Page 131 of The Nightmare Bride
Cold dropped through me. I pelted after them, crashing through the glowing bracken, screaming Amryssa’s name. But it was no use. Nothing answered me but crickets and squelching mud.
They were gone.
I swatted away a curtain of moss and tried to rein in my pulse. What the hell had just happened? Why would Vick possibly want Amryssa?
My thoughts wheeled, then settled abruptly. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out. Vick had the Lady Marche’s diary, after all.
Goddess. The fuckingdiary. I should’ve considered what that meant, because of course Vick-the-would-be-hero would want Amryssa. He’d want to stop the nightmares. Help Oceansgate. Even if it meant wiping my friend from existence.
My stomach shrank to a cold, hard pebble. Shit. Why hadn’t I thought of this earlier?
Burning breaths heaved through my lungs, but I pushed aside my self-recrimination. Time enough to hate myself later. Right now, I needed to think. What would Vick do? Take Amryssa to Zephyrine, no doubt. To the holy tree. But it would take him an hour to bushwhack through the swamp.
Meanwhile, I knew this marsh better than he did. Or I had, ten years ago. Its topography still lay in my mind, like a flower preserved between pages. If I ran the road to the manor, I could beat him. I could cut through the marsh, head straight for the oak, and...
Yes. It would work.
I whirled and rejoined the road again, stopping just long enough to toss an order at Merron. “Go find Olivian. Tell him what happened.”
He just nodded, his expression crumpled.
I took off sprinting. If Vick thought he could take Amryssa from me, if he thought for one second I’d let him give her back to Zephyrine, he’d messed with the wrong damn keymistress.
32.
By the time I hurtled into the drive, my lungs had caught fire. Sweat soaked my dress.
I stumbled to a stop. The swamp beckoned, but I couldn’t just dive in unprepared. Judging by the clouds scudding across the sky, a nightmare was brewing, and I’d need some way to secure myself.
My thoughts spun. I could take the shackles from my armoire, anchor myself to a tree if need be. Because I wouldn’t make the same mistake the Lady Marche had.
I wouldnotdie before reaching Zephyrine and offering up my life for Amryssa’s.
I sprang into motion, tearing open the manor’s doors and racing up the grand staircase. Candlelight shimmered in the hallways, but I encountered no one.
I burst into my room. The doorknob cracked against the wall, but I didn’t spare it a glance. I vaulted toward my armoire, yanking open the bottom drawer, flinging aside scraps of silk in search of my chains.
Behind me, fabric rustled. “Lioness.”
My heart went splat, as if an invisible hand had pitched it against the wall. That smoked-velvet voice. That ludicrous accent. That... What? No. My thoughts fuzzed over, my mind filling with warm white blankness.
I turned, slowly.
All the air left the room. Because there he was, sitting on my bed, as casual as anything, his copper hair falling across his forehead, his starlit eyes searching my face. A plain linen shirt clung to the strong lines of his body. He rested his elbows on his knees, his fingers interlaced.
My pulse restarted, a one-two punch against my sternum.“Kai?”
One side of his mouth slid upward. “Who else?”
“But...” Oh, goddess. Was I dreaming? I had to be. My longing had ballooned to such proportions that it had assumed a solid shape. “Are you really here?”
He glanced down at himself. “It would certainly seem that way.”
“But...what’re you doing?”
He aimed raised eyebrows at the open drawer behind me. “Trying to figure out what you’re searching for so desperately.”
A skeletal laugh rattled out of me. “You... No, I mean... What’re you doinghere? In Oceansgate? You left. To go to Fairmont. Or you were supposed to.”
