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"I'm very curious as to what you and the dragon were doing during yournap," Conall teased. He tugged me close, breathing deeply, and then clearing his throat and shaking his head, eyes wide. "Mo chroí, is there anywhere on you that dragondidn'tmark as his?"
"Hush," I said, but a soft laugh escaped with the admonishment.
"Come take a swim with me," Conall said, one hand leaving its spot on my hip to catch my hand.
"So you can wash him off me?" I asked.
Conall hummed and shrugged, turning, but sharing a brief smile with me that admitted I was right. "I won't lie and say the dragon's mark isn't a warning I'm likely to ignore. But I'm not the only one Hywel's warned to steer clear of you," he said, glancing toward where Asterion had vanished.
"I think Asterion's intentions were always precisely to steer clear of me," I said.
"His intentions, perhaps. Not his desires," Conall said, voice low.
* * *
Whatever Asterion's desires were,they were ignored. In spite of his concern over my being "missing" when he arrived, he spent the next few days taking great care not to be in the same room as me. I didn't know where he slept, where he ate, where he spent the long hours of any day.
It was not just him. Conall had washed me in the underground pool of the castle, and we still ran together around the castle first thing in the morning until sweat ran down my back and I could not catch my breath, but he no longer tugged me down in the meadow to fuse our skin together and kiss each other breathless.
Asterion hid, Hywel slumbered, and now even Conall had retreated.
I stood at the edge of the terrace, cool wind whipping up from the sea, kissing damp salt against my cheeks, tangling the loose strands of my hair. There was no other exit from the castle but this terrace that reached Hywel's dreaming sea, and the stone steps and bannister hung dangerously over the water, waves crashing against jagged black rocks below.
I heard the click of claws on stone and tipped my head, closing my eyes. Against the fresh bite of salt air came the creamy, sweet whiff of tea.
"You're still having nightmares," Laszlo said, reaching my side.
"I have a great deal to remember. I'm lucky to hold most of it at bay until the night."
"You should not have themhere."
My eyes blinked open and I turned to find Laszlo's taloned fingers braced against the bannister, his sharp, bright eyes glaring out at the sea. Did he resent its churning, the breath and the gasp of the water the evidence of his still-sleeping lover?
"I do know I'm safe here," I said, puzzled by the urge to offer him reassurance. The peace the castle gifted was incredibly tangible, the weight of a good blanket resting over us all, muffling the existence of the outside world and the troubles that waited there.
Laszlo sighed, eyes turning to glance at me out of their corners. "You misunderstand. You should not beableto have nightmares here. Not under Hywel's protection."
I turned back to the sea, my hands matching Laszlo's as they tightened around the stone railing. "I…" My heart pinched in my chest and I swayed forward, hips pressing hard into the barrier that kept me from lurching over into the tumbling, turning water. "I lived in a nightmare for a third of my life, Laszlo. I am not sure there is any shield that can hold my mind back from the reckoning now that I am free. Even Hywel."
Laszlo's hand was warm, covering the back of mine, our fingers locking together. "Tell me about the nightmares."
A sudden, bubbling moan slipped free of me and I shook my head, trying to force out the previous night's torment, the changing faces I'd worked so hard to forget, the horrible way the features melted and morphed into one another.
Feathers skidded over my shoulders and Laszlo's arm kissed mine, shoulder to wrists. The wind was forced to rise and curve around us, and it created a hollow space in the shelter of his wings, where my unsteady breaths were louder than the strike of the waves on rocks.
"Laszlo—"
"If there is nothing Hywel or you or I can do to stop them from coming, if youmustremember, then share them with me," Laszlo said, simple and clear. He bent toward me, and I stared down at our linked fingers. His brow rested against mine, a warm, golden place against my aching head, a gentle clarity that made the moment real and the nightmares that plagued me distant ghosts.
I opened my mouth to refuse, and the edge of Laszlo's spectacles brushed my cheek as he nuzzled his long, arched nose to my smaller one.
"It was real, my dear. It happened," he whispered. I whimpered and pulled my face from his, but only so I could hide it against his shoulder, letting the tears that clawed their way from my eyes soak into the heavy weave of his coat. He continued in my ear, his feathers tangling on strands of my hair. "But the nightmares are not real. We cannot let them add to your already unjust burden."
What was there to be gained by repeating the horrible half-truths? What relief could Laszlo really offer? I spent my nights trapped in horrific looping recollections—why did I have to drag them out with me in the daylight? Except that I already was. Without Conall's distracting pleasure, I was spending more hours than not doing my best to remain still and not think. It wasn't working.
Laszlo didn't embrace me, but we remained pressed side to side, heads bowed as I breathed him in and let the clean, sweet scent of him lull me, lower the fragile walls of cracked glass that tried to contain my turmoil.
"I dreamt of their faces," I murmured into Laszlo's shoulder. He remained still, a pillar for me to press into. "I dreamt of the looks on their faces as they reached the heights of pleasure. The lines carved into their brows and the eyes sealed shut, and the gaping, sl-slathering mouths as they—" I heaved a breath and turned, and Laszlo remained still and solid as I burrowed under his chin.
