Page 49 of The Darkness Within Us

Damn it all.

I hadn’t realized these lessons would change things. I didn’t think he’d want to share stories with me or joke with me or elicit heavy silences.

He needs to stop. I need him cold and distant and detestable. Enough sharing and pretending to care. We are to remain just as unreachable to each other as we are when seated at opposite ends of this table.

AS USUAL,ITRY TOfollow Eryx after dinner. I wait five beats after he disappears from the doors. Less time than I usually give him before following.

My slippers are silent on the carpeted floor, an added benefit I hadn’t considered when selecting the depth of the plush.

Just as I leave the dining room, Eryx’s figure disappears around a corner. I tiptoe to the edge of the hallway and peek around it.

He’s vanished.

Thinking he must have taken the stairs more quickly than I anticipated, I hurry toward the staircase and bolt up the first flight before pausing and listening.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

I suspect he knows I’m trying to learn where he’s sleeping. He takes such care to ensure I can’t follow him wherever it is he lays his head at night. I wander the halls aimlessly, hoping to catch a whiff of him, even though I know it’s useless. He’s onto me, and that is terribly upsetting.

I end up in the library, scanning the shelves, thinking to select something to take my mind off the infuriating man living in my manor.

Those amber eyes flash into my vision, and instead of heading straight for the fiction, I detour to the nonfiction. History has never interested me. Why should it? It’s always about men stealing each other’s kingdoms or killing each other. Men doing great deeds. Men going on adventures. I’m sick of men having the spotlight. The history of women is barely recorded, which is why I retreat to fiction, where we’re finally given our due.

Though I suppose Alessandra will make a grand appearance in the history books for generations to come.

I don’t know why I bother to browse through the titles on the history of Naxos or look through volumes on different kingdoms of the world. What exactly do I expect to find? Something telling me why Eryx’s eyes glow amber when he’s incensed? Even as something so unnatural is presented before me, my mind still tries to find a rational answer.

Perhaps there are people in other parts of the world who haveamber eyes. I haven’t been anywhere except Naxos. My knowledge is limited.

The hour grows late as I flip through page after page, index after index, with no results. My head slumps against my forearm as I lay down on a settee with my current selection. I feel my eyes start to drift, but I’m far too comfortable to move…

IKNOWI’M DREAMINGbecause I’m standing in an impossible landscape. The floor is made up of clouds. Candles float above my head with nothing to suspend them. I hear the soothing sound of rushing water, but there’s none to be found. In fact, the only object I can see is the bed. Not a bed, exactly, but a mattress laid on the floor, draped with sheets and blankets. I watch them rise and fall with the deep breathing of whoever is sleeping there.

Because it’s a dream, I don’t experience any fear, only curiosity. I tread over to the bed, until I can see the head resting on the pillow.

It’s Eryx, and yet, not Eryx.

His messy hair is even more tangled than usual in sleep. His skin looks darker when he lies underneath a white down comforter. He appears more like a boy than a man like this, resting with impossibly long lashes against his cheek.

And then… there are the horns.

Two of them protrude from just above his forehead and angle toward the back of his head, reaching maybe four inches in length and coming to sharp tips. They’re black at the roots, slowly turning a deep purple at the tips. They’re not reminiscent of any animal I’ve seen before, so I haven’t the faintest idea from where my mind conjured them.

Because this is my dream and I can do what I want, I approach the sleeping figure, kneel on the floor, lace my fingers through his hair, andtrail them along his scalp. The motion lifts a section of hair, revealing the shape of an unusually pointed ear, before my hand snags on a tangle, and amber wolf eyes shoot open. When they catch sight of me, Eryx rolls away, nearly landing himself on the cloud floor.

Instantly the fluffy white tufts turn to darkest black, and I hear the sound of thunder, see the flash of lightning beneath my feet. The floating candles sputter in a sudden breeze that I can’t feel on my skin, but I can still see Eryx perfectly.

“Have you ever even seen a hairbrush before?” I ask him, undaunted by the transformation the scenery has taken. “Truly it’s astonishing how messy that mop on your head gets.”

Eryx sits up, the blankets falling from his shoulders, revealing a hardened chest that is most definitelynotboyish.

“What—what are you doing here?” he asks, looking around as though he can’t believe where we are. When he opens his mouth to speak, I note his canines are longer than usual.

“Me? This is my dream. You’re the interloper here. Now even sleep isn’t a respite from you? You really can’t leave me be, can you?”

I sit on the bed, where he has warmed the space with his own body heat, and lay myself out in the spot now unoccupied. The sheets are comfortable, though the mattress is harder than I’m used to. I close my eyes, hoping I’ll fall into a deeper sleep without company or even dreams. I could really use a true break from everything.

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