Serpent's Claim (Serpent's Touch 2)

AMIRA

In the weeks that followed, I lay in my nest every night, tightly hugging my pillow. My eyes closed, I waited for the sleep to take me, secretly hoping to dream about Kyllen again.

Sometimes, I thought I felt his arms enclosing me into a hug just before I’d fall into a deep, restful sleep. And then…it’d be morning. I slept, but I didn’t dream, or at least I didn’t remember dreaming.

At daytime, the king and I had fallen into a routine.

Kiris and his men would wake the king up. They brought him breakfast and cleaned up the room.

I gave the king a full-body massage after breakfast, then entertained him by telling stories or playing board games with him until lunch, unless there was a Royal Council meeting that morning. In which case, the king would wheel his magically enhanced mechanical chair to the council meeting room. Despite his condition, he was still the ruler of his kingdom and had a lot of decisions to make.

In the afternoon, Kiris and his helpers usually gave the king a bath, and I was free to explore my new home.

By now, the courtiers had gotten used to my presence somewhat. Instead of chains, beads, and those scandalous nipple clips, I wore regular dresses, which helped attract fewer stares. Instead of gawking openly at me, people just threw furtive glances my way when I passed.

I still learned the intricate layout of the palace, which wasn’t easy. The location of rooms and corridors didn’t follow any logical grid but the pattern in which the branches of the palace trees grew. In addition, sections of the palace often moved, using magic and mechanics, to suit some new purpose. That created new rooms and passageways, undoing what I’d already learned.

I loved studying the beautiful artwork that decorated every surface inside the palace of Ufaris. Some were paintings, others carvings, some a combination of both. There were portraits of past kings, depictions of epic battles, and scenes of hunting with fantastic beasts.

One day while the king was in his bedroom receiving a bath and bickering with Kiris, I stood in the main hall in front of yet another depiction of an epic battle. This one was made with a combination of bright glossy paint and colorful wood inlays. It was a huge picture, taking up most of the wide, slightly curved wall of the hall in one of the seven main trees of the king’s palace.

A warm sensation tingled the skin on my back, rushing up to my nape then down my arms.

“Kyllen?” I whispered.

I wasn’t asleep. Yet I felt him.

His presence remained elusive, like the golden mist over the lake at sunrise. It caressed and warmed my heart, but slipped through my fingers no matter how hard I tried to hold on to it.

I stilled, afraid to breathe.

“Come to me, Kyllen. Please, let me see your face again.” I wasn’t even sure if I said it out loud or if the words simply formed in my head without passing my lips.

A chuckle vibrated at my back.

“My face? It’s a handsome one, I’ve been told. But I far prefer looking at yours.” A kiss landed on the side of my neck, gentle like a brush of a dragonfly wing.

“You’re here!” I whipped around as he nuzzled the side of my neck.

The moment I faced him, his lips landed on my mouth. His kiss was everything I remembered. The illusion didn’t muffle the sensation of his lips against mine, neither did it make my response to him any less vivid. My blood heated with the awareness of his naked body next to me—naked as the night he was murdered…

I jerked my head back, breaking the kiss.

We were in the grand hall of the King’s Palace in Ufaris, but I could no longer see the artwork on the walls or the courtiers mingling around. All of that had sunk into shadows. Only Kyllen remained.

“Where have you been?” I panted, catching the breath his kiss had stolen.

“Where? Here, with you.” His gaze roamed over my face. He’d been clearly dying to see me, too, greedily taking in my features.

I shook my head. “Where do you go when you’re not here, Kyllen?”

He flinched. “I don’t know.”

“Do you exist outside of this place?”

His expression fell. “It certainly feels like I don’t. I am truly myself only when I’m with you, sweet pea. You are my only purpose now.”

Now.

“Do you remember what happened?” I asked. “The night when you…”

Died.

I didn’t want to say that word out loud, afraid the finality of it might break whatever magic had brought him back to me.

“The night when we got separated,” I said instead.

He scoffed, shaking his head. “No one can separate us, Amira. You and I are two parts of a whole.”

“Are you watching over me from the afterlife? Is that what it is?” If so, I was not going to be the one to send him back. “Stay with me. Always.”

“Of course.” He grinned. Everything would be so much better if I could just see that smile from time to time. “You look well.” He cupped my face. “There is less darkness inside you. You’re no longer screaming, driving yourself frantic and me insane. But you’re still lost.”

“That’s nothing new.” I sighed. “I’ve never had a place to belong.”

He stroked my hair, trailing his fingers along one of the braids. “Doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to have such a place, one day.”

One day.