“It’s not too late for us.” His voice is seductive, his touch so familiar. For a moment, I lean into his hand, my body betraying me. “Let me forgive you, kitten. Let me take you back. We can rule together if you’d just submit to me. Together, we’ll figure out a way to get rid of Alistair. I can be the king this country has always deserved.”
He pauses and searches my face before continuing. “Are you really going to surrender our nation to Astreona, all for your ego and arrogance? Bring us to civil war, just to choose a crown over the man who loves you?”
At the wordman, my sense of self-preservation finally surfaces, and I recoil, half-jumping backward and out of his reach. My face burns, still feeling his caress.
“You’re no man,” I growl. “I’d rather die than rule beside a monstrous, bloodsucking parasite possessed by a body-snatching creep.Iam the rightful queen by blood.Iam the one the crown called to.”
Killian’s face contorts with rage, his mask coming off. The shadows grow violent, whipping around us like a tornado.
He lunges forward, grabbing my wrist, his hand painfully tight around that damn engagement bracelet, pressing it deep into my skin.
“You aremine, Meryn. I won’t forget that, even if you’re pretending to. How’s your sister doing, by the way?”
At those words, my fury flares, and something breaks. A light shines in my mind, and I sense the edges of this realm, and beyond them, somehow. Like the whole thing is a thick film that can be peeled up and away if I can just focus.
I turn away from Killian, screwing my eyes shut and putting all my energy into rejecting this shadow realm.
Iwillmyself to wake. Somewhere on the other side of the shadowy wall is Anassa. I can almost hear her voice in my head.
Shadows pull at me, trying to wrap around me tight, keep me in, but I wrest them away. Killian’s voice twists and morphs as if he’s speaking to me through water.
Just—there, on the other side of this sickly darkness, there’s something—
I wake with a jolt. My nightclothes are stuck to me with a layer of sweat, and I gasp, kicking the stifling blankets away.
My wrist aches. I stare down at the bracelet, move it up my arm slightly, and look at the angry ring of red that looks almost burned into my skin.
I want itoff. Goddess, I want to get rid of it so badly. We were placing all our hopes on Tormun’s capture of Killian and now…
When will I ever get rid of it? Will I be bound to him forever through this? Forever letting him corrupt the pack magic and siphon off my own?
The room is dark except for one sputtering oil lamp, but the darkness is totally different from that of the dreamworld. It’s cool and empty instead of that sickly dense pressure.
For a second, it’s still pressing in on me, and I scrub my hands against my eyes, trying to block out the feeling, the sound of Killian’s threats.
I allow myself a single, aching scream of rage, desperation, grief.
Then something scrapes loudly across the floor, and I nearly jump out of bed.
“This time,” comes a low, controlled voice from the dark corner near the door, “tell me the truth about what’s happening to you.”
I blink as Stark emerges from the darkness, his massive frame unfolding from the armchair in the corner of my room. Has he been watching me sleep?
He stares at me steadily, and I know: There’s no way he’s going to leave my rooms unless I give him some answers.
My hands are still trembling from the dreamworld encounter as I stare up at Stark, a nightmare in his own right. He’s only a foot or two from me, one strong arm braced against the bedpost of this goddess-cursed bed, expression unyielding. His dark eyes burn with some emotion I can’t name.
He’s terrifying as always.
And beautiful as always.
Right now, I’m too exhausted and wrung out to get into one of our little bickering matches. Unburdening myself sounds like a relief. “Fine. I was considering telling you anyway.”
Ducking around him, I turn up the lantern by my bedside, an ornate, multifaceted thing.
On the sitting table in my room is a pitcher of water and two delicate glasses; I pour myself a glass and gulp it down in a single swallow before filling my cup once more.
The water soothes my throat, cools me down enough to gather my thoughts.
