Page 58 of Of Nightmares & Fire (Elusive Umbra #1)

Chapter forty-five

Astraea

Pounding hoofbeats sound beneath me, but where before I felt jostled, now I am weightless. The flashing white that usually comes is slow. I can see into the trees, to the darkness that lies between.

It looks back at me.

Waiting.

“Seennnnkkaaa!” The word is hissed sharp like a blade cutting through the mist around me.

The cold, blade-like claws curl around my arm, pulling at me, wanting me to turn.

I squeeze my eyes shut, but the lasso of heat that sears at my ribs starts, and the rumbling laugh follows.

It echoes and tingles across my skin. When I open my eyes, I know what I will see.

The reaper evading my dreams; the sovereign haunting my nightmares.

The difference from every other time he has come is that I know he can harm me just as he did Kyros.

I feel it in the way that his claws scrape across my skin, leaving gooseflesh in their wake.

What happens if I seek him out? What happens when I open my eyes and come face-to-face with the monster that hunts me? With my eyes still firmly closed, I grit my teeth before I call back to him.

“What do you want?” My voice doesn’t sound like my own but a reflection of the sound. Far away and lost to the void. He hisses in response like a snake. Nothing but my pounding heart fills the silence, and when I can't take it any longer, my eyes fly open.

I stand face-to-face with the cause of torment every time I close my eyes.

The white light from the moon reflects off cracked bone as shadowy tendrils crawl from him like darkened smoke.

They reach for me from horns, and his long sharp fangs glint wickedly as he comes impossibly closer.

The moonlight casts his long, claw-like fingers eerily in a glow of silver light as they reach between us.

I am frozen in my fear.

I have always sensed him. Seen glimpses of the fast-moving terror, but this slow, harrowing movement brings a sense of consternation that I have never experienced.

One long, blade-like finger at a time, he wraps his large claws around my throat.

I feel the probing of his eyes in the darkened sockets of the skull staring down at the column of my neck.

The drumming pulse reveals every shred of fear I try to contain.

My chest rises on an influx of air as his grip tightens and he begins to lift me.

My hands reach out for his arm, and even though he appears to be an apparition, his forearm is solid and burns under my touch.

My feet dangle precariously as I try to point my toes in an attempt to reach the ground.

I cannot breathe. The lasso of fire at my ribs seems to burn hotter.

It’s everywhere.

The fire consumes me, burns through me— from me.

“Seeeennnnkkkkaaaa,” he says again, his voice like a fading call in the wind, and then I fall. I fall into the shadows, then the light, the burn, the fire; everything falls with me until I hit the ground like a blast of lightning. It shatters everything.

I suck in a gasping breath at the same time I wrench up from bed.

My body is soaked with sweat, and a cold chill sends ice to wrap around me, and dread coils around my spine.

I feel like I can't get enough breath into my lungs with how raggedly I am trying to pull air in.

My throat burns, and when I brush my fingers along the skin on my neck, I wince.

The pounding grows louder, and I cover my ears trying to calm myself, drown out the throbbing pain, or stop everything.

A loud crash makes me scramble backward toward the headboard, and a scream rips from my throat so loud I fear I may have ripped something.

“Great divine, did you have to—” Colette freezes when she sees me. I must be a sight because her eyes are wide and her lips part on a silent inhale. “ Astraea ?” She questions, her hands quickly coming up to cover her mouth.

“Fuck. What happened?!” Viltarin whisper-shouts, raking his hand through his sandy hair; his hazel eyes are wide as they jump around the room and then from my face to my neck, then to my body.

“ Fuck . Kyros is going to kill me.” He says resolutely and balls his hands into fists as he walks around Cole, who is statue-still in the center of the room.

The door I now see is broken and creaks as it barely hangs from the hinge behind them.

“You're bleeding. I wasn't here again .” Colette says softly, still unmoving and clearly unsettled.

“Cole, it's ok. I need the balm. Do you have any?” She is shaking her head before I finish the question. My brows furrow as I try to think of what to do.

