Page 59 of Hidden Kingdoms

“You can tell me about them… if you want. It might help?”

I couldn’t meet his eyes. “Not now.”

Maybe not ever.

He squeezed back in reply, and again I reached up to stroke the pendant that was actually sitting in a bowl in my bathroom back home. My heart fell as I thought about home.

“What are you missing?” he asked, watching as my fingers rubbed small circles over the place the pink gem had sat for ten years.

“Missing?”

“Aside from the obvious; home, family, and that huge beast you let sleep in your bed. What is it you keep reaching for?”

I laughed. “His name is Titan.”

“Titan. A fitting name,” he answered, lip quirking at one side.

“I found him as a puppy in the woods, and he followed me home. He was so small I could hold him in one hand, but he was such a character I knew he needed a big name. Then the dog didn’t stop growing.” I smiled at the memory of puppy Titan and how he seemed to double in size every night.

“Dog, huh?” Kaius smiled at me like I was somehow missing the joke.

“What about this?” His finger reached forward and pressed the spot my fingers were held against.

“Oh.” My forehead creased, and I let my hand fall away. “It’s just a habit. My Nanna gave me a necklace for my eighteenthbirthday. She told me never to take it off, but it broke the night you and Big Man took me.

“And the nightmares,” he asked cautiously. “Do they come every night?”

I was unsure how much to tell him. Would it give him something he could use against me? When you’re trapped in a strange place with no way home, a girl’s got to be careful.

“Not ones like this. They started the night you stole me. That was the first real one. I was trapped then, too.” It had been him and Bastian who had freed me from that first nightmare when The Darkness found me.

“Before that, they were never as clear.As real.” I could almost hear the roar of the flames that had consumed me. “Just flashes of things that would continue for hours.”

His face furrowed by some inner conflict I didn’t understand before he reached for the pendant that laid on his muscular chest. Pulling it over his head, his eyes never left my face as he held it tight before looping the chain over my neck, the emerald settling low on my chest. I ran my fingers over the perfectly cut gem, feeling the slight pulse of energy that was held within.

“It will help. With the dreams.”

“Thank you,” I breathed. I could see it hadn’t been easy for him to hand it over, and it didn’t feel right to press him over it.

Kaius pulled me against him, wrapping me in his arms as I settled into him, legs resting across his and sighing as my magik hummed at the contact of our skin, soaking in the feeling of being held by him.

I shouldn’t feel like this. I should be running in the opposite direction to the man who had stolen me in the night and taken me as prisoner.

But I didn’t, and I was confused as hell about that.

Kaius’ arms loosened as he pulled back and moved from under my legs, and on instinct I grabbed his shoulders to stop him.

“Where are you going?” Surprise lit his eyes as his feet hit the floor.

“I’m just getting the blanket.” I hid my breath of relief as he crouched down to pick up the cover, a playful smirk on his lips as he looked up at me.

“I take it blue’s not your favourite colour?” he asked as his large, tattooed hand rested lightly above my knee, my skin burning under his touch as he slid it a few inches, and my core tightened in anticipation.

Blue?I tried to think over the need that was silently begging his hand to travel higher, energy zapping through me, desperate to find his.

“What? No, it’s not.” I didn’t understand where he was going with this conversation, but I very much enjoyed looking down and seeing him between my legs.

He held up the hand that wasn’t currently making its torturous way up my thigh, scraps of blue lace hooked over his long finger, a cocky smile on his face.

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