Page 78 of Crown of Slumber

She shook her head. “No. Right here. Next to me. Please, Fenn.”

There was that plea again, and damn if it didn’t break down all my barriers. Not that there was anything left after what I’d done to her tonight—what she’d done tome.

“I just—I need to—” I cleared my throat. “All right. Let me change first, and I’ll come back and sleep here. I promise.”

She nodded, her eyes closing again. I extricated myself, fulfilling my needs in the bathing chamber as I thought of her and her perfect breasts. It didn’t take long; I was already there.

But even after I’d finished, my body ached for hers. It wasn’t the same. I yearned to be inside her, to come as our bodies intertwined. Not like this, alone as I fantasized of a woman who could never be mine.

But there was nothing to be done. Tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow, we would go back to loathing one another. I would become the careless rake, and she the stubborn princess who wanted nothing to do with me.

I removed my waistcoat, vest, and ascot until I was only in my shirtsleeves and trousers. When I returned, to my surprise, Aurelia’s eyes opened and fixed on me. Relief crossed her sleepy features. “You returned.”

“I said I would.” I slid into bed alongside her, then paused. “Is this all right?”

She wriggled closer to me, nuzzling her nose into my neck. Gods, she smelled incredible. Like jasmine and embers, and the hint of that heady smell after a rainstorm. My arm came around her, drawing her closer to me as I reveled in the warm curves of her body pressed against mine.

Yes, tonight we both had a lapse in judgment. We would succumb to this weakness only once. Tomorrow, things would return to normal.

It was a lie, of course. But my exhausted brain accepted this as I slowly drifted off to sleep.

In my dreams,Fenn was hovered over me, his arms braced on either side of me on the bed as he caged me in. His feral gaze swept over me, his teeth flashing in a delighted grin. His mouth was on my throat, his tongue gliding along my skin. I arched into him with a moan, desperate to finish what we started, to feel his naked body, to ravish him as thoroughly as he’d ravished me.

But in the next instant, I was sipping tea in the sitting room of Dreya’s inn. Across from me, the innkeeper herself smiled blandly, stirring her spoon in her cup.

“Strange, isn’t it?” she whispered.

I frowned, wondering why she spoke so quietly. “What is?”

“This place.” She cast a quick gaze around the room, which had shifted. This was no longer the sitting room of the inn, but… the tea room in the Emerald Palace. My home.

And it was no longer Dreya sitting with me, but my sister, Gigi.

She sipped from her spoon, then looked at me, her eyes dull and unfeeling. They were usually a brilliant blue, like mine, but now they seemed more muted and gray. She took another long gulp of tea from her cup, then sighed and glanced toward the window, through which sunlight filtered.

“It’s home, and yet… not.” Her voice was distant and wistful, as if she were clinging to a memory that was slowly slipping away from her.

I glanced down at my hands folded in my lap. I wore my stained and muddy blue dress from that day I’d met Fenn in the forest. The day my family had fallen asleep, unable to beroused.

The day everything changed.

“I wish you were here with me,” Gigi said softly. “I wish you were truly here.”

“Iamhere,” I said, my voice loud amidst the startling silence of the room. My sister was never this subdued. She was always noisy and boisterous, something we often chided her for. But in this instant, I would rather have my vibrant and energetic sister than this hollow shell of a girl.

Gigi blinked and turned to face me, as if just now realizing I was there. She chuckled lightly. “No, you aren’t.”

I rose from the sofa, coming to kneel at her feet. I clutched her hand in both of mine as they rested on her lap. “Gigi, I amhere. I am with you now.” Her fingers felt cold, but solid in my grip. I was somehow aware this was a dream, and yet… everything felt so real. The scratchy fabric of her dress. The plush softness of the carpet on my knees. The dampness of my skirts from my morning ride and my time in the woods. Even the smell of the mint tea stung my nostrils. Everything about this place grounded me, drawing me in.

It was real. It had to be.

Slow clarity spread in Gigi’s eyes, a more luminous shade of blue bleeding through the gray and showing echoes of the sister I knew so well. Her brows knitted together. “Aurie?” Her voice was hesitant, as if she didn’t dare hope that I could really be here with her.

I nodded, my eyes burning with imminent tears. Gods, I had missed her!

She swallowed hard, then squeezed my hands. “You’re—You’re really here?”

“Yes. It’s me, Gigi.” I brought her cold hand to my cheek to prove to her I was here in the flesh.

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