Page 34 of Sweet Nightmares (Wicked Mirrors #2)

Chapter Twenty-Four

“ W hat’s your name?” Jane asked the girl softly.

“Genevieve.” It was more of a squeak than a word, and her eyes darted to Nightmare, fear etched into her every pore.

Jane slid her fingers into the girl’s and squeezed, trying to give her some comfort. “If you promise not to say anything about what you saw here, we will let you live. We’ll clean up this mess, and if anyone asks where he is, tell them he went to the smoking room and never came back.”

The girl bit her lip. “Yes, I promise.”

“Bargain it.” Nightmare crossed his arms, his muscles rippling with the movement. “Bargain with me that you will keep the secret, and you can have your life, and we will cover up the murder, and you will not receive any flak for this.”

Genevieve’s eyes went wide. “Bargain?”

“Yes, bargain. I am the Mirror of Nightmares. I am sure you have heard of me.”

She gasped. “The Looking Glass?”

It was Jane who answered. “Yes.”

The girl sucked in a breath. “Alright then. I accept your bargain.

As Genevieve accepted, all the blood and the body evaporated from the room, leaving the place as pristine as when they had entered.

But as the magic worked, a sharp pain carved through Jane’s torso, like a warning.

Jane clutched her chest. Something was off. She felt a knowing. A future whispering to her, and in that moment, she knew whatever the consequences of that bargain were, it was going to be far more than any of them anticipated.

The next two days passed without incident. They ate omelets in the morning before going to the ship’s gymnasium on the boat deck, taking afternoon tea, and mingling with the other patrons in the evening at dinner.

On the third night, Nightmare surprised her with a fairly deep conversation.

“You said you wanted to know me,” he asked at dinner. Tonight, they had a private table. “So, ask me a question.”

Jane pinched her lips shut. Of course, she wanted to know everything about him, but where did she start? Why not the beginning? “You seemed to be a sweet teenager…” Jane trailed off, not knowing where she was going.

“Where is the question?” he smiled.

Jane swallowed. “I am honestly not sure. It’s a lot of pressure to ask you a question.”

“You can’t do it wrong.”

Jane raised an eyebrow disbelievingly.

“Fine. Others could. Not you. I just won’t answer it if I don’t want to.”

“You were a happy, sweet teenager; you didn’t have this darkness.” She waved a hand over him. “Do you wish you could have some of that joy back?”

He sat perfectly still, his jaw tightening the longer he stayed silent. Jane restlessly shifted in her seat, wondering if she had done something wrong. But eventually, he said, “I don’t know. Do you want me to be like him again? Because I don’t think I ever can.”

“No,” she breathed. “I don’t want the boy, or even his youthful joy. I want you to be fully who you are. Not pieces of yourself. I just want you to be able to have a piece of him back if you want it.”

“I am not whole, Jane.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I have no heart without your touch. I am a grotesque vampire.”

“I would like to meet the person who called you grotesque. Have they seen you?” Jane waved a hand over his incredible physique.

“Not to inflate your ego, but you’re perhaps the most attractive man I have ever seen.

” She paused for a long moment, deciding if she wanted to bring up the woman he clearly hated so deeply that he talked around her presence.

“That’s why Helene targeted you to begin with.

” He flinched at the name, but Jane continued anyway, “She liked to collect pretty things. You and Darcy are two of the prettiest men who have probably ever lived. If she were alive today, I am sure she’d probably want to collect Prince Emrys too. ”

“She is alive.” He clenched his fists tightly, all of his muscles taut like a bowstring. “She’s entombed inside the Lake of Mirrors, and it’s mere years, if not days, until she figures out how to escape.”

“How could she? You’ve never managed it.”

“I am here with you, am I not?” His chin motioned at the Titan.

Jane played with her teaspoon. “That’s different.”

“Is it?”

“Well, yes. You need me in order to be out here. She’d need an anchor, at the very least, not to mention enough magic to break the spell on her mirror, and she wouldn’t ever have enough.”

“No, she wouldn’t.” He stroked his chin in thought.

“But she’s ancient. Her parents were once lesser gods.

She knows things we could never. She’ll find a way.

She found a way to get all of her power back after she accidentally drained it all, imprisoning me in my mirror. She will find a way. Evil always does.”

Nightmare’s eyes darkened, and his gaze focused on Jane, a hint of hatred lingering in them when he looked at her.

“Do I remind you of her?”

“Absolutely not.” There was no hesitation in his answer. “Your—” His throat bobbed. “There aren’t words to describe you, but you are her opposite in every single way. Every. Single. Way.”

Nightmare’s eyes shifted to the dancers, and he stood. He wanted this conversation to end, so he held out his hand to dance and asked, “Will you dance with me?”

“I can’t.”

“But you love dancing.”

I did. How did he remember that but not that he stole dancing from her?

He raised a manicured silver eyebrow when she didn’t move to stand.

“I love dancing, but I can’t.” Confusion painted across his face, and she gulped. “You must command me to do it because I can’t.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Yes.”

