Page 25 of Forgotten Queen

I sensed Cole tense rather than saw it. I expected him to clam up, but apparently, Cole was in an uncharacteristically sharing mood. Maybe he’d finally realized all the secrets had a way of backfiring. “I shouldn’t have told you that.”

Or not.

“But you did,” I insisted. “You can’t unring that bell, Cole. I have a right to know.” I wasn’t going to be kept in the dark again.

“And I have a right to lock you up and make sure you never move an inch without my knowing,” Cole growled.

I resisted the urge to point out he’d already threatened to do that and was only holding back because I was currently obediently sleeping.

“Can’t you give me any answers?” I pushed.

The silence was endless.

“Youweremy queen, and it left us with a link.”

I opened my mouth to ask a hundred more questions, but he cut me off with a sigh that was so uncharacteristic I had to glance up and see if he’d somehow aged eighty years.

“Don’t make me say more than that, Avery. Spare me that cruelty.”

And then the dream was over.

I rolled to the side. Cole was asleep, or had been, on the pillow next to me. His breathing shifted as his eyes flicked open.

We didn’t talk about the dream. I wanted answers, but something in me ached at the thought of hurting him by making him explain. Whatever it was, it was clearly beyond painful for him to discuss.

That didn’t mean I was going to give up on answers. No. It just meant I’d need to find someone else to give them to me.

If I thought one little nap was all it would take for Cole to let me out of bed, I was sorely mistaken. He didn’t actually make good on his threat to carry me to the bathroom, but on the rare occasion I was allowed to leave the bed, he stayed close enough to make me blush.

His presence was constant. Food appeared in the room—he never left to request it or bring anything back. No one came to visit either. I eventually demanded he at least give me something to read, and a mountain of books was suddenly piled up next to the bed. It reminded me of the books I’d stolen from the library back in the previous castle. I kind of felt bad I’d never actually returned them to the library, but then again, it had just been me, Cole, and a hundred petrified creatures that had no use for the books.

We passed the time reading, often in companionable silence. Sometimes Cole sprawled out on the bed, propped up as he watched over me from the edge of a thick book, but he often took the chair next to the bed instead.

I liked it better when he was in the bed. But I never actually invited him up.

The dreams were present too. I wanted to avoid sleeping, to avoid seeing him there. It felt somehow even more intimate, and I was unable to confront the way I’d spoken to him for years in them. Each one took place in a different spot. Yet each was a location in Hell, of that I grew more certain. Always unique, but the red sky often followed us. If I wanted to be allowed to leave, I needed to rest. I’d had bruises on my neck after what Maddox did, which healed quickly but not fast enough for Cole’s taste. He’d spent a lot of time staring at my throat until they healed. The rest of my injuries also healed, though no healer ever visited when I was awake.

It was over four days before Cole unleashed me on the palace.

Chapter XIII

Exitleft,downthehall, then go down one floor and take the first right.

Those were Cole’s directions to find Daphne.

The morning he cleared me, I nearly took off in a sprint. I’d commandeered a shirt from Cole that fell to the middle of my thighs. Throughout the four days, he’d denied my requests for clothing, claiming to need to inspect the bruises as they healed on my sides. For all the healing I’d magically done after Xander ripped me apart, my fight with Maddox had wrecked my side again.

When I’d put the shirt on, I’d expected Cole to tease me. Maybe a comment that at least this time I’d asked before taking it.

Instead, he’d given me a look that said I might wind up back in bed for a very different reason.

The tension between us was palpable. Against my better judgment, I continued to lust after Cole. He had a body that made you think of sex, that made your toes curl, and a confidence that let you know he could deliver. The few times we’d tapped into that tension, the results had been explosive.

I mean, I wasn’t exactly experienced. It could totally be the fact he was the only guy I’d kissed.

But I doubted that. I suspected even if I’d had sex with a hundred guys, Cole would still blow them all out of the water.

Too bad I had no intention of finding out.

---