Chapter 46 Aurelia
Aurelia
The air felt warmer here. Maybe it was him. The scent of hearthwood and something herbal lingered—maybe sage, or juniper—and it wrapped around me like a shawl. The windows were open, letting in the sound of the falls. They didn’t roar like the cliffs back home. They sang.
“Someone made this for you,” I murmured, gesturing to the inside of the home. “Like they expected you to return.”
His jaw tightened. “It seems that way.”
But he didn’t move on. His gaze stayed pinned to the wall of portraits, the varnish still gleaming, the edges free of dust. Someone had cared for them. Someone had remembered.
“I don’t understand,” he admitted, voice low. “How all of this is here.” He stepped closer, fingertips ghosting the frame of his father’s portrait, then pulled back before he could touch it.
The question hung between us, not just about the paintings, but about loyalty, memory, and who still kept his family’s name.
I looked at the paintings again. “They must’ve loved you.”
“They did,” he said softly. “Even when I didn’t make it easy.”
A small smile tugged at my lips. “You? Hard to love? Never.”
I stepped toward the wide sill, placing my hand against the open window. The wind shifted, warm and damp from the falls.
He joined me there, close enough that I could feel the heat of him without touching. I turned toward him slowly. His hair caught the light. And his eyes, always watching.
“I’m tired,” I said. And I meant it in every way.
He nodded once and stepped back. Gave me the space I didn’t ask for but needed.
“You can rest here, I’ll wake you when it’s time to eat,” he said.
I watched him cross the room, watched the way he moved. He lit a small lantern near the hearth and pulled down a blanket, setting it neatly at the edge of the long, cushioned bench beside the fire.
“I’ll be just outside,” he added, pausing at the door. “If you need anything.”
“Malachi—” I said quietly.
He turned.
“Thank you.”
His gaze softened. And for a moment, just a breath, the edge in him dulled. He didn’t smile. But something warmer passed between us. Something that didn’t need a name. Then he nodded and stepped outside.
I stood there a long while, staring at the door after it closed. Then I sat on the bed, pulled the blanket around me, and let the sound of the falls lull me to sleep.
At first, there was warmth.
Warm familiar fingers ghosted over my skin. I didn’t open my eyes, I didn’t need to. Malachi.
He murmured something low and quiet into my throat, the sound of it lost in the press of his mouth.
My breath caught. His hands were firm and claiming, trailing fire along the path of my hips, the curve of my stomach.
My name was a whisper—little dove—as he gripped me, pulling me closer still as he aligned himself with my entrance.
Slick with sweat, he eased into me, slow and punishing.
“Gods, you feel so good,” he groaned, voice ragged as he rocked into me, each thrust building in momentum. “Just like I knew you would.”
“You thought of me?” I asked, breathless, eyes fluttering shut at the next deep press.
“Of course I did, my nychta.”
That voice didn’t belong to Malachi.
A flicker.
I opened my eyes—and the mouth at my throat wasn’t his anymore. The eyes above me weren’t gold. They were molten copper.
Kaelith.
He moved like I belonged to him. Like I never hadn’t.
His body strained over mine, abs tightening with every roll of his hips, gaze dark and consuming.
I tried to twist away, but he caught my hair in a fist, yanking my face up to meet his.
Ink coiled over every inch of him, marks that pulsed beneath his skin, catching the lantern glow.
“Do you even know what you are?” he hissed against my neck. “What you’ve done?”
I shoved at his chest, but the hands pinning me didn’t yield. They changed. Warmer now. Familiar. Softer.
Hayat.
The first boy who made me laugh when I thought I’d forgotten how. His eyes were gentle, lips brushing my jaw with aching tenderness, but the shadows curled around him.
“You asked me to stay,” he whispered. “You begged me to.”
“No…” I choked, the word lost.
Then Malachi again—above me, breath warm against my throat, golden eyes molten with something wild. His mouth skimmed my skin. But I saw them this time—those too-sharp teeth, bared and gleaming. He was going to bite. And gods, some part of me wanted him to.
Then Kaelith. Then Hayat. Then—
Nothing.
The warmth disappeared. The touch turned cold. I was alone.
No one above me. No one beneath.
Just blood.
It coated my hands, my thighs, my chest. Dripped from my fingers in thick, hot rivulets.
And then I saw them.
Malachi. Santiago. Hayat. Lysara. Gabriel. Aeryn. All of them, lying in a circle around me. Pale. Mouths open. Eyes glassy and wide.
Empty.
Dead.
And I stood in the center of it. Breathing. Untouched. Wrong.
Kaelith’s voice broke through—low, dark—his face materialized through the fog of the dream, but he didn’t move toward me. He didn’t offer his hand.
“You’ll kill them all,” he said. “You were always going to.”
“No—” I tried to scream it, to deny it, to reach him—
But he stepped back.
“You don’t get to run from what you are. I am the only one who will accept the darkness within you.”
The shadows surged.
And I fell.
I woke to the hue of the moon shining in—silver light cutting across the floor. I sat up slowly, heart still racing, throat dry. The dream clung to me. My skin burned where phantom hands had touched, and the scent of blood hadn’t yet faded from my nose.
The door creaked open. Malachi stepped through quietly. His eyes landed on me at once.
“What happened?”
I tried for steadiness. “Nothing,” I said, too quickly. “Just a nightmare.”
He didn’t move closer. But his eyes sharpened, and when he spoke again, his voice was low. Careful. “You should know,” he said, “the dreams might not always be yours.”
I blinked.
“Dream-walking,” he continued. “You’re one of the only people I’ve met in centuries who can do it. Sometimes the dreams are just fragments of fear—shadows feeding on weakness, twisting what you dread into something cruel. Other times they’re glimpses. Of what was. Or what could be.”
His eyes fixed on mine.
My throat tightened. “I am so tired of all of these things showing up and expecting me to interpret them when I have no idea who—or what—I am now.”
He nodded once. “They’re only possibilities. Warnings. Memories that don’t belong to you. And sometimes… nothing at all. Just the dark testing its grip.”
The fire had burned down to embers, but warmth lingered in his words. Or maybe it was in the way he looked at me. I wondered how many nights he’d fought through visions like this, how many times he’d woken gasping in the dark.
My fingers curled tighter in the blanket. Kaelith’s voice still echoed in my skull. The feel of hands that weren’t his—then were, then weren’t—clung to me. I wanted to ask which parts were real. If any of it was me.
Instead I forced the thinnest smile I could manage. “Thank you,” I whispered.
Malachi tilted his head, eyes narrowing slightly, but he let it go.
“Let’s go make sure Santiago finds his tavern,” he said after a beat, probably trying to cut through the weight of the moment. Before I could answer, a soft knock broke the silence.
The door eased open. Eryndis stood in the frame, lantern-light glinting off the runes at her brow. Her gaze flicked to Malachi, then to me. “I’ll take her,” she said simply.
Malachi didn’t move. Not right away. Then, with reluctance, he gave a single nod.
Eryndis stepped inside, her voice gentler now. “The tavern is just beyond the lower bridge. Follow the lanterns strung in pairs. They’ll take you to the hall. You’ll hear the music before you see it.”
She held out her hand, not commanding, just offering.
“Come. The night waits for you.”