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Later that night, while the world slept, I was wide awake, thinking of Von.
In this lifetime, I had only ever spent one night with him in the same bed, and at the time, I had absolutely hated it. Von was a giver when it came to his tongue, but when it came to that night, he had been an absolute bed hog. His big, warrior body ate up the much-too-small bed, leaving me very little room. To make matters worse, he had snored.
I laughed softly. I had called it a windstorm of a snore, or something along those lines. Even though his snoring had kept me up, eventually, I fell asleep. Beside him.
That was the first night in a very long time where I didn’t have any nightmares.
Now . . . I wondered if he was the reason for it.
I reached across the covers, my fingers curling at the painful nothingness.
Tap. Tap. Screeeeech.
I blinked, my head jerking towards the balcony doors, where the strange sound had come from.
Whatever it was did it again.
There wassomethingoutside—that I was sure of.
The brave part of me wanted to go to the door and investigate, but the other part, theone-too-many-bad-nightmarespart, wanted to go get the nightshift guards and make them look instead. I didn’t think they would mind if I asked, especially considering neither of them were the guard I had nicknamed Grouchy.
In fact, I had not seen Grouchy in the rotation of guards since the night at the pool, but considering his abrasive asshole nature, I didn’t waste a wink of sleep on it.
I decided to stay right where I was—under the safety of the covers and hope that whatever was out there decided it had the wrong door and found someone else to terrorize—preferably the king.
The tapping stopped.
Seconds passed and it was replaced by the sounds of a struggle. Whatever was out there sounded a lot bigger than before.
I jerked up from my blankets, eyes rounded at the corners, my fists white-knuckling the furs. Was it too late to notify the guards and send them out to be eaten first?
The door flew open, and Kaleb strode in—a sour expression on his face.
“Didn’t you hear me knock?” he grouched as he chucked the door closed behind him.
“Creator’s sake, you damn near gave me a heart attack,” I seethed. My brow shot up. “Knock? All I heard was this constant creepy tapping. Wait a minute. . .” I offered him a closed-lipped grin. “You were tapping with your little beak, weren’t you?”
He rolled his eyes at me.
I shot my foot out from underneath the covers, wiggling my toes. “And using your little chicken feet to claw at the door?”
“Chicken . . . chicken feet!” he sputtered, too insulted to string together any more words. Shaking his head, he walked over to the fireplace and crouched in front of it, placing his hands in front of the crackling fire.
I snickered, pulling my foot back underneath the covers. “I’m guessing it’s cold outside,” I said, watching him.
“It’s freeeezing. I honestly don’t know how people live here!” he exclaimed. “Also, it’s snowing outside.”
“Is it? It’s so late this year.” I flipped my covers back and scurried over to the window. I watched the fluffy snowflakes fall at a leisurely pace, tumbling through the abyss of night. “By the way, you lived here, in the Living Realm, for all of your life, might I remind you.”
“Yeah, but that wasbefore,” he said, meaning nothing by it and yet—
I glanced down at the window ledge, forgetting about the snowflakes.
Before.
That one word reminded me that life would never go back to the way it was, and grappling with that fact wasn’t easy. But for Kaleb, I would.
“What is it like?” I asked, picking up my fallen gaze.
