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Shit. His dreams were truly that dangerous?

The redhead faced the prince. “Were you plagued again?”

“I was.” Kage folded his arms over his chest.

“How did you wake?” Cy pressed.

Kage glanced at me. “Ask her.”

Both men shot their glares to me, narrowed, threatening, like they expected me to carve out their precious prince’s throat in the next breath.

I tossed my hands up. “I told you, I don’t know. I had a feeling.”

“I saw her in my dream,” Kage said as though it was nothing of note.

The man I assumed was Asger narrowed his unique eyes. If I had to guess he was the eyepatch thief. He leaned over the foot of the bed onto his palms, as though he wanted to peer into my skull. “There’s more you’re not saying.”

“There isn’t.”

Kage chuckled. “Asger is a talented animai, Wildling.”

“Meaning?” I asked through gritted teeth.

“Those mind mages I spoke of. He can read the heart, the mind, the very soul, should he dig deep enough.”

I cut my gaze back to Asger. “Get out of my damn head.”

“Curious,” Asger said, altering the course of the discussion. “I cannot fully enter your mind. You have magic either you are pretending to conceal, or a power strong enough that, even while dormant, shields against me. But I do sense you are not giving every detail of what brought you here tonight.”

“Well then,” Kage began, an aggravating, smug grin on his horribly delightful face, “we must know what secrets you keep.”

Furious, perhaps a little frightened, I scrambled out of the furs and took a long step toward the doorway. “I’m not keeping secrets; I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Oh, but do try, Cricket.” Cy leaned one shoulder against the frame of the door. “You’re so lovely, I would hate to have to kill you if you came here for nefarious reasons against my dear prince.”

“You’re off.” I scanned Cy from the top of his dark head of hair, to the black shade painted on his bare toes. “You’re one of those guys who tortures people, but laughs about it, aren’t you?”

“Entirely depends on who is taking the torture. I assure you, I would not revel in plucking out your eyes. They’re so stunning.”

I hugged my middle, trapped between three men, one of whom had shifted my finger bones, another who looked ready to crack open my head all to read every nerve ending of my brain, the other—well, in truth Cy seemed as pleasant as he seemed brutal. I’d few doubts he did know how to torture, and quite well.

“Look, I was just in my room,” I said. “Then, a sharp pain dug into me. I didn’t know what was happening, and I started wandering. It led me here and I think I somehow saw into his dream, then he woke up, and was being almost respectable before you two showed up and he turned back into an ass again.”

Kage winked.

“I don’t understand it.” Asger rubbed the back of his neck. “Why would the degeneration connect you to . . . her.”

The way he gestured at me it was as though I were utterly unworthy of witnessing his precious prince’s dreams.

“I didn’t know this was Kage’s room,” I said. “All I knew was I needed the pain to stop, so when the instinct told me to walk, I complied.”

For a drawn pause no one spoke, until Kage cleared his throat. “And did it? Stop, I mean.”

I nodded. “Only after you woke from the nightmare.”

Asger’s glare softened to something more like worry. “Kage?—”

“Don’t,” the prince said in a snarl.