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Thump.Shh, now—
I screamed, a sudden strength bolting through me, and then I was falling.
"Damn!"
The word snapped out, breathless, just as I hit hard against the floor, my elbow cracking through carpet into stone.
"Evanthia! Are you all right?!"
I screamed again, scrambling away, but already the world was righting itself in front of me. Not black and cold and stale, but warmly lit and elaborately colorful, the carpet underneath my bruised body soft. And it was not one of Birsha's clients hovering over me, but a wide-eyed and pale Conall, his hands held out in front of him, hovering in their reach for me.
"Forgive me," he gasped out, and then he grasped my shoulders. They rattled in his hold as he knelt in front of me. We were on the balconied square above the great hall of the castle. I'd been dreaming, locked in a nightmare, although it was close enough to a memory, a pattern I'd lived out night after night.
"Con—Con—"
"Shh," he said, the whisper dragging a shudder through me, the sound matching the dragging of a tail over stone, or an uneven footstep. "You fell asleep. I thought you'd want your bed."
I was here in the castle. Conall was in front of me. I was not in my cell.
I threw myself into Conall's chest and he sighed, gathering warm arms around my back. "There you are,mo chroí. You're safe. I have you."
My skirts were tangled around my legs, and I couldn't latch myself to Conall the way I wanted, but he managed to scoop me up from the floor. My elbow throbbed, and I pressed my whimper into the wool shoulder of his vest. He'd abandoned his coat somewhere, and my hands gripped at the muscles of his arms through the thinner cotton of his shirt.
The nightmare had sapped some of the strength I'd found from Hywel's dreams, and I was now queasy from dinner or wine, with a dull stab prodding in my head. Conall's steps were quicker, steadier, but I flinched with each one, the sound of his boots on the floor a faster echo of the memory I'd been trapped in.
"My-my room is—"
"Shh. Laszlo told me, and I can…smell your path through the halls," Conall murmured, hiking me more securely against his chest.
I found silken strands of hair as one of my hands stroked up his back, and I locked them in my fist. Conall smelled of sweat and horse, and something deeper and fresher as I sucked a breath of his skin in. Goosebumps raised against my cheek, and his arm around my legs tightened, hand clenching on my hip. But it was the hip I'd landed on, and I hissed and tensed, flinching at his grip against my bruise. We'd reached my room, and Conall all but ran for my bed, setting me down quickly, yanking himself and his hair out of my hold with a brief wince.
He stared down at me, startled and disturbed, brow furrowed. "I didn't mean to frighten you."
"It was a nightmare," I said, shaking my head, but my legs were drawing in close to my chest as he towered over me.
He stepped back, swallowing hard, and glanced around the room. There was a fire already burning in the grate, and the moon winked its thin smile through the tall window.
"You should rest," he said, taking another step back.
For a moment, as he'd carried me, I'd wanted to devour his skin. Earlier, as he'd twirled a strand of my hair around his fingers, I'd set my mind to dragging him into bed with me. I may not have been starving, but I recalled the ache and wave of Asterion between my thighs, the joy of sex, and I knew Conall would be an eager lover.
Not now. His steps were too heavy. My left side was jolted and bruised from falling. I didn't want to be touched, didn't want a larger body pinning me down.
I nodded and he gusted out a breath, jolting forward and grasping me by the back of my neck before I could tear myself away. But his kiss on my brow was gentle and grazing, and we both sighed as he held there briefly.
"You need some sunshine tomorrow," Conall murmured, pulling away, his thumb stroking my cheek once. "Sleep."
It was on my tongue to call him back, but he was too fast, out the door before I could draw the words out.
CHAPTER9
GIVE CHASE
Islept fitfully, my own heartbeat as it slowed too reminiscent of the thumping steps from the past. It wasn't until the birds roosting in the trees outside of my window woke and broke the silence that I was able to fall asleep properly.
Nightmares swarmed quickly. The dark prod of a stare, the tight grip around my ankle ready to drag, the sharp pinch and burn of a bite on my skin.
Conall shook me awake again, holding still at the foot of the bed as I sat up with a gasp and a strangled cry.
