Chapter 19
NINETEEN
Seven
The storm raging outside feels less threatening than the storm beneath my skin, my veins pulsating with new power that I don’t understand.
I’m no child. It’s been a long time since I didn’t have a handle on the power inside me, and now I feel like a child yet again.
I don’t understand what’s there, can’t even begin to fathom what this new magic may be, but .
. . I look over at Crymson where she sits at the window, watching the rain beat against the windowpane.
My power didn’t seem to hurt her. If anything, it seems she stoked it to life with her kiss.
What sort of catalyst will I have to watch for if she evokes such things in me?
And how do I begin to gain control of something I don’t understand?
Crymson hasn’t moved from the window since the Thorn King locked the doors to the castle.
She said she was fine, but she hasn’t looked away from outside.
Her tension is heavy in the air. At first, I thought it was anticipation for Christian’s arrival, and perhaps some of it is actually that, but now, I’m starting to realize it’s something else. Something more.
If only I trusted my own skin to be able to comfort her appropriately. Unfortunately, I don’t think the Thorn King will take kindly to me accidentally setting his castle on fire. And while normally, I wouldn’t care, Crymson seems to care about the King and the other one.
I wonder how Christian will take it when he realizes . . .
“I’m okay,” Crymson says without looking at me.
I blink, not having realized she knew I was watching.
As I stare at her, movement on the windowpane catches my eyes.
I watch as the raindrops hit the glass and then trail away in chaotic little lines in every direction but down.
I wonder if she realizes. I wonder if she understands it’s her power that’s causing the rain to fall sporadically like tears she refuses to release.
I wonder what chaos will reign when she finally falls deeply into who she’s meant to be.
“Are you certain?” I ask, watching her carefully. “You’re as still as a statue.”
Her pretty eyes flicker, but still, she doesn’t look at me. “I don’t like locks.”
And she’s been locked away for the majority of her life here in our realm.
While I understand some of what she’d been through in the human realm, we’ve never really discussed it all.
I haven’t asked anything about her past, not fully, and I regret that now.
I’d like to know everything about her so that I know how to comfort her the way she’s been a comfort to me.
Should I tell her I knew she sat by my bedside while I was out? I smelled her in my dreams.
I yearned for her in my dreams.
I slip off the bed and move over to the window seat where she sits. “Can I sit?”
She smiles, her eyes still on the rain. “Of course.”
She scoots over to give me room, but it’s a small seat. Our legs automatically intertwine while I settle in, and it pleases me that she gets more comfortable and seems at ease around me. Even if I don’t feel at ease with myself.
“The locks are only temporary,” I remind her. “And they’re not to keep you in.”
“I know that,” she says. “It’s the only reason I’m not raging at the door right now.” Finally, she turns those bright eyes to me and meets my gaze. “I’m okay. I promise.”
I reach up and cup her chin. “I know you’re strong, Crymson.” The raindrops on the windowpane start to move faster at my touch, and it pleases something deep inside me to know she reacts to me the way I react to her. “But you don’t have to be.”
She snorts. “I’m in a completely different realm with vampires and fae kings. Of course, I have to be strong. You of all people know that I can’t let down my guard in this place.”
She’s not wrong. While the Fae Kingdom seems brighter and gentler than the Blood Kingdom, it’s not. Shadows live in both places, and outside, the Dead walk. There are no safe places here. There are only safer options. I’m still not sure I’m one of the safer options, even if I want to be.
Here in the Thorn Kingdom, I can pretend to be. At least here, neither one of us have to worry about the Blood King.
“What do you think they are?” she asks me on a quiet thought.
My brows tense, but I know what she means.
“I heard a maiden once say that the Dead outside are broken promises the King didn’t keep.
I believe they’re the women he uses and disposes of.
It started with his wife, the Fae Queen, and it hasn’t stopped since then.
” I push her hair back from her face, and I want to pull her close and tell her I’ll never let that fate touch her.
So far, I’ve succeeded. Even if it means she’s been locked away here in a slightly less dangerous cage than she had before.
Big green eyes stare up at me with worry darkening her features. I stroke her hair back once more, and a small smile pulls at my lips, but it doesn’t change the sadness hanging at the corners of her mouth.
“That’s never going to happen to you,” I whisper against her lips, leaning closer and closer until she’s forced to give in to me.
She relaxes in the palms of my hands as she murmurs back, “How do you know?”
“Because I’m never going to let the Blood King touch you ever again, Crymson,” I promise on a possessive growl that I can’t contain.
My lips brush along hers, both of us drinking each other in but never fully kissing.
Lightning flashes behind her, and it highlights her red hair, making her look more brilliant than anything I’ve ever seen.
She looks healthier here, better fed, and stronger.
She would never have survived the Blood Kingdom.
For fuck’s sake, we couldn’t even feed her properly. But here . . . she belongs here.
As much as it pains me to say that.
“We’re alone now,” she comments, glancing back out the window. “No audience.”
My lips pull into a smirk, and a needy sort of feeling fills my chest. “We are.”
My lips press achingly, slowly along hers, tasting her the way I want to fuck her for the rest of the night.
But as my fingers brush against her smooth shoulder and push at the thin strap of her dress, the lightning strikes hard outside with a violent boom that rattles the windowpanes. We both look up with a gasp. Right behind it, a large bell rings throughout the castle, chiming with eerie clangs.
Her eyes widen. “That’s the doorbell.”
My shoulders tense. “The Blood Prince has arrived.”
And with him, trouble the likes I’m sure we’ve never seen.