Last night, the Dream made me feel floaty and warm, but tonight there was only pain. Regret.
Still. Despite the ache in my body, I couldn’t deny the appeal. I’d only gotten the barest taste of the stuff, yet when it finally kicked in, it sent me to another fucking planet.
Which was precisely why I wouldn’t touch it again. It was too tempting. Too fucking dangerous.
“Sorry, am I interrupting?”
I glanced up at the now-familiar voice of Keradoc as he waltzed into the common room.
“Yes, but that’s never stopped you before.”
“No, I suppose it hasn’t.” He smiled, but tonight I found it irritating rather than charming. I was still feeling a bit prickly from the Dream, and at the sight of our warlord captor, all of Elian’s warnings from last night came rushing back.
Keradoc isn’t just a warlord and a murderer, Haley. He’s worse—so much worse…
“Is there something you need, Keradoc?” I asked, my tone clipped. “Otherwise, I’ve got a lot of reading to do and a laundry list of missing ingredients to compensate for, so if you don’t mind…”
“I need to go to the marketplace in East Amaranth,” he said. “I thought—”
“Really? A whole castle full of servants, and suddenly you’re doing your own shopping?” I narrowed my eyes. “Spill it. The truth, if you’ve got it. If not, kindly return later. I’m too tired right now to shovel bullshit.”
He smiled again, and this time his cheeks flushed a bit. “Actually, my kitchen staff told me your gargoyle wasn’t able to find all the ingredients you needed for your work. So I thought… I was wondering if you might… That is, if you’re not too preoccupied with the spellwork… On second thought, forget I mentioned anything.” He shook his head, flustered. “I’ll… I’ll leave you to it. Good evening, Haley.”
I let out a deep sigh, still trying to reconcile everything in my mind.
The man Elian spoke of last night was a vicious criminal who deserved to be tortured, strung up by his balls, and dropped into his own moat for the most gruesome death possible. And everyone he’d ever wronged should be invited to piss on his corpse, andthenhe should be forced to come back as one of the ghouls, cursed for eternity.
But the man I looked at now? The man fumbling over his words to invite me for a stroll through the marketplace?
The man haunted by nightmares and ghosts?
The man who gave me visions of a dark, powerful future I hadn’t stopped dreaming about?
The man who sometimes, when we first met, looked like Elian?
How could they be the same person?
Because you’re fooling yourself on account of his epic dark-fae hotness, and every time he looks at you like that, you can’t help but remember how good that kiss tasted…
No. That wasn’t it. Not at all. I mean, sure. Obviously, I liked my men a little rough-around-the-edges, full of shadowy secrets and deep, dark wounds.
But I wasn’t the fall-for-the-villain, blinded-by-Stockholm-Syndrome, he’s-sexy-so-he-gets-a-pass-on-all-the-evil-doing type.
Still, something wasn’t adding up. I had no idea who our captor truly was, or what—if anything—he’d known about Evander’s disappearance or the alleged kidnapping and trafficking of the other fae children Elian mentioned.
I didn’t know who Evander was either, or anything about his true connection to Elian, who’d spoken about him as if he’d died long ago.
Maybe he had.
But deep down, my gut told me the man standing before me now wasn’t behind any of it.
And the only way I was going to find out for sure was by spending more time with him.
Starting right now.
“Actually,” I said, “I’d love to get out of the castle and pick up a few things. Just give me fifteen minutes to get changed.”
A new smile broke across his face, making him look younger. Less troubled. “Great. Perfect. I mean, yes. Of course. I need to change as well. I’ll meet you in the gallery.”
