I open my eyes just as he’s about to descend on me. “I’m sorry, Kel.” And then I’m falling. Sheets and pillows tumble around me. With a jolt, I sit up.
I’m in a dark room, my chambers in the Spring Realm. My skin is still feverish and, without Kel’s touch, the ache in my body returns. And strangely enough, my dress is still ripped, panties gone. My core throbs, the scent of pine still lingering over me. But I wasn’t really there, was I?
Something blooms in my chest, light and sparkly. A shadow moves in the corner of my room. For a moment, I wonder if somehow Kel came here with me.
“Farron?” I ask breathily.
“No.” The darkness wavers, then the Prince of Thorns staggers out of the shadows.
35
Rosalina
“What are you doing here?” I gasp, pulling my ripped dress over my exposed breast.
Caspian doesn’t reply. He only staggers and grips on to the bed’s banister as if it’s the only thing keeping him upright. The loose strands of dark hair shadowing his face make him look utterly disheveled. He wears an oversized tunic, laces undone to show most of his chest, and tight breeches. And curiously, no shoes.
“What are you doing here?” I ask again, still fighting for control of my voice. The incessant heat refuses to leave even without Kel’s presence.
“I—” His voice is a broken rasp, and in the shadows, I can’t see the flecks of purple in his eyes. They’re only black.
“I’m not giving back your book,” I spit.
A low, dangerous laugh echoes from him. “I’m not here for the book.”
What is he here for then? I think of Kel’s sword, tucked protectively under my bed. Does he know it’s here? Blood pounds so fast in my ears I can’t hear my own thoughts. Caspian pushes himself off the bed post and the mattress sinks as he crawls on top of it.
As he crawls on to my bed.
I scramble back, hitting the headboard, drawing my knees up to my chest. “If you’re here for the payment of your bargain, remember I get to choose when and where.”
He laughs darkly. Then a thorn wraps around my ankle and drags me down until I’m flat on my back, legs spread, ripped dress awry. He places a hand on either side of my head. “So, choose now.”
Choose me, he purrs inside my mind.
I blink up at him, the soft full lips, thickly lashed eyes, all fixed in an utterly desperate expression.
“Caspian,” I whisper.
The effect of his name on my lips, travels through him like a current. His hands tighten into fists in the blanket.
He dips his head, lips traveling to my neck. A sharp jolt of pain courses through me as he presses his tongue into the mark Kel made. “Fulfill your bargain, Rosalina.”
“Not yet,” I say, but the words are only a breath. A half-formed thought.
I could use the thorns to push him away. I could reach out through my bond for Farron. I could call for help.
But I don’t.
Instead, I stay still. I let him crawl over me. Let him put his hand on my face and smooth the hair back.
Because it soothes this ache inside me. Because despite everything, I realize with sickening horror, I want the Prince of Thorns to touch me. Maybe a dark part of me has wanted this since I first saw him in the garden of Castletree.
His teeth nip the space right above Kel’s mark, and I squirm with the sensation. His breath is warm as he brings his face right in front of mine.
If he kisses me right now, I’m not sure I’ll stop him. I’m not sure I want to.
The thought ignites me with anger, and I growl, “I have a mate.”
His eyelids flutter, and a devastatingly handsome smile spreads on his face. “I know you do.”
36
Caspian
Her lips are parted, brown eyes wide, cheeks red as roses. If I kissed her right now, she wouldn’t stop me.
Thorns wrap around my ankles, curling up the rest of my body. Her chest heaves in deep breaths of air, and maybe it’s my cruel imagination, but when the thorns and shadows drag me back to the Below, I almost see a flicker of disappointment on her gorgeous features.
My magic isn’t as precise as it used to be, and I arrive in a Cryptgarden corridor close to my room. A heat courses through my body, every muscle as achy as when I woke up an hour ago in sweat-soaked sheets.
Coarse laughter sounds from down the hall, and a fae sentry flanked by two goblins rounds the corner. Aldridge Menzies, one of my mother’s favorites. Though she doesn’t actually have favorites … Moreso, he’s one of her more tolerated sentries.