Chapter 27
Kailia
Snapping up straight, she turned to the right to see if there was a king in the bed beside her.
Instead, she found a sanded stone wall.
Her gaze falling to her lap, she smoothed her hand over the scratchy wool blanket. The air was musty and humid. She was in a small bed scarcely large enough for a grown male.
In a panic, she tugged at her sleeve, a breath of relief escaping her when she saw the Mark, stark against her skin.
Dream.
Dream, dream, dream.
She was dreaming.
But she knew how this dream went.
Someone was going to come through that door soon. It didn’t matter who. They were all nightmares. Still, it had been awhile since she’d found herself here. She could count on one hand how many times her dreams had brought her to this place since she’d found herself with the title of wife and queen.
Throwing the blanket back, she swung her legs over the side of the bed.
Her bare feet touched the cool floor, her long black dress pooling around her ankles.
She summoned her bow, looping it across her chest, and because she had to know if her power was broken here too, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and tried to disappear among her smoke and ashes.
They sang to her, pulling her into their embrace. Weightless. Nothing and everything all at once. She felt the tears burning at the back of her eyes. She’d missed this—missed this piece of herself—so very much.
But then she was being jostled and jerked, pulled in a direction she wasn’t intending to go.
The joy turned to panic as she once again lost control of her power.
She fought, straining to go where she wanted, until finally she was dumped onto the ground beside the stream that ran through the middle of the Cliffs.
Gasping, she scrambled to her feet. It was dangerous to be out in the open like this, even in her dreams. They’d find her. They’d find her and drag her to those rooms, especially if they knew she’d lost control of her power.
No.
They couldn’t know.
They couldn’t—
She went still when she spotted him, his back to her and hands in his pockets. His silver hair was loose, reaching his shoulders, and his posture was almost relaxed. Like the rare times he actually spent some of the night with her. Black pants. Black tunic.
It made sense that he was here. They’d been spending more time together. Ever since that day in Shadowfen, he even slept in the same bed as her. Sometimes. Not every night. Okay, twice. She was still as confused about that development as she was when she’d asked him to come sleep beside her.
But none of that mattered right now. She was being foolish to let herself get distracted here.
They would find her, and then they’d both be fucked.
She really hoped this was one of the dreams where he interacted with her.
Sometimes he didn’t. Sometimes he seemed to be observing, and other times he spoke to her.
She wasn’t one to question dreams and what they were trying to show her, but this time, out here, she really needed it to be the latter.
“We need to go,” she said, her voice thankfully firm and unwavering.
He turned at the sound, silver eyes piercing as they took her in, but he said nothing.
“Cethin? We can’t stay here,” she insisted, looking around nervously.
“Where does this stream lead?” he asked instead.
She glanced at the water. She knew exactly where it led. Out to the beach and beyond.
She also knew what it was used for.
“Not now,” she hissed, feeling sweat beading at her nape. Tugging at her sleeve again, she saw the Mark, but it did nothing to reassure her now.
“Tell me of that,” Cethin said, the words dark and commanding.
She looked back up to see his gaze on her arm too, a fury dancing in his eyes that she didn’t understand.
“There really isn’t time,” she said, nerves and adrenaline making her heart pound at an erratic rhythm.
Cethin looked around. “There’s no one here, Kailia.”
“They’re here,” she said, each word a hurried breath of syllables. “They’re coming.”
“Maybe I want to see.”
“No,” she said brusquely, and without thinking, her hand snapped out, latching on to his and tugging. “Please, Cethin.”
His eyes dropped, transfixed on the place where their hands met, and something again passed over his features she couldn’t comprehend.
Slowly, his eyes lifted to hers. He shifted their palms, interlocking their fingers, as he said, “Lead the way. Show me.”
They couldn’t risk leaving. Not right now. They’d wasted too much time here.
So they slipped into a stairwell, climbing flights of stairs as quickly as they could. She was marked here. They wouldn’t be able to hide for long, but there was one place she’d found where it took them longer to track her down. At least in her dreams it did.
Her ashes fluttered along the door, the only way she’d figured out how to get in.
