Lady of the Nightmares, page 19
“I know,” Cross said. “That’s what I’m afraid of. Just keep her in her damn room, and there won’t be any problems.”
“Noted.”
Halfway across the room, I gave up walking and vanished into the shadows, reappearing instantly in the upper hallway of Cross’s home. My feet thundered against the carpeted floor as I passed room after room, following little more than instinct and the faint trace of a honey-sweet scent. Lonnie was sure to try and run the moment I told her I was planning to stay in the room with her, and I was already running through ways to convince her. Thus far, I could think of nothing more likely to work than tying her to the headboard.
For the sake of the fucking Source, perhaps I should simply give all this up now and send her back to the castle.
Trying to force the outcome of prophecies clearly hadn’t succeeded so far, and holding Lonnie here until Ambrose saw her in the city was starting to feel flimsier the more I thought about it. That may have been the blood influence again—or perhaps merely me, this time. I’d never claimed to be entirely free of corruption.
A crash sounded from somewhere down the hall, and I froze, ice filling my veins.
My pulse sped up, and I lurched forward, moving so quickly toward the door the hallway blurred. There was a second loud thud, followed by her voice echoing through the hallway. “Don’t fucking touch me, darling.”
What the fuck?
A haze of black spots lingered on the edges of my vision, a haze of rage clouding everything. Who would have the audacity to lay their hands on her?
Reaching her door, I crashed through, distantly grateful it was already hanging open. Lonnie knelt atop the bedding, her hair a wild tangle, her back bared, and her long legs curled around a Fae male. Her weight pinned him beneath her, his throat compressed between her bent knee and the mattress. The cause of the commotion was instantly evident as she bashed an old book into his skull with a similar force to how I’d once seen her wield a crown.
My anger burned brighter than ever, consuming me and leaving no room for anything else. I could hardly see as I lurched forward, fingers numb with rising magic. Darkness rose near my feet, mingling with the black tunnel obscuring my vision. I raised a hand to strike, then stopped, my mind reeling. I stared in disbelief.
It was my own bloody face that stared back at me from the bed, pupils blown wide. A wave of nausea and confusion rolled through me as Lonnie lifted her eyes to meet mine, holding the book tightly in her trembling hands.
Her chest rose and fell quickly as she struggled to take deep breaths. Her lips parted, and I watched the calculation going on in her face—not shock, exactly, but confirmation.
Her shoulders slumped in exhaustion. “I hate fairies.”
25
LONNIE
THE CUTTHROAT DISTRICT, INBETWIXT
“It has been taken care of,” Scion’s smooth voice echoed through the dark room a split second before he appeared in the center of the carpet.
Even if I’d been worried that it was not truly him this time, I would have known from his scowl alone. This version of Scion—the real one—was the same in the sum of his parts yet so impossibly different it was hard to believe I’d been fooled for even a moment.
He still wore his armor and clearly had not yet had a chance to bathe as his hair had dust in it, and there was a smattering of blood across the side of his face. He had none of the carefree energy of the false version of himself and, indeed, looked like he had not smiled in more years than I’d been alive.
“What did you do to him?” I asked from where I now sat, wrapped in a quilt in the center of the bed.
“Nothing that was not deserved,” Scion replied unhelpfully. “Kaius was warned not to touch you, and he elected to ignore that warning. You do not need to worry about him returning.”
I wasn’t worried. Scion’s help wasn’t exactly unappreciated, but for once, I hadn’t needed it. If I had not already realized that the creature in my room was not the Prince of Ravens, I would have known by how easily I’d overpowered him.
“I didn’t realize glamour extended to turning into others.”
Scion nodded. “The face you saw earlier was not his true one either, though I could not say who it belonged to. Incubi are monstrous like all the Unseelie, though they hide it better than most.”
I frowned. I wanted to wonder aloud why the incubus would have chosen to impersonate Prince Scion, but the answer seemed embarrassingly obvious: Because I fell for it.
I sighed and pulled the blanket I’d pulled from the bed more tightly around myself. I was not cold nor as traumatized as I thought I likely should have been by the situation. No, the blanket was more to preserve what was left of my modesty. Not that it mattered much—the real Scion had gotten an eyeful, I knew, when he burst in to help.
“His mistake, of course, was impersonating me,” Scion said with no inflection as he strode across the room to sit on the edge of the rumpled bed.
I glanced up sharply, my eyes darting between his for a moment. Then, relief flooded me.
He didn’t know. Didn’t realize anything had gone on beyond what he’d walked in on. He was assuming I’d known immediately and attacked. I might have laughed with the relief of it.
“Of course,” I lied. “I would rather die than let you touch me.”
He reached the edge of the bed, and his silver eyes raked over me, scorching me from the inside out. “Then you’d best move over.”
“I…” I blinked up at him in confusion. “Excuse me?”
“Not that I’d object, but if you do not want to share a pillow, you will need to move over.”
I swallowed audibly and resisted the urge to reach up and slap myself across the face. Surely, surely, this could not be happening. Again. “Absolutely not.”
