He pushes up my skirt and drops his head down between my legs. His lips land on my thigh and I shiver, desperate for him to go higher. “Tell me you want me to stop,” he taunts.
He raises his head. But it’s not Kian’s face anymore. It’s twisted into something else. Something almost unrecognizable—
Wait, no. I know this face.
Dread fills me like water rushing into a cavern. Dark, swirling water and dark, swirling dread. I want to scream but my lungs won’t work. It’s not Kian between my legs.
It’s the beast I tried to bury a long time ago.
If I see his face again, I’ll die. I know I will. I thrash and thrash, but the restraints are back and tighter than ever. That face is looming closer and closer, filling up my whole field of vision, and I try to scream louder but—
“Ma’am?”
I jerk. My eyes fly open with terror. But Kian’s nowhere in sight. But neither is the monster.
It was just a nightmare.
The woman in front of me is staring at me with concern and something else in her eyes, something I can’t quite place. It takes me a few more moments to shake off the disorientation of my dream before I can concentrate on any details about her.
She’s standing next to my bed, wearing a white and black maid’s uniform that’s been pressed to perfection. She’s young, probably around my age, and understatedly attractive. Something about her makes me feel as though she’s purposefully downplayed her looks in an effort to not to be noticed. Her blonde hair is kind of oily and tied back behind her head in an austere bun. Her eyes are a dark blue verging on brown.
“I wouldn’t have woken you,” she apologizes. “But you seemed to be in distress.”
I sit up a little and try to change the position of my arm, but my restraints hold me back.
“Here,” she says, surprising me by removing the restraints altogether with sure fingers. “Let me.”
I frown in shock as she casually rids me of the fucking things. The moment I’m free, I rub my fingers over my aching wrists.
“Are you gonna get in trouble for doing that?”
She smiles. “Not at all. Master Kian told me to remove them.”
“He did?”
“He did.”
She turns her back on me and walks over to the circular side table, on which sits a silver tray. I’m expecting to see a plate full of food. Kian bribing me to eat again. Instead, there’s only a pitcher of water and an empty glass.
The maid pours me a glass and walks back to my bedside. My mouth is parched, but I resist the urge to accept it. After what Rokiades did to me, I’m a little wary of unfamiliar people offering drinks.
“No, thank you.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
She doesn’t try to persuade me to drink like Nessa has spent days doing. She just shrugs, sets the glass on the bedside table, and walks over to the chair in the corner.
I catch sight of something silky draped over the armrest and frown. “What’s that?”
“Master Kian sent it up for you,” she tells me in a soft lilt. “I’m here to help you get dressed.”
“For what?”
“For dinner.”
Making use of my newfound freedom—relatively speaking, of course—I get off the bed and walk over to the chair on shaky legs.