Page 209 of Flirting with Darkness

I shivered and clutched his shirt, nodding. “That is the right way.” When I blinked, more tears fell, and I dashed them away before smiling up at him. “My beast. My darling beast.”

His throat bobbed and a great shuddering breath came from him. “You mean you’re not—?”

A shout pierced our quiet.

Faolán spun towards the white doors that led into the ballroom. They were open a crack, letting out the sounds of struggle and a snarl.

He flew at the doors, me on his heels, but when he slammed into them, he might as well have slammed into a wall for all they moved. He shoved again, shoulders straining at his shirt, but the doors didn’t budge, just sat an inch open.

Breaths heaving, he set his eye to the crack. He stilled, and I eased in beside him.

At the centre of the ballroom, the man I’d become in the painting wrestled with the wolf.

A memory unfurled in my mind, one I’d been unable to speak of. Faolán. The wolf. They’d been one and the same in that painting. And the man had stabbed them, except…

I caught myself against the unwavering door, head spinning. “Elaina?”

Faolán’s claws scored the door. “You remember?”

“I do now. You were… she was…” But the words slipped out of reach, and it was only when I turned back to the battle in the ballroom that I could even think it again. The wolf was Elaina and the man loved her but didn’t realise what she was.

A dull gleam in his hand. The iron blade that he would use to stab her.

“Don’t,” I shouted. “It’s Elaina.”

But he didn’t react. He just clutched the wolf’s neck, trying to keep its snapping jaws from his throat.

“Elaina,” Faolán bellowed, hammering on the doors, “remember yourself.”

We shouted ourselves hoarse. I smashed my fists into the doors until they bled. Faolán ripped at them with his claws but didn’t so much as scratch the pure white finish.

It made no difference. The scene in the ballroom played out the same.

36

UNWELCOME BEDFELLOW

The dream-world faded to blackness.

Blessed thick blackness.

Deeper than night. More enveloping than the oblivion of a climax. More silent than the grave.

I sank into it, luxuriated in the fact it was a respite from House’s nightmares and cruelties. This place suited its sapphire-eyed mistress.

But the nothingness didn’t last, and eventually I woke.

It didn’t feel like I’d slept a wink as I opened my gritty eyes. But at least I wasn’t locked in another dream-memory.

The only light was the fire’s embers. The sun didn’t filter through the curtains’ edges yet—it was much earlier than we usually woke. Perhaps House had taken pity on us and decided to free us from its nightmares early.

I reached for Faolán… and found only rumpled sheets. Cold. Empty. Again.

Surely it was too early for him to be making breakfast. “Faolán?” I called towards the bathroom, but the door was open. And, now my eyes grew accustomed to the dim red glow from the fireplace, I could see our bedroom door was also open.

Although we’d never seen anything or anyone in the house—at least the present-day version of it—other than Granny, it had been an unspoken rule between us to keep the bedroom door shut and locked at night. But here it was, half open.

From the bed, the door blocked my view out into the hallway, and a deep and primal and foolish part of me didn’t dare leave the warm “safety” of the blankets. So I held my breath and listened.

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