The Frozen Prince (The Beast Charmer #2) - Maxym M. Martineau Page 0,54
to pick up a book. For him to come into the library and purposefully dawdle over Gaige’s research… The only plausible solution was that someone had given him a tip. Someone like Quintus, who had allegiances to Darrien before his death. It wouldn’t have surprised me to discover that Darrien had orchestrated Quintus’s death simply to have a man on the inside. To learn how to take me down. Red haze had claimed my senses at the realization, and I’d nearly destroyed the entirety of our library, even with Kost’s attempts at reassurance.
And so, at his urging, I’d left the library and waited for Leena’s return. But with each minute that stretched by, every hour that ate at my patience and invited anger into my veins, the sinister red film took hold. I needed her here.
Where is she? Day had long since bled to night. With the curtains drawn open, the glow of the moon beamed through the glass doors leading to the balcony. White light reflected off the floor and sharpened the shadows curling in my peripheral vision. They were familiar. Cool. But the gashes of red, like wounds slitting through an onyx sky, were becoming more frequent. Bolder. Taunting.
“Noc?” A female voice, so achingly familiar, broke the silence.
I jolted from the bed. This curse was diluting my senses; I hadn’t heard even the slightest hint of footsteps or the ghosting of breath from parted lips. Let alone the steady cadence of a heart. But Leena was home, and I needed to hold her so bad my fingers hurt.
“Leena?” I turned toward the door, and the breath left my lungs.
A woman with wheat-colored hair and golden eyes stared back at me. Motionless, and yet a gentle, invisible air current swirled around her. A faint whisper of movement from the long locks kissing the sides of her hips. A shudder through the soft fabric of her ivory gown. Elegant fingers toyed with the golden belt around her midriff. The motion was so genuine, so lifelike.
“Amira,” I murmured.
Her smile broke me. “Aleksander.”
Noc. That was my name. Aleksander was a dangerous memory. “You’re not real.”
Freckles danced across the bridge of her nose. She didn’t look a day older than when I’d found her dead. Dropping her hands to her sides, she took a careful step forward. “Aren’t I though?”
My pulse thundered in my ears. The rational part of me screamed to wake up. To acknowledge that her presence, likely brought on by the resurgence of my past, signaled a dream. But there was the chill of the tile beneath my bare feet. The electric tinge of adrenaline pumping hard and fast with every breath. She wasn’t real and yet—
She reached out and cupped my face with her hand. Just like she used to. “You’ve been busy.” A flicker of red snaked through her gilded locks, but I didn’t care. Agony and guilt crashed together in my chest.
“You can’t be real.” My words lacked the conviction I wanted them to have.
She trailed her thumb over the scar on my cheek, and that action ushered in guilt of a different kind. Leena. I stepped out of her reach. Leena, I need you. Where are you?
Amira tilted her head to the side. “What’s wrong?”
Endless shadows, angry slices of red and brilliant waves of gold collided together, making it impossible to decipher dream from reality. “You should go.”
“Why?” She placed her hands on her hips.
“Because you don’t belong here. Because you’re not real and—”
A deep bass voice, rich with the hint of something gravelly, sounded behind me. “What about me? Am I not real enough?”
I whipped around, and every fiber of my being solidified into ice. Leaning against the wall with his ankles crossed, wearing his signature crooked smile, stood Bowen. The man I’d met and loved after joining Cruor. Textured auburn hair tangled across his forehead, and he stared at me with eyes so clear the color resembled glass. He swallowed, and the movement drew my stunned gaze right to his throat.
“Bowen?” I didn’t know how I found my voice. I didn’t know how I managed to remain standing.
His grin deepened, and he ran a hand over his bare jaw, full of impish charm. “What are you doing, love?”
Something ripped my heart clean out of my chest. Stabbed it over and over until it was a bloody mess on the floor, eviscerated and near-unrecognizable. My control had slipped from my grasp. I couldn’t cast these visages away.