Chapter9
A warm beam of sunlight hit her facerousing her from sleep. She was bordering on too warm, under severallayers of heavy blankets. Gyllian kept her eyes closed, assessingher surroundings before reacting too much. She was in a bed, not herown, and someone's arm was around her. She was naked, the male bodypressed to her back was clothed, sort of, sweatpants maybe, no shirt.
What had happened last night? Shetried to think through the events as slowly as possible, buteverything after pulling Elora into the water was a blur, messy andfragmented or non-existent. She felt groggy but good, like she'deaten a whole pizza to herself and drank a whole bottle of wine orseveral. The heavy, satisfied sleep of someone who'd over indulgedthe night before. Oh gods... Gylly kept her eyes closedtight and tried to pull herself carefully from the grip of the malebehind her. He was warm at least, breathing. It wasn't a corpse inbed with her. Shit. Elora was okay, she remembered someonetelling her she'd gotten Elora out, that she was safe. Fuck. Who hadshe fed off of then? And how much? The male's grip on her tightenedas she tried to move. Shit, shit, shit.
"Hey..." His voice wasgroggy, sleepy but concerned, worried. "How are you feeling? Areyou okay?"
Gyllian froze. It was Finn. She wasin his bed, naked, with his arm around her, her back pressed to hischest. She tried to swallow the panic that was slowly building. "What... what happened?"
His breath was warm on the back of herneck. "You were kind of a mess after everything, so when we gotback here, I put you in bed to get you warm, but didn't want to leaveyou alone, sorry if I overstepped a little, but I was worried aboutyou."
"Elora...?"
"She's fine. Leo has her wrapped insilk and feathers. She asked me to thank you."
"I didn't hurt her did I?"
"No. Leo got her away from youpretty quickly."
The weight on her chest lightened abit. "Then who did I...?"
"Me. You fed on me."
What?! Gyllian twisted around. Helooked the same as he always did. His eyes were still closed, hismessy dark hair mussed around his face. He wasn't any worse forwear, however much she'd fed off of him, it didn't seem to haveaffected him any. He was fine...
His eye not obscured by pillow crackedopen and his hand caressed her cheek. "I can't be compelled. Nota talent I brag about, for obvious reasons, but I certainly enjoyedyou having your way with me regardless." A small smile creptacross his lips, and he started to pull hers to them.
She didn't even try and grabsomething to cover herself as she shoved away from him and raced toher own room.
♫
Jess felt like the world's worstmonster. He'd been on Gyllian's balcony reinforcing the locks onthe doors since clearly they were lacking after what happened toElora. For the first time he wished he'd listened to her weeks agoabout changing them, never occurred to him that while the King wantedLeo, he might use his own daughter as leverage. He was hoping tosurprise Gyllian with his initiative, and had started with herbalcony doors, which he'd left open when she came barreling intoher room sobbing. Laughing, fine, angry okay, he knew how to dealwith those, crying... he had no idea what to do. So he'd hid onthe balcony like an idiot rather than face her. He'd hopped thatshe would either fall asleep since it was still pretty early or leaveagain so he could sneak out without her noticing; instead she'dcalled her friend to come over while she got dressed.
