Page 159 of Whisper of Nightmares

Staring at her with the utmost sincerity, Dagfinn takes her hands into his own. His thumb passes slowly over the backs of her fingers, and this time there is no mistaking the way his attention catches on the scars.

Euphemia instinctively tries to pull away.

Dagfinn does not clutch them tighter, nor does he outright release them. Instead, he keeps his hold as tender as it had been, something gentle gathering in his eyes. If she wants to hide them, he will let her. But he does not want her too.

Ultimately, Euphemia stops trying to hide.

She lets her hands settle into his own.

“May I ask what happened?”

The question is so gentle it somehow hurts more than any of the other times anyone has stared in disgust or flinched away from her as if she was infested.

She looks down at their joined hands. “The nightmare. The night my…”

His bobbing head tells her she doesn’t have to finish that sentence. “I suspected, but I wasn’t sure,” he says. Then he presses them to his chest, and Euphemia can feel the rhythmic beating of his heart. She can feel her own as well. “I fear what existence would be like without you, Euphemia. So no. I would not even suggest this unless I was certain.”

Her heart skips over itself. Fractures. Repairs.

Euphemia has never felt like this before.

Like someone who lose the breath in their air if she was no longer near them.

Like someone would do anything for her the way she would do anything for them.

If Dagfinn is certain this plan will work, then so is she.

Now she’s the one to take his face into her hand. A small amount of stubble is already making his jawline rough.

“I promise I will get you home,” she says.

Dagfinn tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “It is not my home that I am desperate to return to, True North.”

Euphemia feels a tug between them like something is hooked around her spine, pulling her nearer. Deeper. Into his depths. But if he is a moor, then she would be glad to drown in him.

Before she can lose herself too completely, Euphemia twists out of his grasp and faces the ocean.

“Wait,” he says, grabbing her again.

She whimpers at the yearning his touch provokes in her. “If I don’t leave now, I will never go.”

His answering smirk is devilish. “I promise, I won’t keep you much longer. There is just one slight flaw with the way you are executing our plan.”

Haughtily, she scoffs. “And what’s that?”

He lowers his voice, forcing her to lean in close so she can hear him over the wind and waves. He presses his mouth against her ear, his breath warm.

“For your plan to work—” he says, breathless, tormenting. “—it needs to be a jolt to your system. Remember?”

She hardly hears what he’s saying though. Dagfinn lingers there, close enough that she can feel his smile against her skin. She hears him licks his lips. Feels the feather-soft graze of his mouth upon her jaw.

It is almost her undoing.

“I’ll see you on the other side of waking, wife of mine,” he says⁠—

Before Dagfinn shoves her over the cliff.

Chapter 32