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“Sorcery?”
“The kind that tries to conjure the dead.”
Brinna swallowed. “He wanted to bring her back?”
Lucian sat next to her once more. “Brinna, he abused his daughter. Locked her in a tower prison as if she were some reincarnation of his dead wife.”
Brinna’s hand flew to her mouth to hold back the nausea that suddenly tightened her throat as she thought of her mother’s dream. Tears pricked her eyes. She shook her head. “Azleah?”
Lucian nodded. “He had help. Kept saying ‘the witch was a liar’ because the daughter escaped.”
Though Brinna understood that didn’t make this princess her mother, she couldn’t stay still and climbed from the bed, picking up her shirt and slipping into it. Even trying to deny it, her instincts prickled her skin with certainty. “There was a witch in my mother’s dream. Baba.” Brinna paced, the nail of her thumb in her mouth as she pondered all this information in light of what she’d seen in her mother’s dreams.
“Where?”
She turned to face Lucian, her body responding to seeing him sitting on that bed. His beautiful shoulders, his chest covered with its golden hair, the gentle sway of his stomach, his slim hips. His beauty was almost too much. She wanted to climb back into the bed with him, forget all this and just exist in the dream world. But it was impossible. The gray was coming. She could feel it.
“Brinna?” he said, dipping his head to meet her gaze.
“It’s hard to say,” she said when she recalled his question. “The dream was muddled, but it was in the woods.”
“The Whitling Woods?”
“Maybe?”
Lucian stood in all his naked splendor in front of her. “It stands to reason that’s where it is. You live there. The hedge.”
“And the ribbons,” she said, holding up her wrist.Until true love, the witch had said in the dream. “True love,” Brinna whispered, and her eyes jumped to Lucian.
“What is it?”
“Auri’s and Tarley’s protective ribbons disappeared because they fell in love—true love.”
Lucian stepped closer, grabbing hold of her wrists, folding them behind her back, then kissing her neck. “This is good.”
She tilted her head, offering him more room. “Why?”
“We know where to start looking for the witch. More importantly, we know her name. Ozland, the demon–”
“At the bar?”
His tongue swirled against her skin as he hummed an affirmation. “He said if we knew the sorcerer who cast the magic, we could find a way to break the spell.”
Brinna swallowed. “She’s dangerous–”
“I’m a god.” Lucian leaned back and looked at her.
“Without his powers,” she replied.
He stepped back as if she’d burned him.
“I don’t say it to hurt you, Lucian. I’m afraid for you.” Her throat tightened, and she pressed her lips together, her chin quivering, but she choked out, “Look where I am.”
Taking her face between his hands, he kissed her tears, and nodded, but she could see she’d hurt him, reminding him of it. He pulled her into his embrace and held her. “Nix isn’t doing well.”
“Neither is Auri. In her dreams, anyway. She’s weak.”
“The tether of their bond is tearing them apart. There’s a temporary fix–” He let her go and looked for his discarded pants. She watched him slide into them unsure why they were even dressing. It seemed something to do, something to prepare for the inevitable end to this fantasy.
