Wild Lands (Savage Lands #2) - Stacey Marie Brown Page 0,16
all would make sense again. It had to.
I still felt Warwick around me like a ghost, the sense of him brushing against me, his presence even in my imagination, overwhelming and solid.
Let me in. His words whispered through me again.
I snorted, my head shaking. “Hell no,” I muttered. I would do everything in my power to block him.
The only important thing was getting home.
In the distance, I heard the roar of a motorcycle, making me shiver. A chill seeped into my bones, as if a warm blanket had been tugged from my frame, unsettling my stomach.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I turned away and headed back to my cell, ignoring the sense of being off-kilter and floating away without an anchor.
Empty and scared.
It reminded me of the night Warwick left me in the showers after my kills, ripping away the strange comfort he had provided. As if he was the only thing that could secure me or let me drift off into oblivion.
Chapter 5
Killian greeted me right after my breakfast of French toast and fruit. He was distant, his shoulders pinned back, his expression a mask of indifference.
“Come,” he ordered, already pushing past Nyx. I stared after him, taken aback by his icy mood.
“When the fae lord commands you to do something,” Nyx growled at me, grabbing my arm painfully, “you do it.” She yanked me to my feet, roughly thrusting me out into the hallway. “I live for the day I can slice your throat and watch your blood gurgle out as you choke on it.” Nyx’s mouth hummed by my ear, her threat full of abhorrence.
Kicking the back of my heels, she pitched me forward, my feet trying to catch up with Killian’s silhouette down the hall. This was the opposite way we had gone every other morning.
“The lab is the other way.” I thumbed back behind me.
“Thank you, I’m aware.” Killian kept his head forward, his shoulders rolled back. No trace of the intimacy we shared the night before remained. He clearly was pretending it never happened, and I didn’t know if the tightness in my stomach was from lack of sleep or if I felt hurt.
No, it’s lack of sleep. It must be.
I had gone to bed thinking about how I had kissed the leader of the fae, but my dreams were filled instead with intense turquoise eyes and a deadly smile hunting me from the dark.
Nyx kept close to me now but left me uncuffed while we made our way down the corridor, entering another lift and heading up several floors. The silence in the closed box felt stifling, but I kept my lips pinned together as we rose. When the elevator finally came to a stop, Killian strolled out, not even looking at me.
“Move,” Nyx hissed, shoving me forward into an enormous, decadent corridor that dripped with more gold and crystal, naked fairies and shape-shifters painted onto the arched ceilings in suggestive positions and group situations.
Swallowing nervously, I followed behind him. All the doors we passed were closed to my curious eyes.
Finally, he stopped in front of a door, his expression blank as he reached for the doorknob. The door swung open, flooding morning light across the floor and onto my feet. He nodded for me to enter, and I did.
Glass covered almost one entire wall in front of me, large doors opening up onto a balcony. The sun glistened off the Danube and buildings across the river, which warmed the room like a blanket.
My mouth loosened in awe, taking in the room before me, my eyes flinching at the onslaught of beauty. My world had consisted of gray and metal for so long, I couldn’t fully take in the rich colors and soft textures.
The bedroom was larger than the one I had in HDF. The elegant headboard went halfway up the wall, and the massive king-size bed was layered in creamy whites, buttery yellows, and soft blues. All the furniture was modern and simple. Silks, linens, velvets, and cashmere swathed the room, offering a warm invitation that whispered for me to run into its arms.
The girl I’d been a few months ago wouldn’t have even hesitated. Wouldn’t have thought twice about exuberant luxury. This would have felt normal. Familiar. Now I didn’t move.
“Do you not like it?” Killian stepped around me, his hands in his pockets. I was starting to realize he did this when he wanted to come across as composed, but I heard a twinge of doubt in his tone.