Page 11 of A Game of Monsters

I love you.

I sank my teeth into my lower lip, turned on my heel and left. I didn’t turn back again, not until the door was closed, separating me from the room, from my love. My Duncan. That’s when the trembling began. It started in my fingers as I locked the door. Then my legs, forcing me to inch down to the floor where I gathered myself into a ball and began to rock back and forth.

If I had tears left to cry, my cheeks would have been wet. But alas, I had cried out rivers, lakes and oceans, leaving me hollow inside.

Unable to face the life before me, or what I’d just left behind, I buried my head into my knees and focused on breathing. It was a challenge, sorting my thoughts into an order I could focus on.

I stopped only when I heard confident footsteps ahead of me. But no one should’ve been here at this time, let alone in this side of the castle.

Panicked that someone was too close to my secret, I snapped my head up.

Eroan shouldn’t have come here. He wasn’t due to visit Imeria for another six days, and beyond that, he was banned from venturing this far into my castle. Everyone was. Jesibel never left the gatehouse I’d given her, with the garden she worked tirelessly to grow, in the perpetual silence her trauma had locked her within.

Then who?

Ready to scorn the visitor for ignoring my command, I laid my eyes on the man standing at the end of the hallway ahead of me.

When I’m gone, you will need… Erix.

And there he was, Erix, standing before me. My heart thumped into my throat as I took in the reality that he was mere feet away. His eyes drank me in, bright silver, flaying my flesh until he could see bone. And when he spoke, words sharp as the blade, his tone was as welcoming as soft hands.

“Little bird, I came. I am here.”

His cheeks were flushed, his chest rising and falling as if he was breathless. Clearly, Erix had rushed here, panic settling in every flicker of his gaze.

But why?

I’d gone weeks without seeing him, and in the space of a day, this was the second time Erix stood before me. But unlike yesterday, his presence was exactly what I wanted. “Why?” I scrambled to stand, keeping my back to Duncan’s bedroom door. “You shouldn’t be here!”

Erix’s eyes fell on the door behind me as if he knew the dark secret I harboured inside. When he levelled his silver gaze back on me, I could’ve willingly drowned in it.

“You called for me, little bird,” Erix said. “So, I came.”

Was this some manifestation from Duwar, a punishment for my thoughts? Those where the same words Erix had said in my dream. Unable to face the phantom of him, I buried my face back in my hands and chanted.

“You’re not real. You’re not real. You’re – not – real!”

I fell back to the ground, thumping my fists against my temple, wishing to banish this illusion. I didn’t stop until the very tangible, very warm embrace of arms folded around me. Erix knelt, dragging me into him, melding his body with mine. He rested his chin on the top of my head and released a sigh that mirrored the exhaustion I felt. “I’m very real, and I’m here. I have got you, little bird, and I swear no demands from a king will make me turn away. Not this time. Nor ever again.”

I drew back enough to look at him through tear-filled eyes. “But youneedto leave. You shouldn’t be here, Erix. It isn’t–”

Isn’t what? Safe, fair? Neither seemed like the right answer.

“You’re wrong, so very wrong.” Erix ran a hand down my cheek, his thumb brushing the tears that stained them. “I should have been here for you a long time ago but my own fear of facing the past has kept me heeled like a dog.”

“Please, just go.” I pushed against his hard chest, but he was as unmoving as a rock in a river.

“I’ve told you. No.” Erix’s eyes then flitted to the door behind me again and asked a question that stabbed into my core. “Is Duncan inside that room?”

My silence was answer enough.

Erix gathered me back in his arms, laid his chin on top of my head and folded his wings around us. Then he said something I’d hoped for, but never expected to hear. “I think it’s time we talk about what happened in Duwar’s realm. Then you can tell me what has happened since we survived it. Deal?”

My blood thrummed through my body, ice clashing inside of me, a storm I could barely hold back. But when I looked into Erix’s calming eyes, I knew I couldn’t refuse him. “You already told me nothing happened…”

“I lied, to protect you, but I fear it has only had the opposite effect.”

Deep down I already knew he’d lied, but hearing it aloud was enough to break me out of my frantic behaviour.

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