Page 47 of The Vampire Castle in the Sky

“You were dead.”

“It was just a dream.” He searched for my eyes, a line of worry carving between his brows. “Wasn’t it?”

I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t remember falling asleep. I remembered coming into the bedroom, breathless and shaken from my encounter with Tieran, and running to the bathroom to remove my jewelry so I could splash my face and neck with cold water. Then I’d slumped on the bed with my dress still on, throwing a forearm over my eyes. A tingling sensation had crept over my skin, spider-thin prickles spreading from the base of my spine to the roots of my hair. And before the nightmare had closed over me, I’d felt the familiar pull of my magic, a tug coming straight from the core of my soul.

What if this hadn’t been a dream?

What if it were a vision?

I jolted back, my body breaking out in fresh chills. “Hector… I have this terrible feeling,” I choked out, and even the sound of my voice was eerie in my ears. “He’s here. I can feel him. I can feel him watching us.”

Hector’s dark brows drew closer, twin shadows unraveling over his cheeks. “Who?”

“Death.”

If Hector shared my fear, he did not show it. His face in the pale morning light looked weary but unyielding. He curled a hand around my nape and pulled my face to his. “The Castle protects me, and I protect you,” he said with implacable certainty. “You know I won’t let anyone hurt you, right?”

Yes. Yes, the Castle would never let anything bad happen to Hector. He was going to be fine. We were all going to be fine.

I repeated the words in my head, surrendering my body to his arms. Even within his infinite warmth, this cold, deathlike feeling refused to lift off me. It kept on slithering under my skin, draining my veins of blood and filling them with ice.

Carefully, Hector took my hand in his, his expression darkening. “What happened here?” he asked, passing his thumb over my bruised knuckles.

“I punched Tieran in the face,” I admitted shamefully.

“What did he do?” he demanded.

“Nothing, he just startled me in the hallway,” I reassured him, and when the murder in his face didn’t budge, I pressed him into more urgent matters. “Hector, they know we’re not physically intimate.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“We can smell that sort of thing.”

More confusion swept through me. “Yet they don’t question our marriage?”

“They think I married you because you’re a human,” he explained. “There’s been a lot of commotion ever since Mother died.”

“You mean that cult in Elora?”

Hector shook his head grimly. “The King of Elora stated that if we violate any of our treaties going forward, there will be no further negotiations between us. There will be war. The vampire sovereign marrying a human is a declaration of peace at this point.”

Such news always arrived late to the Faraway North, for our little kingdom was a universe of its own, eternally swathed in layers of mystery and magic. Even maps of Thaloria tended to be unreliable, as the land constantly changed. Still, I was shocked by the amount of things I didn’t know about Hector’s life. I could see now that his world, much like Thaloria, had existed nextto mine vaguely and mystically, belonging more to myth than reality.

Hector squeezed my hand gently, drawing my attention. “Are you okay, Thea? Did Tieran say something to upset you?”

“I think I was the one who upset him. During dinner.”

“Ah,” he understood.

“The way I reacted… I insulted him, didn’t I? I must have looked appalled.”

“It’s my fault. I should have warned you about them.” He released a long breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. “My head is all over the place.”

“How is Camilla allowed to do this to him?”

Hector’s whole body tensed at the mere mention of Camilla, the muscles of his throat narrowing. “Because she’s his creator.”

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