“You’ve been sleeping quite soundly in my bed for the better part of two months. Another night won’t kill you.”
I wasn’t so sure about that.
“That’s hardly the same, and you know it.” I scowled. “You must be out of your mind to think I would let you sleep in here, especially after what just happened.”
“It is precisely because of what just happened that I’m going to be sleeping in here. You are clearly unsafe.”
I pulled the blanket tighter around myself until only my head was visible. “I thought you said you took care of it. Gods, I even took care of it.”
His eyes darted to the bloodstained book on the trunk beneath the window, and he bared his teeth in something like a feral smile. “That may be so, but who knows what else is lurking in this cursed fucking house. This whole place is crawling with thieves.”
“Why should you care?” I bit out, forcing my mind to stay in the moment. “You’re friends with Cross.”
His gaze flicked to the door, and for a moment, his self-assured smile flickered. It was as if the mask of bravado slipped, and I caught a glimpse of genuine worry, if only for a moment.
“You’re impossibly naive for someone who spends every other sentence lamenting the dangers of the world you grew up in.” He shook his head. “Yes. I am friends with Cross, but were he not my friend, he might be seeking out the assassins’ guild right now to see what price is on your head, or perhaps the mercenaries, if he chose to play them against each other.” He gave me a pointed look. “There are a dozen thieves downstairs and a dozen more scattered around the city. They are all trained by Cross, and I am not their friend.”
I gaped at him but recovered quickly. Loosening the blanket enough that I could walk, I slid off the bed and made to push past him. “Nothing out there could possibly be more dangerous than you. I’ll take my chances with the thieves.”
Scion blocked me, using his height and imposing stature to try and intimidate. “You’re right, rebel. I am by far the most dangerous thing in this city, which is why you’re going to stay right here where I can protect you.”
“I don’t need or want your protection.”
He raised an eyebrow. “No? Tell me, have you ever managed to survive an encounter with even one fairy without help?”
I gestured to the bloody book again, my eyes widening. “What do you call that?”
“That wasn’t really a High Fae. It’s not the same.”
I rolled my eyes. He was splitting hairs now. “Short of tying me to the damn headboard, you are never going to win this argument.”
His mouth turned into a flat line, his nostrils flaring, and his gaze darted down to my still nearly bare, blanket-wrapped body for the briefest second. “You really need to stop saying shit like that, rebel.”
Fair enough. I wasn’t sure why I kept taunting him. The words might have been bitter, but even to my own ear, they were starting to sound a lot like a challenge…and I wasn’t sure it was one I desired to honor.
Just like that, all the fight drained out of me.
I was tired—so, so, tired—and fighting with him was becoming harder and harder to justify. Like fighting for the sake of it rather than because I actually believed the words coming out of my mouth.
“Fine,” I said on a breath. “What did Cross say?”
He cocked his head at me, seeming surprised by the change of subject. “In regard to what?”
“You said after you talked to Cross, you’d think about when I could go back to the castle.”
His eyes widened slightly. “Bael will find you the moment he’s aware you’re gone. You must understand that, yes? Any other scenario is nearly physically impossible.”
“I don’t care. I want to go back.” I bit my lip, thinking yet again of what Thalia said. “I’ll cooperate…in the meantime, I mean. I’ll stop arguing with you, but I want to go back in two days.”
He ran his hand through his hair, clearly frustrated. “Two days is hardly long enough. We don’t know if Cross and his children will have found anything.”
Perhaps not, but I knew I would not be able to tolerate any longer than that here with him without an end in sight, especially if he was going to insist on sleeping in my bed. I was not sure if I wanted to murder him or…vent my frustration in other ways, but the encounter with the incubus had been illuminating in that I liked every aspect of it, perhaps a bit too much.
Glamour or not, I liked Prince Scion kissing me, touching me, and then I liked smashing his head in just as much.
What that said about me, I did not even want to think.
“Two days,” I said on a breath. “That’s my bargain.”
He gave me a long, piercing look I felt everywhere, and finally, he nodded. “I would ask you to seal it, but I have no name you don’t already know, and I hardly need yours.”
“Bael always sealed our bargains with a kiss,” I blurted out.
By Aisling. Why? Why would I say that?
Scion’s lip curled in a suggestive smile, and he laughed—a darkly male chuckle. “He was taking advantage of your ignorance, then. That does nothing.”
Humiliation stained my cheeks. I wanted to say I knew that and appear less foolish but struggled, as feigning ignorance wouldn’t let me save face now.
I scowled, scooting back on the bed at last to give him room.
“Fine, just…stay over there. Don’t touch me.”
The prince snorted a derisive laugh that I interpreted to mean it was absurd to think he would ever want to touch me for any reason before lying down stiffly on the opposite side, several inches of space between us.
My face flushed. Right. Of course not. Perhaps that was a foolish thing to say. And yet, I had the oddest urge to defend myself.
To point out that I’d seen him with human women before, so it was not such a strange assumption.
To say that I could see the way he looked at me on occasion and that his flirting might be calculated but still did not go unnoticed.
