E chokes. “You love me?”
I screw my eyes shut against the sting of incoming tears. “I do. I love you, and it terrifies me. The man in my dreams?—”
I grip the roots of my curls and tug, the memories already slipping, already fading, but I remember enough.
My throat constricts.
Can I repeat his sinister prophecy?
Do I have the right to tell E about the man he might have been in life? About the version of himself that tried to drown me?
Our first time together, and it was…apocalyptic. Almost fatal.
He pats my back up and down. “Shh. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you, especially not that creepy dream-stalker. We’ll find out who he is and how he does it. And then, I’ll kill him myself.”
If only it could be so simple.
“Did you—” But I know he didn’t finish. “What am I saying? Of course you didn’t, I’m sorry,” I ramble.
He pecks my temple. “Don’t worry about that—neverworry about that, alright? We’re alright now.” He brushes my hair away from my face. “Are you alright?”
I bite down on my lip.
No, I’m not alright, but what can I do?
I can’t bear the thought of losing E, of trading him in for the dark lover who plagues my thoughts. If mentioning the hold his past self has on me is the very thing that sets his fate in motion… I shouldn’t breathe another word about it. Never.
“Yes,” I whisper. “Perfectly alright.”
The tents outside have long since gone quiet, the campfires burned down to ash, the oil lanterns extinguished.
We breathe slowly in and out.
In and out.
Until a terribly discreet but intrusive knock cuts through the dark.
Chapter 35
Things Get Damaged
MAX
The little tavern has settled into that strange hush unfamiliar places take on in the middle of the night, every floorboard creak and breeze suddenly too loud. I’m acutely aware of my nakedness, of E’s warmth beside me, of how catastrophically exposed I’d be if that door opened and Nick found me tangled in my ghost’s arms.
The knock comes again, louder this time, erasing any hope that I’d imagined it.
My entire body goes rigid.
I slip out of bed as quietly as I can and hurry to the door, clutching the plain cotton sheet tighter around myself before checking that the lock is still bolted shut.
“Hello?” I call, pitching my voice into the rough, croaky register of someone abruptly stirred from sleep.
“Lady Morgan? Can I speak to you for a moment?”
I expected Nick. Maybe even Lysandra.
My blood turns to ice at the voice on the other side of the door.
