Feeling braver than I ever had before, I reached my hand out again, crossing the space between us. I ran the back of my hand down his chest. Beneath the fabric, I felt his muscles. Solid. Strong. Would his bare flesh feel the same? Raphael caught my wrist, pinning it against him.

“You can feel my emotions right now, can’t you?” I asked.

His face was strained. “I think you should sleep, Samara. You’re going to be exhausted tomorrow.”

“Then you can,” I said, ignoring his statement. “If you couldn’t, you’d deny it. If you can feel it, you know,” I said with relief. “I don’t need to tell you.” I didn’t need to admit how desperately I wanted Raphael in that moment. How I’d looked at him over and over, wanting, not even letting myself accept how badly I did.

Now here he was, tantalizingly close. The top of his shirt was unbuttoned, showing an expanse of hard muscle. I tilted my head back at Raphael, who stood right in front of the bed.

The desire brewing inside me was as heady a mixture as the ale. “Won’t you give this to me?”

A low sound shuddered through him. “No, dove. Not like this.”

He stepped back and I stood, stumbling into him. He caught me quickly, arms wrapped around me, steadying. I clung to the lapels of his shirt. “Don’t you want me?” I whimpered. Was I so undesirable, that even tossing myself at this male, he was repulsed?

“Samara…” His thumb stroked the side of my face. “If you tell me you want something with a clear head, anything in my power, it’s yours. But not tonight. Not when you would wake up hating me more than you already do.” He gently guided me back to the bed. My body protested, but I lacked the words to tell him he was wrong. Maybe because I knew he wasn’t. I wouldn’t find this courage again. It wasn’t even real courage, just borrowed from the intoxicating mix of attention and alcohol. A mix that let me look past the fact the one man I’d ever wondered about like this was the king of vampires. That let me ignore the fact I’d be leaving.

Suddenly, I was annoyed at Raphael. It was bad enough I’d trusted him to drink and now made a fool of myself. But what was my reward for being foolish? Shame, and a heated body that didn’t understand the denial.

“Sleep, little dove. Or you’ll regret it all in the morning.”

I harrumphed, crossing my arms over my chest. Then I rolled farther and farther until I reached the edge. Then I grabbed my pillow and rolled off the bed entirely.

“Samara,” Raphael said.

“I’m not sleeping up there,” I said petulantly.

Raphael leaned over the bed, looking down at me. The sight made me giggle. “Because I’m here?” he asked.

“No.”

Even drunk, I expected mockery. What kind of person couldn’t sleep in a bed? “I can’t sleep in this bed.”

He frowned. “I’ll get you another mattress.”

I shook my head. “I can’t sleep in any bed.”

“You slept in one at the cabin,” he pointed out.

True. It had been another world. With my back wrecked, there’d been no other option. And the cabin was different enough that it hadn’t stirred memories with the same viciousness. But here, the halls, the finery… despite being a world apart, it was all too similar. “I was lying in bed when they came. That night.” The night they’d come for Mother. Raphael’s body went still in my periphery, but I was lost to the memory.

“Traitors,” the guards had snarled when they barged through the chamber doors. The same guards I’d known all my life, who had smiled when I passed by. “Ungrateful whore.”

“I did try,” I added quickly, the words stumbling over each other as they left my mouth. “But I couldn’t sleep. Even in Greymere, I was in the habit of hiding myself somewhere different each night. I can’t sleep if I feel exposed.” In a bed, waiting for anyone to come in and grab me. Tears pricked my eyes, hating my weakness. Obviously, Raphael had known I was weak compared to him, but he had no idea just how pathetic I was. And here I was, telling him.

I braced for the revulsion, the derision.

He lifted up, disappearing from view. Leaving? No. Another pillow dropped to the floor, and he pushed it under the bed.

“Then we won’t sleep on the bed,” he announced.

“W-we?” I stammered.

He dropped down, sliding under the bed. The bed was elevated, enough that I could comfortably slip under each night and be hidden by the long, draping bedspread. Raphael, in contrast, filled the space. “Of course. I said I would watch over you, Samara. What would keep you safer than sleeping at my side?”

It was an overreach of logic, the kind of declaration that only made sense because Raphael said it with such arrogance, and the glasses of wine and ale had a way of muddling my mind.

And because I wanted it to be true.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter Thirty-Seven

I was warmer than usual. Eyes squeezed shut, I relished in it. Even though I took a blanket under the bed with me, it was still a bit cold and hard to rest, and I was eager to get out from under the bed each morning. But today, the warmth made it just a bit more comfortable, and I curled deeper under the blanket even as awareness tingled at the edges of my mind. There was the slightest thrumming behind my forehead I wanted to chase away with more sleep.

Except I wasn’t curling into the blanket.

The pulsing pain in my head was the least of the unpleasantness as my eyes snapped open, and I realized I wasn’t alone.

I was with Raphael.

Under my bed, rubbing my backside into him for comfort.

After making an advance on him last night.

And being summarily rebuffed.

Fire gods, if there’s any mercy, just turn me to ash now.

“I’d say good morning, but you know I don’t lie,” Raphael said, quiet laughter accenting the words.

I tried to reply, but all that came out was a groan. I tugged the pillow over my head.

“I feel like something an ogre threw up,” I whimpered. Why in the skies did people drink if in addition to making fools of themselves, they had to remember it and feel physical pain at the reminder?

“That’s to be expected when you try to keep up with Amalthea your first night out.”

“I’m never drinking again,” I vowed. Nothing good came of it.

“At least you tried and found out for yourself, rather than letting fear stop you.”

Right. I got to try drinking. But not the other things I’d attempted. No doubt he felt my shame this morning, beneath the general malaise. At least he was kind enough to pretend otherwise.

Still, Raphael was right. In some small way, I’d conquered my fears. And I’d only done it because I’d known he was there, watching over me.

“Thank you.” My reply was quiet, not just because the pillow muffled me. “And… thank you for staying.” Even if part of me wished he was gone and spared me the indignity of waking up remembering exactly how I’d propositioned the vampire king while waking up next to him.

“Of course, Samara.”

The only thing worse than getting up and facing the day would be lingering in bed, the humiliation of last night hanging over me. I got out from under the bed, pulling the blanket and pillow and fixing them askew on the bed so it would look like I’d been in it. After all these weeks, it was a rote habit.

“Why do you do that?” Raphael asked.

I rolled my eyes, then regretted it when it made my head throb. “So they won’t know.” Because it was one thing to be so afraid I slept under a bed and another to advertise it to a castle full of predators, including the maids who entered my room each day to make the bed. Shame swirled in my gut over what I’d confessed last night to Raphael. What kind of weak-willed child couldn’t even sleep in a bed?

It was harder to confess without the alcohol lubricating my words.

Maybe that’s why people drink. Despite the shame and the headache, it let them be honest.