a phantom. But either way...
Doomed.
A humorless laugh escaped. Suddenly, I understood why my mother had taken me to Milo’s father so often. The potion had provided a barrier. A mystical barrier I could have re-created if Milo hadn’t burned the warlock’s journals.
Another pain in my head. —Isn’t this nice? The barrier has thinned so much, we can speak.—
A woman’s smug voice whispered through my mind. Shocking, yes. But the real head-scratcher? The mental invasion hadn’t felt odd, but rather astonishingly familiar, as if the speaker had been there all along, just waiting for the perfect time to surprise me.
“Leonora?” I whispered.
—The one and only. And oh, how wonderful it feels to be heard by you. So many times I’ve wanted, no, needed to complain about your behavior. You’re ruining my life.—
Her life? Hers?
If she said more, I missed it. Images were forming in my mind, colors flaring behind my eyes. Then a memory of the past consumed me utterly...
* * *
I lounged in bed with Craven, naked but for the ring he’d gifted to me as a show of our great love. My body lay draped over his, his warm breath fanning the top of my head as I traced circles over his heart.
A heart he’d ceded to me.
We’d been a couple for months, but we’d had so many fights. We were unable to agree about the smallest things. But that wasn’t my fault. I was training him to be what I needed him to be—fully devoted to my pleasure.
Training for anything required hard work and dedication. That was just a fact. The end result would make it all worth it, however.
Now I had to turn my efforts to teaching him to put my needs before his family’s. Earlier today, I’d heard his horrid mother advising him to wed an elven princess and keep me as his mistress. So of course his mother would be dying by sunset. Anyone who threatened my happiness lost their breathing privileges. I planned to wed Craven. Me. I was his fated, the one made for him, and no one else was allowed to have him.
My fairy tale guaranteed he would be mine forevermore.
I would take his name and the title that came with it. Queen Leonora. I would bear his children. The things he made me feel...everything I’d ever craved. I couldn’t live without him, not ever again, and I wasn’t going to try.
As he toyed with a lock of my red hair, I relaxed against him. He would never do as his mother asked and cast me out. He would wed me—nothing else was acceptable. “Craven,” I breathed.
“Yes, Nora.”
I loved the nickname he’d given me. But...had he sounded strained? “Do you love me?”
“You know I do.”
See. Mine. I lifted my head to meet his sleepy gaze. “Why haven’t you offered me the ceremonial marriage bracelet?” I had a surprise for him as soon as he did. I’d found a dragon egg I planned to share with him. “Don’t you want to cement our bond?”
“I do,” he said, voice tight, “but sometimes what we want isn’t what we need. There is something wrong with us, witch, and I don’t know how to fix it.”
At “I do,” I grinned. Then his next words registered, and cold invaded my limbs. “You contradict yourself. Be clearer.”
He rested the side of his hand against the top of his nose, with his thumb pressed against one eye and his index finger pressed against the other. “Time with you is both ecstasy and torment. The strain...it cripples me in so many ways. I cannot live like this much longer, feeling as if I’m being ripped apart from the inside. War has always been my life. Inside these walls, I desire peace. That isn’t something you can give me.”
What! “But I can. Just give me a chance to be what you need, Craven. You must give me a chance.” He couldn’t discard me. I was fated to be his.
“Calm isn’t in your nature. That is why...in the morning, I’m going to send you home. Your people may continue to reside at the base of my mountain.”
Horror, fear, and fury collided, setting off a chain reaction inside me. Stiffening spine. The burn of fire in my hands. Ice rushing through my veins.
He was going to heed his mother’s advice and cast me out. Did he plan to wed the princess, too?
I snarled the way I imagined a dragon would, fire magic threatening to spark. Containing it, barely, I spit a curse at