Chapter 8
I felt so restless. The night drowned me with emotions and too many truths unraveling all at once. Everything Sparrow and Xavier had shared turned my world upside down, making me question how I’d lived my entire life so blindly without knowing any of them, without even knowing myself.
Xavier had insisted I take his bed. It was kind, gentlemanly even… but it only made the chaos inside me louder. Where was he sleeping, while I lay here wrapped in his sheets, inhaling the addictive warmth of his scent?
Despite the physical distance between us right now, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way he looked at me.
The way his touch caused a spark on my skin after he told me we were somehow bonded.
I wanted to deny it, to laugh it off as nonsense …
but I couldn’t. There was no way for me to deny how his presence pulled at me, how he stirred up strange emotions inside me.
I felt foolish, to be drawn to someone this intensely…
to someone I barely knew. And yet, I was wondering how his lips would feel against mine, or if his skin might ease the ache I felt in my chest when the world around me got too loud.
Xavier didn’t make me feel like a stranger in Carnivalland.
He felt too familiar, too much like a memory I couldn’t quite place, but he was open with me.
Even Xavier’s brother had opened up to me, talking about Nathaniel with me. And though he never said it outright to me, I felt the weight of what this person meant to him.
And in all of these moments, not once did they mention the name of Dandelion’s son. Why? And why hadn’t I asked?
The silk sheets felt soft against my skin, warming my cold body, and still I felt alone. Empty somehow. And in that emptiness, I found myself yearning for someone else.
My angel.
That night—I didn’t know why—but I yearned for him to caress my skin, to smell his scent.
But he didn’t come. Not even when I whispered his name into the dark.
I ached for him, for the comfort he once gave so effortlessly, for his smell that was grounding the storm inside me.
But I also felt something I didn’t want to admit…
I longed for Xavier.
Some part of me wanted to wander the endless halls of the castle, knocking on each door until I found the one he was staying in and ask him—no, beg him—not to let me sleep alone. Just so I could feel something real. Something warm. Him.
What was it about him? Why did I react so intensely to the way he looked at me? Why did his presence feel like both a temptation and a relief?
Just as my thoughts began to spiral deeper into the depths of my mind, the soft click of the door opening pulled me back to the now.
Marielle stepped in, the scent of warm bread and something sweet drifted around the room as she placed a silver tray on my dresser.
“I thought you might be hungry,” she said. Her expression softened when she looked at me.
I sat up slowly, the sheets rustling around me. “Thank you,” I replied, though my voice came out quieter than I meant it to.
“You seemed far away,” Marielle stated gently.
“I didn’t want to intrude… just thought breakfast was a good start for the day.
” She leaned over to hand me a cup of tea, and a strand of her hair fell across her face.
As she brushed it back, I caught a glimpse of her ears.
The same delicate pointed shape Xavier had as well.
How could I have missed them? Was I so occupied with all the new things learned that I’d never glanced at Marielle’s ears? She wasn’t a human like me. She belonged to them.
I took a sip of the tea, its earthy floral taste soothing me. The heat of it reminded me that I was here. Alive. Breathing. And not alone anymore.
“Have you shown Gwendolyn her new wardrobe?” I recognized this deep, sultry voice everywhere.
Xavier.
He wore a long black suit with fancy lace sleeves as if he was sprung from a dark fairytale, whispering promises of forbidden temptation and desires.
“Not yet, I put out the dress you got for her.”
“Good. Now, leave us.” His voice sounded serious, and Marielle didn’t question him. She smiled at me and then left without making any comment on his cold demand.
“Have you slept well?” he asked. Was he really here just to ask about my night?
Was that something he actually cared about?
I couldn’t remember a single time my mother had asked me how I’d slept.
Not even after the nights I woke up crying.
Not after the dreams that left me hollow and shaking.
She’d never sat at the edge of my bed, never even asked what haunted me.
And here he was doing the exact thing I’ve always needed when I was a child.
I swallowed. “I’m fine.”
His gaze didn’t leave me, as if he knew I was lying to his face.
“Don’t hide the thoughts in your beautiful head from me,” he said quietly, almost begging, his fingers brushing along my hair. “I’ll ask you again and this time, answer me truthfully. How did you sleep?”
