Page 30 of Sanctuary with Kings

Cool fingers slipped under my palms, and I jolted but didn't release myself. Claws skimmed against my skin, not scratching, just wedging themselves against my cheeks, a gentle force pulling my hands away.

It was Laszlo, not Conall, staring down at me, solemn and quiet as ever. The sight of him took my breath away, silenced my scream in an instant. He was gilded and beautiful, every hair and feather capturing the sunlight. He gathered my tense hands and pressed them down into my lap before reaching up once more. His thumbs pressed to my cheekbones and then stroked down firmly, loosening my jaw and leaving my lips parted. They moved up to my forehead, circling over the spot, spreading down to my temples, over my jaw again. One determined and careful touch at a time, he erased the strain of my forced smiling, a wordless treatment. I swallowed as he stroked down from my jaw and over my throat. He extended his fingers, keeping his claws away, finding muscles I'd forgotten and soothing them calm again.

My breathing was still ragged, still recovering from the clog and scratch of the smoke in the nightmare, and Laszlo seemed unnaturally still by comparison, a bronze statue of a man. His heavy wings were a gleaming backdrop, blocking out the room and the mirror. He smelled like tea and something clean and sweet. I wanted to arch into him, but he was sapping me of all the tension and strength that had seized me from the dream, his hands now circling and dragging down my arms.

My lips shut, not torn and chapped but smooth at last, and his eyes stared down at my lap as he massaged my hands out of their painful claw.

"Laszlo," I rasped.

"I brought you the wax for Hywel's scales," he said.

It'd been a few days since Laszlo and I had discussed Hywel. A few days of racing around the castle with Conall until I was sore and breathless, sharply alive and desperate for touch, wrestling the man down into the grass with me, grappling at muscle and skin, biting my moans off around his shoulder and throat. We took dinner with Laszlo, and Conall continued to tease the gryphon as he pawed and petted me in front of the fire.

I hadn't fallen asleep in front of them again, but Conall never followed me to my bed at night. I considered issuing the invitation the first night, after our wild union in the meadow, but I'd lost the nerve. The game of chase stirred me up enough to take what I craved, but the quiet of evening left me too self-conscious.

And the nightmares came back. Old details and memories warped by the vulnerability of an unconscious mind, my time in Birsha's cage resurfacing with precise horror.

Laszlo reached up to my face again and I flinched instinctively, but he didn't retreat, just slid his claws into my hair. My breath caught and my eyes slid shut as he combed through my strands.

"I haven't visited him recently," I murmured.

"A few days is nothing to a sleeping dragon," Laszlo answered softly. "The werewolf's strength isn't sticking to you."

My eyes flashed open, startled at the idea that Laszlo could read so much,knewso much. But he was right, and I shook my head slowly. "The nightmares seem to…unravel it all over night."

That first afternoon, I'd assumed the pleasure Conall and I had found together would surge through me, that I would start to catch up with my deprivation at last. Instead, I had dreamt of cuffs around my wrists and ankles that seemed to tighten endlessly, cutting through my flesh and bone, down into my soul. I'd woken drained and exhausted.

Laszlo hummed, fingers twisting at the nape of my neck, untangling a few strands. His presence in my bedroom was both startling and soothing. Conall was all flesh and feeling, flirtatious and energetic. Even Asterion was steady and tangible. Laszlo was touching me now, but his gaze left me studied under a glass, his caresses as intellectual as they were comforting.

"I'll visit Hywel today," I said, although there was a tension in the way Laszlo spoke of his slumbering lover that left me uncertain as to what he really wanted me to do.

Laszlo just leaned back, wings shifting to reveal a large porcelain jar sitting on the bed by my calves. "Hywel never has nightmares."

I puffed out a breath, my brow furrowing as I muttered under my breath. "Lucky him."

Laszlo echoed my puff, made it sound more elegant than I had managed, and slid off the bed, heading for the door. "Give him some suggestions. He might share his dreams with you."

* * *

Hywel was stretchedout on his side, one front leg extended out of the cave entrance, his belly displayed, softly pink and streaked with white. His long tail was stretched around the cavern, a few tables of treasures now knocked over, gold spilling over carpets.

He liked being touched here. My cheeks were flushed andnéktarwas heavy in the air, and there was a leathery seam near his hind quarters, where twin cock heads were parting the fold, threatening to emerge. The seam had been almost invisible when I started my work, but it'd grown swollen over the hours of me rubbing my hands and cloth over the dragon's long stomach. I was curious—the tip of one cock was the size of myhead—but it was crossing a line that didn't feel right either for Laszlo's or Hywel's sakes to go and investigate further.

Instead, I kept my eyes forward on the pattern of the longer, smoother scales, and spoke to the dragon.

"I remember a party I attended. It was midsummer in Dublin. The fae attended, wearing the most absurd attempts at glamours. But the mead was rich that year, and there were only a few of us who noticed their presence. I ended up spread out in a fairy ring outside of the city." My breath caught as the dragon rumbled in drowsy approval. "Mm, yes. Hands and mouth and everything else full. Every inch of me kissed. I was chased out of town the next afternoon, but I couldn't walk straight, and…"

I laughed, but the sound hiccuped in my strangling throat. My legs were weak, but it wasn't from the sweet memory. I sank to my knees, the waxed cloth dragging over scales, my cheeks pressing to the heat of Hywel's chest.

"I did fight him. For years," I whispered, eyes welling, recalling the sting of the smoke in my nightmare. "Sometimes decades. I escaped…briefly. I beat my palms bloody against doors and screamed until I couldn't speak for weeks."

Hywel was sleeping, silent now, his chest nudging against my shoulder as he breathed. But it was a relief to speak. Laszlo told me I should offer Hywel suggestions, but instead I found myself confessing. I turned my head, let his scale burn against my lips as I spoke, the words barbed, biting and scratching as they were pulled up from my chest.

"The truth is, I also spent days or weeks or years or decades trying to please them. Smiling. Smiling through every horrible moment, every bite and scratch and bruise. There were better meals. A softer bed. If I could hide how much I hated them, how sick I made myself smiling…it helped a little."

Except it hadn't really, it'd just been a change in the torment. Better accommodations, hating myself more. A meal with flavor that I threw up more often than not.

"I managed once for more than forty years. I stole a dinner knife, and I kept it hidden for six years, wondering if I would be brave enough to use it. On myself. On one of them." The more I spoke, the easier the words flowed. "And then…there was a girl who needed it more than me. Who wouldn't have survived another visit from her client. She killed him, and I was so…sojealous," I hissed, digging my fingers into a seam between scales. "So proud too."

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