The healer clucks his tongue sympathetically. “You’ve been badly injured,” he interjects after a furtive, frightened glance at the giant. “You hurt your head. Brain injuries are unpredictable, but with time and care, I think your memories will return.”
I pin my lips between my teeth. That makes sense, considering how sore my body feels... but how did it happen? All I can see when I force myself to remember are fuzzy gray patches. My skull protests angrily, and I inhale a shallow breath and stop trying. “Where are we?” I look toward the kindly older man, feeling he is more likely to answer me.
“Where doyouthink you are?” the silver-haired man snaps as if he’s nearing the end of his patience... or annoyed that I’m talking to the healer and not to him.
I stiffen and shoot him a derisive look I know won’t go over well. The sarcastic reply punches from my lips before I can stop it. “If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking, would I?”
His scowl grows teeth, thick brows slamming down. Despite my brain fog, I bristle and match his hostile expression, and we glare viciously at each other. The healer at my side lets out an aggrieved gasp and takes a step toward the menace in black before stopping himself short.
“Leave us,” the surly beast commands.
Much to my dismay, the healer departs—but only after a protracted moment as if worried for my safety. Shit,shouldI be worried?
Too late now.
“That was rude,” I remark, clearly with no sense of survival when he glowers at me. I must be delirious if I think provoking an unhinged stranger who believes I’m here to assassinate him is wise. Not that I even know wherehereis, for maker’s sake. OrhowI got here.
Oranythingrelating to here.
I swallow past the sawdust in my mouth and catch a cloying, unfamiliar taste on my tongue. “Did you drug me?” I demand.
The man’s eyebrows jump up to his hairline, that imperious stare sparking with outrage. Those big, tattooed hands of his tighten on the footrail. I bet they’ll leave dents with the way his forearms and biceps are straining beneath his well-tailored tunic.
Stop ogling his arms, you ass. He’s probably imagining the bedrail is your neck.
He glares down the length of his elegant nose at me. “You were found unconscious just beyond the Barrin Mountains with an azdaha that vanished some time ago. You were both badly injured. There was no drugging.” His tone drips with contempt. “No one under my rule would do anything so vile.”
His words sound like they should make sense, but they don’t. None of that sounds in any way plausible. Everyone knows that the Barrin Mountains are impassable... and azdahas don’t fucking exist. They’re a mythical creature.
Sands on fire, what if... what ifnoneof this is real?
Time slows to the consistency of honey.
I could be asleep and dreaming.
Or maybe this is a waking fever dream! I’ve had them before, the ones where I’m certain I am awake. I’ve even dreamed ofhimbefore, I think? It’s all coming back in snippets: that cruel blade of a jaw, the otherworldly gleam of pewter hair, and that looming shadowy presence. I know exactly who he is... because he’s a figment of my overly febrile imagination.
“You’re not real,” I crow victoriously.
A noise of pure irritation leaves him. “I assure you, I’m very real.”
Forcing my weakened limbs to work, I push up on my hands and knees, and crawl gracelessly to the end of the bed. Then I heave myself up so that my nose is parallel to the stranger’s armored chest. Even in my addled state, I appreciate somewhere in the back of my mind that the breastplate is of exceptional quality and has been crafted by a master blacksmith.
I poke him in the abdomen and let out a curse. “You’re hard.”
A deeply indrawn breath meets my ears, and I let out a deranged snort at my poorly chosen words. My fingers trail down the granite planes of his torso to his waistband and the laces tied tightly above a breath-stealing bulge. Smirking, I congratulate myself on a job well done.
“What are you doing?” my sexy hallucination snaps, his voice a rasp that sinks into my skin even as I snatch my marauding hand away.
I think back to the erotic dreams I’ve had over the past few years with my faceless shadow lover, the one Laleh always makes fun of me for. The proportions of my broody warden are similar enough to make all my confusion and qualms vanish. Becauseof coursethis is a dream... one of the ones where you think you’re awake but you’re not. And Iknowhim.
“I should have made you more pleasant,” I muse as I pull myself to standing so that I am nose to nose with my creation. “Not so much grumpy, asshole energy.”
“How dare—”
I stop him with a finger smashed up against his mouth, watching his midnight gaze go wide in shock, and relish the feel of his surprisingly lush lips. A spark of desire courses through me. Maybe I can get this wild fever dream to go in a more pleasant direction. I seem to recall he’s excellent at following orders... or giving them, depending on my fancy.
I trace my fingertip down and across a rigid jawline that could cut glass. “Less talking, more doing, Shadow Prince.”
