Page 61 of Blackwarden
Rosalin
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The name he used wrapped around me and squeezed, like the most glorious embrace I’d ever been blessed with.Thiswas my name.
But how had he known it?
He took a step back, the muscles in his neck tightening. There was something so familiar about the way he looked at me, a desperate ache in his expression.I knew him.I had to have known him before coming here, but pulling the memories forward was...painful. Searing white light lanced behind my eyes as I tried desperately to remember, but I couldn’t push through the agony.
He glanced over his shoulder at the door before grabbing a silk robe off the back of a chair and holding it open for me.
“I need to get you out of here.”
I slipped my arms into the sleeves and wrapped the fabric tight around my nakedness. Before I was able to do anything else, he lifted me back into his arms and carried me from the room. I pressed my face against his neck, trying to hide from the world, from this place, from everything. I wasn’t sure I’d survive the memories of Bevgyah’s hands, the ropes she’d tied me into positionwith. The way her mouth felt on my body. Instead, I focused on the way he kissed the top of my head, how warm his skin was against mine, his familiar scent. I knew as soon as Bevgyah found out he’d taken me down from the shackles, we’d both be in trouble. I shouldn’t have touched him. I shouldn’t have looked at him. I definitely shouldn’t have kissed him. And I shouldn’t have been in his arms at that very moment.
He ducked into his own suite and set me down on the edge of his bed, glancing around the space with wild eyes.
“I don’t know where to take you.” He ran his fingers through his hair, leaving it wild around his horns and over his shoulders.
I tried to sit up straight, but my whole body ached, and I slumped over, losing my fight against the pain. He was there in an instant, warm hands helping me lay down at the foot of his bed where I curled in on myself. A moment later he was covering me with a blanket.
“I have to get you out of the Unseelie Court.”
I don’t know when I started, but I was crying again, squeezing my knees to my chest. I just wanted to die. It seemed so much easier than this life I was living, that I didn’t seem to have any other escape from.
The bed moved, and then the blanket before he tucked himself against me. I was too tired and broken to push him away, and even if I could, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. If there was one person in this place that I wanted near me, it was him, but I still couldn’t understand why. What was it about him that was so comforting? So familiar?
“I failed to protect you.” His voice was soft beside my ear, smoothing over the rough shards of my nerves. “I’m sorry.” His voice caught with anguish.
I turned toward him, not realizing how close my face would be to his. I swallowed hard as I gazed into his silver eyes, desperate to ignore the need boiling inside me to close the distance between our lips.
“Why are you helping me? She’ll punish you again. Why would you do it knowing that?” I took a shuddering breath, squeezing my eyes shut to focus my thoughts. “She’ll hurt you. Why does she hurt you?”
His fingers slipped through my hair. I craved his touch, pressing my face against the palm of his hand. I felt like I wasn’t close enough to him as I turned and wrapped my arms around his chest and nuzzled into his neck.
“I need you to remember,” he whispered into my hair. “Because I can’t...”
He tightened around me, and I glanced up at him. His face was pinched with pain, his breath shallow. I pushed back; fearful I’d hurt him. After an agonizing moment, he pulled himself up, leaving me cold where he’d just been lying beside me.
“I won’t be able to go with you,” he said as he started looking for something in his wardrobe. “It’s the only way. I’ll have someone else take you away from here.”
As much as I wanted to stay wrapped in a blanket at the foot of his bed, I struggled to my feet and stumbled toward him. I didn’t make it far before he turned to catch me from falling over my own clumsy feet. He drew me against him, tucking my head under his chin, strong arms wrapping around me.
“I’m sorry I don’t remember,” I said with a quiver in my voice.
“It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault. Please. It’s my—” He stiffened and stepped back from me. “Fuck.” His eyes went wide. “She’s here.”
The hair rose on the back of my neck as he pushed me toward the door that led into his bathroom. Once inside, he clutched both my shoulders, glaring at me with glowing silver eyes.
“I need you to stay in here. Please. No matter what I say or what she does.” He was turning away before I could protest.
I was about to push out of his bathroom after him when Bevgyah barged in, and I had a dreadful view of her fury from the bathroom door left ajar. It made me burn with anger the way shetreated him. Really, the way she treated all of her “precious pets” as objects with which she could do whatever she wished. I clutched the doorknob with more force than I’d intended as she struck him across the face, throwing his head to the side.
“Where is she?” she shrieked. “Where have you taken her?”
Bevgyah’s eyes were wild as she looked around his room, holding on the blanket at the foot of his bed a little longer than I liked.
“Who are you looking—”
