Page 44 of Beyond Those Gilded Walls

I hit the water.

I was still screamingwhen I awoke, my chest heaving and cold sweat drenching my neck and back. My hand went to my throat as I tried to pull myself out of the nightmare’s grasp. In my periphery, shadows danced in the night, a darker than black darkness in the room. Fingers grazed my side.

Blinking rapidly, I saw my Death marks alive again, pulsing out from my body and peeling away from my skin where they were holding Tallon down against the bed, the tendrils wrapped around his chest and the arm that was reaching for me.

He was watching me, a careful expression on his face. Unlike the others who’d witnessed my marks, he wasn’t looking at them. His eyes never flitted nervously to the sides or down to where they encased his chest and arms. His eyes stayed fixed on my face, steady and sure. That, more than anything, pulled me back into reality.

The nightmare haze slowly cleared from my eyes and I realized what was happening, what I was doing to him. Horror gripped me and I scrambled out of the bed, doubling over and gasping for breath as the shadows retreated onto my skin.

“Odyssa, breathe,” he said, his voice rough from sleep. The sheets rustled as he finally moved. “I am fine, little wolf. You didn’t hurt me.”

The nightmare still left me reeling and my breath eluded me. I shook my head, trying to clear the visions of the icy hellscape, the taste of my own blood, the cold apathy on Rhyon’s face as his hands pushed me over that cliff. It was all too much.

Hands wrapped around my waist and I couldn’t stop the startled noise, but as soon as I started to struggle, the touch became familiar again, warm and strong. The curtains were still pulled tightly, leaving us only a sliver of light to see by. I didn’t struggle as he hauled me onto the bed, keeping my eyes focused on the skin showing at his wrists, studying the marks there as I tried to slow my breathing. But it didn’t work, and I could feel my chest tightening, my vision swimming as I fought against the lingering effects of the nightmare.

“Come here, Odyssa,” he murmured. He shifted us again, and then I was sitting between his legs against the headboard with my back to his chest and his hands wrapped around my ribs, his hands so large they nearly circled the entire way around my torso. “Breathe with me. In and out. Come on now, little wolf; match my breathing. You can do it. You need to breathe.”

It was a struggle to focus enough to even find his breathing to match, but his hands squeezing gently at my sides on each inhale finally guided me to it.

Slowly, my heart no longer felt like it might burst from my chest, but the fading of the feelings the nightmares had left behind were only replaced by the overwhelming warmth at my back as I realized exactly how close Tallon and I were. There was no space between my back and his front, and his legs bracketed my own, his hands consuming my torso and thumbs brushing against the undersides of my breasts.

My tongue felt like it was stuck to the top of my mouth, and no amount of swallowing could take the dryness away. Every minute shift of Tallon behind me had me tensing, not wanting to move. I needed to get up, get away from him. This was worse than merely being seen with him or the others knowing he had bandaged my hand. I should not have stayed here, should not have let my walls down enough to fall asleep in his room, let alone his bed.

Prince Eadric’s right hand, whether he wore his mask or not.

Whatever calm I’d found as the last threads of the nightmare left was gone now, and my heart pounded against my chest, picking up speed.

“How long have you been able to do that?” he murmured against my ear. His hands squeezed at my ribs, feeling me hold my breath. “Breathe, Odyssa.”

I sucked in another breath, trying to keep still yet also pull my body away from his. “Only since I’ve been in the castle.”

“The night you received the letter,” he said, his hands shifting against my sides, sending shivers down my spine. Whatever progress I’d made in extricating myself from him was undone as he adjusted and pulled me somehow even closer than I’d been before. “Was that the first time they swarmed like that?”

I squeezed my eyes closed, trying not to give too much thought to how right he felt at my back. I desperately needed to get myself back under control. It had been a nightmare, and while they were horrific and left me shaking for hours, it was hardly new. I did not need the comfort he offered, but I couldn’t bring myself to refuse and move away from him. “No. There was once before. The second night here.”

“What happened?” His voice was softer than I’d ever heard it, and if I wasn’t able to see the skull mask on the floor, caught in the path of the sliver of light the curtains let in, I might have believed it tender. One of his hands moved from my ribs to settle on my thigh, not moving, just… there.

It made it hard to concentrate.

“What happened, Odyssa? Why did they come out?” he prodded.

I swallowed hard, forcing myself to keep my eyes on the mask instead of how right his hand looked atop my dress. “One of the others, she tried to strike me. They stopped her.”

I felt when he stopped breathing, his fingers digging into my thigh. His voice didn’t rise, or even change really, but there was a hardness that hadn’t been there before when he asked, “Who?”

“It does not matter.” And it didn’t, not really. We were all trying to survive here, and I could not fault Maricara for her feelings.

“It does matter.”

We sat in silence for a time, breathing together. His hand relaxed against my leg, finger by finger. I tried to ignore that I had liked feeling the strength beneath his fingertips as they’d pressed into my skin. Instead, I focused on keeping my breathing even, aware that if I could sense the change in his, he could do the same with mine.

His voice broke the silence a few moments later. “What are your nightmares about, little wolf?”

A slow inhale and exhale gave me time to gather my thoughts. “Most often, they are memories from my sickness. Flashes of myself when I was feverish or the hallucinations it brought.” I shook my head. “I don’t always remember the details, only the feelings.”

He froze behind me, a statue rather than a man, and then he was gently pushing me forward and climbing out of the bed. My back was cold in his absence, and I tried to not think about the frown that had formed without my permission. Shifting back, I pressed into the lingering warmth on the pillows against the headboard and squinted at him as he drew the curtains back and let the early afternoon sun into the room.

The sun cut across him, the dark fabric of his shirt soaking up the light. His eyes stayed firmly on me as he undid the buttons on the cuffs of the shirt and then moved to the one at his neck. My breath hitched in my throat at each button he slipped through the hole and revealed inch by inch of dark ink and tan skin. Neither of us uttered a sound as he finally slipped the shirt from his shoulders, the silk falling to the floor with a whisper.

---