Page 38 of House of Gilded Nightmares

“I don’t know,” he says quietly, shaking his head.

“My magic seems…out of control.” Another shiver works over me. “Is there something wrong with it? With me?” I’d never been normal, not my whole life. And now, even here in the place of my birth, it’s the same.

Zyren looks down a moment and then up at me, his silver eyes locking onto mine. “No, Sarielle. It just means that you are very, very special.”

We stare at each other for several long moments. The aura of his shadows flares wider as if stretching toward me. And within, my magic answers that call, a faint golden glow moving along my skin. I take a step toward him, needing to be closer, a crushing desire to feel that flame and darkness merge with mine.

When Zyren speaks, his words are hard and clipped. “You need to go back to bed, Sarielle. Now.”

Another step forward. “I don’t think I should leave you right now.”

A muscle in Zyren’s jaw pulses. “I am your guardian. I protect you. You don’t need to worry about me.”

Something dark and dangerous swims in my core, that same rebel who risked everything to escape to the valley with Lilette, that reckless part within me that fought Zyren so hard the first few days in Valaron. “And what if I do?”

I take another step, closing the last bit of distance between us. I still feel heat between my legs where Zyren straddled me in his bed. Something inside me craves that contact, that closeness. I hadn’t known I did until it happened, but now, I can’t just shove it aside. It’s far too strong a feeling, a wild beast inside that won’t be silent.

“Sarielle…” Zyren says, voice laced with warning.

I’m so close that his words rumble against my skin. My nipples harden, pricking against my nightgown. He notices, and a low growl rises through his chest, a sound of frustration and longing. Pure instinct drives me, as if my brave dream-self has taken over. She’d wanted Zyren from the beginning. I remember how she’d reached up and run her finger over his lips. Zyren’s eyes flare as the thought moves through my mind. Somehow, he sees it, too.

I lean forward until my lips are hovering just an inch over his. I drink in his breath, ragged and unsteady. I taste his shadows in the air between us, heat and lightning and velvet mixed. A roll of thunder shakes the sky overhead, and the wind whips down around us even stronger than before. I shiver, partly from the sudden sound, partly from the cold, and mostly because of this unbearable feeling building inside me.

It’s the shiver that breaks him.

Zyren wraps one arm around my back, the other sliding into my hair as he crushes me into him. It is not ungentle, but there’s an intensity to it that electrifies the air as our magic collides, golden glow and shadows merging. His lips press into mine, tongue probing my mouth as if he’s tasting me, just as I tasted him a moment before. Soft and slow and tantalizing, sending a spike of pleasure from my collarbone to my core.

The entire hard length of his body presses into me, and everywhere his skin touches mine, it feels like a storm breaking. Tension and heat and magic and sweet chaos. We drink of each other like this kiss is all there is, like there is no mountain, no throne, and no future. Everything exists in this moment, this magic.

My free hand, the one that’s not trapped in the curve of Zyren’s embrace, reaches tentatively around to his back. I run my fingers up the hard muscle there, in wonder at the feel of his body, at the rush of sparks between us, skin to skin. His wings of shadow unfurl, the same ones he used the day we met. Another growl moves through his chest, vibrating against me. He pulls me tighter against him and my magic flares even brighter, light and dark pouring off us into the sky.

That’s when Zyren pulls back. He shakes his head as if trying to clear it, placing one large hand over my heart.

“Sarielle,” he says, his voice rough and broken.

I lean into him, but he straightens, putting more space between us.

“We can’t…” He looks down, then, with visible effort, brings his eyes to mine. I’ve never seen them burn this bright. “I can’t. I’ve taken vows to protect you. And this is…not that.”

I shake my head. “You can do both. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.”

His jaw rolls. “You don’t understand…I have to protect you, even if that means protecting you from myself.”

“Zyren, no,” I begin. “That doesn’t—”

“That’s the way it has to be.” His tone turns hard and cold. “This cannot be. We each have vows to uphold. There can be nothing between us. Not now. Not ever.”

He picks me up, scooping me into his arms, and he strides from the mountaintop, down the stairs, and back through the garden. When he arrives in my room, he deposits me onto my bed without so much as a glance.

And then he walks away, leaving me alone in the darkness with nothing but the fading sensation of his lips against mine.

Interlude

The girl had always been able to remember her dreams and nightmares in vivid detail. She’d been surprised to learn the other girls did not share this same ability…it was yet another thing that set them apart, that made her an outcast.

So, on the night the dark stranger first appeared in her dreams, she knew something unusual was happening.

He did not interact with her, and he wasn’t like anything she’d dreamed before. Of that, she was quite sure. He seemed merely to watch her from afar, sticking to the shadows at the edges of her dreamscapes, never coming close.

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