As if the realization comes to us both at once, our kisses slow. We separate our lips but our foreheads remain touching. “You’re all right,” Aspen whispers. “What happened to you?”
I swallow hard. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I wish you were really here.”
“I wish I was too.”
He pulls his head back, eyes swimming as they drink in mine. If only the evening light were brighter so I could better make out his beautiful eyes, the dark brown flecked with green, gold, and ruby. Eyes I should have done a better job at memorizing when I had the chance. His thumb trails over my bottom lip, then along my jaw. I take a hand from his back and place it over his chest, feeling the steady thrum of his heart beneath my palm. My breath hitches, eyes locked on his lips, ready to taste them again.
Before I can claim them, he speaks. “Where are you? I need to know you’re safe.”
“I’m safe. I’m—”
“Aspen.” The voice that shatters the moment grates on my ears with nauseating familiarity. Maddie Coleman strides into the dining room draped in a robe—one ofmyold robes. “I thought you might show me the selkies like you promised.”
Aspen stands at the rail again as if he never left it. Come to think of it, I can’t recall him leaving my side. One moment he was in my arms, the next he was gone. He’s no longer looking at me but at Maddie. His jaw is set, but I refuse to read more into his expression.
Because, of course, this is a dream. No. A nightmare. And if this nightmare is as visceral as my last, I can only imagine what I’ll be forced to witness next.
I take one last look at Aspen. His expression falters as his eyes meet mine before I close my eyes and try to remember where I am—where Ireallyam.
The Lunar Court. The bed.
I jolt upright, blankets tangled in my limbs as I blink into moonlight. My head pounds. I look around the room, expecting a dark shadow to be hovering nearby, red eyes glowing as it drinks in my nightmare. But there’s nothing. No one.
I let out a shaking breath and shove the blankets off me, forcing away the dream-images that linger in my mind. As much as I enjoyed the part about Aspen, it’s Maddie’s smug expression that prevails. The vision of her wearingmyrobe and speaking tomymate with such familiarity sends a wave of burning rage through me.
I nearly let it consume me before I remind myself that Aspen isn’t my mate anymore. He’s about to behers, and there’s nothing I can do about that. Not if I want Aspen to save the treaty.
With a grumble, I get out of the bed. There’s no getting back to sleep now.
16
Ifind a small wardrobe in the room filled with an assortment of clothing. From within, I retrieve a midnight-blue velvet robe embroidered with stars and crescent moons. My dress is slightly wrinkled from sleeping in it, so the robe should hide that as well as warm me from the slight chill in the air.
I open my door, expecting to find darkness and quiet in the hall outside. What I don’t anticipate is the bustle of activity that greets me. Dark has fallen over the hallway, but orbs of light that resemble moonlight hover along the walls. Fae float by in pairs and triplets, speaking animatedly. And I sayfloatliterally, as most of the fae appear to be sprites and specters, their bodies hovering above the ground like wisps of flame or smoke. Some are tiny, about as tall from the ground as my kneecap, while others are of average human height. A couple glance my way, but most are too distracted to pay me much heed. I can only guess they must be servants.
I scurry to the room next door and tap a light knock. “Lorelei.”
A dark shape dives down from the opalescent beams of the ceiling, materializing as Prince Franco by my side. I lurch back. “Could you not do that?”
He leans lazily against the wall next to Lorelei’s door. “I wouldn’t wake her. She’s sleeping deeply, and it wasn’t easy for her to find restfulness.”
“How do you know?”
He shrugs. “I can sense her dreams.”
I bristle, wondering if he’s to blame for my uncomfortable nightmares. “Are you like your sister then?”
“Not exactly,” he says. “I’m not nearly as powerful.”
I pull my robe tighter around me, then cross my arms over my chest. “What is it you do then?”
“I can sense dreams and feed off their energy in a similar way that Nyxia can. But she can do more. She can enter another’s dream space, prompt fears and memories to the surface that she can use as nourishment. She can’t control the dream, but she can give the dreamer a nudge in the direction she’d like them to go.”
He flashes me a smile, revealing his pointed canines. It brings to mind a very specific concern I have yet to find clarity on, one I know I should handle with some delicacy. Which, of course, is not my specialty. “Is it always fear you and Nyxia feed off of?”
“Fear is one of the strongest emotions to use as nourishment as well as one of the easiest to elicit from another, but we feed off any emotion that offers an enticing taste.”
