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“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, rolling onto his side.

His weight left mine. The body he’d used to pin me down so that I couldn’t hurt him, or myself, pressing into mine as I turned to face him and buried my face in his chest.

I shook my head, unable to form the words to describe what I’d seen. Something about her felt private, like she was my secret to bear for the time being. I’d tell him when I knew what she was, who she was, to me.

When I knew why she’d decided to haunt my dreams, and whether or not I’d crafted her from my imagination. The things I’d felt, the things I’d seen, since arriving in Alfheimr had begun to take their toll.

Had I imagined her face in the gem? Had some part of me broken beneath the pain?

“I’m broken,” I murmured, feeling Caldris’s arms tighten around me.

He pulled back, his eyes meeting mine as the first tear slid free from my eye. It fell onto the pillow as he leaned forward, kissing the top of my head.

“I think we all are, in our own ways,” he said, the words a soft assurance. He didn’t try to convince me that regardless of whatever I’d dreamt, I wasn’t broken. He didn’t try to heal me.

He just held me, loved me—jagged, broken pieces and all.

“I love you,” I said softly, snuggling into his chest as he pulled me tighter.

His scent filled my lungs, the steady throbbing of his heart reminding me of home.Thiswas where I belonged, not the Cove that called to me even now.

“And I love you,min asteren. Now sleep. I’ll be here to watch over you,” he returned, the soothing calm of his voice allowing me to let my eyes drift closed.

“You can’t protect me from the monsters in my own head,” I said, my voice sluggish as the pull of sleep called me back.

There was silence for a moment, his chin coming to rest above mine as we shared a pillow. Then, in my final moments before sleep claimed me, the soft, gruff voice of the male I loved said, “Watch me.”

***

Mab pushed for me to use my power the next day, for me to summon the part of me that sparked with gold every time she bled me. But something inside me had withered, shrunk that day when we left the Cove, lingering behind as if it would keep that part of my soul for itself.

I struggled with nightmares during the night, with visions of the woman in the jewel atop Mab’s head, the overwhelming rage consuming me with the desire to strip it from her head. I couldn’t shake those thoughts, couldn’t have summoned the power I didn’t understand even if I wanted to. Before, using it had seemed instinctive, coming to me with extreme emotion or the need to protect myself from the harm others would do to me.

Now all I could do was suffer as Mab allowed Malachi to carve into my skin with iron, to bleed upon the chair she strapped me to in order to confine me. Pain was no longer amotivator. My fear had abandoned me. I knew it was only a matter of time before Mab held true to her promise to hurt someone else, to use the mates against me.

Nila dressed me in leather pants after helping me clean up from my morning torture, drawing a raised brow from me. She kept her head turned down as one of Mab’s men summoned Caldris for some mundane job that day. She wasn’t her usual reassuring self as she worked, pulling my dark hair back into a complex braid that draped over one shoulder.

“I’m not going to like this very much, am I?” I asked, heaving a sigh.

She jolted, her stare finally raising to meet mine. She merely shook her head, returning to her braiding in silence as I watched in the mirror. Her fingers shook, her hands trembling and causing her have to start entire sections of my braid over again.

Fuck.

***

Nila walked me away from the throne room, where I usually spent my time in Mab’s company. The halls in this part of Tar Mesa were broader than the passageway to the Cove had been, a path far more traveled, even though I had never ventured this way. Gratefully so, considering the unusual number of Fae who traveled through them at the same time as us, whispering among themselves as Nila and Malachi guided me through the crowd gathering for the first of the seven events that would mark the Winter Solstice.

The latter pushed people out of the way, clearing a path for Nila and me to stride through.

“Where are they all going?” I asked, swallowing through the lump rising in my throat.

For the first time since the Cove, it felt like something reached inside me and strummed fear into my heart. The numbness the Cove had left me with faded away, leaving me unprotected against whatever horror I would face that day. The creature within me stirred at last, as if she herself could scent the danger. None of the others walking through the crowd were dressed so casually, none were prepared for battle.

I swallowed down the surge of nausea that rose in my gut.

“The same place we are,” Malachi said, turning back to sneer at me.

Satisfaction pulsed off him in waves, a horrific reminder of whatever I was about to face. He’d stopped taking joy from tormenting me with iron blades, not getting the reaction he wanted out of me. For him to be pleased with my fate did not bode well for me.