Page 59 of The Nightmare Bride
Kyven looked at me as if I’d grown an extra head, but his shock barely registered. I dove for Amryssa, checking her for injuries. To my relief, she was unharmed, the only blood on her the stuff I’d smeared there myself.
Kyven shook himself, then bundled her into his arms.
“Can you get inside?” he shouted. “Or should I carry you, too?”
A thundercrack rent the air. I bent double, my vision heaving, my blood a blackened oilslick in my veins. Just moments ago, the storm had aided me, but it had already switched sides again. Set its gnashing fangs against my throat.
Kyven moved to help me, but I forced myself upright.
“Don’t worry about me,” I gasped. “Just get her upstairs.”
He nodded and dashed toward the house. I pelted alongside him, hauling open the doors, not bothering to close them again. We streaked through the grand foyer and up the stairs.
Amryssa moaned. “Let me go. Let me out.”
Kyven’s jaw hardened. The nightmare ran hungry claws across my mind, but I stitched my focus to that badge of resolve. To his unwavering steps, to his utter lack of give.
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.”
