“There are many stories about what happened to him. That he was burned to total ash by a rogue faction of the rioters. That he dressed up as a servant and somehow escaped. That a servant helped him another way, by invoking a gypsy spell that made him vanish from time altogether.”
Brick hiked both his brows. “Well, there’s some originality.”
“Except that it could be just as true as the other theories.” Jayd underlined her point by sliding a hand beneath his with matching emphasis. She curled her fingers up, meshing their fingers with force that made him double-take. The extra squeeze was already causing her grip to quiver. “The thing everyone does agree on is the ending. He disappeared that day and was never to be heard from again—not even when Napoleon restored the château back to the family’s name.” She paused, concentrating on pulling in a stuttering breath. “He simply never came back.”
Brick started on a rickety inhalation of his own. Never made it all the way in, though. “Jayd—”
“He never came back, Brickham.”
He dragged his free hand across his skull. “Okay, so the moral of the story here is…what?”
“Not applicable.” Her answer was too quick. Too clear. Too dismissive. Too much of a tone he could imagine her using on Carris, not him. Fuck. “There is no moral, Brickham. That is exactly the point.” She let her hand slip free as she scooted back, arranging her pillow against the headboard so she could lean into it. “Sometimes a dream is really just a dream. And you can join the world and its grand stab at purpose, wasting time in picking it apart for meanings that are just not there, or be glad and grateful that you had the dream at all.”
For long seconds, Brick was motionless. Bolted to his spot on the edge of the mattress. More unnerving symbolism, since he again felt like the guy on the fringe of the party, lost about whether the game was charades or spin-the-bottle. Worse, he wasn’t aware of the etiquette. Was there a limit on how many times he could ask the hostess what the hell she was talking about?
But then he paused.
And thought about it.
Then some more.
Shit.
He wasn’t lost about any of this. He was just wishing to be.
Double shit.
Even then, he forced himself to dig even deeper. To fire up his mental jackhammer and push it into the thicker clay of his psyche.
Triple shit.
Not only was he not lost, but he knew exactly where to drop the pin on being found. The one place he never expected to be. The sole destination he’d told this woman, over and over again, to never seek him in.
So…she wasn’t. Despite how the effort was filling her eyes with rain, her voice with mist, and her words with shadows, she was honoring every boundary he had ever set. Every fence he had ever ordered her not to climb.
All the walls that now became all his regrets.
Fuck.
As soon as it tumbled from him as a dismal mutter, Jayd rustled beneath the covers again. But it was only to tuck her hands in, not out. Her shoulders shivered a little, perfectly emulating the nervous tremors in his gut. Just in time to give physical support for the lurch of his heartbeat, a massive wave suddenly crashed along the palais shore.
“Pixie.”
“Hmm?”
Her tone was worse to take than before. Clear and dismissive were replaced by quiet and noncommittal. He thought he’d been tossed in hell when they realized both she and Carris were roaming free through the palais. But there had been an instant plan for that. Detailed actions of what they could do.
But this…
There was no conceivable field of weeds to describe his mind about this.
“What if someone doesn’t want the dream to be over?”
Well, that felt like a terrifying jumping-off point if there was one. Until her soft, bitter chuff filled the air, bringing his instant splat.
“Dreams do not work that way, Brickham. You know that as well as I do.” A new shrug vibrated her shoulders. “They are what they are. They end when they end.”
“But what if…they change?”
He took the leap again, which was no awful than the first. But this time, he added a new factor. The plunging intensity of his gaze. The stare he refused to relinquish until she felt its intensity and raised her own.
When it finally worked, nearly a full minute later, he almost pumped a fist in triumph.
“You mean like when they become nightmares?”
Thank God he’d held back the victory parade.
“No.” He unbolted his ass, ordering himself to slide closer to her. As he reached up, wrapping a hand around hers through the comforter, he clarified, “I mean like when they change. When they become…bigger. When they become…better.”
Jayd shirked his hold by pulling her knees up to her chest and then tucking her hands between them. Brick only grinned. Silly girl. Hadn’t she seen enough proof of his tenacity to know it didn’t exactly work that way with him?
Of course she did. He saw it now, as her chest pumped faster. As a rapid pulse began to drum in her neck. But most especially as she ducked her head again, attaching her stare to the twin hills of her knees.
“Brickham.”
He cupped one of those hills beneath the firm curve of his hand. And then the other. “Yes, sweet girl?”
“You are scaring me.”
“I know.” It was gruff with his sincerity. “Because I’m scared too. I haven’t stopped being scared for the last week.”
She wiggled once more, trying to shake him off. When he persisted his hold, she dropped her head deeper, adamantly shaking her head. “You had buttons pushed,” she retorted. “That is all. You were locked in shackles from the dark ages—”
“No.” He reached in until his fingers bracketed her chin and jaw. With a masterful nudge, he compelled her face back up. He held her gaze with the same don’t-you-dare-brook-me force. “I was petrified from the second you walked away from me at the lagoon.”
He watched, holding his breath, as emotions battled for control of her expression. As he expected, she pulled in breath to start sacking him again, no doubt with his own panic room problem as the perfect lead-off.
But just as fast, she clamped her lips shut. His hope skyrocketed. She was feeling him again. Maybe not everything yet, the way they were bound before, but enough that she knew he wasn’t referencing the tight confines of the grottos around the lagoon.
He was talking about a fear that hadn’t gone away.
A terror that had doubled when he had to think of her falling back into Carris’s captivity.
An anxiety that hadn’t gone away in seven damn days.
She had to see that now too. The same way she always saw straight into him.
As their gazes held, he knew she did. And as tears welled in her eyes, bringing back the lush aqua light in their depths, his heart swelled until it shoved at his lungs. He didn’t care if they were pressed to the size of peas. He’d deal. As long as he had more of her in all the places that mattered…
You feel it too…don’t you, Pixie?
Oh God, how you feel it too.
Say it, princess.
Please say it—and then beg me to stay again.
Because this time, I might say yes.
“Brickham…”
“Yeah?”
“I really think I need to go back to sleep again.”