That I’d felt clearly how I affected him when he’d held my hips against him in the tower.
That he was the one who had dragged me here and then insisted on climbing, half-naked, into my bed.
But I didn’t say that.
I said nothing, and instead, I lay flat on my back, unmoving, staring up at the ceiling.
I tried not to breathe too loudly, all too aware that he could probably hear my heart beating and was more aware of every tiny movement I made even more so than I was. He didn’t move either, and it was only from the intense heat radiating from his skin that I knew he had not turned to stone.
26
LONNIE
THE CUTTHROAT DISTRICT, INBETWIXT
My vision swam, disconcerting and unfocused. I’d been here before—this time, I was sure of it. Yet, the room seemed different. The walls were dark, the air thick with smoke. In the distance, a battle raged, steel on steel echoing through twisting halls.
I stared at the herald in the skull mask. “What do you want?”
The stranger rose from his threadbare throne and took a step closer, and his appearance swam into sharper relief. He was tall—at least as tall as Prince Scion—and wearing a black hooded cloak over a similarly dark tunic.
“Merely to offer you a bargain.”
Whatever else felt unclear, I was certain of this much: “I would rather die than make another bargain. The ones I have already are chafing enough as it is.”
He laughed, and the sound seemed to wrap around me. Most of the laughter of the High Fae felt eerie and dissonant somehow, but not his.
“What is so amusing?”
He smiled again, but this time, it was a bit brittle. “Come find me, and I shall tell you.”
I awoke the next morning to sunlight streaming through the still-open curtains and the sound of hushed voices at the door.
It took me a long moment to remember the events of the previous evening—where I was and the reason for the adrenaline buzzing through my veins. A slight embarrassment washed over me, yet in truth, I was not surprised. This was precisely the sort of dream I’d been plagued by for weeks, and given the events of last night…well, it wasn’t precisely a shock.
I peered into the corner of the room, now flooded with weak sunlight, just to completely dispel myself of the notion that anyone could have been standing there, watching me—watching us.
The face of the stranger swam in my mind, growing more clouded with each second I moved away from the dream. I wasn’t sure I recognized him—in fact, I was almost certain I had not, yet the feeling of his presence there lingered longer than the dream itself.
It was nearly impossible to name…like power or electricity.
If I had never read Rosey’s journals, I would never have given this more than a passing thought—a minor humiliation—but now…
My entire body still felt far too hot, a burning flush I couldn’t expel. I worried my lip. Gods, if my subconscious had begun to view Scion with something other than loathing after only a few sad stories, I couldn’t trust myself with anything.
Opening my eyes slowly, I glimpsed the object of my ire himself. Scion’s smooth, muscled back and disheveled hair were halfway obscured by the doorframe as he spoke to whoever stood in the hallway. Cross, I supposed, or perhaps one of his children came to deliver a message.
Rolling over, I found the space in the bed next to me still warm. Part of me was already embarrassed by giving in and allowing Scion to stay.
I could have tried harder to argue with him.
I could have left, damned the consequences.
And I could have fought the impulse to inch closer to the impossibly comforting warmth of his body sleeping beside me in the hours I’d lain awake listening to his breathing long after I’d finally given in.
But I didn’t.
Refusing to indulge in my own self-loathing, I instead focused on whatever was being said in the hall. Straining my ears, I could still only make out every third word or so. The tone, however, was urgent. Angry. I stiffened. Had something happened?
“Get dressed,” Scion said abruptly, slamming the door.
I peeked over my shoulder. “If I’d been sleeping, that would have been a terrible way to wake me up.”
“I knew you were awake.” He rolled his eyes as he strode over to the chair in the corner where his armor was neatly stacked. “I can hear the difference in your breathing.”
I shook my head slightly, having been momentarily distracted by all the hard planes of muscle before me. “I suppose I should just call myself lucky that I am still breathing at all, trapped in here with you all night.”
He gave me a long, searching look, his mouth slightly ajar, and I could almost feel the tension that hung in the air, but he only said, “Dress quickly. I’ll wait for you in the hall.”
I wasn’t sure why I felt slightly guilty as the door slammed behind him.
I took far longer than I would have liked to redress myself in the same clothing as yesterday.
Finally, I managed to tie the straps of my dress into something resembling a corset, tight enough that it hardly mattered that I could not manage to find the sleeves. I sighed. The dress now covered about as much as my blanket had last night, and yet I was now about to walk into a room filled with strangers. If we were going to stay for two more days, I would need some additional clothing. Even as a servant, I hadn’t been forced to wear the same filthy clothing for days on end. No, that sort of thing was only for days spent in dungeon cells, and if I was not meant to be a prisoner, I deserved to at least bathe and wear fresh undergarments.
Resolving to tell Scion this as soon as I readied myself, I made my way to the bathing room and looked in the small mirror. I winced. My hair—wild on the best of days—had reached a size three times larger than my head.
It was times like these that I was reminded how much I missed my sister, as she would have teased me relentlessly before taming the nest. I had no extraordinary skill with braiding but managed something simple that at least kept the curls at bay, then darted out into the hall.
