“That you would even speak his name,” he hissed in my ear.

No. No. No—

Fangs tore into my skin, sending a jolt coursing through my entire being.

I screamed the word now, and it came from the depths of my being. It cut up my throat and split my mouth but I heard only the sounds of his muffled moans as he drew harder and deeper on the wound. His mouth moved. His body shifted under mine, and…oh, gods, I could feel him—

“Liessa.” A voice of shadows and velvet pierced the golden cage.

I would know that voice anywhere.

“Ash,” I rasped, his name calming my heart and soothing my throat as my voice returned.

The bars before me disintegrated, and the chests and divan shattered into dust. The arms fell away from me, and the gown vanished…

“Wake up, Sera. Please.”

My eyes flew open with a jolt. I gulped in air. In the soft glow of the bedside table lamp, I saw silver streaked with eather, not gold-flecked eyes.

“It’s okay.” Ash was above me, a lock of chestnut hair hanging forward and brushing his jaw. “You had a nightmare.”

Just a nightmare? It hadn’t felt that way. I could still taste the fear and desperation in the back of my aching throat. Could he pick up on my emotions in dreams? Gods, that was an idiotic question. Of course, he could. I was probably projecting all over the bedchamber. And if I hadn’t been, I could’ve said something. My throat felt like I’d screamed.

Screamed—

Panic exploded, dousing my body in suffocating, red-hot flames. I opened my mouth, but only a thin, wheezing sound parted my lips. I needed air. Space. Anything. I jerked up, nearly knocking my head into Ash’s. A fist had my heart in its grip. My lungs clenched as my legs tangled in the blanket—

“Sera.” Ash caught my shoulders, stopping me from toppling off the bed. “Look at me.”

I strained against his hold, attempting to stand. “I can’t…get air…in.”

“I know, liessa. I’m going to help you. I just need you to look at me,” he said. “Please.”

My gaze flew to his.

His hands went to my cheeks, the feel of them cool against my too-hot skin. “Listen to me. You can breathe. You’re just breathing too fast. Understand?”

I nodded as my hands spasmed.

Ash smiled. “Remember what I taught you before? Close your mouth and put your tongue against the back of your teeth. Yes. Just like that.” His smile grew like a warm wind on a fall day. “Now, I need you to exhale nice and slow for the count of four. Can you do that?”

I nodded again, doing as he instructed.

“That’s it.” His eyes never left mine. “Now, you’re going to inhale for four seconds. I’ll count them. One. Two. Three. Four. Exhale now.”

Ash kept counting, lifting his chin on an inhale and lowering it on an exhale. His patience didn’t waver as the seconds turned to minutes. He stayed with me until my breathing slowed, and I was no longer gasping like a fish out of water.

Ash’s thumbs swept across my chin. “How are you feeling?”

“Okay,” I croaked, my face hot despite his cool touch. As my heart rate slowed, embarrassment rose. I closed my eyes. “I’m so—”

“Do not apologize for that.” Shifting, he pulled me between his legs and held me to his chest. “Do not ever apologize for that. You have no reason to, nor any reason to feel embarrassment.”

I pressed my cheek to his chest, not so sure about that. “I’m a Primal,” I whispered hoarsely.

“A newly Ascended Primal.”

“I’m still a grown-ass woman,” I countered.

Ash’s hand folded around the back of my head. “I don’t think age has anything to do with it.”

It should, because…seriously. How was I supposed to be the Queen of the Gods when a dumb nightmare could send me into a panic spiral? And why was I even having that nightmare? Again? It was…uncalled for.

I felt like a mess.

A hot, nauseous mess.

But I still relaxed into Ash’s embrace, letting the coolness of his body beat back the flush in mine. I didn’t know how much time passed before Ash tilted his head and pressed a kiss to my temple.

“You want to talk about it?” he asked.

Tension crept into my muscles. “Talk about what?”

He smoothed a hand down my back. “What you were dreaming about.”

I closed my eyes even tighter, seeing bursts of white stars, but I still saw what I had in my dream. A gilded cage full of gold and…Kolis.

I just need to hold you.

Throat drying, I pulled back. My hands dropped to my lap as my gaze fell on the balcony doors. The curtains were drawn open, revealing the dark night sky beyond. “I don’t remember what I was dreaming about.”

“Not a single detail?”

“No.” I forced a shrug. “Probably because it was nothing.”

“Nothing,” he whispered, watching me in a way that made it seem like he could see straight through me.

I nodded as I lay back down. “We should go back to sleep,” I said, pulling the blanket up. “Morning will be here soon.”

Ash didn’t respond, and he didn’t move as I rolled onto my side. After a few moments, I heard a click as he turned off the bedside lamp, plunging the chamber into darkness. The bed shifted as he reclined behind me, curling his arm around my waist. His lips brushed my shoulder, and then he settled. The tension didn’t leave his body, though.

It didn’t leave mine either as I stared into the darkness. Because I knew.

He didn’t believe me.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I forced myself to finish the buttery scrambled eggs while Ash wrote in the Book of the Dead.

I had no appetite.

Which was weird because I was always hungry. But there was this strange, metallic, almost sour taste in my mouth.

I picked up the glass of juice as I peeked over at Ash’s bowed head. He hadn’t spoken much this morning, not even to ask me where I had disappeared to when I went out onto the Rise. I assumed his trip to Vathi consumed his thoughts. He’d be leaving soon, and when he got back, we planned to go to the Thyia Plains to speak with Keella. His quietness wasn’t because of the night terror that had awakened us both in the middle of the night.

I hated that the nightmare had come after such a wonderful day. It felt as if it had tainted yesterday’s success. And I hated myself even more for feeling as if the reception of our public address was somehow lessened because of it.

I shoved another forkful of eggs into my mouth and chewed as I scanned his office. Being back here was strange when I hadn’t thought I would ever see the space again. It had changed. Though not a lot. There were two chairs in front of his desk, where only one had been before. An end table made of the same dark wood with hints of red as his desk had been placed to my right.

I glanced at Ash. Plans for additional insulas that Rhain had dropped off a little bit ago lay on the corner of the desktop.

Swallowing a sigh, I shifted my attention to the table before me. Beside my plate were two and a half glasses, strawberries, a cutting board, and a knife.

It was a very odd combination of things.

Ash had put the ledgers there, instructing me to move them around, open them, and turn pages without touching or tearing them. It was I who had brought in the other items. And the other half of one of the glasses was in pieces in the trash bin.

I had no idea why moving a glass without breaking it was so hard when I had harnessed the eather to free myself and Ash before I Ascended and could use it to restore life to an entire Court.

According to Ash, it was because I was thinking about it too much when it didn’t come to, well, situations where I wasn’t angry or excited about something. I was complicating it and not letting it come naturally.

“Your thought is your will,” he’d said.