Daughter of Night (A Daughter of Nyx novel)

Chapter Twenty

Were her wonderful memories to be tainted as well?

She could feel herself twisting in the bed, curling in on itself in her grief and heartbreak. She was shivering, but then blankets covered her.

The worst dream yet.

The bed dipped and arms circled her, pulling her tight against a body that wasn't torn apart. Lips smoothed over the cold skin of her face. And all she could smell was him. Fresh agony gripped her and she heard him speak, from somewhere in the distance. A word that she desperately wanted to laugh at. Didn't he know she was stuck in a nightmare?

"Sleep"

~~~

When she woke, she ran her hand over the place where he lay. Empty. Like her heart.

She opened her eyes.

Fresh pain hit her and she squeezed her closed. She was in his room. Did Caleb bring her there thinking it would help? No wonder she could smell him in her dreams. She fought the tears and finally won. Sitting up, she eased her legs out of the bed. The room swam and she froze.

She would need to eat. Elliot would say that. Bonding took a lot out of a person.

And she bonded two. Two that were...

Swimming or not, she raced her stomach for the toilet. The pain of dry heaving brought new tears to her eyes and she moved, sitting beside the cold porcelain bowl and leaned against the wall, holding her legs and gave up the fight. After a little while in which she cursed everyone and everything, though mostly herself, she rested her head on her knees and fell back into a dreamless sleep.

Fingers touched her cheek and she kept her eyes closed.

She was in his room, that was the only reason she could breath him so deep into her lungs, his scent surrounded her.

Arms moved her, sliding behind her back and under her legs. She was in the air and she opened her eyes.

Unable to process what she was seeing, her hands traced a face that was as familiar as her own. Light brown eyes that met hers and a smile touching the corner of his mouth.

"Why would you choose the cold floor over a warm bed?"

His words... He to be real because her fingertips felt his lips move.

"You're alive."

"A fact I thought you would be aware of as I lay beside you."

"That was real?"

He set her on the edge of the bed and knelt, looking up at her face.

"Yes, Chevonne. Your villain is alive and real. Perhaps I should have known that you thought it a dream. Why did you feed him when you were already weak?"

"You die... You could have died for him. And I thought I lost you." He held her fingertips to his lips. "If you died for him, he had to be important."

"But you are important to me as well, Chevonne. You, yourself, could have died."

He couldn't see that to her that really didn't matter. He didn't know about her revelation. He was there, in front of her and that was all that mattered.

"I didn't."

"Caleb is angry that you didn't tell him that you bonded. He thought the blood he smelled in the library was from when I took it from you."

"Caleb drove off and let you and Nikolas alone."

"He was following orders."

"I don't care."