him and I, and nothing else matters as he closes our distance.

Only a breath remains between our lips. His necklace slides against my flushed neck, and my hands jerk on his skin at the cold metal’s intrusion.

He pauses.

Niko stands straight again, and I sit up embarrassingly fast to stay with him. As his hands come up to his neck, my own fall into my lap. There’s no stopping the pout on my lips.

“Here,” he says, pulling off the necklace.

Disappointment becomes curiosity as he loops it over my hair, gentle as he adjusts the chain and places the guitar pick over my racing heart. His knuckles linger a touch too long before he pulls back.

“What is . . .?”

“A piece of my heart.”

He crouches down, kneeling between my legs. My fingers find the pendant, smoothing my thumb over it as I stare at him.

“You’re giving it to me?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

“It took me too long to realize it’s always been yours.”

We shouldn’t do this. We can’t do this.

When he rests his arm on my thigh, propping himself up and getting comfortable, all of my protests crumble. It’s like he’s always been here. Like he always will be.

My spare hand reaches down to him, and I dare to let a single finger trace along the vermillion scorpion. He doesn’t stiffen. He’s completely relaxed as I drag my fingertip along the shape of it.

Maybe this isn’t a good cool-down from our almost kiss, but I need a distraction.

“Because you’re a Scorpio?” I ask, and he nods. “What about the other two?”

In greater detail, I see the obsidian crescent on his inner forearm is equal parts swords, stars, and thorns. There are four of each, forming the fine line moon.

“The moon was a waxing crescent when I became king,” he explains, eyes focused on me. “The number four represents stability and order. I hang onto that, even if my coronation was marked by conflict. I wanted an equal number of stars, too. It felt right.”

Though it’s only one tattoo, it tells a complete story. Maybe I don’t have the right to his past, but I want to know. My body is just as responsive to him as my heart is.

“And the sun?”

Sorrow dampens his smile. I immediately regret my question, but he’s quick to speak when I frown.

“My mother,” he says. “She requested her punishment be in the warmth of sunlight.”

He’s letting me in. There’s no resistance or hiding, and I fear I’m becoming sunlight myself. Will I be his downfall?

This isn’t a mistake because it’s difficult.

It’s too easy. It’s too good.

“I don’t have many tattoos,” he says. “They have to mean something.”

“That makes sense. I’d do the same if I ever get any.”

He hums, and I let my fingers wander. They end up in his hair, and despite how close this is, I’m not burning up. It’s the warmth of understanding and familiarity in my heart as he leans into my palm. Which is worse. So much worse.

I let my other hand drop from the pendant. It hums against my sternum, like it’s one with my heartbeat.

Seeming to sense my worries, Niko turns to kiss my inner wrist. Waves of tingles shoot up my arm, and he follows the path, his lips caressing my flushed skin in a trail of pecks. The faint graze of his fangs accompanies every few kisses.

“Y-Your Majesty,” I gasp.

“Hey.”

He stops, both when the fabric gets in his way and when I say that. After climbing back up my body, we’re eye-to-eye. The diffused lighting in this room can’t compare to his gaze.

“What did I say before?”

I swallow. He leans in.

“To call you by your name.”

“Mhm.” His lips ghost over mine. “Say it.”

I’ve been given enough time to stop this. Enough chances to walk away. I’m not taking them, and neither is he.

“Niko,” I whisper, his name dulcet on my tongue.

Everything stills. Time itself gives us one moment, just enough to savor the feeling of our lips meeting.

He tastes like devotion. Achingly slow, he leads the kiss. My hands find his back again, and he pulls me in closer.

After pulling me onto him, we find a rhythm, the only one I’ve ever successfully kept up with. His hands hold me steady, and I let my fingers thread in his dark hair. It’s happening so fast, and too slowly all at once.

When my mouth opens for him, his fangs ghost along my bottom lip. I tremble, unable to suppress the whine that rolls between our tongues. He groans quietly in response, and for a moment, I feel his control slip.

“Cadence.”

The kiss started like a promise, but ends like a warning.

Only a small mistake—the moment he pierces my bottom lip, I falter.

“Oh . . .”

It’s not that bad ‌a cut. There’s barely a drop of blood pooling on my lip.

“Cadence,” he murmurs frantically, pushing me off ‌him and dumping me onto the couch.

He stands, and before I can even say a word, he stumbles out of the dressing room. The door doesn’t even close all the way after him.

It wasn’t the kiss that scared him. It was my blood.

It’s me.

Clutching the necklace, I let my tongue run over my blood-stained lips. And feel every bit of how hot the pendant is in my hand.