Chapter 23: Sleeping in His Bed

The storm broke as the gates of Ravaryn Keep closed behind us.

Thunder boomed so low that it vibrated it shook the stones of the castle. Rain drummed against windows as servants scurried to unpack our belongings, hooded figures flitting through the darkness.

I wrapped my arms around myself, teeth gritted against cold seeping into my very marrow. It was colder than Kael's palace — colder, somehow than death.

Kael was already shouting bitter orders at the steward, his voice cutting through the chaos like a blade.

I retreated, half-concealed behind the carriage, observing him with a tightness in my chest. He was utterly at home here. Fierce. Unconquerable.

And I?

I was a simple human girl with a thin cloak over her shoulders, shivering under the sky that seemed to engulf her.

As Kael approached to inspect me, I turned at once away, hoping that he had not noticed the fear on my face.

This way," he growled bluntly.

I climbed behind him up the slick stone stairs, my boots scraping just a little. The second we crossed through the doors into the Keep, I was blasted with the smell of a fire — but one in extremity, heavy on the sharp chemical taste of wood smoke and underlying that something metal, perhaps some whiff of blood.

The corridors were dim and seemingly endless, lit by the dying light of torches. Shadows crept into all the corners. I saw flashes of eyes peering down from elevated balconies — ravenous, ravenous.

We finally reached our rooms, I was chilled to the bone and soaked through.

Kael opened the heavy door and stepped back far enough for me to go in first.

I drew back just outside the door.

There was just one bed.

A massive, gilded monstrosity upholstered in black and red silk, large enough for three or four. But still. Just one.

My stomach knotted itself up.

"I—" I began, then clammed up when I saw the way Kael's lips tightened.

"You're staying here," he said brusquely. "It's the only secure room in the wing. You're not to leave it except with me."

His tone left no room for debate. It was not a request. It was an order.

"But—" I attempted once more, my tone now more and more desperate. "Isn't there. another room?"

A couch? A floor? Something, anything but the bed on which we would now, it appeared, be sharing space?

Kael's red eyes blazed into me. "I would not risk you in a room far away," he snarled at me, his voice low and ominous. "Not here. Not among them."

Them.

The vampires of yore. The ones that gazed upon me as nothing at all.

I bit the inside of my cheek with my teeth hard enough that I could taste blood. I resented that he was correct. Resented more that that part of me wasn't nervous about sharing a bed with him — it was nervous about what it would desire if it did.

Kael dropped his dripping cloak across the arm of a chair and moved to untie the strings of his tunic with economical movement.

I spun away, my cheeks burning. "Where should I."

He indicated the curtained alcove where a screen had been erected. "Change there."

Delighted even for a moment's privacy, I darted behind the screen and tore off my wet clothes, teeth chattering.

A bundle of dry garments had been left for me — soft black linen and a thick woolen nightgown, far finer than anything I’d worn as a human.

I slipped into the nightgown, hugging myself tightly, then emerged hesitantly.

Kael had stripped to black pants and a loosened black shirt, displaying his broad chest lightly scarred and muscled. He was every inch the predator — and every inch the prince.

My own heart jammed uncomfortably in my chest.

Softly, Kael tossed the covers off the enormous bed and slipped into it, occupying plenty of space between me and me.

He was on his back, one arm thrown loosely over the pillow next to him, eyes closed.

Not looking for something.

Not needing something.

Just. Sleep.

And yet, the notion of going to bed with him willingly was like stepping over a line I could never hope to recross.

But the wind was blowing hard outside, making the windows shake in their casements. I caught a glimpse of remote, high-pitched laughter somewhere way down in the Keep — laughter not quite human.

Shivering, I inched across the room and snuggled under the blankets away from Kael as far as I could and pulled the thick blankets up to my chin.

The bed creaked barely at all beneath me. But I was acutely aware of every one of his breaths, the infinitesimal heat radiating off his body.

Moments ticked by, heavy and slow with unspoken restraint.

I gritted my eyes shut and attempted to sleep.

"Scarlett."

His voice was harsh and low, spreading out around me like smoke.

I braced but did not speak.

"You're shaking," he told me.

I had not noticed — but now, now that he pointed it out to me, I was. Small, uncontrollable shivers climbed up and down me, half from cold, half from fear, half from something else.

Nothing for a very considerable interval.

And then, step by step, he advanced.

Not quite against me. Not quite on me. Just. Closer. Close enough that his body heat seeped into the space between us and chased the chill away.

The spasms started to dissolve, going pretty much against my will.

I hated the safe feeling I then had. Disliked the way my body reacted to him, opening to him, cradling in comfort not my own.

Kael spoke again, hardly more than a whisper.

"They would kill you if they could."

My eyes opened, to find him gazing back at me, ruby-colored eyes unfathomable.

"You know that," he said. "Don't you?"

I nodded, too tight in the throat to speak.

His hand shook as if he would take me. He did not. He stood, taut, his heart removed from me, tense muscle coiled like springs on his frame.

"They think you're weak," he told me. "A weakness in my armor."

Thundercrash pounded the windows again.

"But you're not weak, Scarlett."

The way he said my name made it a promise. A secret.

I opened my lips to say something wise before I knew what to say, "Then why do you imprison me?"

His eyes flashed and for a second I thought he'd strike me.

He clenched his jaw and swiveled away from me, closing his eyes.

"Because," he rasped, almost broken, "if I did. I could not let you go."

It was storming outside at its worst.

And it was even worse inside.

I was stuck there, my eyes on the shaking shadows which danced on the ceiling, and my ears attentive to his breath — even, quiet, yet not peaceful.

I had no idea who held the bigger prison.

All I understood was that, for the duration of a single night of that tempest, we were two birds caged.

And God have mercy on me — I didn't want to get out.