Chapter 67 Make it stop
Nyxara
The door to my apartment slammed behind me so hard the frame rattled, the sound echoing through the empty space like a gunshot in my chest. I didn’t bother turning on the lights.
Why would I? Brightness wouldn’t fix this. It wouldn’t chase away the shadows clinging to me, the ones that felt like they were seeping into my bones, turning everything inside cold and heavy.
The city bled through the floor-to-ceiling windows in cold silver streaks—streetlamps flickering like dying stars, neon signs pulsing with false promises of warmth, the distant glow of the frozen docks mocking me with their indifference.
I made it three steps before my legs gave out. No warning—just a sudden betrayal of my body, knees buckling like they’d decided they couldn’t carry the weight anymore.
I hit the hardwood floor hard, palms slapping down to catch myself, but the impact barely registered. Nothing registered except the vise around my ribs, squeezing tighter with every heartbeat.
His heartbeat. Eryx’s. It thrummed through the bond like a second pulse under my skin—faint, ragged, fever-hot. He was hurting. Gods, he was hurting so badly it felt like someone had reached inside my chest and was twisting my lungs into knots, choking off my air until black spots danced at the edges of my vision.
I pressed one hand to my sternum, fingers digging in as if I could claw the pain out. But it wouldn’t budge. It pulsed deeper, wrapping around my throat like invisible chains, tighter and tighter until every breath was a ragged gasp.
Eryx’s pain—his confusion, his betrayal, his longing—it flooded me in waves, unfiltered and merciless.
I could feel the cold stone of the cell floor seeping through his clothes, the iron manacles biting into his wrists until the skin chafed raw and bloody. The fever burning in his veins from the healers’ potions, or maybe from the withdrawal of my touch, my essence.
He wasn’t just imprisoned; he was unraveling, piece by piece, and the bond made sure I felt every fracture, every crack, every quiet scream he swallowed down so no one would hear.
A sob clawed its way up my throat—ugly, wet, unstoppable. I clamped my lips shut, but it escaped anyway, a broken animal sound that bounced off the bare walls and came back to mock me.
Tears came fast, hot, blurring the city lights into smeared halos. I rocked forward, forehead pressing to the cool floor, my hair falling around my face like a curtain.
But there was no hiding. Not from this. Not from him.
Vuk’s voice crashed back into my skull then, louder than the sobs, sharper than any blade.
“You’re a leech. A manipulator. A survivor who’s clawed her way through life by feeding on the desires of men who thought they could trust you.”
The words weren’t just echoes—they were alive, slithering through my mind, wrapping around my thoughts like vines choking a dying tree.
I’d stood there in his study, flames licking his face like he was hell incarnate, and taken every insult like a lash. But now, alone, they caught up to me. All of them. Piling on, heavier than the bond’s pain, crushing me under their weight until I could barely breathe.
“You think love can survive in the ruins of manipulation? You think desire equals devotion? You fed on him, Nyxara. You used him like every other fool before him.”
My own hand flew up before I could stop it, palm connecting with my cheek in a sharp crack that echoed through the room. The sting bloomed instantly, heat spreading like fire.
“Stupid,” I hissed through clenched teeth, voice barely recognizable—hoarse, broken.
I slapped myself again, harder this time. My head snapped to the side, lip splitting against my teeth. Copper flooded my mouth, metallic and bitter, mixing with the salt of my tears.
“Useless.”
The third slap was brutal—open palm, full force. My vision sparked white for a second, ears ringing. The pain was bright, immediate, grounding. It almost drowned out the deeper ache. Almost.
My cheek throbbed, skin swelling under the assault, nails leaving faint crescent marks that would bruise by morning.
Good. Let it bruise. Let it scar. Let the outside finally match the inside—the rotten, feeding thing I’d always been.
“I’m poison,” I whispered to the empty room, the words tasting like ash on my tongue. “I’ve always been poison. Vuk was right. Everyone’s always been right.”
Another sob tore free—louder, uglier, the kind that hurts your throat and leaves you gasping for air that won’t come.
I curled in on myself, arms wrapped around my middle like I could hold the pieces together, but the bond wouldn’t let me. It kept pulsing, kept feeding me Eryx’s misery in perfect, merciless detail: the way his breath hitched when he thought of my name, the fever-dream flashes of my skin against his, the desperate, hopeless longing that clawed at him every time he closed his eyes.
He wasn’t angry at me. He wasn’t blaming me. He was just… breaking. Quietly. Silently. The way strong things break when no one’s watching—cracking under pressure until there’s nothing left but dust.
Memories flooded in then, unbidden, each one a fresh knife to the gut.
Eryx’s face the first time he’d begged me to stay—eyes glassy, voice wrecked, hands trembling as they cupped my face.
“Please, Nyx. Don’t go. I need you. Fuck, I need you so bad.”
I’d laughed it off then, called it lust, fed on it like the incubus I was.
But now? Now it replayed in my mind like a curse, his vulnerability twisting into something I’d stolen.
Another time: him carrying me out of that club, fire in his eyes as he spat into Darius’s dead mouth, then holding me under the shower like I was something precious.
“I’ll kneel. I’ll bleed. I’ll burn. Just say the word and I’m yours.”
Tears poured faster, soaking the floor beneath me. I gasped, hyperventilating now, chest heaving as the sobs came in waves—deep, wrenching ones that shook my whole body until my muscles ached.
