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“I am not.” He frowned. “I do not.”
She laughed. “You are and you do!”
“You were looking for Mattias–”
Wait.
She had been. She’d been at Tarley and Lachlan’s wedding. Had she fallen asleep? “How would you know–” The face of a monster filled her mind, and she swayed on her feet as the fear that had been absent now flooded her chest, filling her lungs, and making it harder to breathe. “Oh–” Her eyes jumped to Lucian standing in front of her. “Wait.” She shook her head.
He fisted his hands at his sides. “I think you should sit,” he said, then waved a hand at something behind her.
Shaken, she looked over her shoulder and realized she was in a sitting room of sorts, only the space was giant; at least ten of her family’s cottages could fit inside it. And it looked nothing like any room she’d ever seen in her whole life.
Beautiful couches—several of them—the color of bare bones were placed around the room. Plush rugs covered bright, slick surfaces reflecting light. There were no walls but rather a wide expanse of clear windows without mullioned panes glowing with a bright expanse of brilliant blue, the sun gilding the room. She had the sensation they were floating in the sky.
This had to be a dream.
Her breath snapped in her chest at the spectacle. There were so many things she could have said. Things likewhat was that creature?Where am I?And to Lucian,why are you here? Where am I?But what came out was: “It’s daytime.” As if that proved it was a dream.
Lucian’s hand pressed gently against her lower back. “Come. Sit.”
She moved where he’d directed, stepping down and sitting stiffly on the edge of one of the couches. Her gaze drifted to the windows. “But–”
“Brinna.”
His concerned tone snapped her gaze to his.
He swiped a hand over his face, his palm stretching over his mouth, then sighed.
She swallowed and recalled the creature’s face, its horrible teeth. The snarl. Her gaze jumped from a button on Lucian’s jacket to his eyes. “That wasn’t real?”
Her brother and sisters had tried to explain. She’d had dreams of feral creatures, but that… thing… she’d… Brinna covered her face with her hands with a sob. “I’m not dreaming?”
“That was a darkling.”
She gasped behind her hands.
“I brought you to Elcadia. To Sol. There wasn’t time–”
She swiped her cheeks with her fingertips and looked at Lucian, who was now crouched down in front of her. The light, the heat, the stronghold had been him. “My family–”
“I summoned Nix. He knows.”
“Is it going to hunt… Tarley?”
Lucian looked down at his hands, then back up. “I don’t know. It went after you. It could have just been intent on killing. But you offered it help before I transported us here. It may have imprinted.”
“Does this mean I can’t go home?”
Lucian took a seat on the table in front of her, his thighs protectively caging hers between them. “To be safe, probably not until we’ve spoken with Nix. Learn if anything happened after I turned us here.”
“But Mattias. I couldn’t find him. What if–”
Lucian shook his head. “I’d been standing under the tree for a while. I never saw Mattias pass by. ”
“This isn’t a dream?” she asked.
He shook his head.
