Daylight

Chapter 39

ELAIN

Elain shot up suddenly, waves of panic, fear, guilt and shame battling for attention inside her mind. She'd been sleeping restlessly as it was, but out of nowhere, this discord of emotions jerked her out of her sleep and had her heart beating wildly.

"Lucien," a harsh female voice sang, "come back to bed."

A tall beautiful woman with crimson hair was curling her finger seductively at him. Vassa.

Dread pooled in Elain's stomach as she choked back a sob. She didn't want to believe what she had seen was true. It was exactly what she'd feared—the firebird queen taking a prince of Autumn to her bed in the aftermath and gratitude of breaking her curse.

Elain forced herself to take several long deep breaths. Lucien would not hurt her like that.

"I'm yours," he'd promised. "Only yours."

She clung to that promise, telling herself not to jump to conclusions. She got up from the bed and poured herself some water as she replayed the events of the dream and tried making some sense of it.

She had been dreaming from Lucien's perspective. Which wasn't odd in and of itself since she'd been sleeping in his room since he and Feyre had left for the continent. Nesta had pursed her lips but said nothing, making good on her promise to try harder to accept him.

Before she had fallen asleep, Elain had curled up beneath those hunter green sheets and filled her lungs with his scent. Sunlight and oranges and sandalwood. It wasn't as strong as it would have been if he'd been there. She only hoped that he and Feyre returned soon before his scent faded from the room entirely. Not caring that her sister and the others might tease her for it, she'd clutched his pillow tightly as she'd fallen asleep.

She'd dreamed of a cave. It had been too dark to see much, but it had felt like an unnatural sort of dark. She thought she had seen glimpses of firelight reaching into the shadows of the cave, but then it would be replaced with a solid wall of black, as if trying to keep whatever was inside that cave from her view. The darkness may have obstructed her view, but it couldn't hide the noises that echoed from the back of the cave. Carnal, vicious sounds.

The scene had shifted to a sunlit forest. A female of exquisite beauty laughed, cold and cruelly, as she bound Elain's wrists in blue shackles. The result had felt like ice-cold water had doused the burning embers that lived within her. Like it had thrown a blanket over the light inside her, smothering it into darkness. The female's beauty was harsh and unforgiving, like the gaze from her teal eyes. Elain's stomach had roiled when that female invaded her space, coming so close Elain could feel her breath on her face, and ran her hands down the length of her chest and stomach. She'd had to force down the nausea that had risen along with the memory of that cave.

And for just a fraction of a second, the wall of black had been lifted and she'd seen what had happened inside that cave. It was quicker than the blink of an eye, but she'd seen enough to assume the rest. Immediately after that, she had been catapulted out of the dream—or was it a memory?

Elain kicked off the covers and launched herself to the bathing room, barely making it to the toilet before she vomited.

For not only had she seen Lucien's memories of that vile female, but she'd felt them. She had felt the anxiety and apprehension of taking Tamlin's place. For what, she wasn't precisely sure and didn't think she wanted to know. She had felt the shame and self-loathing that he'd had every second he'd been inside that cave. She'd felt the terror and panic when that—that bitch had shackled him against that tree. And worse of all, she'd felt the absolute guilt that threatened to rip him apart from the inside out when he'd begged Feyre, with pure desperation in his russet eye, Don't tell Elain.