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Rush flipped them both around, pressing her against the bookshelf, and she didn’t even mind how the wood dug sharply into her back.
“Let me make you feel good, kitten,” Rush panted in between hard kisses, his cock stiffening against her stomach. “Use me the way you were going to use Brix. Forget about Pax. Fuck me. Give me what he was meant to have.”
“I told you to stop talking about him, and I told you I would never touch your filthy cock,” she breathed, pulling away from him, guilt storming through her at what she’d just done.
“Oh, but you’ll kiss myfilthymouth.” He smirked, running a finger gently across her now-swollen lips.
“You—” An invisible pierce to her finger halted her, and she gasped for breath as a fierce tug yanked at her heart. She stumbled sideways, knocking a few books from the shelf while trying to clutch onto them for support.
Rush grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “Aura?”
Her eyelids fluttered, unable to see his expression when her knees buckled. His hold on her didn’t relinquish as the world darkened—his voice repeating her name drifted farther away.
The darkness diminished, turning into daylight. Aura found herself standing near the familiar lake she’d dreamt about before and she took a shaky step back. The last time she was here a hand made from water had dragged her beneath the lake’s depths. But then movement atop the water captured her attention, a body wearing a light blue dress floating on the glistening liquid.
It washer. The girl. “Hello! Are you all right?” Aura shouted as she hurried toward the lake. She didn’t hesitate to dip her feet into the cool liquid and rush toward the still form.
Just as Aura reached her, the girl’s eyes flew open, her sapphire irises blazing. She thrust forward, water splashing and her chest heaving when she faced Aura.
“You’re back!” the girl shouted as Aura’s heart pounded furiously. “I’ve been waiting for you to return. Follow me.” She waved her out from the lake.
“I don’t choose when I come here. I’m under some sort of spell courtesy of the King of Moonstone. Rush,” Aura said while wringing out the sopping wet skirts of her dress before lowering herself on the grass beside the girl.
The girl’s face paled, her bottom lip wobbling. “Rush? He would never do anything of that nature! Unless you hurt him…”
“I never met him before he stole me away from my court!” Aura hissed, then realization struck her. “You remember more about your life?”
The girl nodded. “Not everything, but some of my memories have been staying, not seeping in and out. I remember my name. Sorcha.”
Aura hadn’t heard that name before, but she didn’t know much about Moonstone besides the stories her mother had told her that were passed down when her family were royals. Once she was wed to Prince Pax, she was to learn everything about the courts outside of Starnight. “What else do you remember about Rush then? Last time, you said there was pain around his name. He didn’t hurt you?”
Sorcha shook her head, pulling her wet hair over one shoulder. “Rush loves me and would never hurt me. But my beloved didn’t want me or this child. He no longer wanted to see me. There was another that he’d chosen… I later went out to the lake and—” Her brows scrunched together. “And I… I remember the water closing around me. My lungs unable to drink in the air.”
Aura gasped, pressing a hand to cup her mouth as she waited for Sorcha to continue.
“I can’t remember.” Sorcha gritted her teeth, tightening her fists. “But Rush was always my protector. Always.”
Aura thought about how Rush had said there’d been someone special. Who was a thorn in his side and had fallen in love with someone else. Was that what twisted him? Rush had loved this girl, but she’d been in love with someone else, then drowned? Marion hadn’t seemed to know about a beloved, and perhaps there wasn’t since this girl was never truly his…
“Wait, there’s something else!” Sorcha shrieked. “I remember! He—” But when she opened her mouth to speak again, water gurgled out, spilling down her chin. Her face and lips turned corpse blue as she choked. A rack of coughs escaped Sorcha and Aura grasped the girl’s shoulders.
Shock swarmed through her when her hands didn’t pass through Sorcha. The girl was cold, so cold, like snow and ice, like the darkest days of winter. Sorcha’s eyes rolled back in her head and Aura pleaded with her. “I want to help you. Just come back. Try and breathe.” Before Aura could say another word, Sorcha vanished from her sight as she had in every other dream, leaving her alone with her arms outstretched and gripping the thin air.
Lightning cracked in the sky, and she knew something vile was going to happen like before. The ground shook beneath her feet, a long line spreading across, splitting it in half. Water seeped up from its depths, slow at first, then faster. Aura stumbled back as another line formed, zigzagging through the dirt. Around her, the trees fell, smashing against the earth, the sound ringing in her ears. Just as a large trunk was about to crash on top of her, pain drove through her finger, spreading up her hand, and she jerked forward.
Aura sucked in a sharp breath of air, the air that Sorcha had needed for herself. Her hands trembled, even when she found herself back in the palace. No longer was she in the library with Rush, but in a bed covered in black silk sheets.Hisbed.
“You’re finally awake,” Rush said, peering up from the desk on the opposite side of the room. Books and stacks of paper cluttered it.
“Why am I here?” Aura asked as she ran a hand through her tangled hair.
He set down the quill, then stood from his chair and sauntered toward her. “Because if I took you back to your room, you would sleep on the floor to avoid the bed I’ve fucked in.”
Anger coursed through her and she tightened her fists, ripping the covers off her as she stood to her feet. “So you put me inyourbed instead?”
A deep chuckle escaped his throat, the sound sending heat low in her belly. “I don’t fuck anything but my hand in here. Find solace that you’re the first woman to sleep between my sheets.”
She scoffed. “So you tumble everywhere else in the palace besides your own room? And you expect me to be grateful? How long have I been asleep?”
