Page 56 of The Nightmare Bride

W hen I got close to Kai, his cheeks were wet.

I stopped a foot away, cradling my bloodied hand and gazing up into his face. “Are you crying?” I said, with wonder.

He gave me a cocksure smile. “Of course not. This is just...liquid relief. Inconveniently leaking out through my eyes, for some reason. Very strange. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.”

I searched his gaze. Behind him, the forest heaved with things both inhuman and grotesque. The nightmare scrabbled at my mind, trying to find purchase. You are meaningless. You are nothing.

I’m not , I told it. I mean something because I say I do.

I lifted my good hand to Kai’s face. “Did you know? About the blood-price? You knew what I was trying to do?”

His smile wavered. “Yes, well. I may have snooped in Vick’s hut, back at the liberators’ camp. Reread that damned book when he wasn’t around, trying to figure out what he intended. And I may have discovered we hadn’t uncovered all the Lady Marche’s secrets, that night in our room.”

Our room . The thought warmed me. “So you knew, and you let me go anyway?”

He swallowed. “You’re my wife. And if you’ve taught me anything about loyalty, it’s that sometimes it requires you to let people decide for themselves. Even if their choice might destroy you.”

The enormity of that stunned me into silence. I didn’t know how I could possibly have taught him that. I hadn’t realized it myself until just five minutes ago.

But maybe that was the power of loving someone. It made you see them as more than they were, as whatever grander thing they would grow into.

I ran my fingers along the line of his jaw. “Did you also know I’d change my mind?”

“I believed it,” he said. “And I know it might not have looked like it, but that was me fighting for you, just now. I may have had to kick Vick in the face just to get Amryssa away from him. Get her to you.”

My throat worked. “You wanted me to have those minutes with her?”

“I wanted you to have a choice. Call it one last toss of the ring. An incredibly desperate one, but a toss, nonetheless.”

I lost my voice, then found it again. “Then...I think you may have caught me, this time.”

His eyes heated. “Did I?”

“Yes. And now I want...you. I want to stay with you. I want you to stay with me.”

Emotion swirled in his face. He blinked hard. “Well, lucky for you, we’re married. Which means you’re stuck with me, whether you like it or not.”

I laughed. “Honestly, how are you so perfect? Just how ?”

He gave me a saucy smile. “I was born this way. Well, no. That’s a lie. I worked very hard at it. But my raw charisma didn’t hurt. Or my overwhelming good looks.”

A scuffed chuckle warmed my chest. This man. I would never tire of his arrogance.

He cupped my face, and I tilted my cheek into his touch.

“How are you?” he said.

I knew what he was asking—whether the nightmare was about to crack my defenses and carry me away on its bitter flood. But the distorted shadows, for all that they scrabbled at my skirts, seemed distant.

“I’m...quiet, I think,” I said. “Safe. Inside myself.”

His half-smile bled into something wide and deep. “Gods above. How are you so perfect?”

I shrugged. “Just pure, dumb luck, I’m pretty sure.”

He chuckled. His thumb smoothed across my cheekbone. “So now what?”

“Now, you should take me somewhere and make love to me. As soon as possible.”

Brightness flared in his eyes. “That can be arranged.” His gaze fell to the wounded hand clutched against my chest. “Let’s just take care of that, first.”

Before I could ask what he intended, he stalked toward Vick, who lay chained between two trees. His voice had gone. He writhed and thrashed, his mouth open in a never-ending scream. But only hoarse silence emerged.

Kai fiddled with Vick’s belt. I frowned, but when he straightened, he held the dagger. My dagger.

My conduit to Zephyrine.

Hope—that horrible, treacherous, wonderful thing, fluttered into my throat. Would the blade still work? Allow me to talk to the goddess? Maybe to Amryssa? Were they even different entities, anymore?

Kai came and handed it over. I took the knife with my good hand, relishing the feel of the familiar antler handle.

It hummed, no different than before.

A star kindled beneath my ribs. Hello?

Harlowe. Amryssa’s voice slid into my mind, wider and deeper and more... more , somehow. My sweet friend, my forever-sister. I’m here.

A joyous sob throbbed in my chest. “It’s her,” I cried. “I can hear her.”

Kai grinned.

I breathed my way through a spiky riot of emotion. First relief, then a pang of love so fierce I had to steady myself with a heaping dose of husbandly eye contact.

What do you need? Amryssa asked.

Nothing, I told her, still looking at Kai. I have everything I’ve ever wanted. But...I wouldn’t exactly hate it if you could stitch up this cut on my hand. It does hurt like a bitch.