I hesitated, then I murmured, “I had a bad dream. That’s all.” As soon as the truth escaped my lips, I somehow regretted telling him about it. But what was the point in lying? He could read my thoughts if he wanted to.
He stepped closer, his fingers now trailing gently along the lace trim of my nightgown. His touch was barely there, and yet still somehow igniting a fire inside my core. “What was it that you dreamt about?” he asked, as his fingertips brushed against my calf.
I bit the inside of my cheek, unsure how to answer.
How do you explain the kind of dreams that make you question reality, that run so deep beneath your skin wanting you to crawl away from your own mind?
The kind that clung to your skin long after you wake, painting everything in shades of fear and darkness?
Would he think I was mad? Or worse… would he understand?
“Just take your time,” he murmured. “There is no rush. I’m here for you, whenever you are ready to share your dream with me.”
“On my way here, I came across sirens… they lured me into the lake,” I began, my voice trembling with hesitation, unsure if I should continue.
He had told me yesterday that not all sirens were the same, but the memory still clung to me, heavy and vivid.
I couldn’t shake the way it had made me feel.
Xavier didn’t interrupt. He watched me closely, his gaze soft and steady, urging me to keep going.
“I heard them singing, and then suddenly I was in the water and starting to drown. It… it was a terrible feeling.” He must have noticed that my body had subconsciously tensed up, almost trembling with the intensity of emotions that nightmare had caused.
Xavier gently tilted his head back to me and suddenly embraced me in his arms.
“I couldn’t breathe… there was so much pressure on my lungs.” Tears rolled down my cheeks.
“Shh, it’s okay.” Xavier pulled me even closer to him, his body encasing mine protectively, his hands rubbing over my back.
“So, you were stuck underwater?” he asked, his voice a soft whisper. It was like he dreaded the mere thought of me drowning, although he didn’t even know me then.
“Yes. My lungs were filled with water. In my dream, I was not saved, I was dying,” I hesitantly confessed. Xavier gazed at me so intensely, as if the words awoke something in him. The feeling of suffocating in the water and dying was terrible. Talking about it brought me back to the depths.
His fingers were gently stroking over my hair and back, like I was some breakable treasure to him.
“You said you weren’t saved in your nightmare,” he murmured. “Which means… you were saved outside of your dream?”
I nodded slowly, uncertain. “I know how ridiculous it sounds. But something pulled me from the water. Something alive.”
“An animal?” he asked, his voice hushed, as if already sensing the answer was far from ordinary.
I paused. It wasn’t just some animal. My heart pounded loudly in my chest as I remembered the creature with its shimmering silver-blue scales and the gentle way it watched me.
“Yes,” I finally said. “But not like any animal I’ve ever known. It was a dragon.”
Xavier’s hand stilled on my thigh, his body tensing. He stared at me, searching my expression, weighing the truth of it.
“A dragon,” I clarified. “Slender. Beautiful. Silver and blue… and it didn’t have wings. Only these long, delicate whiskers on his face.”
He exhaled slowly, a strange knowing look settling in his features.
“Those aren’t whiskers,” he said, his voice lower now, laced with reverence. “They are sensory tendrils. Antennas. A water dragon can feel danger long before it arrives. They don’t just see it, they sense it in the water, like a second heartbeat.”
I blinked. “So… it knew I was in danger?”
He nodded, resting his chin gently atop my head, his fingers returning to trace calming circles across my back.
“It didn’t just know,” he said quietly. “It chose to save you.”
The weight of his words sank in slowly.
It chose to save me?
My breath caught in my throat. I wasn’t sure I could have really expected a rational explanation. A coincidence. But not this. Not the certainty in Xavier’s voice, not that the dragon indeed willingly chose to save me because he felt I needed it.
I pulled back just slightly, enough to look up at him.
“But why me?” I asked, my voice cracking like a whisper too afraid to be heard. “Why would it save me?”
Xavier didn’t answer right away. His hand lifted to my cheek, thumb brushing gently against my skin, grounding me.
“Creatures like that… they don’t act without reason. They’re tied to something ancient, and if it wanted to save you, then it had a reason.”
I blinked rapidly, trying to stop the sting behind my eyes. My chest ached with a strange mix of awe and confusion. All my life, I’d felt small, ordinary. Forgotten. And now… a water dragon had saved me. Had chosen to save me.