“What do you mean?”
“Why are the pillows at the foot of the bed?”
He furrows his brow in confusion. “Do humans always sleep facing the same direction?” He shrugs. “How odd you all are.”
The reminder of his lack of humanity always makes my hackles rise. Like some basic animal instinct is screaming from inside of my bones for me torun.
Instead, I interlace his fingers through mine and pull him onto the bed toward me.
This is it. The part I’ve been practicing in my head.
I imagine Emmett: the curve of his neck, the crinkle by the sides of his eyes when he grins, the way his hands gripped my waist. But mostly I think about how it felt when I glanced at him from across a ballroom. He was always a head taller than anyone else, easy to spot, and in that moment when his eyes met mine, I knew I had an ally. I knew that there was someone in that room who was looking for me, too.
I miss that feeling.
I miss him so much.
I close my eyes and cup Bram’s face in my hands. He sighs and I let the feeling of immense love wash over me like a golden light.
The memories I’ve kept at bay for months because they’re too painful to touch come flooding back to me: Emmett and me waltzing in his room, arguing in the corner of a dusty boathouse, sharing a bed in a coaching inn, spending our last night together in Kensington Palace.
It crashes over me like a wave and I’m lost in it, tumbling through the force of feeling.
I open my eyes.
Bram is looking up at me glassy-eyed. His chest rises and falls slowly.
I lean down, nearly kissing him. My bottom lip brushes his just barely.
“Ivy.” He slurs my name.
He wrenches his lips from mine and trails them up the column of my neck. I arch against him. His touch revolts me, but I let him think it’s passion.
“Ivy,” he sighs.
I scrunch my eyes closed and grit my teeth so hard my jaw aches. My hatred crests over a dam I can no longer stop from breaking.
It overtakes me, the pure revulsion I feel for him. Like spiderwebs of ice, it races through the marrow of my bones.
I pull myself out of his touch and try not to gag. I needed to be strong enough for Emmett and Lydia, but I just can’t do it.
I’ll have to tell Rhion we need to find another way.
But then I open my eyes and look at Bram. He’s tipped back onthe pillows, the sun-kissed waves of his hair around his perfect face like a halo.
Weakly, he interlaces our fingers and pulls me back toward him.
He’s loose-limbed and pliant. Drunk, I realize. Drunk like we’d planned for.
“It tastes different,” he slurs into my ear.
“What does?” I whisper.
He gazes up at me, a dark angel nestled among the snow-white linens of his bed. Shadows dance across his perfectly sculpted face. He sucks his full bottom lip between his teeth. “Love is nice, but your hate tastes so much better.”
A chill goes through me.
A shadow fills the door. Rhion, waiting in the darkness.
