Chapter 48 With Every Breath
WITH EVERY brEATH
LUELLA
Luella was sore each night she fell into bed.
Her nights were spent with Az, mostly. Though, sometimes Bastian came to her to sleep. He would lie on his side, staring at her, and she would feel what she’d promised to him seep into the sheets wrapped around her.
He never touched her—in that way. But he most assuredly touched her.
He would hold out an arm, his fingers grazing her elbow where it poked over the sheets tucked under her chin.
She would press her fingertips to his and let her eyes fall closed, unable to bear the weight of his red-tinted eyes as sleep took her.
Her dreams were always remembered. Strange things. Hazy scenes that she could not quite make much sense of. When she cornered Bastian to ask if he was stealing into her mind, he denied her claims. She sensed the truth through their bond.
So if her dreams were not a gift from the vampire, then what were they?
She no longer dreamed of Enora and Caliban. A fact of which she was immensely grateful. After knowing the truth of who Caliban was, she could not fathom seeing his face again, even in her dreams.
Vale would always look at her when he thought she did not notice, but she always noticed.
Standing outside, watching the sea—she didn’t feel fear anymore as she stared, entranced, at the waves cresting—and a tingle on her nape would alert her to the dragon King’s presence. The scent of ash followed him. He was constantly riled and never willing to do anything about it.
What would it take? For this stalemate between the Princess and the King to break?
Curled in the sheets one night, between Az and Bastian, Luella asked just that.
"Why won’t he come near me?" She didn’t need to say his name—they knew.
Az’s fingers stilled in her hair.
"Vale needs time, pet," Bastian told her. "He fights battles we do not understand."
But Luella did understand.
Lying on her back, she touched a hand to her breastbone as if to press down the magic within her. She was able to feel it now, always. With every breath she breathed, it was there.
She fell asleep between them, her heart heavy.
Her dreams that night were dark with blood, dripping from the ceiling. But then, the scene shifted.
Stardust, swirling past in a litany of precious light. It was warm as it whizzed by, and her feet would not move, no matter how desperately she willed them to. She was stuck.
"No," she said, and her voice echoed in the star-speckled darkness in which she had found herself.
The stardust was so swift as it streaked through the dark, it disappeared in the span of one blink. Grief cracked her heart, making the organ splinter like broken glass. Tears made her vision blurry.
"Come back," Luella called, one hand outstretched toward where the stardust had gone.
Something wet tickled her ankles, and she looked down, finding a thin pool of water on the ground—if it could even be called such.
As if she’d been thrust into the vastness of space, there was nothing to differentiate between up or down, right or left—only the way she stood. For everything appeared the same.
Again, she tried to lift her leg, but could not.
She began to fear earnestly that she would be stuck here forever. Tucked between nothing and everything.
Luella’s breath grew ragged. "Help. Help. Anyone! Please?"
She covered her face with her hands and sobbed, tired to her very core from her struggles. Tears wet her palms and spilled between her fingers. A warmth grazed the back of her hand, and she looked up, teary-eyed, to find the stardust back.
"Thank you," she whispered brokenly. "I don’t know what I am doing here. I want to leave. Can you show me the way?"
The words did not come fumbling, as if searching for what to say in anxious thought, but they came unbidden, as if all of this had already come to pass. As if all of her words here had already been spoken, and she merely had to reenact it.
Awareness trickled over her, and the stardust bobbed in the air. She stumbled to the side as her legs came free from whatever held them. She took a step forward, water splashing underfoot, slowing her movements.
A great booming noise echoed. She gasped, hands flying up to cover her ears. It was so loud, she felt as if her brain might bleed out of her ears.
"What is that?" she yelled, but couldn’t even hear herself.
Restless, the stardust shifted before her, and she grew weak from the reverberations filling the air, making the water tremble.
The stardust stretched out, no longer an amorphous mass, but taking the silhouette of a human-like shape.
Luella stumbled back and fell into the water. It softened her fall, droplets splashing up against her face and wetting the tips of her hair and—
She gasped, reaching behind her.
She didn’t have her wings.
That realization pressed into her mind, making her head throb, like she shouldn’t know that here. Forbidden.
The female silhouette leaned over Luella, a hand reaching for her. She cowered, but did not feel fear. The hand touched her brow, forcing a deep ache into her brain. Swelling, growing, too much. It was too much—
Luella’s jaw cracked as she released a scream, and the booming echo buzzed in her bones. Her face was wet with tears, and she thrashed in the water.
