Tendrils unfurled from behind him, twisting like a living thing as they shifted the pillows into a throne of comfort. The bed bent to his will, angling me against the headboard. I melted into it.
“I was screaming?”
His hands caught my ankle, strong fingers digging into the sole of my foot, the other stroking slow circles across the top. A rhythm so thoughtful it unraveled me one knot at a time. This was what royalty must have felt like.
The closest I’d ever come was Gemma pinning me down as a girl to scrub the grime from my feet.
“Yes,” he murmured. “Through the bond.”
Relief shivered through me that I hadn’t woken the whole palace with bloodcurdling howls. At least no one else had been dragged into my nightmares. Only him.
But the thought of my screams being sent through the bond, of him being submitted to me so bare, was upsetting in its own right. It felt too exposed.
I pressed my palms to my eyes, hard enough to spark colors. Maybe if I willed it, he’d only heard. Not seen. Maybe the bond hadn’t betrayed me that much.
Deep-turquoise fabric slid higher up my leg as his knuckles pushed slow into my calf, and he asked, with nothing but tenderness, “Are you okay?”
If the whole king thing didn’t pan out, Ronan could make an indecent fortune in massages. Wait, pants? Since when had I been dressed in an entirely new silken skin?
I didn’t have to ask it out loud. When I looked at him, blinking slowly, waiting for the logic to appear, his mouth had already curved into that dangerous grin.
“When I came back to bed, you’d already managed to get yourself naked.”
Heat scorched my cheeks. “What?”
Those wicked eyes flicked down, unashamed. “So, I clothed you.” A pause, a playful drag. “Didn’t peek.”
I arched a brow, doubt sharp on my tongue. The corner of his mouth deepened, smoke curling lazily at my hip.
“My smoke did it.” His voice dipped lower. “Hands off this time, on my soul.”
I scoffed outright. “Please. For all I know,on your soulmeans nothing to you.”
A soft huff of laughter escaped him. “You might be right, I invented it.” His eyes dragged over me. “But gods, it feels right when I say it to you.”
It shouldn’t have settled in me the way it did. But fates curse me, it slid in and fit. It was strange how close it sounded to the oath Callum and I had shared all our lives.On my heart. And yet Ronan’s version snuck deeper, like it knew where to land.
I exhaled when I realized he was still waiting for me to answer. The easy response perched on my tongue.Yes, I’m fine. It was just a dream.
But the truth was too loud to lull, too real to deny. My bones throbbed with it, the Viper carried back with me out of sleep. I didn’t want him to carry it too. Not this. Not me. He already bore kingdoms on his back, chains in his blood. I refused to be another stone on that spine.
Yet I wanted him to know it was there, that it lived, existed, gnawing beneath my skin.
“No.” The word broke free from my lips. “I’m not okay.”
Because knowing what the dream meant…that was more terrifying than the nightmare itself.
Ronan had Sylen bring us a mixture of chamomile and chai. Gemma used to make it for me, but I didn’t tell him that. I only asked how he knew about the way it healed and relieved.
Dulled the burden but heightened the peace.
Turns out, he had grown up with nightmares as well. Though, unlike me, he’d escaped them.
The steam swept up between us, rich and spiced. It reminded me of him, of how he’d always felt familiar in the strangest way. Someone I had never met yet always knew.
The tea slipped down my throat, easing more than nerves as I wrapped myself into his legs, our bodies sprawled together on the chaise. His shoulders secured me, us, both my hands locked around his arms.
The moon had dipped low, sinking toward the sea, when I finally spoke. “Can you stay?”