Snot ran down my lip, mixing with the blood from my split mouth, dripping onto the hardwood in ugly splatters.
I didn’t care. I let it happen. Let the mess, the ugliness, the weakness pour out until there was nothing left but raw, hollowed-out grief.
My violet eyes burned from the salt, lids swollen and heavy, but I couldn’t stop. The pain was too much, too real, Eryx’s agony mirroring mine until I couldn’t tell where he ended and I began.
“Why did I let it happen?” I whimpered to the shadows, voice fracturing. “Why didn’t I walk away? The first time he looked at me like I was worth saving, like my hunger didn’t disgust him—I should have run. I should have starved in some alley rather than drag him down with me. But no. I took. I always take. That’s what incubi do. We feed. We ruin. We leave empty shells behind.”
Flashback after flashback assaulted me: Eryx’s laugh—deep, rumbling, the kind that vibrated through my chest when he held me close.
The way his scars felt under my fingers, rough and real, stories of battles he’d fought without complaint.
The night he’d confessed, forehead pressed to mine, breath ragged: “I love you. I fucking love you. Come back to me. Soon.”
I’d nodded then, promised, but now? Now he was chained because of me. Suffering because of me.
The bond sent another spike—his fever spiking higher, a muffled groan echoing in my mind as healers forced potions down his throat. He was fighting them, not for freedom, but for me. Calling my name in delirium.
“I’m sorry,” I choked out, over and over, rocking on the floor like a child. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”
The words dissolved into more sobs, my body convulsing with each one. My throat closed up, air trapped in my lungs until I coughed, sputtering, nearly vomiting from the intensity.
Bile rose, sharp and acidic, but I swallowed it down, only for another wave to hit.
I pounded my fist against the floor—once, twice—knuckles splitting against the wood, blood smearing in dark streaks.
The physical pain was a distraction, a brief flare against the emotional inferno, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough.
“A creature who buys truth with her body and sells lies with her smile.” “You don’t deserve him.” “You’re selfish. Poison.”
Each one landed like a fresh slap, building on the self-inflicted ones until my face was numb, swollen.
I reached up, tracing the bruises blooming on my cheek—tender to the touch.
“Stupid,” I muttered again, but this time my voice was a whisper, spent. “You knew better. You always knew better.”
My past reared up then, uninvited—a parade of faces, bodies, souls I’d drained over centuries. Men who’d begged like Eryx, only to wake empty, hollow, hating themselves for what I’d taken. Women too, sometimes, when the hunger got bad.
I’d justified it: survival. The world didn’t give incubi like me a choice. Marked as temptation from birth—prey or predator, that was the only path.
But Eryx? He’d seen beyond that. He’d touched me like I was fragile, like my hunger was just another scar to kiss.
“Let me be yours,” he’d said. “Let me be the weapon.”
And I’d let him. Gods, I’d let him.
“Please,” I begged the empty room, voice raw from screaming sobs. “Please stop. Make it stop.”
But who was I begging? The gods? Vuk? Myself?
No one answered. The city hummed on outside, indifferent to my breakdown. Cars honked distantly, laughter floated up from the streets—people living, loving, without this curse wrapped around their souls.
Hours blurred. Dawn crept in, gray and unforgiving, painting the room in muted tones.
My body ached—throat scraped raw, eyes puffy and dry from endless tears, cheek throbbing like a heartbeat. Blood had dried on my lip, my knuckles, sticky and flaking.
I pushed myself up slowly, using the wall for support, legs wobbling like a newborn fawn’s.
The mirror across the room caught my reflection: violet eyes red-rimmed and haunted, hair a tangled mess. I looked like wreckage. Like what I’d done to Eryx.
I staggered to the kitchen, fumbling for a glass of water, but my hands shook too badly. It slipped, shattering on the tile in a spray of shards.
I stared at it, numb, then sank down again, back against the cabinets.
More sobs bubbled up—quieter now, exhausted, but no less painful. They racked my body in silent heaves, shoulders shaking until I thought I’d come apart.
Through it all, the bond hummed—faint, stubborn, unbreakable.
Eryx’s pain ebbed slightly as dawn broke; perhaps the healers had sedated him. But the longing lingered, a dull ache that promised more torment when he woke.
I reached back through the thread—careful, terrified—sending the only things I had left: regret. Love. A promise I wasn’t sure I could keep.
I’m here. I’m still here. I won’t leave you alone in the dark.
But even as I sent it, doubt crept in. Was I helping? Or just prolonging the agony?
I slapped myself once more—weakly, the sting barely registering.
“Stupid,” I breathed.
The sobs came again, softer, like rain on a grave. I let them carry me under, curling on the cold tile, wishing for numbness. For anything but this choking, endless grief.
Because somewhere in the wreckage of what I’d done, in the ruins of the woman I used to be, there was still one truth I couldn’t burn away:
I loved him. And loving him was the only thing that had ever felt like being alive.
Even if it killed us both. Even if it left me here, broken on the floor, crying until there were no tears left.
The pain was proof. Proof that for once, I’d given more than I’d taken.
And gods, it hurt. It hurt so much I thought it would never end.
But it didn’t stop. It just kept coming, wave after wave, until the world narrowed to nothing but the ache. The sobs. The regret.