Page 104 of Haunted

I catch words in her thoughts, a lament on her attire. She realizes the truth of how alluring her nightgown is. Perhaps she hears more of my thoughts than I realize.

I turn, with a focused intensity. Tonight we will not play games. “Niawen, please. Come here.”

She carefully picks her way to me as she crawls into bed. Too impatient with her timid progress, I shift to the center and pull her to myself. “You deserve to know the truth.”

Her breath is ragged. She’s like a frightened deer, unable to move in my arms, staring up at me with large pupils. I relish her creamy cheek against my bare skin.

“You asked me to show you my nightmares.” My voice is thick. “After today and your impatience with me, I’ll grant your long-awaited request.”

She swallows, steadying her apprehension, and I hurry to console her. “My memories will hurt you. I don’t welcome the pain they’ll cause, but hold on to me, and you’ll be safe.”

She only nods.

“Forgive me for this,” I whisper close to her ear.

As my hand strokes her hair back from her forehead, she closes her eyes. I allow the memory of Neifion’s death to fill me and send it through our bond into her mind.

See that you may know, I think.

She sees and feels it all. From the volcanic rock cutting into my knees to the pain searing my scalp as the guards hold me. My feeble words to stop the empress to save Neifion’s life.

My greatest shame—how I failed him and Lord Siarl. The empress’s words are sharp. They slice. They wound. Niawen quivers in my arms, but I don’t stop the memory from unfolding.

The first axe is wielded as the empress exiles me. Niawen flinches. This is a pain she knows. We are one in this.

Then the gleaming dagger the empress unsheathes. How I wish I had died instead of Neifion.

The pain is as real as the day he was killed. Niawen feels it. I hold nothing back. She must know why I am haunted.

Neifion’s final gasps rip through me again. Niawen twists in my arms and pants through the pain. Her tears are real.

After my dragon stone is pulverized, I release Niawen from the memory.

She jerks and gasps for breath. “Caedryn. Caedryn. Oh please. Oh please. Oh please.” She grasps my shoulders.

I rock her as I clutch her to myself. I can’t stand her pain, her sadness over my loss, but she had to know. “Niawen. I’m here. You had to see. You had to see.”

I wipe her tears away, ignoring the ones that dampen my face.

How does he live with the horrors every night? she thinks.

She has no idea. “I need to show you one more,” I say as I press my forehead to hers. “An earlier memory.”

“Oh, no. No.” She grips me harder.

“You must understand.” Worry twists my gut. How can I show her these things? But I have to. “I can’t ask you to make any further commitments with me if you don’t see this next one.”

When she looks into my face, I want to kiss her brows, her nose, her chin. Everywhere to chase away her agony, but I don’t. “Promise me that after I show you this memory, you’ll let me explain.” I envision her tearing herself from my arms after she sees it. “Don’t run from me. Don’t cower.”

“Show me.” She curls into a ball against my chest and shuts her eyes. I send her the memory of the time I found the empress on the floor in her chambers, in tears. The moment of our first seduction.

Embarrassment swarms me as the memory opens up, because of the way the empress threw herself into my arms and the way I yielded myself to her. But at the time I would have done anything for her.

Niawen sees it all. The ferocity, the heat, the drive that tore through the empress and me. I can’t stop her. I refuse to stop her. I give over control. It’s reckless. Foolish.

We devour one another until I’m lost to sense.

I show Niawen one more encounter with the empress, a graphic, desperate seduction. A fury of lust that overwhelmed me and skewed my thoughts. How could I ever have thought that I cared for the empress? I was never satisfied. I wanted more of her. Thoughts of her consumed me until I destroyed everything in my life.

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