Page 35 of The Nightmare Bride

I try to remember this time is temporary , the Lady wrote after a three-year lull.

But Amryssa feels like mine. I don’t know what I would feel for a child born of my own body, but I can’t imagine a greater love than this one.

I care for her so much that I fear what I’ll someday do. Or not do, as the case may be.

The next page was blank. And the next.

Ky set the diary aside. Quiet blanketed the room.

“I doubt any of that’s what you wanted to hear,” he said.

“No. It’s really, really not.” My voice cracked. It was obvious which choice the Lady had made, just as it was obvious that ending the nightmares would mean giving Amryssa back.

I couldn’t have one without the other.

Shit.

Ky rolled toward me, leaving his arm in place as my headrest. He toyed with the ribbon adorning my keyhole neckline—not in an attempt to take off my nightgown, I knew. Just playing with the tie, without any motive.

“You have a choice to make,” he said. “A very difficult one.”

I swallowed against a raw throat. “Doom Oceansgate by taking Amryssa to Hightower, or end the nightmares and lose her forever.”

“Yes.”

An icy dark nothingness hardened within me. I waited for Ky to laud my strength, to assure me I could survive the loss of the one person I’d ever truly loved. The only one who hadn’t left me, like everyone else had. Like he soon would.

He didn’t, though, thank goodness. A line formed between his brows. “Did you ever see her, out there? In the swamp?”

“Who, Zephyrine?” I tried to scrub the arid despair from my voice, with little success.

“Mmm-hmm.”

I weighed that, grateful for the subject change.

“I caught...glimpses, sometimes. I’d hear laughter on the breeze, or see a woman from the corner of my eye.

Or feel something behind me and turn to find flower petals fluttering through the air.

And once, in the beginning, when I hadn’t eaten in days and hadn’t figured out how to dig for mussels yet, I found a fish laid out on a stone.

Like an offering. It was cold, still. And I assumed it came from Zephyrine. In some weird way, I knew it had.”

“She looked after you,” he said.

“Yes.”

“And now you have the option to return her child to her. Or not.”

I quieted. He hadn’t loaded any accusation into the statement. The words rang with fact and nothing more, a decision he would leave to me.

And yet there was no decision to make, not really.

The mere idea of losing Amryssa crouched on my chest, driving all the oxygen from my lungs. In the emptiness left behind, Olivian’s words came back to haunt me. I care about Oceansgate more than about myself. But for her, I’d let it burn .

Gods. Only now did I understand what he’d truly meant, how very alike he and I were. Because I already knew what I would do. I didn’t have to measure anything on the scales of justice or the greater good.

Amryssa wasn’t going into the swamp. She was going to Hightower, because the world needed her sweetness and light. So did I. Without my friend, I’d be nothing but an orphan again, without purpose. Without worth.

I burrowed against Ky. He seemed to sense what I needed, because he tucked my head beneath his chin, his breathing deep and even. I was so profoundly grateful that he hadn’t pushed or judged me that I couldn’t hold back any longer.

I touched his birthmark. It was right there , a pale beacon just inches from my face.

A muffled gasp escaped him. The hand he’d cupped around the nape of my neck tightened.

I froze. “Sorry. Did I hurt you?”

A pause. “No,” he said thickly. “It’s only...that’s a sensitive spot. One I very much like having touched.”

I should’ve pulled away. But the skin below his collarbone was smooth and enticing, and the groan that rumbled from his chest when I resumed stroking fired bolts of warmth through me. His breathing accelerated, though he didn’t take my attentions as permission to touch me back.

And goddess, I adored him for that, for granting me that control. For gifting me a shard of power in this horrendous situation.

When I glanced up again, his lips had parted. His eyes were low blue flames.

Seven hells. Talk about a distraction. I let my fingers still and stop.

He growled a soft protest. “You wouldn’t be so cruel as to leave me hanging, would you?”

I gave him an impertinent smile and curled my hand against my chest. “Of course I would. It wouldn’t be any fun if I didn’t.”

“Oh, I beg to differ. I can’t think of anything more fun than me pinning you to this bed and fucking you hard enough that you forget what we just read.”

Want ignited in my breast, pure and unadulterated. There was something perversely erotic about hearing such filthy words in that silken accent. “That sounds like a terrible idea.”

His tongue swept over his bottom lip, leaving it gleaming. “It sounds like a fantastic idea. The best idea anyone’s ever had, anywhere, in all the world, throughout the entire history of time.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” I said, but I sounded breathier than a maiden being laced into her first corset.

“Maybe.” Scorching promise lit his eyes. “That doesn’t mean you wouldn’t enjoy yourself.”

My thighs ground together. Zephyrine, I would enjoy myself, of that I had no doubt. But...

The truth, deep down, in a place too clandestine to see the light of day, was that I craved more than just pleasure. I didn’t want the inch, but the mile. I wanted...shit, the same thing he did. To map him from the inside until I could draw him in the dark. To bury myself inside him.

What I didn’t want was to give it all back in a handful of days. To have it wrested from me.

To be left. Again.

But I would, because he would make Amryssa a princess and disappear. Just as I’d asked him to. So I disentangled myself and turned my back.

Ky groaned. “My cruel, wicked wife. You have no idea what you do to me.”

“Of course I do. Why else do you think I do it?”

“Mmm.” He nuzzled against me, one arm still beneath my head. “Probably because you hate me.”

“I really, really do.” A feverish sound escaped when he nestled my hips into the crook of his. “I hate you more than I’ve ever hated anyone, anywhere, in all the world, throughout the entire history of time.”

He laughed, his breath tickling my nape. “Lucky for you, that doesn’t bother me in the slightest.”

“It should.”

“It doesn’t. I’ll still worship you all night, when you finally let me.”

A full-body, molten shiver claimed me. “ If I let you.”

“No,” he purred in my ear. “When.”

I lay there, humming inside, quietly exploding, torn between turning over so I could beg him to do exactly that, and thanking him for distracting me from the horrors of the diary.

“And lioness?” he murmured.

“Yes?” I sounded squeaky. Like a shrunken mouse.

“I can’t wait. I really, truly cannot wait .”

I wasn’t sure I could, either. Volcanic need laced my veins, a thousand fiery rivers all leading to him. But before I could gather the resolve to turn over, his breathing lengthened.

I laughed, a silent hitch I kept buried in my chest. Was this damnable prince serious? He’d just threatened to fuck me stupid, then promptly fallen asleep, draped around me like a scorching, muscled blanket.

Ass. Infuriating, tantalizing, exasperating man.

I lay there, unable to imagine spending a night glued together like this, not in this heat. But I didn’t want to wake him, so I closed my eyes and tried to drift off.

To my surprise, sleep came on like a lullaby. And it lasted, a rest more restorative than any I’d had in weeks.