Amryssa laughed. A moment later, warmth coursed into me. The line of fire on my palm faded to an ache, then a memory.

I marveled at my perfect, unharmed skin. The dagger went quiet, and I tucked it into the empty sheath at my belt.

“She’s not gone,” I said.

“I’m glad.” He pulled me close, tucking my head beneath his chin. “Now, where to? I’d take you to the liberators’ camp, but everyone there will be screaming. And not the sort of screaming that puts me in the mood.”

A breathy laugh gusted from my lips. “No, I have somewhere else. A place I’d like to show you.”

I offered him my hand, then looked around. Everything looked so different than when I’d been here as a child—the infected leaves pulsed purple while squiggles of shadow twined in the darkness. But I could superimpose the old onto the new. I still knew the way.

“Over here.” I tugged.

Kai followed. We floated through the night like ghosts, threading between glowing sheets of moss. Shadows groped for us, including one that looked like a squirrel with spider legs and a human mouth, but I kept my eyes up, and eventually, they retreated.

Fifteen minutes later, we reached a place I hadn’t set foot in for a decade.

It wasn’t a clearing, anymore, really. Moss and gnarled vines had taken over, dotted with glowing amethyst swamp lilies.

Amid it all, my old shack still stood, its woven-branch roof caved in one side, the other choked by climbing vines.

“Your old home,” Kai said softly.

“Yes.”

He released my hand and tried the warped plank door, getting it open after a few stiff shoves. He waited on the darkened threshold.

I paused. It was strange seeing him here, in this place that had given my loneliness life. And yet it felt like the last stitch knitting together my past and my present.

Inside lay my stool and table, now heaped with the detritus of the caved-in roof. There was the spindly rack I’d once dried plants on, half-collapsed. And the bed. Its horsehair mattress had retained a miraculous amount of volume, though the sheet had crumbled to rags.

Kai ran his hands down my arms. “Here?”

I nodded, and shivered, desire already peeling open inside me like a flower.

Violet light from the window shimmered along his cheek. I reached for him, but he returned my hands gently to my sides. “No. Let me.”

My breath turned hot and liquid. The nightmare screamed outside, but somehow that only added to the hungry chasm inside me, spiking my heartrate, sharpening the burn that followed his touch.

He brushed my hair back and fastened his mouth against my neck, doing that thing with his tongue again. Oh goddess, my favorite thing.

I closed my eyes. Heat flickered at my core, sparking an ache between my thighs. And somehow, the nightmare made everything burn hotter.

Kai kissed a path down my neck, then up to my mouth.

His tongue parted the seam of my lips, so tender I felt the echo of it in the base of my spine.

He kissed me, unhurried, while he unhooked my dress and unlaced my corset.

He pulled everything off, then lifted my chemise over my head and laid it on the mattress as impromptu bedding.

He peeled away my underthings and stepped back. His attention raked over me, carving a smoldering path down my naked body. “My beautiful wife.”

Goddess, I needed to touch him. “Take off your clothes.”

He did—shirt first, then breeches. When it all lay on the floor, I drank him in, every line of him like nourishment. “My beautiful husband. You are one unbelievably gorgeous work of art.”

His grin made my skin pull taut over my throbbing bones. He took me in his arms and eased me onto the bed. He anchored his elbows to either side of my neck, palming the back of my head, kissing me again. My legs curled around his hips.

He wasn’t in any hurry. But the slower he went, the higher the flames inside me danced.

He traced my curves with rough hands, then explored me with his mouth, his fingers.

His tongue circled each nipple. He trailed touches up the inside of my thighs, teasing me until I whimpered and writhed.

Until I had to press my fists into the mattress in order to keep from reaching for him.

Finally, I could stand it no longer, and I grabbed at his shoulders, hauling his face toward mine. “If you don’t fuck me right this second, I’m going to scream.”

His smile was full and white in the darkness. “I thought you wanted me to make love to you.”

“Yes. Whatever. Just...do it now. Please.” My words all piled atop one another. I sounded desperate, like some crazed addict.

“You greedy little thing.” Kai hooked a hand behind my knee, pushing my leg up and outward, spreading me open and settling his hips against mine. “I like it when you beg.”

I reached down and took him in my hand, earning myself a long, low sweep of his lashes. I guided him toward my entrance, but he held back, hovering on the brink of giving me what I needed, but refusing to cross that last distance.

A needy whine gathered in my throat. “What’re you doing?”

“Trying to remember,” he said, eyes still closed.

“Remember? Remember what?”