A King's Weakness (Book 1)

Chapter 25

SHE RUNS LIKE SHE DOES EVERY NIGHT.

She is never fast enough.

When she turns her head to look behind her, hair flying frantically, it's not my mother's face, but mine. My hair has darkened, turned the most bottomless shade of black I've ever seen, so dark that it threatens to swallow me whole. My eyes burn with a vibrant gold fire, eerily lighting up my face.

I look haunted and hollow—deadly.

The girl with my face stares into my very soul, eyes wide, and stops running.

Her lips move silently, forming words but no sound. She urgently gestures to me, trying desperately to get me to understand her, but it's no use.

Her mouth opens in a gasp, and slowly, so slowly, she cranes her neck down to look at the silver arrow protruding from her chest. I am forced to mirror her actions, looking down at my own chest to see an identical arrow. Blood pours down my stomach, pooling at my feet in a steaming puddle.

We fall at the same time, and she reaches desperately for me, hand outstretched.

I can't make my body work. I don't reciprocate the gesture.

This is all wrong. This isn't how my dream is supposed to go.

Sleep weighs me down, dragging me through the dream again and again.

I need to wake up. I need to wake up.

I need to wake up.

My breath catches in my throat as I wrench myself from the nightmare, snapping back into my sore, exhausted body. My heart flutters like a hummingbird in my chest, beating rapidly against my ribcage.

It's always the same nightmare, the same fucking dream of my mom. So why did it change tonight?

I try to calm myself, to anchor my mind to the here and now. My bed is wonderfully soft, silk sheets caressing my bare skin. The sensation of the fabric quickly soothes me, a tangible comfort.

It takes half a minute for me to realize something is off. I don't have silk sheets, and I don't sleep naked.

I bolt upright, holding the sheets tight to my chest as my eyes snap open.

For the second time in an astonishingly short period of time, I have woken up in a room that is not mine.

I am in a king-sized four poster bed with rich black velvet upholstery and glossy white sheets. Shelves line dark gray walls, filled with books in strange languages that I can't decipher. A dark mahogany vanity takes up part of one wall; a large door is cracked open against another wall to reveal a glimpse of a bathroom. Every inch of the room is shrouded in finery: rich silks, fur rugs, gold embellishments, crystals dripping from the chandelier.

Sitting in a large black chair on the wall—near what I presume to be the exit—is the absolute last person I want to see.

Attractively disheveled black hair falls across his forehead, warm olive skin flushed with sleep. He is tall, even sitting down, and he slouches over in the chair, arms and legs crossed as he rests his chin against his chest. His jaw is pronounced, emphasizing his strong nose and sinful mouth.

I squeak nervously, my mind racing to figure out where I am and how to exit. He's blocking my only means of escape, so I'll have to sneak past him somehow. My noise must have woken him, though, because when I finish scanning the room for a second time, his eyes are watching me warily, a striking golden color.