Page 31 of The Nightmare Bride

He hiked a brow in invitation. Or challenge, maybe. “Go ahead.”

“I want to know...” I picked at a loose thread on my nightgown. “...What did the nightmares show you? When you first came here?”

His face blanked.

I almost smiled. Finally, I’d managed to surprise him. Ha.

But it didn’t last long. A divot formed between his brows as he considered. “The storms told me...I wasn’t enough. Not charming enough, not witty enough. Not enough for anyone to want.”

Shock bloomed, but I tamped it down. That was so close to my own fear, yet he and I couldn’t have been more different. “And so you conquered that by...what? Changing yourself? Making yourself so charming, so witty, that your shortcomings didn’t matter?”

“Shortcomings?” His smile edged toward slyness. “Lioness. Are you suggesting I’m compensating for something? Because I assure you, there’s nothing short about me. Not where it counts.”

I shook my head. Sweet Zephyrine, he could probably sexualize a conversation about a potato.

When I didn’t rise to the bait, he sighed, apparently deciding to grant me mercy.

“The thing is, it wasn’t about that. When the storms came, it didn’t matter what I was.

Only what I believed . Which meant I didn’t have to become more charming.

I had to realize I already was. Define myself so the nightmares couldn’t.

Because they don’t tell any kind of truth.

When they say you’re worthless, that’s simply your own fear, aimed back at you.

The storms’ only weapons are the ones you hand them yourself. ”

His words settled into me, heavy and warm. The nightmares had always felt so inescapable, like truths shouted from the exact centerpoint of the universe. But maybe that was just another one of their illusions. “You just...figured that out? On your own?”

“It took time,” he admitted. “Months. But once I understood, half the battle had been won.”

“And now you resist by just...believing you can?”

“No. By knowing it.”

Something squeezed inside my chest. “What’s that even like? Having that kind of faith in yourself?”

“It’s...” His eyes glossed over as he searched for an answer within. “Freeing.”

I stared. My whole being boiled down to a complex simmer of reverence and envy.

“But you’ll have an easier time than I did,” he said. “You’ll conquer the nightmares with hardly any trouble.”

My brow crinkled. I hadn’t once imagined myself accomplishing what he had. Not when I was so susceptible, and he was so...I didn’t even know. More. More than me. Larger than life. “Why do you say that? Because I have you to help me?”

“No. Because you’re immoveable.”

I side-eyed him. “Is that a fancy way of calling me stubborn?”

He chuckled. “I value my life much too highly to admit to that . I only mean...you’re strong. Strong enough to handle me, at any rate, and I can’t tell you how rare that is. I tend to run roughshod over people, if I’m not careful.”

Well. That much, I believed.

“But with you...I don’t have to worry. You’re ironclad. And no nightmare in the world can rob you of that.”

I dropped my gaze. I didn’t feel ironclad, not around him. I felt...soft. Breakable. As bare and unprotected as the apple he’d skinned that night in Oceansgate.

Time for another subject change.

“I am stubborn, though,” I said. “Which has never helped me with the nightmares.”

“I wouldn’t call you stubborn. You’re more like...strong-willed.”

“Come on.” I leveled him with a look. “I’m difficult.”

He cocked his head. “I believe ‘spirited’ is the word you’re looking for.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m prickly.”

“You’re assertive.”

I puffed out a breath. “I’m a handful. Too much.”

“Well,” he said. “As one handful to another, I think you’re just enough.”

My pulse misfired, robbing me of words, even though his claims were ridiculous. I knew I wasn’t in danger of winning any personality contests anytime soon.

Still...a dark thrill flickered against the backdrop of my quickened breathing.

“You’re welcome to keep going.” His eyes flashed a challenge. “I could do this all night.”

“You’re impossible,” I said.

He laughed. “Well. That much might actually be true. Now, if you’re fresh out of self-deprecations, why don’t you tell me what you dreamed?”

The thread unraveling from my nightgown became newly fascinating. But I had no reason to hold back. He already knew my secrets. “It was...one I’ve had before. Lots of times. About my parents leaving me.”

“Ah.” He slid his arms down over my knees, hooking my thighs, pulling me closer. His torso was like a slab of hot stone pressed against my shins.

The contact woke something inside me, heat uncurling from some haven deep within my bones. Each nerve sparked like a shooting star.

Briefly, I closed my eyes, overcome by the rivers of sensation coasting through me. Goddess, I was fucked. Royally so.

Pun definitely intended.

“Your parents were idiots,” Kyven said.

“That’s the thing, though,” I said breathlessly. Better to lose myself in protests than in him. “They weren’t. They were just normal people whose kid made them miserable. It’s no surprise they got rid of me.”

“No. If they were miserable, it was because they’d decided to be. It had nothing to do with you.”

I paused. “Is that really what you think? That life is just...what you make it?”

“It’s what I know.”

“That sounds too simple.”

“The truth often does.” His head tilted, his cheek heating my kneecap. “And once you realize that, your parents won’t be able to touch you. Neither will the nightmares. Neither will I, for that matter. You’ll have everything you’ve ever wanted. Anything you desire.”

Anything . For some reason, my focus dropped to his mouth.

A mouth that now lifted under my gaze. “You’re a force of nature, lioness. Once you embrace that, nothing will stand in your way.”

My lungs contracted. Gods, how I longed to curve toward his certainty, like I would a fire on a frigid night. What could I become, with his assurances? Who could I be, with him to bolster me?

Except...there was no us. No future. Just a thousand reasons to keep my distance. A hundred uncertainties hovering between us.

Yet when I met his gaze, all those fell away, because right now, his eyes looked infinite. Like a summer sky above an open plain. Or an endless candle, burning against the dark.

Something must have shown on my face, because his breathing changed. His heart thudded against my shins, its steadiness giving way to something urgent.

His hold on me tightened. “Harlowe...” His voice had gone thick. Soaked in smoke.

A sizzle unfurled within me, so vast and wild and terrible I wondered if I would combust. Leave Kyven hugging nothing but ashes.

Because seven hells, what was I supposed to do when he said my name that way? Except tell him to stop looking at me like that, maybe. Make it clear that people like me didn’t get blue skies and infinities.

Ever so slowly, he slid a hand down my thigh, his coarse palm catching at the silk of my nightgown.

My pulse sped, each heartbeat slamming against the next. When Kyven reached my hip, he seated his grip and squeezed. That pressure became the epicenter of a full-body shiver, one that somehow ended between my thighs.

He must have sensed my reaction, but he didn’t push. His eyes held mine, a molten question.

And yet I sat unmoving. Not because I needed to annul this marriage so he could marry Amryssa, or because I hadn’t deciphered the last of his secrets, or because he’d leave me like everyone else had, but...

Well, it was all of those things. And none of them.

Hell, I didn’t even know.

I just knew I had to scoot back, so I did, breaking his grip and smoothing down my nightgown. “I’m tired,” I said, averting my gaze. “Take me to bed?”

A beat passed, then another. The sparks in the air cooled and frosted over.

“Of course,” he finally said. “Whatever you need.”

For once, his answer held no innuendo. No heat at all.

Even though I’d given him the perfect opening.