Page 206 of The Nightmare Bride
Atop the stairs. Down the hall. Up the spiral staircase to the tower. Toward our rooms, and then we burst into Amryssa’s, where Kyven pinned her to the bed. I ripped the manacles from the drawer and snapped them in place. Plucked my keyring from my pocket. Locked everything tight.
A few cranks of the chains later, it was done.
I swayed on my feet, my bones like hot jelly. I tried to take a step but couldn’t, too lost over the horizon of my own relief. “I’m sorry, Am,” I warbled. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Her gray-green eyes held mine, two shining pleas in a pallid face.
“Now you,” Kyven said behind me.
I almost laughed. Me? Who cared about me?
Everything melted. The wallpaper broke into heaving towers of insects. Thoughts pricked at me—angry hornets, stinging, stinging, stinging.Nothing. Worthless. Empty.
“Harlowe,” Kyven hollered. “Come on.”
I turned to him, and...oh. No claws, this time. No, this time, he shone.
“Now.” He pulled me toward the door.
In my room, he heaved me onto the bed and snatched the keyring from my slackening fingers. The house rattled and wobbled and tried to crunch me in its jaws. Shadows unfurled from the ceiling, venomous worms that sought my skin and wriggled through.
My eyes rolled as slimy darkness coursed beneath my skin. Something clicked around my wrists, then my ankles.
Manacles. But...how? I couldn’t have made it on my own.
Kyven cranked my chains and climbed atop me, caging my face with calloused fingers.
I blinked up at him, forcing myself steady. Something ruptured inside my chest, a gush of molten fear.
Oh, goddess. I’d have to watch him die. He’d just saved me—again—and now he would end himself right in front of me. “Go,” I said, knowing it was already too late. Shit, why had I told him I hated him? He’d die believing that. “There aren’t enough chains here for us both.”
He ran a thumb over the arch of my cheek. “Then it’s a very good thing I don’t need any.”
His words landed in my ears and sat there, nonsensical. I searched his face for proof of the lie, but...there was nothing. No wince, no gritting of the teeth, no throaty convulsion as he swallowed back horror.
He just gazed at me, clear-eyed, the blue no longer that of ice or frost, but of a wide warm sea on a windless day.
“Impossible,” I croaked. A scream tried to splatter out, but I gulped it back.
“It’s not. Lioness, listen to me.” His touch anchored me, even while the world battered itself to pieces around us. “The nightmare can only take you if you let it. So just...listen to my voice. Feel me against you. Nothing else matters. Only me, and I’m not leaving you.”
My eyes darted. Behind him, the wallpaper bulged and broke open. Dozens of insectile arms thrust through the gap, a many-limbed monster hissing my name, promising to nibble me down to limp, wet strings.
“Harlowe.”
My attention jerked back to Kyven.
“What is it?” he said. “That you see? What does the nightmare tell you?”
The answer boiled up from somewhere deep. “That I’m worthless. Nothing. Insignificant.”
“That’s not true,” he said. “Youknowthat, don’t you? Because if so, the storm can’t have you. But you can’t just believe you’re worthy, you have to know it. Like I know it. Like Amryssa knows it. Maybe your imbecile parents didn’t, but what they did would’ve crushed a lesser woman. Only you didn’t break, because queens never do. Queens are ironclad, remember?”
“But...” I battled for air. The nightmare fought to pry my fingers loose from the anchor-line of his gaze. “I’m no queen. Just a lowly princess.”
He blinked, then laughed, the sound so unexpected that it infused me with a dose of control.
“That’s my girl,” he said, stroking my cheeks, my hair. “My eight-week wife. What’s your name?”
