Chapter 26
Chapter
Twenty-Six
Iwake up, expecting to find Chase beside me, but the space is empty, and I push myself up onto my elbows as I peer out into the dark.
“Chase?”
No answer—only the soft hush of waves. I frown. Something’s off. I sit up, then realize the problem—his apartment doesn’t open onto the ocean.
Weird.
I slide out of bed, intending to close the windows, but the moment my feet touch the hardwood floors, the room evaporates, leaving only the bed on a stretch of wet sand, the rumpled sheets glowing silver in the moonlight.
The surf rolls in, tickling my toes as I breathe in the salt-kissed air.
Once more into the breach, my friends.
This time, at least, I’m not terrified. Scared, yes. But most of the terror I’ve felt in the Nightmare Realm came from not understanding. Now, at least, I’m getting a clue.
Doesn’t mean I’m looking forward to a fight, though.
“Chase?” I whisper his name, then look up, half-expecting him to swoop down on his dragon.
I’ve been turning in a circle, searching out familiar landmarks, but there’s nothing specific. I glance around, seeing nothing I recognize. Just the generic spread of sand, and the thrumming waves of the ocean rolling in.
The Nightmare Realm.
Once again, I call out for Chase, but the only answer I receive is the sharp hiss of the wind.
With a soft curse, I turn my back to the water and look out over the expanse of the beach. As I do, I see the packed sand begin to shudder, lumps rising from the ground to form into the familiar, creepy sand monsters that have haunted my dreams.
I tense, thrusting my hand into the air above me, then yanking down hard, relieved to feel the comforting heft of a dagger in my hand.
That’s new, I think, then I hold my blade at the ready, my mind plotting an escape route as I wait for sand creatures to attack.
They don’t. Instead, they arrange themselves in two rows, leaving a corridor of dark sand between them. My breath hitches as I realize what this is—an honor guard.
“Chase,” I whisper, but the night swallows his name. He isn’t here.
I wait for fear to wash over me. But it’s Adric’s soft voice that caresses my skin. “Come, my love.”
I freeze, suddenly remembering that I’d fallen asleep naked. I glance down, then exhale in relief when I see that I’m wearing a satin nightgown, its hem almost brushing the sand.
Adric chuckles, the sound disembodied. “You see, my Bride? Chivalry is not yet dead.”
His voice slides through the air like silk edged in smoke, and though I look around, I don’t see him. I do see the sand monsters, now moving backward, widening the corridor that is now both inviting and inevitable.
“They will not harm you,” he promises.
At the far end, Kali stands just outside the opening of the cave. I can’t make out her expression, but I can feel the weight of her gaze. Adric may want me here, but she definitely doesn’t.
The sand monsters don’t move or even look at me as I walk the corridor. There is neither welcome nor malice. Simply duty.
I quicken my pace. “Why am I here?”
“Because I wish you to be.”
My path has curved a bit, and now I can see the cave mouth and the scrying pool, both ribbed with shadows. Adric stands at the threshold, his shadow-coat fluttering around him like smoke.
He’s brought me here without my consent, and yet instead of digging my heels in and demanding to be returned to my own realm, I quicken my pace, my entire body going warm when he lifts his chin, meets my eyes, and smiles that devastating smile.
I draw in a breath, reminding myself that he simply took—he asked no permission. Worse, he took me naked from Chase’s bed, making the violation even more, well, vile.
And—oh, god—if Chase is right, this man, whose pull on me is undeniable, is capable of the most brutal of torture.
I need to remember that. I need to keep my head.
I lift my chin. “You had no right to bring me here like this.”
“Perhaps not. And yet here you are. And while you may be furious with my actions—even furious with me—you cannot deny your pleasure in seeing me. Or, rather, you cannot deny it without lying. To yourself, and to me.”
“I know what you did to him,” I say, studying his face. “How the hell can you think I’d ever be pleased to see you again?”
His brow furrows. “What I did? My love, I have done many things. You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Torturing Chase, you son of a bitch. And don’t call me that ever again.”
“Torture?”
I’m watching his face, and he looks genuinely confused. Then again, after being alive for literally forever, he’s probably learned a few tricks for hiding his emotions.
“I’ve seen the scars on his back. Did you think he’d never speak of it? A thousand years of being whipped. A thousand years imprisoned and tortured?”
My voice breaks, and Adric steps toward me.
I thrust up a hand, keeping him at bay. “You indescribable bastard.” The words are a whisper.
