These Twisted Bonds (These Hollow Vows, #2)(73)

With a curse, he draws in a ragged breath. “Do you know what you’re doing right now?” he asks.

“I’m taking what I want, ” I whisper, and I rock my hips to show him exactly what I mean. “And giving what you want.”

Finn’s neck arches as he groans, his hips lifting off the floor and seeking more. Seeking me.

“Brie,” he breathes.

I graze my shadow fingers over his bare chest, over his navel, and along the soft line of hair that disappears beneath the sheet.

“Gods above and below,” he breathes. “Is this even real?”

“Does that matter?” I purr.

Suddenly he sits up, and I grin in delight at the heat of him coming so close. His gaze darts to the bed, then back to me. “What is this?”

“Don’t worry about her. ” I’m annoyed. I want his focus. His whole attention on me, not that girl in the bed.

He shoves at my shoulder, but his hands go right through me, and I chuckle. “I just want to have some fun, Finn.”

He scrambles away from me and stands, backing toward the window. He’s wearing fitted black shorts and nothing else, but there’s fear in his eyes as he shifts his gaze between me and the bed.

“What are you?”

Reluctantly, I follow his gaze, and my body jerks. Like I’ve been doused with a bucket of cold water, I jerk upright in bed and look around.

“Brie.” Finn stares at me, breathing heavily, mouth ajar. “Are you okay?”

I glance at the foot of the bed, where I was just standing, where I was just . . . there’s nothing there. But then I catch sight of the bedside table—and the locks of luscious brown hair I dreamed of cutting from Juliana’s head.





Chapter Eighteen

The confusion in Finn’s eyes mirrors my own.

“What was that?” he asks.

My heart is racing, but my body . . . my body is tingling as if I really was just straddling Finn and not sleeping in this bed, under these blankets. “I was dreaming. I was . . .”

Finn is breathing hard, and his gaze shifts back and forth between me and the mess of blankets on the floor where we were just . . . “I’ve never seen you do that before. I’ve never . . .” He curses under his breath and shakes his head. “Tell me that was you.”

It wasn’t me. I was in this bed. I was sleeping. But . . . I look Finn in the eye. “I thought I was dreaming.”

He stares at me for a minute; then all at once that spooked, worried expression falls away and his mouth twists into a lopsided grin. “You thought you were dreaming? What else do we do in your dreams, Princess?”

I grab a pillow and throw it at him.

Dodging, he chuckles before his face goes serious again. “How long have you been able to do that? How often does this happen?”

“Never before. I—” Memories come at me in gruesome flashes. The orcs around the fire. The bloody knife. The way their guts oozed when I cut them open. “I don’t remember.”

He takes a single step closer. “What aren’t you telling me?”

I close my eyes and remember that night. “The night I met Misha at the refugee camp, I was captured. They injected me with that toxin, and I couldn’t access my magic. My arms were in shackles. I was outnumbered and so tired— from the metamorphosis, from the way I used my magic as I stormed out of the palace, and from helping those children get to the portal.” I swallow hard, and my insides shiver. I haven’t thought much about that night, haven’t stopped to wonder who slayed my captors. I realize now that I never let myself think about it. “I went to sleep wishing them dead, and when I woke, they were. Gutted in their sleep. And a bloody knife— my knife—lay on the ground beside me.”

“You think you did it?” he asks. “But you don’t remember?”

I squeeze my eyes shut, not wanting to admit it even to myself. “I’ve gotten flashes of their panicked eyes as they were sliced open,” I finally say. “I told myself I was imagining it. That it was just my mind trying to make sense of something I couldn’t explain.”

“Shit,” Finn mutters.

“What does it mean? I’ve turned myself to shadow countless times, but never while leaving my actual body.”

He tips his face up and blows out a breath. “There are legends about Unseelie who could control their shadow selves. Generations ago. There’s a story about Mab. That she was captured once, locked in an iron room that nullified her power, yet she was still able to send her shadow self to destroy the guards and free herself from that prison.”

“Even though she couldn’t access her magic?”

“The idea was that her shadow self wasn’t bound to her corporeal body.” He shrugs and blows out a breath. “So much of it is legend. I’m not sure I ever believed it was real.”

“Is there any other explanation for what happened with us tonight?” I ask.

“I saw you— felt you—on me. I touched you, and you were as real as anything. But then once I spotted your sleeping form on the bed, you weren’t corporeal anymore. My hands just went right through you.”

“You don’t know anyone who could do this?” I ask, but I’m still shaking.

“No,” he breathes. “My father wanted to, actually. He trained with a special priestess trying to access his shadow self, but he never could. Just be careful, Princess. With you, we don’t—”