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Her reply died as Lucan dug one sharpened nail into the cut half-healed beneath her jaw. A sting pierced her neck as a breathy sigh escaped her pursed lips. Silvery-red welled instantly between them.
Relief flooded through her blood so suddenly, she nearly collapsed into Lucan’s cool embrace. The inferno consuming her marrow receded just enough for her thoughts to untangle.
Goddess, strike me dead!
She hated how much she desperately welcomed Lucan’s cruel touch. No expression flickered across that stony face, veins around his eyes blacker than before. When he finally stepped back, he remained silent.
“I will never be anything like you.” Elarian pressed trembling fingers against the shallow cut.
She wanted another biting remark, another hand at her throat, shadows wrapped around her until her skin bruised and the fevered thoughts inside vanished into bliss. Wounding Lucan came easy to her.
But gods…her eyelids felt as heavy as boulders.
“Rest, elf,” Lucan replied coldly.
“Why? So you might haunt my dreams, too?”
“Is that what you wish for, Elarian?” The distance between them vanished as his breath cooled her cheek. “For me to fill that emptiness you feel between your thighs, to lie to yourself that what you crave is nothing more than a fantasy you cannot control while you slumber?”
Through her rising delirium, Elarian faintly felt the ache growing between her legs, wishing for another taste of whatever delight wrapped in pain Lucan might bring her next.
“Even if I did, I would still wake the next morning and drown my silver in your accursed blood.”
“Even if you did?” Lucan’s hand at her hip dug in further until she squirmed against him.
“N-no,” she said breathlessly. “Th-that’s not…not what I m-meant.”
Laboring for each breath, Elarian swayed against Lucan’s arms. Floating through the raging fires inside, she vaguely felt him release her. Sweat-slick hair plastered to her face, obscuring her vision. Elarian curled onto her side and drifted into that starless night that had haunted her the night before.
Somewhere, a chain rattled. The mattress dipped. Cool fingers brushed a loose strand of silver hair from her face.
She no longer possessed the strength to open her eyes.
“Forever mine,” Lucan whispered against her cheek.
“N-no,” she mumbled as her strength faded. “Only in our dreams.”
The world dissolved into silence. As a feverish sleep claimed her, a shameful part of Elarian found herself hoping Lucan would find her there again. Only in her dreams could she surrender to the forbidden bliss without betraying everything she believed herself to be.
Gods, Lucan would ruin her.
And the most terrifying part was that she no longer knew whether she truly wanted to stop him. Shifting against the cool silken sheets, her lips moved in silence.
Dreams are ours, Lucan.
thirty-two
Realized Dreams
Lucan had always hated the sight of blood.
As a child, when his mother gave birth to his younger brother, he wailed for days after seeing her clutching a bloody, writhing thing to her breast, cooing over it like a blessing. When his sister proudly declared herself a woman after the arrival of her first blood, he turned away to hide his gagging at the thought of her happy to see crimson.
How fitting that, when his god finally deserted him, blood became the very thing to keep him alive.
He now sat in his bed next to Elarian, watching her silvery blood lazily spill from her neck with quiet contentment. It should have been no more than a warning, yet the sigh that slipped from her lips revealed more than words ever could. The heat rolling off her skin eased, and her breaths no longer came in ragged bursts. Who are you? he wished to ask. Elarian unleashed a torrent of emotions he could no longer ignore.
Sex was one thing—anyone could dull the gnawing ache for a few hours. Desire was easy to understand: a need rising inside, a flushed face as whispered words slip from honeyed lips, clothes cast aside without care. Hundreds of names uttered in passionate lust had slipped from his mouth, forgotten again before the next sunrise. Even the twisted love he held for Jace Ataen had curdled into something unrecognizable.