It swung open, and she slipped inside, pulling Cethin in with her and quickly shutting the door behind him.
Dropping his hand, she leaned against it, her bow digging into her back.
Her eyes fell closed as she listened. As she sent her ashes beneath the door to search. To feel for them coming.
“Kailia?”
Her eyes snapped open, finding his once again pinned on her.
It was dark in here. She could barely make him out, but she knew he stepped closer. So close, that if she moved an inch, they’d brush against each other.
“What do you fear here?” Cethin asked, his voice low and rough.
Everything.
Her eyes dropped to the ground. The answer was on the tip of her tongue, waiting to fall from her lips. But that would be admitting yet another weakness to the male. Even in her dreams, she couldn’t do that.
But in her dreams, she was stronger. Able to overcome the weaknesses easier. She’d fought her demons here. Spilled blood in vengeance, so she knew exactly how to do it outside of the dream planes.
What if…
She slowly dragged her eyes from his boots up his tall frame to his face. Sharp features mixed with shadows, whether from the dark room or his own power, she didn’t know. But they made him more foreboding. The male she knew he truly was.
But here, she was in control. Here…
Here, she could take and test. She could start small here, in a place that was her own.
She pushed off the door, bringing her shaking hand up and placing her fingertips on his chest. He went preternaturally still in that way only the immortals could.
Until he brought his own hand up, wisps of his dark power dancing along her fingers before he placed his hand atop hers and pressed her palm flat along his tunic.
Atop his heart, beating at the same frenetic rhythm hers was.
She paused there, letting herself get used to just…feeling. Of touching someone else without feeling the need to recoil. Of letting the coolness of his magic soothe the burn of physical contact.
Fingers still trembling, she tentatively slid her palm up. Across his collarbone, over a shoulder, pausing at his neck. Her thumb swiped, and she felt his throat bob when he swallowed. The only part of him that moved.
If anyone knew…
But no one knew what happened in dreams. Secrets stayed locked here.
Her eyes were fixed on his lips, and he clearly noticed because his tongue slid across the bottom one. Pushing onto her tiptoes, she slid her hand up farther, cupping his jaw so she could swipe her thumb along the same path his tongue had traveled.
She felt his whole body shudder beneath her hand.
Marveled at the feel of it.
She knew touch was as controlling as their power could be. Her power with touch had been from withholding it. Choosing not to give that to anyone. But this…
This was a different kind of power.
His breaths were uneven against the pad of her thumb where it still hovered along his lip.
“Can I tell you a secret?” she whispered, the words sounding harsh in the quiet of the room.
“I would sit at your feet for days to hear them all, wife. Then I’d take them all to the grave with me, guarding them even in the After,” he answered, and gods. Something deep in her belly clenched at the words.
“You’re right,” she said simply, thumbing his bottom lip once more, delighting in the way his breath hitched at the motion.
“My experience with fucking is limited. I have experience, but only once. It was—” She paused, rolling her lips at the memory.
“But that was just the act of fucking as I understand it. It wasn’t… ” Her thumb swiped again.
His eyes were darting between hers, and she could see the desperate bid to try to understand what she was telling him.
“There were no gentle touches,” she said in a hushed rush. “No slow explorations. No letting me…do this,” she continued, brushing her thumb across his lip again. “There was no kiss—”
She went rigid, yanking her hand back and spinning to the door. Her ashes had felt them, warning her. Lifting her bow over her head, an arrow appeared in her other hand.
A reminder that while secrets stayed locked in her dreams, so did her nightmares.
But he was the nightmare when she awoke. She knew the truth, even if he kept it hidden from everyone else.
She lurched up, turning to the right. Again, there was no king in the bed, but she wasn’t in the Cliffs either. Shoving back the blankets, she checked her forearm, finding it bare.
Back in the castle.
Back in Avonleya.
She flopped down on the bed, pushing stray hair from her face.
Of course he wasn’t here. It’d been over a week since they’d visited Shadowfen.
He’d slept beside her twice. The first night, he’d slept so deeply, she’d woken before him the next morning.
The pillow was still between them, but he’d rolled into it, and her arm was stretched across it, her fingertips barely brushing his forearm.