Finally safe, I lifted my gaze and glared at the white-paneled house ahead of us. It was no longer the nightmare I remembered. It’d burned down a while back. There was nothing more than the bones of what could have been a house rising out of ashes.
“I was so worried,” Rhoan said into my hair as he held me.
Pulling in a shaky breath, I asked, “How did you find me?”
He huffed a laugh, though the sound was strained. “I accessed your contacts and called your friends. You’re all so close, I figured they would know. All I had to do was explain the look on your face for Vanessa to tell me where I could find you.
“So, this is where it happened?”
“Yes,” I ground out.
Rhoan’s fingers traced the scar on my neck. The burning sensation vanished, replaced by the warmth of his touch. I exhaled and leaned into him.
“You’re not the same person you were back then,” he told me.
The man didn’t promise me that he would be there. I think he was realizing that he wasn’t the most reliable man. Instead, he went in another direction.
“There’s no way that monster would be able to hurt you like that anymore. Were he alive, you would overpower him easily. You’ve come into so much power, and you don’t even realize it.Look.”
I was looking, I didn’t…A slow and steady growth had overtaken the ruins of Alvin’s old manor. Greenery climbed over the crumbling frame and tore it down. I flinched at the echo of charred wood hitting the ground.
Rhoan tightened his grip on me and ran a hand along my arm. I felt it then. My arcana leaked out of me and sank into the ground, turning it a bright emerald green. Where my blood had stained the grass, a red-leafed tree sprang to life. It climbed high and reached broad branches towards the sun above.
Before my eyes, the place that’d haunted me turned into a brilliant garden. Vines and bushes unleashed bright blossoms with curling petals. The smell of new life drifted on the air, making me sneeze.
I sighed and felt the tension bleed out of my body. Still, I clenched my fists as fury took place of my fear. The vines tightened around the structure. They crushed what was left until it all came raining down. A cloud of ash erupted, but a swift wind swept through and cleared it all away so that there was only green left.
“It’s all over,” I repeated.
Rhoan made a sound of pride. “That’s my princess.”
My heart tripped over itself. I froze as my body reacted with a flush of warmth and wetness. For a moment, I gaped at myself and the simplicity of the statement that’d drawn such a dramatic response out of me.
I wanted to twist in Rhoan’s arms and push him to the ground before climbing atop him. I wanted to see what kind of garden would spring up around us when I rode him. Instead, I took those thoughts and shoved them away. There was no room for such foolish behavior when he was a knight, and I was his would-be queen.
If I got attached to him and he to me, then it would go up in flames when he learned what I planned to do.
Rhoan
Standing,I extended a hand down to help Cerri back onto her feet. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the wiggling leaves of a blood-red tree. The sight of it made my beast snarl possessively. There was nothing we could do about it. The leaves smelled of Cerri’s blood, but that was long past.
I hadn’t been in her life back then.
I was here now, and all I could do was uphold the promise I’d made early on. No one was allowed to hurt her ever again. I would hold her close and keep her…
If only I couldkeepher. Cerri amazed me. She was strong and determined and yet so soft. When I held her and she leaned into me, my beast had surged forward with a fierce need. The creature had claimed her in ways that I never could. Though Cerri meant everything to me, I needed to remind the beast that there were rules in the way.
Rules that we could not break.
Should I break my vow, I would lose everything.
I couldn’t let her know that, though. If she knew what I had inside me and how it could consume me, then she would never trust me. Our trust was already in a precarious position because of how I’d failed her in the past. She could never find out.
Cerri had caught a glimpse the other night. When Taliesin sent me back to my princess, he’d failed to take my state into account. I’d stumbled into her apartment with my beast tearing through me in a desperate attempt to claim freedom.
She’d taken one look at me and recognized all the signs. The woman had been raised by a shifter pack. It made sense that she could see that I had a beast in me. However, I would never let her know what this creature was made from or how it’d gotten placed in me. That was a secret I would take to my grave.
Had Taliesin defeated Faust? Or was the pookah on the loose? If the pookah assassin with a lust for nightmares was still running around, then I was in trouble. I could call in a favor from Delphine and have her take care of him, but I was sure she would have as much of a problem with him as I did.