Recent content by Nikolai

  1. Nikolai

    Private Tales The Price of Defiance

    Nikolai was.. tense. All the muscle of his back, his shoulders, arms, all coiled like a bowstring ready to snap. He leaned against the table, crossing his ankles, his knuckles pale as he gripped the wood beneath him. His head was bowed, his eyes dark as they fixed on the floor, to the broken...
  2. Nikolai

    Private Tales The Price of Defiance

    Nikolai’s jaw twitched as Cinna’s voice gentled, as if her quiet sorrow had more teeth than her fury ever did. He didn’t want her pity. He didn’t want anyone’s pity. Not when his soul already felt like it was being carved hollow from the inside out. He watched with silent fury as Cinna...
  3. Nikolai

    Private Tales The Price of Defiance

    Nikolai’s grip on Sadie tightened, not enough to hurt, but enough that she would feel the tension rising in his arms, the restraint it took not to lash out as Cinna continued. His shadows crackled at the edges of the room like a storm barely held at bay, flickering in sharp pulses as Cinna...
  4. Nikolai

    Private Tales The Price of Defiance

    Nikolai held his ground while Cinna raged, but the shrill pitch still knifed straight through the shadow that pooled in his ears. Every spite‑laced word drove his temper a degree hotter. The living darkness at his shoulders thickened, pooling at his feet like ink about to boil. He drew a slow...
  5. Nikolai

    Private Tales The Price of Defiance

    Nikolai’s head snapped back as Cinna’s tirade knifed through the room, every syllable striking his over‑sensitised ears like a hammer blow. Gods, the woman could make thunder seem polite. A low growl rumbled from his chest and shadows sluiced over his skin in a restless tide, knitting themselves...
  6. Nikolai

    Private Tales The Price of Defiance

    Nikolai’s smile curved slow and crooked, something wicked and unbearably smug flashing in his violet eyes when Sadie whispered her confession. No male ever has. Until you. He stepped closer, not just with his body but with that predatory air he wore like a second skin. “Oh. I know,” he...
  7. Nikolai

    Private Tales The Price of Defiance

    Nikolai watched her rise from the bed with the heavy, possessive stillness of a predator watching prey slip just out of reach. Only she wasn’t prey. She never had been. She was the storm after the silence. The fire under his skin. And she was walking away from him wrapped in his godsdamned...
  8. Nikolai

    Private Tales The Price of Defiance

    Nikolai’s hands twitched against her skin, as if torn between dragging her closer and throwing her off. His jaw clenched hard enough to ache as she kissed him, hard, with the weight of doom wrapped in longing, and every inch of him screamed resist. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Gods, why couldn’t...
  9. Nikolai

    Private Tales The Price of Defiance

    Nikolai’s breath caught in his throat. Mates. The word echoed through him like a curse, a prayer, a death knell wrapped in silk. He hadn't thought it possible. Because a mate required a soul to bind with, and he had never believed himself capable of being bound to anything but shadows. Until...
  10. Nikolai

    Private Tales The Price of Defiance

    Nikolai stilled as she climbed atop him, his breath catching the moment one hand settled on his chest and the other locked his gaze in place. He hadn’t expected her boldness. Nor had he expected her softness. He had expected to see disgust, fear, regret, but instead found steel wrapped in silk...
  11. Nikolai

    Private Tales The Price of Defiance

    Nikolai awoke with a hunger that had teeth. It gnawed at him the moment his senses stirred. The scent of her skin, the whisper of her breath against his chest, the faint taste of her still lingering on his tongue like a sin he hadn’t finished committing. His shadows curled instinctively...
  12. Nikolai

    Private Tales The Price of Defiance

    Nikolai didn’t move. Wouldn’t move not even if the room caved in around them. The heat of her body curled into his, her breath brushing against the curve of his throat in a soft, exhausted sigh. And when she nuzzled there, settling deeper into the crook of his neck, something in him cracked wide...
  13. Nikolai

    Private Tales The Price of Defiance

    Nikolai stilled — just for a breath, just long enough for her whispered please to shatter whatever thin thread of restraint he had left. Gods, he had been starving his whole life and hadn’t even realised it. Starving for her. Sadie tilted her head back, bared her throat, offered herself to him...
  14. Nikolai

    Private Tales The Price of Defiance

    Gods. He shattered. There was no other word for it. No softer, cleaner way to explain the way every fragile wall he had thrown up against her crumbled to dust under the force of her mouth on his. A sound ripped from him, low, guttural, and wretched as he caught her up against him, his hands...
  15. Nikolai

    Private Tales The Price of Defiance

    He was lost. Mindless. Consuming. Drowning in her, in everything she gave him. Blood and magic and heat and lust. His mind spiraled deeper and deeper into a blissful, obliterating oblivion where only she existed, only the taste of her on his tongue, only the pulse of her heart pounding through...