Page 2 of The Night Prince

Perhaps he loathes her so much because he knows, deep down, he’s the same. He wears many masks, too. He hasn’t been given the luxury of losing control. He knows what dark secrets lurk within his soul, but he doesn’t know what lies behind the mask she wears. He thinks it might be magnificent.

She faces him and he steps closer to her. He studies her face, her cheekbones, her blue eyes that peer up at him through thick eyelashes. Fuck, she’s beautiful.

“Are you really here?” he asks.

She frowns. “Of course I’m here.” Her forehead only reaches his chin, yet she manages to speak to him as if he’s smaller. A dazed look flickers over her features. “Are you?”

Footsteps approach the cell door behind her, and he sighs. “You should go. I’d rather you didn’t see this next bit.”

She glances over her shoulder. When she turns her attention to him once more, his damned subconscious has dressed him in a blood-drenched shirt. His feet are bare and dirty, and his breeches are torn.

“Are you hurt?” There’s a hint of concern in her voice, and he adds another thing to the list of things he loathes about her: she sounds like she might actually give a shit.

“Time to wake up, little rabbit.”

“Where are we?” Her eyebrows knit together. “Wherewerewe?”

“If you remember this in the morning, I’ll tell you.”

He grabs her arms, and shuts his eyes. He needs to wake up.

He pushes her into the wall.

They fall into endless darkness once more.

***

Blake’s eyes jolt open.

He’s in his bed at Lowfell, and the crescent moon shines through his window. His heart is pounding. He’s not sure what is more disturbing: the location of his dreams, or Aurora’s presence.

He slides out of the sheets, grabs the breeches and shirt that are folded on his armchair, and pulls them on. He puts on his boots, not bothering to fasten them, and slips out of his chambers.

He pads through his castle. The darkness is almost as thick as it was in the prison. He passes the room he put Aurora and Callum in. Callum is talking in hushed tones, and he feels a twinge of her panic. She has woken as unsettled as him.

When he’s outside, he crosses the small courtyard to the land outside the castle walls. The loch that surrounds Lowfell is as black as the sky, and the mountains on either side of it are shrouded with shadow.

Cold wind ruffling his hair, he delves into woodland, and wanders through the ash trees until a chapel comes into view.

He enters. The gloom is thick within. Fragments of glass crunch beneath his boots as he passes the rotting pewsand makes his way down the aisle. The stained windows once showed the story of Night’s triumph over the Moon Goddess, and how he trapped her within his prison.

He tenses when a flapping sound echoes around the space, but it’s just a bird nesting in the rafters. He pulls himself onto the altar. He lies back on the hard stone, his knees raised, and clasps his hands behind his head.

He stares up at the emblem carved into the stone arch that supports the ceiling.

The door creaks open.

“I thought I heard you walking around.” Jack’s low voice rumbles around the small chapel as he strolls toward him. Blake’s second in command drops onto one of the pews at the front, stretching his legs out and crossing them at the ankles. “Trouble sleeping?”

Blake makes a noncommittal sound before turning his head. Jack’s dreadlocks are tied back from his face, revealing fading bruising around one of his eyes. Callum’s handiwork, no doubt. Jack was responsible for keeping Callum out of the way while Blake persuaded James—the Wolf King—to ask for Aurora’s hand in marriage. His sleeves are rolled up so Blake can see the tattoos curling around his corded forearms. Blake knows what that ink hides.

“She was in my dream.”

Jack releases a soft chuckle. “You shouldn’t have done it, you know.”

Blake sighs. “Probably not.”

Jack runs a hand over his mouth. “There are reports that Night’s acolytes are gathering. Whispers that the Night Prince is creating an army in the Northlands for him to command.”

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