We’re back in the atrium, but this time, it’s far less pleasant. He’s slid the glass panels leading to a spacious balcony open, and wheeled his piano to the side, clearing the space for me to practice my magic once more. But where Adira had been calmand patient, Niko is all growling annoyance and barely tethered aggression.
I glare at him, swiping at the beads of sweat that have begun to gather at my hairline. “I’m trying as hard as I can, Your Decaying Highness.”
My body aches from an entire morning of trying to draw up my magic on demand and getting absolutely nowhere. Not an inkling of anything beyond my usual anger, which is sparking higher every moment I’m stuck in the king’s presence. “We can’t all be expected to exude horror as naturally as you do.”
Niko peels himself off the glass wall he’s been leaning on, the fitted leather of his pants pulling tight against his muscular thighs as he stalks toward me, sizing me up like a predator ready to pounce. Unfortunately for him, I’m no one’s prey anymore. Whatever ominous reasons he has for wanting me to master my magic no longer matter. I’m doing it for myself.
Planting my feet more firmly on the floor, I glower up at him as he looms over me with an arrogant smirk.
“It’s almost been twelve entire hours since you last insulted me, and I admit, I was beginning to worry you’d come down with an incurable illness.” He leans close to my ear, and whispers, “And if that is your best effort, Darling, we’re all doomed.”
He ducks behind me, his booted feet making no noise on the black parquet floor as he circles. I try my hardest not to breathe in, to think about anything other than his closeness. To ignore the feverish heat sliding over my skin at his proximity, the images I’d dreamed last night nestled in his bed barraging me anew.
Sleeping beside Niko has kept my nightmares from returning, but the subject of last night’s imaginings had been almost as bad—the Carrion King himself.
That lithe body pressing mine into the floor. That wicked mouth skating over my skin. Those black eyes gazing updevilishly from between my thighs, while long, tattooed fingers curled into me.
I woke mortified that I projected my dreams onto Niko like I’d accidentally done in the Crocodile, and more than a little bothered. I told myself it was merely a physical reaction, a result of our close living quarters and lack of a proper outlet for my needs. I told myself it was my brain conflagrating my anger for a different sort of a heat, one that means nothing.
But even now, my skin still feels too tight, too hot—like a fever I can’t cure.
If the king felt any of it, he hasn’t let on. He’d kept to his side of the pillow wall during the night, his breathing quiet and even. And he’s given me no indication this morning either, aside from his particularly foul temperament which may have nothing to do with me at all, as Niko’s moods are as unpredictable as ocean storms.
As he steps in behind me, I wish desperately for Adira’s weirder, but far preferable methods. Even if it hadn’t yielded any magic. A scorching mix of irritation and desire spike through me as he leans into the crook of my neck. He’s so close, I can smell the sharp mint of his breath, despite my determination not to inhale.
“The power of Letum comes from dreams,” he rasps.
I huff, with a roll of my eyes. “I already know that. You’ve told me about a thousand times.”
“So then tell me, Willa Darling, what doyoudream?”
His words are a soft breath against my skin, and unbidden, I extend my throat, suddenly aching viciously for something I don’t dare name. I want to run a blade through his heart at the same time I want him to run one through mine. I want him to pin me beneath his full weight, press into me until my bones ache and my core heats.
It’s a want edged in madness with no logic to bind it.
“In the dark of night, alone in your bed…what colors your deepest imaginings?” His voice slides over me like a slip of silk, my skin radiating wildly between heat and ice. He raises a hand near my bare arm, and I hate myself for how I instinctively inch closer to his fingers.
Because I’d rather die than admit to Niko what I dreamed of last night. Not when the thought of touching me disgusts him—not when the thought of touching himshoulddisgust me. King of Death, destroyer of worlds.
“Tell me, Willa.”
You.
Though I remain silent, Niko laughs darkly. A soft sound, hardly more than a hot breath against my bare shoulder, but it’s enough to deepen the flush on my cheeks; to wash its stain over my throat and breasts.He knows.The Carrion King knows I’ve dreamed of him.
“Dreams are nonsense,” I snap, spinning around defiantly. But no matter how I glare or argue, the words sound unconvincing, even to me.
Because haven’t I learned since falling into Letum there is no truer thing than the pull of dreams, to children and adults alike? And hadn’t I known years before, when I stared up at the concrete ceiling of the labs as I was taken apart piece by piece? Dreams had been the only thing concrete, the only tangible thing to hold onto in a world filled with pain and horror.
There’s a reason the death of dreams had physical reverberations across the universe.
Niko’s eyes glint in dark amusement and his mouth—that stupid, lush, fuckingmouth—is cocked in an arrogant grin.
“Your world and your plague have taught you the wrong things,” he challenges, not bothering to step away, even though I desperately wish he would. Give me space to breathe something that isn’t him; to gather my thoughts from where they’vescattered around me. “Dreams are shaped by the things you have no words for. The things carved into your bones, shaped by the depths of your heart.Thatplace…where logic and fear have no authority…that is where your power resides. That is where you must delve if you wish to use it.”
I stare at him, my mouth parted as I go over his words.
The place he speaks of—the truest parts of myself—are better left to the forgotten corners of my body. I locked them away to protect them from the shell I became while I was tortured every day, shielded them in thorns and barbed wire and darkness. And after my escape, I kept them there.
