Page 78 of Vale of Dreams

“Do you ever enjoy things, Nia? Ever at all?”

“I’m not all misery. I was in love once.”

“And what happened to him?”

I swallow hard. Keep the lies as close to the truth as possible. “He had a bad habit of running away from things. Including me. He broke my heart twice.”

“Mmm.” A deep murmur. “Shall I have him tortured and executed?”

Oh, my dear Talan. You’ve already started on that.

“No,” I say. “He’s not a bad person, but he chose his work over me.”

He scoffs. “He sounds fucking boring.”

“Were you ever in love?”

The candlelight dances over his carved muscles. “There’s only one woman for me, and she is a figment of my imagination, a voice in my thoughts.”

“So many centuries and not one love? Is it all the murdering? Does it get in the way of romance?”

“Not much time for love when I have subjects to torment.”

“Seems like my ex isn’t the only one obsessed with work.”

He glances at me, and for a moment, I think there’s a faint sadness in his smile. “If you saw what I see in people’s dreams, you’d know why I don’t love anyone.”

“And what do you see in people’s dreams that disturbs you so much?” I ask.

“All the things people want from me and all the things they fear from me.”

I suppose he thinks no one knows or cares for the real him—the Talan who would have existed in another world, where he was a poor nobody.

I’m not about to start feeling sorry for him.

I turn and blow out the candles next to me, and shadows pool in the room, tinged with silver and red from the moonlight.

I slide down into the bed and roll over. Clamping my eyes shut, I try not to think about how close he is to me. I will not dwell on how he smells—of smoky cedar faintly tinged with perfumed flowers—and I absolutely will not entertain the memories of how many times I’ve overheard his thoughts as he pleasured a woman until she gripped his hair and screamed his name while he brought her to orgasm…

Nia, this is a man who would rip your throat out in a heartbeat if he knew the truth.

I close my eyes, summoning the veil in my mind.

“Why is your heart beating so fast?” he murmurs.

I curl my fingers around the blankets. “Don’t you know everyone is scared of you?”

Silence falls in the darkened room. Outside, lightning cracks and thunder rolls over the horizon. “Yes,” he says quietly, “but I didn’t think you were.”

My throat tightens, and I clamp my eyes shut.

I wake in the night, horrified to find that I’ve curled myself around his body—one arm around his chiseled abs, my thigh wrapped around his hips. In this position, I feel the full length of him, his hard cock pressed against the inside of my thigh. He’s enormous and built like a god in every way, isn’t he?

Here is my body forsaking me yet again—as I slept, I crawled to him and wrapped myself around him, lured by his exquisite beauty and his smell.

I’m frozen, my pulse racing. At the feel of his arousal, heat slides through my body.

This would all be much easier if he looked like a troll.

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