Page 144 of This Vicious Dream

Something I don’t recognize flickers through those eyes, but I get the strange feeling my fear…disappoints him.

Impossible.

He releases me with a sigh, raking a hand through his hair and suddenly…he’s not so terrifying. If anything, he looks bewildered by my reaction.

My heart twists. How often must he see such fear from others? “I was going to go for a walk,” I say. “Would you like to join me?”

His gaze…gentles. “I am afraid I cannot.” He cuts his eyes to the temple behind me, and the sky darkens above us, thick clouds covering the sun.

“Oh.” My cheeks flame, and I wish I could disappear. This man is a god. He is here to visit a goddess. “Of course you cannot.” I force myself to bow my head once more. “Goodbye.”

A warm hand cups my chin, and my heart skips a beat. “I cannottoday,” he says. “But I will have to insist you walk with me another time.”

I’m suddenly speechless, my mouth dry. Calpharos gives me a look that seems almost… fond. And then he’s prowling toward the temple.

The clouds burst, unleashing a torrent of rain.

I stumble dizzily, and Fliora takes my arm, helping me sit. “What are you remembering?”

“They’re not memories. They can’t be. This is some kind of trick.”

But fog is creeping into my mind, and I’m swept up in them once more.

“Anarthys wants to see you.”

Liona’s eyes hold a deep concern, her hands shaking.

My heart leaps into my throat. “What is wrong?”

“I do not know. But I have a deep certainty that you are in grave danger, sister.”

“You cannot believe Anarthys would harm me.” Such a suggestion is blasphemy. And yet…

I have woken several times over the past few nights, my heart pounding at the memory of the poisonous look the goddess gave me last time I saw her.

I cannot understand what I have done to upset her so.

Either way, I cannot deny her my presence.

Liona throws her arms around me in an embrace that is deeply unusual for her. I squeeze her back. “I will be fine. We will eat together tonight.”

“Finally,” Anarthys says when I reach the temple. Yalanda stands beside our goddess, her gaze shifting to the ground.

“You’re dismissed,” Anarthys snaps, and Yalanda walks away, her eyes still carefully averted from mine. “And you,” Anarthys says, stepping close to me as I kneel at her feet. “Cease your pretense at devotion.”

Hurt flashes through me and I dare to meet her eyes. My pretense? I have been devoted to my goddess since I was a small child. Since the moment she informed my parents she would be taking me.

“I do not understand.”

“Do not lie to me. Tell me, how long have you been sneaking away to meet with Calpharos?”

The words are a shock, and I blink. “I have not.”

The dark god. She’s speaking of the dark god. But the one and only time I spoke to him was on the steps of this temple.

“I saw the way he looked at you!”

Hands grab my arms, and I’m dragged to my feet. Guards. In here? Never has the goddess allowed human males into this sacred space before.

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