Page 68 of Beyond Those Gilded Walls

I lingered in his arms for a moment longer before stepping back and wiping at my eyes. Regardless of what he said, I did still need to do this. Emyl did not deserve to die, not like this. “How long do we have?”

“Long enough for you to bathe and change if you wish.”

“I have no other clothes here,” I pointed out. “Do you really want to waste time going back to my room?”

The wide grin on his face was foreign to me. Part wicked, part pure joy. “Now that you know the truth, there are much easier ways to get around.”

Pieces fell into place as his implication became clear. Every muscle in my body clenched and I watched the smile fall slowly from his face as I shook my head. “No. That place is my nightmares, Tallon. It is not somewhere I would willingly go.”

“I do not know why you’ve been able to cross into the Beyond in your nightmares, but I promise you…” He paused, taking both my hands in his. “Iswearto you, nothing will hurt you in the Beyond when you are with me.”

I shook my head again. “I won’t.”

He squeezed my hand. “Then we won’t. Do you want me to go get you clean clothes?”

“No,” I sighed. The longer we waited, the more my nerves concocted every possible way this could go wrong and I could fail again. “I want to end this. Now.”

Another chuckle rumbled from his throat and he pulled me flush against him, every inch of his body pressed against mine. “Odyssa,thiswill never end. Whatever happens here, I have found you, and I am not letting you go.”

“I thought you said no one could make me do anything I didn’t want to do.”

“Are you saying youwantto leave me?” He leaned down, breath brushing over my lips. “Because then I will have to call you a liar.”

“Tallon,” I warned, though the word came out far breathier than I intended.

His eyes flashed silver. “Don’t. Do not say my name like that, my wolf.”

“Why not?”

“It makes me want to find out how you taste, with your thighs wrapped around my head.”

I swallowed hard, feeling the wave of heat melt through my body. Gathering all my willpower, I rocked up on my toes to press a quick kiss against his lips before pulling out of his arms entirely and stepping a healthy distance away. “We have work to do,Tallon.” I ignored the way his eyes narrowed at me. “You made me a bargain; it’s time to uphold it.”

“Then we should be going.”

It was nearlylaughable how little resistance met us along the path to Prince Eadric’s study. Unlike before when I’d attempted myself, the one guard we passed merely nodded at Tallon before turning his focus elsewhere. The ease with which we infiltrated the room stoked the anger in my belly as we entered the prince’s quarters, snaking up the spiral stair and following another hallway until Tallon pushed open a heavy door.

The study was as everything else in the castle: a shrine to opulence and wealth. It only made my steps falter for a moment, though, and then I was crossing the plush rug, rich black and woven with intricate patterns in bright blues and deep purples and vibrant reds. The desk in the center of the room was clearly the focal point, made of heavy wood and laden with piles of papers and stacks of books I doubted the prince had ever opened.

My focus was entirely on that desk.

In this room, if the treatment was here as Tallon believed, it would be here, in this testament to Eadric’s self-importance. My hands hovered over the scattered paperwork, eyes searching for anything that could resemble medicine, though I had no idea what I was truly looking for. It was then I realized Tallon had not passed the threshold and was watching on with a pinched expression.

My blood ran cold. “What is it? Why aren’t you helping?”

He grimaced. “I…I cannot help you further. My bargain with the prince won’t allow it.”

The room spun as my heart pounded in my ears. I curled my hands into fists and took a slow breath through my nose. “We will work around it then. Can you tell me what I am looking for, at least?”

“A vial,” he said, gritting his teeth. He stepped back into the threshold and immediately relaxed. “I will stand guard, but you must be the one to look for it.”

Expressing the irritation prickling beneath my skin at the bargain’s limitations would only delay us further, so I bit my tongue and nodded, turning my attention back to the desk. I picked up a pile of papers, only to freeze and look up at Tallon with wide eyes. “Will he notice if something is out of place?”

“Unlikely.”

At his assertion, I resumed my search with tenacity, shoving aside papers and pulling open drawers. Tallon had said Eadric would be away from his study, but given how the castle bent to the prince’s will, I doubted our luck would hold for long. The quicker I could find the treatment, the quicker we could leave. Setting the papers back to rights as best I could, I dug through the drawers next, finding nothing but gold and silver coins tossed haphazardly atop crumpled papers and random pieces of jewelry.

The pressure in the room shifted and I looked up, expecting Tallon to have moved closer to me. But he was still standing in the doorway, and I watched as Tallon’s eyes widened the split second before I felt someone step up behind me. I froze in place, slowly pulling my hands away from the desk and straightening.

---