He gave a downward glance before raising his chin again. “Dance with me tonight.”

Jane bit her lip. It didn’t break his original command completely, and his original command had barred her from speaking about it. So even if she wanted to bring it up now, could she? Jane didn’t want to linger on that.

So she just wanted to experience this moment… With him.

She took his hand and let him walk her to the dance floor.

It was a waltz. He grasped her waist tightly and slid his hand into hers, turning into her, and then he led her into the three-four rhythm of the dance.

It was simple and sweet. Just the simple movement caused joy to stir in her blood and fill her with tranquility that she hadn’t felt in years—a peace she missed.

It was beautiful and simple.

Jane closed her eyes and sucked in his scent, sharing this moment with him. He smelled of musk, black tea, and a hint of vanilla.

The night was perfect, but it was followed by a morning of horrors. Around five in the morning, Jane and Nightmare were woken by what felt like an earthquake. It was either the ship hitting an iceberg or a mine, but the effect was immediate chaos.

The ship went down in forty minutes, and all forty of those minutes were tumultuous.

Nightmare and Jane grabbed their jackets and life jackets and stormed out to the lifeboats, along with everyone else on the ship.

They found one that allowed them to board, but as Nightmare was lifting Jane onto the boat, the sailor responsible for lowering the lifeboat into the water let go of his rigging, and it swung, hitting Jane at the edge of her temple.

A strike of pain surged through her head, then she fell sideways, nothing beneath her legs, and she tumbled into the ocean six decks below. As she hit the water, darkness poured into her vision, pain jolted her bones, and water filled her lungs.

She was unconscious and drowning, and that was the last thing she was able to recall before she heard him—her nightmares.

“You don’t die. You never die,” he seethed, his voice riddled with a darkness that rattled her bones.

She felt a hard pressure on her chest before her eyes flung open, and she was coughing up water onto the wooden deck. Her throat and lungs were burning from the effort.

When she was finally able to look at him, he said again. “You never die. Do you understand me?”

Jane’s mouth ran dry, despite having just been filled with water.

Because what could she say? And more importantly, what was she feeling?

It was a buzzing in her chest like she’d never felt before.

It was warmth, home, and rightness. But it was all wrong.

All lies because Nightmare, Gavriil, was not her home. He never could be.

He was the greatest villain she’d ever known… Yet he was also more than that.

And that was dangerous.

“Is that a command?” she finally asked, her voice raw.

“Yes,” Gavrail snarled, his eyes still wild.

Jane sucked in a slow, painful breath and felt her fingers on the deck, the wood grain coarse like her following words. “I don’t think even you could command Death like that.”

“I can’t.” His voice was raw and honest. “I can’t command you back to life, Jane. So don’t you dare die on me.” He pulled her into a desperate hug.

“I won’t,” she lied, because she knew she was destined to die young and painfully.

“And stop getting yourself into so much trouble. I am rather sick of saving your life.”

“No, you’re not.” Jane laughed and rubbed her head, a bump forming where the rigging had hit her. “You killed the boy, didn’t you?”

She didn’t have to look at him or hear his words to know the truth. Gavriil was one thing above all else: consistently wicked. It wouldn’t even have been a question in his mind. The boy had hurt what belonged to him, and therefore, he would be eliminated. Simple. Swift.

“Yes.” As Jane suspected, no remorse or guilt was evident in the words. It was hard and cold. It was what nightmares were formed from. “Now, bargain with me to make you a lifeboat.”

“What should I bargain for?”

“A kiss.”

“Alright,” she said. “Alexei, I will kiss you if you give me a lifeboat.”

“I accept your deal.” He leaned in and touched his lips to hers.

It took two more days on a smaller ship, during which they had to sleep in the cold to get to Grand York City, the greatest city across the ocean.

The travel would have been miserable if Nightmare hadn’t been there to keep her warm and company.

They sat silently for most of it, but also engaged in small talk, learning a little more about each other, such as their favorite colors and foods.

Nightmare’s was red, and he said, “Like your hair.” Jane’s favorite was black, which he argued was not, in fact, a color but the absence of it.

When they arrived in the city, they didn’t waste their time.

For such a traumatic journey, they were only on the other side of the ocean for fifty-seven minutes, half of which was the cab ride to the Grand History Museum.

Once they got to the Museum, Nightmare quickly found the exhibit with the magical item he was looking for—a cloak.

Jane didn’t even want to know what it did or why he wanted it.

Nightmare punched the glass and didn’t even bother to make a bigger hole; he just placed his hand through and pulled out the cloak, the glass ripping a tear in his skin and causing blood to trickle on the floor.

But he didn’t care. He simply walked over to Jane, wrapped his hand around her waist, and hauled her into the travel void, pulling her back into his mirror.

When her feet hit the marble of his castle floor, she asked, “If you could do that all along, why did we have to take the ship?”

“I can return to my mirror from anywhere. I cannot always go anywhere from inside of it.”