A hiss. And so very true. Warm tears streak down my face.
Horror at what was done to Chase. And grief for this man, too.I don’t know what I was beginning to feel for him.
But I know what I feel now. Hate. Pure, clean hate.
He’s shaking his head. “After the Breaking, I needed a moment to organize my people. To step in as the leader of the realms. The new Guardian, if you will.”
“And so you locked him away and whipped the shit out of him.”
“I locked him away, yes. For one day.”
I cross my arms. “Which is what? The equivalent of a thousand years?”
He actually laughs. “No, my love. The kind of day that means nothing to me. Less than a second as I move through time. Your day,” he says.
“The turning of the earth one revolution on its axis. Enough time for me to bring the realms under my rule. Except,” he adds with a nod, “for your realm. As for my brother, I released him as soon as my rule was accepted across the realms. It was barely a blink of an eye. And, yes, he was chained. But he was not tortured.”
His brow furrows as he studies me. “What makes you think he was?”
“I’ve seen the scars.”
For a moment, he doesn’t react at all. Then he rolls his shoulders back to stand taller.
“I see.” He turns away from me, looking off at the waves.
“I sent him away in the custody of a prison guard who has since been taken by death. He was to take my brother into the Realm of the Real. It was that realm, after all, that he believed too primitive to survive without the barriers. It seemed fitting.”
I frown, because if he’s telling the truth, that means Chase has hated his brother for years for all the wrong reasons. And if he’s lying, then this Nightmare King is even more vile than Chase believes.
“You’re saying that for a thousand years you never saw your brother? Had no idea that your guard hadn’t freed him but had sent him off to be tortured?”
“None.”
“A thousand freaking years. How am I supposed to believe that?”
He actually laughs. “Time is not the same for me, my love. The blooming of a single flower may take a million years, whereas a mountain may erode into nothing in less than a day. He was on his dragon, filling the sky and interfering with my plans in no time at all, I assure you.”
“Plans?”
Adric cocks his head. “You care for him.”
“You know I do.”
He nods. “Believe it or not, I do too. But there are things you need to know.”
I frown, realization crashing over me. “I didn’t end up here because I wanted to ask you about those horrible scars, did I? You pulled me here for another reason altogether.”
“I did, yes. But how convenient that we were able to discuss your concerns, too.”
“Send me back.”
“Not quite yet.”
“Dammit, Adric. I’m not your toy to just yank off the shelf when you want to play. Send me back to my realm now.”
Instead of answering, he kneels in front of the pool, looking down into the obsidian water, now glowing with a soft light.
I remain standing, my arms crossed, as images ripple across the water—jagged cliffs, another angle of this dark castle, a storm-thick sky.
And there—cutting through the clouds—is Chase’s dragon, wings wide, its golden eyes catching the light even from here.
But Chase is not astride the dragon.
“It has only ever been an illusion, my Bride,” Adric whispers, his breath teasing my ear.
“What?” The word seems to stick in my throat, and my body goes tight. Whatever the answer, I don’t want to hear it.
“His protection,” he says, as a shiver trills down my spine.
I snap my gaze toward him. “What does that mean?”
He merely shrugs. Then he twines his fingers with mine and pulls me to him.
“Adric, no,” I murmur as he slides one arm around my waist. He ignores my protest, instead pulling me closer so that his breath teases my cheek as he whispers, “So many questions. So many secrets. Go, my Bride. Go and ask my brother.”
“Ask him what? About the guard?”
He draws back, his face showing no emotion at all. “You already know I did not torture my brother. I’m innocent. Ask him. Ask and learn which brother has unclean hands.”
I shake my head, fear curling inside me. “What are you talking about?”
“The Brides,” he says. “Ask him about the ones who came before you. Ask how he extinguished their flames.”
A bubble of panic rises in me. “What do you mean?”
But no answer comes. Instead, the scrying pool flares red. Heat and light swallow the cave. His words burn through me—
—and I jolt awake with a gasp, then realize I’m sitting on the side of Chase’s bed, his room dimly lit from the glow of a streetlamp outside the thin curtains.
I turn to shake him awake—only to realize that he’s not there.
“Chase?”
No answer, and my heart lurches. I head to the bathroom, but the door is wide open, and no one is inside. Then I hurry to the front door and look out the peephole.
He’s there.
Not on the landing, but on the street, moving with that familiar masculine grace away from the apartment. And me.
What the hell?