I needed the comfort of their arms around me tonight, I decided. I didn’t care what anyone thought—this was a crazy, creepy, haunted place and I didn’t want to be alone!
“Please stay with me for the rest of the night,” I told them. “It’s so cold in here and I’m afraid I’ll have another nightmare.”
“Of course, Emma,” Bran said gently and Lachlan murmured,
“We won’t leave your side.”
Feeling comforted, I settled down between them and breathed a sigh of relief. I knew with my guys on either side of me, nothing bad could get me. They would kill or die to protect me—it was that simple.
I breathed in the spicy scent of their skin and felt the icy sheets warming at last. It was as though whatever spell had been put on this bed, the three of us together had broken it. The room stopped feeling like a mausoleum and just felt like a big bedroom instead.
But even as I snuggled between my guys, I seemed to hear a voice in my head chanting, “Too late…too late…” and the bitter taste in the back of my throat refused to go away.
91
I woke up late the next morning and found myself sandwiched between two male bodies, which might have been embarrassing but wasn’t. It felt like I belonged between Bran and Lachlan, like the three of us completed each other somehow.
Yawning, I stretched luxuriously, feeling warm and comforted and content.
“Mmm, morning little one,” Lachlan murmured sleepily on my left.
“Did you sleep well?” Bran asked and yawned.
“After you guys came in, I did,” I said, smiling at both of them. “Thanks, by the way. That nightmare last night was a bad one.”
“Do you remember anything about it?” Lachlan asked, propping himself up on one elbow and frowning.
I frowned, trying to recall what had scared me so badly.
“It was something about the painting,” I said, nodding at the hyper-realistic door painting hanging on the wall across from the bed. It was visible in the dim glow of the magic silver globe hovering near the ceiling.
“Yes, you said as much last night.” Lachlan frowned. “I checked it but couldn’t find anything wrong with it.”
“Do you remember any more?” Bran asked.
I shook my head in frustration.
“Just something about the door opening and something bad coming through it. I don’t know—I probably just had it because this is such a creepy place.”
“My mother says the Winter palace used to be as lovely as the Summer palace, in its way,” Lachlan murmured.
As he spoke, we heard a rapping on the outside door of the suite.
“Speaking of my mother, that’s probably her now,” Lachlan remarked. “Come on—I don’t want to have to explain our sleeping arrangements—she might get the wrong idea.”
“You two go let her in, I’m going to get dressed before I come out,” I told them, as we all got quickly out of bed. “Order something yummy for breakfast.”
“Pancakes and bacon coming right up,” Bran said, smiling at me. He knew this was one of my favorite breakfasts—now that I was a Fae instead of a Norm I got to have it or something like it every at Nocturne Academy.
“Sounds delicious!” I smiled. “See you guys in a few minutes.”
They left me alone, considerately closing the door behind them, so I could get dressed. Since I had nothing else, I put back on the royal purple and gold party dress Queen Elia had given me to wear to the banquet in the Summer Court. I noticed that its colors were beginning to look washed-out, though. The gold had faded almost to silver, and the purple was getting darker and darker—soon it would be black. Was that what happened to everything that came from the Summer Court to the Winter Court?
I didn’t want to wait around to find out. I hoped that my day in the Winter Realm would pass quickly and I would be able to go back to the Summer Court with no problems.
92
Breakfast with Lady Isella was lovely and after it was over, she made her cloth and flask produce sandwiches for a picnic lunch. She also made lemonade—after I described it to her—which she poured into some little glass bottles sealed with tight-fitting corks.
She packed everything in a wicker hamper which she then magically shrank to the size of a walnut. She handed it to Lachlan to carry, admonishing him to be careful with it.
“Just tell it to grow when you’re ready for lunch,” she told me, smiling. “But wait a while before you eat it—the banquet tonight isn’t until ten o’clock and you don’t want to be so hungry you’re tempted by the food.”
I thought of the moldy cake Mab had offered me the day before and shuddered. I doubted I would be tempted by anything I was offered here, but it was nice of her to warn me.