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My fingers brushed her jaw before I’d given them permission to move, and her breath caught, her eyes flaring with fear, hands trembling.
“There’s an illusion here,” I murmured, tracing the edge of where it sewed to her face then flowed down her neck to her chest. “What are you hiding, little bride?”
Fear changed to terror and she stumbled away from me, lifting a hand to ward me away.
“I’m not a threat to you,” I promised her. “I’d rather my ribcage be cut apart and my heart ripped out than cause you harm.”
She froze in surprise but the fear remained. “If you’re not a threat, why did you fuck with my car and kidnap me? And don’t give me lies about protecting me.”
“We’ll explain in the castle,” Misery said, edging closer, wind catching long strands of his pale hair. “We need to go inside. She’s almost here.”
The bride held her hand between us, her only weapon, her only shield. My heart ached. I would give her a dozen weapons, cover her beautiful body with them until she rattled with steel and iron.
“I’m not hiding anything,” she said breathlessly, her attention returning to me. “I don’t know what the illusion is, but I can guess who put it there. There’s—there’s makeup on my face I can’t wash away. The makeup I wore on Halloween, when she did… whatever she did.” Her throat bobbed. “Nightmare.”
Miz flinched and this time she caught it, confusion muddying her grey eyes. “She’s listening,” he said. “Mind your words.”
“Inside,” Death ordered, iron entering his words. “Now.”
He started towards our bride. Idiot. I was ready to lunge after her, unsurprised when she ran.
It was worrying easy to catch her, my arms wrapping around her waist, pulling her back into me. “Sorry about this, little bride, but if we stay out here, not only will Nightmare get her hands on you, she’ll also gain access to the domain of death, and I can’t allow that.”
I threw her over my shoulder, my hands secure against the backs of her thighs, and hurried to the gate with Death and Misery flanking us. Fuck, the heat of her, the softness of her chest and stomach.
“Put me down!” she raged, breathless with fright.
“Terror,” a sultry feminine voice called on the wind. “My terror, come to me.”
I tightened my grip on our bride, rage making my entire body bristle.
“She’s not your anything,” Death argued, his voice low and ominous in a way I so rarely heard.
“Oh god,” the bride choked out, trembling harder against my shoulder, her teeth knocking together. “Oh, god, oh god.”
I sprinted, faster than I’d had any cause to run in years, and skidded into the expansive courtyard before the castle that was the domain of death. An entire realm contained in a single building.
“Miz, gates,” I hissed, spinning around to stare at the winding Ford’s End road, the moor entirely covered in fog now. I realised why our bride had taken up her panicked chant at once; Nightmare had taken form, and floated down the road towards us, her red hair like a flag of blood behind her, her poisoned, beautiful face smiling, hand stretched out in entreaty.
I only breathed again when Misery slammed the iron gates shut and Death stood behind them, a dark force gathering around him. His power was a cloud of darkness and silver, souls pressing their faces from the inside of it, horrific and gruesome. They spread out across the gates in a shield Nightmare could never cross.
She yowled in fury, like a pissed off cat, and I exhaled a long sigh, letting down the bride from my shoulder. I settled her with hands curled around her slim biceps, not quite able to stop touching her. My heart stuttered when I saw her teary grey eyes.
“I hope you weren’t attached to your car. I’m afraid it might be the victim of Nightmare’s little tantrum.”
I tried to coax her down from her fear with a smile, but it had no effect. Shit. Death and Miz hovered, their eyes on her.
I tucked a pink lock of hair behind her ear, my touch lingering, and gentled my voice. “Let’s go inside, shall we?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CAT
Ifroze on the road outside the castle, forced to choose between being murdered by these three men or being caught in the crimson glow of Nightmare’s magic again. In the end, the gravelly-voiced man threw me over his shoulder and took the choice out of my hands, and thank fuck he had. Any longer and Nightmare would have reached me.
I didn’t know what she wanted, but it couldn’t be good. Cold trickled down my arms, lifting fine hairs as I helplessly followed the riders through a massive wooden door into an endless warren of hallways and rooms. Their horses had gone up in smoke, literally. One second they were there, the next gone.
The gentle man who’d held me as we rode was nothing like I’d expected. He was tall and broad and so unfairly handsome that it was hard to keep my eyes off him. He’d just kidnapped me, kind of, and the last thing I should be doing was tracing my eyes over the planes of smooth, brown skin, the mouth curved into a patient smile, the eyes watching me with an endless well of kindness I wasn’t sure was a lie. I definitely did not look at his wide shoulders, his powerful biceps, or the way the sleeveless, embroidered tunic he wore stretched across his chest.