“Healing balm?” Viltarin asks, looking back at Colette and then to me. “I can get some from Mavros—”

“No!” I say too loudly, and my throat aches from the damage done when I screamed. “I don’t want to alert Kyros of this.” Viltarin looks like he is going to be sick.

“Sorry, Princess, Kyros will know. There will be no hiding that injury when he returns.” He argues. Returns?

“He left?” My voice croaks, but only I know it's from the hurt I feel rather than my throat.

They both look at me and then to each other.

I don't like feeling like an outsider when it comes to Cole.

She has always been the one I can count on to have silent conversations, and seeing her do that with someone who is essentially a stranger to me feels an awful lot like hurt.

Something she has never done to me. Colette finally breaks the trance she is in and comes to sit on the bed in front of me .

“He will be back, but right now, all I care about is making sure you are ok. Can I look at it?” She asks attentively.

I wasn't aware I was holding my throat. When I drop my hand, it comes back dripping with blood, and a wave of lightheadedness rolls through me. I thought there was bruising. I didn’t realize I had been bleeding.

I look down, and I suck in a breath of shock.

The tunic I was wearing is shredded down the front, and my skin beneath is stained crimson.

“I hate to say it, Princess, but if we don't get that healed, Kyros will be the last of your worries.” My eyes lift to Cole as she pleads with me.

“Please, let him go get help.” She takes my bloody hands in hers, and I finally relent. I guess they are right. I will deal with Kyros.

“Fine, but first, can I have water?” I croak, swallowing hard with my raw throat.

“Oh, Divine! Yes.” Cole jumps up and runs across the room, coming back to hand me a metal cup. The cup is cool as she puts it in my hands, and slowly I let the water soothe the ache in my throat.

“I’ll be right back.” Viltarin says before glancing at the door and then back to us.

“I will only be a minute.” Cole nods and then starts fussing over me.

She took the basin from the corner of the room and moved it to the bedside table and is now wringing strips of cloth in the water.

Who knows where she found the cloth? She avoids my eyes as she stays busy .

“Colette?” I quietly call for her attention, and she finally meets my gaze. As soon as she does, I realize why she has avoided it. “Why are you crying?”

“I should have been here. I was not here when you needed me again. Kyros told me not to leave you, and I was just in the hall for a short while. I was right outside your door, and look what happened!” The tears spill over her lashes and run down her cheek.

“There is nothing you could have done to stop this.” I whisper, reaching for her hand and twining our fingers together. She looks down at my blood-soaked chest, and I watch as her jaw clenches and she nods. “This isn’t the first time, and I have a feeling it won't be the last.”

“We have to do something. Maybe there is someone here who can help.

They have magick here. They use it openly.

Things are not as your father makes the kingdom believe.

The people with magick are not the monsters.

I mean, I knew that before, but finally seeing it with my own two eyes.

It's different.” I can't help but smile at her as she stops rambling. “I’m talking fast.” She says, smiling too.

“I love you, Cole.” I say, tears now beginning to well in my own eyes.

“I love you, too, Astraea. Always.” She takes the fabric strips from the bowl and begins cleaning the wounds on my neck as Viltarin comes striding back into the room, and behind him, Mavros. He looks a bit disheveled and holds a tin jar I recognize as the healing balm .

“Shit.” Mavros curses, the sleepy look on his face vanishing.

“You said she got hurt in her sleep. I thought she fucking fell off the bed and got hurt somehow. You look like you were attacked by a fucking animal. What happened?” He asks, taking Cole's place as she stands and backs away. The room was already small, and now with the three of them hovering over me, it feels even smaller. Colette seems to notice and places her hand on Viltarn’s arm where it is folded over his chest.

“We will be right outside. Mavros, yell for us if you need us.” She says, dismissing herself and Viltarin without a backward glance. Mavros keeps his eyes on the wound at my neck. He pushes his sleeves up and shakes his head.

“He’s going to be fucking feral.” Mavros says seriously. I’m taken aback by his tone. It’s so unlike the Mavros I’ve come to know. I don’t have to ask who he means. Kyros has been more than possessive lately.