And Luella was ripped away from the pain, from the noise, from the ache.
Her eyes shot open, and she struggled against whatever held her down.
"Luella! It was just a dream—wake up. Wake up!"
Hands held her shoulders, and she hit against a hard chest. "Make it stop! Stop—"
Familiar palms gripped her cheeks, forcing her thrashing head to still.
Her lips were parted with harsh exhales, and a face came into focus above her.
Eyes like lapis lazuli. A scar carved into a face that was currently etched with fear. Dark feathered wings blocked out the ceiling.
"Graves," she said raggedly.
Graves’s forehead fell to hers as he cupped her cheeks. "I’m here. It was just a dream."
Luella’s mind struggled to understand. "A d-dream?" Her voice wavered.
"A dream," he echoed. "A nightmare."
She pushed against him, wanting to be let up; though, the weight and warmth of him helped break her from her daze.
They both sat up, and she wrapped a hand around the stone of her amulet. It was scorching hot. She dropped it with a low hiss, and it burned her chest. Graves placed his hand between her skin and the stone to protect her flesh.
"You will get burned," she warned.
He shook his head, his dark hair ruffled as if he’d been sleeping. "Better me than you."
Graves held his hand like that, even as she curled her knees up to her chest. She kept trembling—couldn’t quite get herself to stop.
"Why did you come?" Luella finally asked.
"I heard you scream. Of course, I would come to you. I thought—" He swallowed. "I thought someone was hurting you, trying to take you again."
Hadn’t someone hurt her, though? Vividly, she remembered the silhouette touching her head. The buzz that vibrated the water. The pain.
Her wings shifted beneath her, and she sighed, her fingers brushing over the tips. No, it had merely been a dream. Graves’s eyes tracked the motion, and they grew dark with heat.
It had been a few days since she’d felt pleasure. As if her body had grown wired to crave it, she felt the inside of her thighs grow damp.
Graves’s nostrils flared, and the back of his hand on her chest slipped lower.
Ashamed at her wantonness, Luella scrambled for distraction.
When she’d gone to sleep, Az and Bastian had been there. "Where is everyone else?"
The sheets were rumpled on the bed, half-hanging off the edge of the mattress from her struggles. Dawn light pierced through the thin slits on the sides of the curtain.
"They had to leave early at the request of Vale. Bastian asked me to stay with you."
Her brow furrowed. From his words, she assumed he hadn’t been in the room with her. She eyed the rumpled sheets and cool, untouched floors. "Where did you sleep?"
"Outside," he answered simply.
"Outside? Did you not at least have a blanket? A pillow?"
He didn’t reply, jaw ticking.
She changed tactics, anything to distract herself from the want pulsing between her thighs and the feel of his hand on her skin. "Why did Vale call for them?"
"A meeting."
This time, Luella’s jaw ticked. "Do you ever answer plainly?"
The scarred side of Graves’s face twitched in dark mirth.
"About our next steps. The Fallen who took you, they acted alone, but that doesn’t mean there are not others who wish you harm.
Vale’s been scheming, as usual. He and Bastian think another ball will help show nothing is amiss.
" His hand twitched on her chest, forcing the chain to dig into her neck.
"And that we are, strong and united," he quoted.
Luella could almost hear Vale in the words.
"You do not agree?"
"I think staying quiet is always the better option as opposed to ostentatiousness."
She hummed in reply, thinking.
"Do you—do you wish to tell me about it?" Graves asked, tone softer than normal.
Luella sighed, shifting back against the pillows. Her wings trembled from her movement. She studied the dark feathers behind him, draped over his shoulders and commanding her attention. "I do not wish to speak of it. Some dreams are better left unspoken."
It had been an amalgamation of fear, unease, peace, and beauty. She loved it, yearned for it—yet feared it, at the same time. It was frightening to dance around it like she was doing. She was so scared that if she spoke of it, she would breathe life into her words, making it come to fruition.
However, she wondered if that would be a terrible thing.
Graves searched her eyes, then said, "Okay." With that one word, an invisible weight was lifted from her shoulders. He understood her—better than she did herself, perhaps. He weighed the amulet in his hands, brows scrunching, deep in thought. "How are your injuries?"