Chapter 19

She was sleeping in my cloak. I froze at the foot of her bed, concealed in a veil of shadow, and stared at the beautiful woman curled up in bed, her hands tucked under her chin, eyes hidden behind a sleep mask with ducks embroidered all over it. She slept in my cloak. In the feathered cloak I conjured and draped around her shoulders. She was sleeping in it. I tried not to read too much into that and failed.

Her lips were parted, visible in the soft moonlight sifting through the curtains, her skin like alabaster in its glow. When a soft, fearful cry left her mouth, I rushed across the distance, my blood running cold.

"Hush, little bride," I soothed, sitting on the bed beside her, indulging the need to touch her, running my fingers over her hair. "I'll watch over you while you sleep. Nightmare won't get anywhere near your dreams."

She made another of those breathy, frightened noises that stabbed right through my ribs into my heart—dead but still beating thanks to the half-life I had as a god. Still beating and now hers.

"My beautiful wife," I murmured, stroking her hair and relieved when she settled. "I vanquished Nightmare once, and I will do it again. You have my word and my promise."

I smoothed the wrinkle in her forehead with my thumb and cast off the last tendrils of shadow and smoke concealing me when she sighed, a sound of peace and relief. A sound that told me, deep down in her soul, she felt safe with me. Because she knew me, because she recognised my presence from when we met three years ago? Or simply because Nightmare had bound her to me, and the curse compelled her to feel so?

"We'll solve this problem, Cat, you'll see." I feathered a kiss over her forehead and, drunk on the taste of her skin, the peaches and cream scent of her filling my lungs, I lavished more feather-light kisses across her face, even the places hidden by the duck-embroidered mask she wore.

My lungs were so full of her scent I knew I'd never get it out. It was the same with the amber and sandalwood of Tor's scent, the violets and fresh snow of Misery's. They were mine as I was theirs, and I would stop at nothing to keep them safe.

Nightmare was the clear threat, but there were others. Her cult of mindlessly violent followers. And whichever disciple had conducted the ritual that brought her back—a hopeful who wished to join her cult. I'd find them all eventually, but would it before Miz or Cat were harmed? Both were burdened by what they'd been through at the hands of Nightmare, and I knew Nightmare's tactics well enough to know she'd take advantage of their trauma.

"But I won't let her," I promised my wife softly, brushing a stand of white hair from her beautiful face. "I would die before I let her touch you."

Her sleep seemed more restful now, and pride that I'd given her that made my chest swell. I stayed beside her all through the night, indulging in gentle touches and butterfly kisses, letting her presence wrap around me like an embrace until I knew I would find her anywhere, hear her voice no matter where I was.

"You are in my blood and bones, little bride," I told her as the sun began to rise. She'd turned towards me in her sleep, her hands still folded under her chin, her mouth parted. I bowed over her to brush a kiss to those tempting lips and whispered, "I'll be back tonight."

I'd watch over her every night until I knew Nightmare was vanquished again.

I forced myself to rise, to cloak myself in shadow and smoke again, but I only left her room when I'd procured breakfast for my wife from the banquet downstairs—grapes and strawberries and croissants and cream-filled breads—and withdrew a tulip I'd snipped from my garden, cultivated in the domain of the dead so it would never wither. It was the same violent green as her car and, I hoped, her favourite colour.

I left the offerings on the table opposite her bed and, sensing another shadow of death hovering, desperate for his own time with our wife, I faded into darkness and returned home.

But part of my soul tugged me back, to my bride, to my wife.