“A few days.” The roughness in his voice made me look up. He opened his mouth before closing it, only to say, “Sleep well, Princess.”
“Good night,” I whispered, gently closing the door.
I leaned heavily against it, my head thumping backward. I wanted more than anything to open the door, call him back, and figure out what this was between us, but I resisted. I heard his footsteps pause, then continue down the hall.
I slid down the door to sit in a pile of crimson fabric, pressing the hand he had kissed to my heart.
Maybe it was best he was leaving for a few days. That would give me a chance to figure out what the hell was happeningbetween us.
I fell into an uneasy sleep.In my dream, a woman with dark hair and my eyes was shouting at me, trying to communicate over a great distance. I strained to hear her, but before I could, a dark mist rolled in and she was swept away.
Chapter
Eighteen
Dreams are windows into the soul. They show us things about ourselves. Sometimes good things. Sometimes things we’d rather not see. But what if someone else can view that window?
—From the journal of Violet Andrever
Iwas on my knees, my sword pointed toward the ground, the flames flickering. My legs had forgotten how to hold my weight. There was a low, constant rumble in my ears, as if the earth itself was groaning in pain. It mixed with the wet, labored breathing of the dying, unnatural silence where there should be screams. The scent of scorched flesh was so strong it burned my nostrils and sunk into my pores.
“Yield.” The voice came out of a creature so dark and terrifying that shadows ran from him. His armor was scaled, the sharp points erupting from every conceivable place. It absorbed the limited light we had left to us rather than reflected it.
I looked up at the face of nightmares. “Never,” I spat out.
Forcing my legs to work, I heaved myself upright. His hand, clad in a gauntlet the color of the blackest night, reached toward my throat, the metallic scrape sounding with each movement.
“Lexa, no!”
The cry came from behind the creature. I looked over at the faceof the man I loved, his beloved features covered in grime, a bloody streak streaming from his temple.
“No!” he cried again. He was storming toward us, tripping over the bodies of friends and foe alike, fighting to reach my side, his boots squelching as he struggled forward in the blood-soaked mud.
I tore my eyes from his face, hoping against hope that wasn’t my last look, and met the eyes of the creature in front of me—or at least, the place in the helmet where eyes should be. Instead, there were gaping holes of endless darkness.
“I will never yield.”
The spikes of the gauntlet reached my throat; they surged toward me, stretching, growing as he wrenched me upright off the ground.
“Lexa! Lexa!”
The sound of my name thundered through my body, causing that golden light inside me to bubble and flow, chasing away the darkness. I was shaking—or no, being shook. I burst upright as I woke, gasping for air. My hand shot out straight in front of me, flames cupped in my palm, ready to address the threat. I was trembling so violently that I could barely control them. I smelled a burning stench and heard a muffled swear.
“Hey, hey, it’s me.” A gentle hand rubbed up and down my back.
I came back to myself enough to focus on my surroundings. I was in my room. In my bed. With?—
“Griff? You’re alive,” I breathed. “But you were hurt, the blood…” The fire faded from my hand as it shot out to his face, my fingers trembling as I traced the lines at his temple, feeling the roughness of his scruff. I still smelled the carnage, smoke thick in the air. “How… how…?”
My chest felt tight, each breath coming in short bursts, my body shaking with tremors I couldn’t control. He continued his gentle motions on my back, and I fought the urge to lean against him.
“I honestly have no idea.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I was asleep at my mother’s house. It was like I heard you cry out for me and I teleported here before I was fully conscious. Before I could even figure out what woke me. What happened?”
I pressed my palms against my eyes, trying to stop the shaking and ground myself in reality. My room. The pressure of Griff’s hand on my back. But I could still smell the blood, still hear the dying struggling to breathe.
“It felt so real,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “I couldn’t save anyone. Everyone was dead, dying…”
He gently reached toward my face and I startled as his hand cradled my cheek. His fingers were warm against my skin as he tipped up my chin, making me meet his eyes. “What is it?” he asked, the concern evident in his voice.
