Every breath, in and out, I feel him. Until this trance-like state washes over me and all I am is sensation. All I breathe is him.
His hand turns my chin and he’s kissing me again, stealing the last of my awareness until an orgasm ripples through me. Through it all he never stops, not even when his long, drawn-out groan signals his release.
“I don’t want to close my eyes,” I say, breathless. “What if I close them and wake up?”
“You will.” He doesn’t lie. Can’t lie. But more than that, he wouldn’t lie to me. I feel that certainty even without the bond to confirm it. “And then it’s back to reality.”
I drop my head to the pillow with a hiss. Kieran wraps his arms around me, drawing me close against his chest.
“Are you safe?” he asks. The words come out strained.
“Your father doesn’t bother me.” I yawn and roll over, kissing his lips. “It’s Amarantha I worry about.”
He freezes. Every muscle locking like I’ve just told him the room is on fire.
“Amarantha is there?”
“Yeah.” I trace the line of his collarbone, not understanding the shift. “Apparently they’re working together. Your father and her. Something about the next trial.”
“Ash.” He grips my shoulders. The playfulness is gone. The heat is gone. There’s only ice now, the old Kieran, the one who calculated threats before he let himself feel anything. “You need to wake up.”
“What? Why?”
“My father is cruel, but he’s predictable. He wants to own you. Control you. Use you as leverage.” His fingers dig into my skin. “Amarantha doesn’t want to own you. She wants to break you. There’s a difference.”
“I can handle?—”
“She broke Finnian.” The words come out jagged. “Spent years manipulating him after she had his parents executed. And he’s the strongest person I know.”
The warmth drains from the dream. I can feel it, the edges going thin, reality pulling at me.
“The Trial of Survival isn’t just a test. It’s an execution dressed in ancient law. And if Amarantha is involved in the design?—”
“Then it’s personal.”
“Then it’s a trap specifically built to destroy you from the inside out.” He shakes me. Not gently. “Wake up. Now. And whatever mercy they offer, whatever deal they pretend to extend, don’t trust it.”
“And if I can’t run?”
“Then fight.” He presses his forehead to mine. The dream is fraying at the edges, pulling apart like wet paper. “Fight until we get to you. Because we are coming, Ash. I swear on every shadow I command, we are coming.”
“Kieran—”
The dream rips.
Not fades. Not dissolves. Rips, like something tearing me out of his arms by force.
One second his skin is against mine, his breath warm on my lips, his voice in my ear. The next I’m gasping awake in cold stone darkness, my hand still reaching for a chest that isn’t there, my lips still shaped around his name.
Alone.
The word has never felt so heavy.
10
Ash
The bond is stillwarm at my wrist when the blade takes my pillow.
