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Voice low and serious, I said, “You need to come to terms with what’s happened.”
Above, I could still hear Faust through the dark void separating me from the rest of my body. That man’s magic bound me in the form of a beast so that the only way I could see Cerri was through my dreamscapes. It was not fair to her to make her live like this. If she didn’t see that, then she would never be able to live a waking life.
“Leave me in his hands,” I said as I stepped back. “I will be a thorn in Faust’s side for as long as I can manage. You, however, need to move forward or else you will find nothing worth living for.”
Cerri clenched her jaw and narrowed her eyes at me. The way her fists trembled at her sides told me that she was fighting the urge to stomp her foot. Her hair wavered and shone with the color of moonlight. Here, in my dream, she appeared to me like a goddess.
“Stop worrying about me. Stop trying to save me. Move on.”
How did I bring this dream down? The beast had closed it on me the last time I’d realized what it was. Could I ask the beast to do it again? I had a feeling that the creature understood. It likely felt the same. We couldn’t let Cerri linger here and waste her life for something that she would never be able to get back.
Then she laughed.
My head snapped up. The tension had bled out of Cerri’s body. Her laughter chimed with a note of defiance that I wanted to savor. But I knew that I couldn’t allow this. Even if she kept throwing herself at the light of hope, she would never be able to reach it.
“You dare doubt me, Rhoan Glennwood?”
I couldn’t help the smile that reached my lips as I shook my head.
Cerri took one bold step up to me. She kept her hands to herself, though every part of me ached for her touch again. When she looked up at me, that defiance made her eyes gleam with brilliant power.
“Do you really think me incapable of something? Because that’s fuel enough for this fire. I’ll show you, and the moment you have your body back, you’re going to use it to thank me.”
Bolder words had never been spoken in my presence before me. I tucked a knuckle beneath her chin. I knew that I shouldn’t indulge her, but she had a point. I wanted her to save her sanity, but that already seemed stretched thin. She threw caution to the wind for me.
My heart squeezed tight. No one had ever cared for me the way she had. This woman who patched my wounds and calmed my wild beast had captivated me. Though I knew that we couldn’t keep up this fight forever, a selfish part of me yearned to see how far we could go.
Even if that meant betraying my vows of knighthood.
No vow made me a knight—my service to Cerri was what made me her knight.
Cerri
“That bastard!”I shouted upon waking.
I bolted upright and threw myself out of bed. Being back in my apartment settled a nervous part of me. I walked a familiar path from bed to kitchen where I could slam my old cauldron onto the stove and get to work.
Addie lifted her sleepy head from the couch and blinked blearily at me. I’d forgotten that my friends had taken it upon themselves to stand watch in turns. Though, napping on my couch didn’t quite count as standing watch.
“What? Who? What’s going on?” Addie rubbed at her tired eyes.
“Don’t you get any sleep at home?” I asked, changing the question.
On the kitchen island, Hilda laughed. She bit into a stalk of celery and wiggled her brows suggestively. Addie gasped and pulled her blanket over her body as if she weren’t already fully clothed under it.
“What? You reek of sex, dearie!” Hilda continued to smirk.
I swatted the brownie with the back of a wooden spoon, but she remained undeterred.
“You found yourself a good one, didn’t you? He’s the kind of man who likes the taste of a woman more than food itself. Damned shame you can’t pick those up at just any market—not even the Goblin Market. Need one of those for myself.”
“Hilda!” I snapped, my cheeks hot with embarrassment.
She shrugged. “You have one, too. I don’t want to hear it from you. Once you turn that beast back into a man, he’s going to get on his knees just so he can see how long it takes until yours start to shake.”
I couldn’t work under these conditions. Faust had stolen Rhoan from me for what had to be the millionth time, and Hilda was talking about how she needed a man to eat her pussy. If I didn’t get her out of here soon, I was going to clock her over the head with my cauldron, and I definitely didn’t need a boggart on my hands.
The thing was, I still didn’t know which ward kept her out of the castle. The fact that she couldn’t jump to the castle bothered me. To be fair, the woman had confessed to murder already. I shouldn’t have been surprised that a ward banned her from the castle.
