Page 30 of Lady of the Nightmares

One of his long incisors pricked my lip, and I’d only just had a moment to register that I was bleeding when, without warning, the air seemed to thicken and come alive, thrumming with electricity.

My stomach lurched as I felt myself ripped away from reality. The darkness swallowed me, my footing unsteady in the void of nothingness.

Then, all at once, it was as if I’d awoken to find myself crushed under the weight of a thousand bricks. Light pierced through my closed eyelids, and shock rocked my body as I fell headfirst into something hard and unyielding.

I jerked as a pair of callused hands came up to grip my arms, steadying me. “What the fuck?” a familiar voice barked, harsh and violent. “What’s wrong?”

The smell of freshly cut pine trees and a smoky fireplace surrounded me, and I nearly collapsed into the unnatural heat of that aroma.

I opened my eyes and felt my pulse quicken as his sparking silver gaze locked onto me like moonlight on the darkest night. I blinked blurry eyes, my exhausted mind unable to reconcile the angry outcry with that panicked gaze.

“Lonnie?” Scion’s voice was far away. “What is it? Did rebels attack?”

Not rebels, no. Far, far worse than that.

While I might not trust Scion, might not care for him on the best of days and hated him on every other, he had to know—Bael wanted him to know, and I couldn’t even comprehend why he might not be able to deliver the news himself.

Distantly, I heard the chaotic sounds of screaming mingled with what I thought must be the roar of a great beast, yet I couldn’t focus. Couldn’t find the will to turn around.

I forced my mouth to open. “Afflicted.The afflicted are coming.”

And it’s my fault.

12

SCION

THE OBSIDIAN PALACE, THE CITY OF EVERLAST

“Get out.”

The healer jumped as if I’d struck him and scrambled away from where Lonnie lay asleep on my bed, as immobile as she’d been for the last day or so. He wrung his hands in the fabric of his midnight-blue tailcoat, quaking as he took slow steps backward toward the door. “But, Lord—”

“I said get the fuck out!”

The male didn’t need to be told again. He abandoned his bag and instruments and sprinted out of the tower, the door banging shut behind him with an echoing clang.

I let out an aggravated sigh. I had not killed by mistake for many years, but I’d just come dangerously close. Shadows were already leaking out of my fingers, filling the room with an unnatural darkness despite the light streaming through the large window.

I couldn’t quite explain where the surge of rage had come from—the healer hadn’t been doing anything more than touching her—but all too fast, my entire body was trembling, throwing all my thoughts into disarray.

It had been the same when Gwydion tried to help, and I had no fucking idea why.

Heaving a sigh, I took a seat in the chair beside the bed and stared down at the delicate face of the sleeping woman, conflict warring in my mind.

I can’t kill her right now, anyway,I reminded myself.There’s still time to decide what to do.

The door creaked open again behind me, and I stiffened, twisting in my chair, ready to murder whichever servant or guard had been fucking stupid enough to interrupt my brooding. However, my anger drained at the sight of the female in the doorway. “I’m not in the mood, Aine.”

“I take it things are going well?” my cousin asked, a hint of dark amusement in her voice.

I glowered at her. “What gave you that impression?”

“Even if I hadn’t seen that healer go sprinting out of here, I would have been able to hear you shouting from practically anywhere in the castle.”

“Leave if it bothers you,” I snapped.

She made no move to retreat, instead coming further into the room. She came and stood beside the bed and looked down at Lonnie. “She really hasn’t moved?”

---