The Demon commander took everything in. Lunara didn’t miss the way she swallowed and straightened when her eyes landed on Brand, assessing his state. Probably realizing what she’d just interrupted.
Curse and damn her.
Better this way. No silly notions to distract you from reality.
Maybe.
Or, what if Brand could be her reality for a little while? Just until it was all over. Until she fled from his life and went back into hiding.
The second you leave Thodelebor, you’re going home. Or calling in your debt. Anything else is madness!
She wanted to scoff. For a minute, even that side of herself had been desperate to see what he would be like. Feel like.
“We’re fine.” Brand’s clipped voice cut off her musings, his sigh heavy. “I just need to get dressed.”
“Right,” Lunara said, backing towards Hedda. “I’ll… um… give you some privacy.”
Brand made a low sound. “This isn’t over, Lunara,” he said, whorls of light dancing up his forearms and stealing her breath.
If the heated look he leveled on her was anything to go by, then no, it most certainly wasn’t.
It should be! It bleeding fucking should be, you daft ninny.
How could it be?
Goosebumps broke out all over her in response, anticipation an effervescent pool within her. In that moment, she wanted everything he was promising with every fiber of her being.
Lunara didn’t respond with words.
Good thing she’d called the moonlight while bathing. She almost hadn’t risked it, but Brand had turned away and she hadn’t been able to resist. It had relieved some of her pain—just enough that she could ignore the fire licking at her nerve endingsand add a little something extra to the sway of her hips as she sauntered off.
She failed to stifle the smile teasing at her lips. Perhaps she’d make some searing memories after all.
In the night,after the fire dwindled to nothing and a chill rendered her bedroll utterly useless, the nightmares came.
Probably because she’d been thinking abouthim, but it happened often.
Every time, she would swear someone was trying to tell her something, leading her through truths and lies to see if she could tell the difference. Someone beside her, though she could never turn her head to look.
Instead, she was locked on moonstone towers of the Upper Block as they crumbled around her, her father’s power raging to save them. Her mother’s screams, echoing in places they hadn’t happened, a constant shrieking under the warped devastation.
Even in sleep, she couldn’t stop the outcome. Couldn’t manipulate the horror into fantasy.
Over and over, they died. All of them. Sometimes the way it had happened, sometimes differently. Worse.
Always by the same, bloody hand.
Malachyr the Mistwarden, Keeper of Illamiata. The Evesong’s cursedblessing.
The worst part was always the twisted ending, when her mind whispered the lie that she’d never gotten free. That Cordelia hadn’t given in and hidden her. Thathewas still alive and searching for her, alongside the rest of the Elder Council.
It was an eternity that Lunara was trapped there, delirious, reliving the horrors behind closed lids.
Until she was saved by a solid body pressing against her back. A heavy arm over her waist. A flattened palm against her stomach tugging her closer. That blessed heat and solidity worked to dispel her terror, and she was finally lulled back to sleep by hazy, baritone murmurings against her ear.
Into the best dreams she could remember having, even while lying on the hard forest floor.
She must have conjured her savior, though. Lunara was alone when she awoke to the first tepid rays of dawn, the ground cold beside her.
