What Lurks Between the Fates (Of Flesh & Bone, #3)(81)
There was nothing outside of our stare, nothing existed but that moment of connection.
“Take what is yours and come home,” she said.
The memory of that gleaming black gem, of the crown Mab didn’t deserve to wear, flashed through my head. The rage followed—the illogical drive to tear it from her skull and make it mine. I couldn’t shake those thoughts, couldn’t get that unending pit of rage to go back to sleep within me.
It was a fire, consuming my every thought, as I took a single step away from the woman in front of me. Her snakes slithered closer, reaching out with fangs descended—
***
A phantom touch brushed against my cheek. I turned my head to the side, thrashing away from the mouth of the snake. These ones wouldn’t obey me. I knew with every bone in my body. That woman, she owned them.
My power was but a fraction of what existed within her.
“My star,” a man said.
Hands grasped my arms, pinning me down as I tossed from side to side. I couldn’t get away, couldn’t break free from the confines of the grip holding me. Panic flooded me, the thought of being trapped beneath the snakes waiting to devour me—
“Wake up.”
Love tugged at my center, pulling me from the depths of despair. A dream, I realized with a start. I gasped as I took a real breath, the fear fading away as my eyes flung open to find my mate staring back at me.
“Just a dream,” he reassured, confirming my realization.
My body felt slicked with sweat, my hair a tangled mess about my head. But Caldris didn’t care, leaning down to touch his mouth to mine in a sweet caress.
“A dream,” I echoed, nodding my head as his forehead pressed into mine.
He sighed, his lips pressing into a thin line as he stared at me. Waiting for the shadows to clear, for the worst of the terror to fade, he watched me.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, rolling onto his side.
His weight left mine. The body he’d used to pin me down so that I couldn’t hurt him, or myself, pressing into mine as I turned to face him and buried my face in his chest.
I shook my head, unable to form the words to describe what I’d seen. Something about her felt private, like she was my secret to bear for the time being. I’d tell him when I knew what she was, who she was, to me.
When I knew why she’d decided to haunt my dreams, and whether or not I’d crafted her from my imagination. The things I’d felt, the things I’d seen, since arriving in Alfheimr had begun to take their toll.
Had I imagined her face in the gem? Had some part of me broken beneath the pain?
“I’m broken,” I murmured, feeling Caldris’s arms tighten around me.
He pulled back, his eyes meeting mine as the first tear slid free from my eye. It fell onto the pillow as he leaned forward, kissing the top of my head.
“I think we all are, in our own ways,” he said, the words a soft assurance. He didn’t try to convince me that regardless of whatever I’d dreamt, I wasn’t broken. He didn’t try to heal me.
He just held me, loved me—jagged, broken pieces and all.
“I love you,” I said softly, snuggling into his chest as he pulled me tighter.
His scent filled my lungs, the steady throbbing of his heart reminding me of home. This was where I belonged, not the Cove that called to me even now.
“And I love you, min asteren. Now sleep. I’ll be here to watch over you,” he returned, the soothing calm of his voice allowing me to let my eyes drift closed.
“You can’t protect me from the monsters in my own head,” I said, my voice sluggish as the pull of sleep called me back.
There was silence for a moment, his chin coming to rest above mine as we shared a pillow. Then, in my final moments before sleep claimed me, the soft, gruff voice of the male I loved said, “Watch me.”
***
Mab pushed for me to use my power the next day, for me to summon the part of me that sparked with gold every time she bled me. But something inside me had withered, shrunk that day when we left the Cove, lingering behind as if it would keep that part of my soul for itself.
I struggled with nightmares during the night, with visions of the woman in the jewel atop Mab’s head, the overwhelming rage consuming me with the desire to strip it from her head. I couldn’t shake those thoughts, couldn’t have summoned the power I didn’t understand even if I wanted to. Before, using it had seemed instinctive, coming to me with extreme emotion or the need to protect myself from the harm others would do to me.
Now all I could do was suffer as Mab allowed Malachi to carve into my skin with iron, to bleed upon the chair she strapped me to in order to confine me. Pain was no longer a motivator. My fear had abandoned me. I knew it was only a matter of time before Mab held true to her promise to hurt someone else, to use the mates against me.
Nila dressed me in leather pants after helping me clean up from my morning torture, drawing a raised brow from me. She kept her head turned down as one of Mab’s men summoned Caldris for some mundane job that day. She wasn’t her usual reassuring self as she worked, pulling my dark hair back into a complex braid that draped over one shoulder.
“I’m not going to like this very much, am I?” I asked, heaving a sigh.
She jolted, her stare finally raising to meet mine. She merely shook her head, returning to her braiding in silence as I watched in the mirror. Her fingers shook, her hands trembling and causing her have to start entire sections of my braid over again.