Page 74 of Promised to the Nightmare Realm
It’s strange to physically feel so good when my mind is still halfway back in Gloombane’s tower. One of the medics told me it’s why a few of my scars are not fading. As someone who studied veterinary medicine, I wanted to dismiss that, but since their potions and salves don’t work like the human ones, maybe she’s right, and my mind is holding me back.
I hear faint barking from downstairs, and Tristan laughs. “We’re coming!”
“What if I just run back?” I quip but pull away, breathing slowly to calm down the panic attack I’ve been constantly edging since morning.
“No, you won’t, because you’re hungry, and I have lunch,” Tristan says and tales my hand.
I hate how my mind can’t take the simple joke for what it is, instead plunging right back to the two months when Gloombane starved me. How I begged him for scraps and stuffed my mouth with fish gut stew, worried he’d take it away if I didn’t eat quick enough.
I’ve never known hunger like that. It made me lose all reason and sense of propriety or decorum. Survival was all that mattered.
“Don’t—please don’t say that,” I whimper, closing my eyes. I can’t believe this is what I’ve become. If Tristan isn’t tired of meyet, he soon will be, and then at least he might not be regretful of letting me go.
He’s quick to look back. “Oh? Say what? I’m sorry, I’m not sure…”
“I just—” It takes me several seconds to take a full breath and meet his gaze. We’ve only just left the room where I’ve spent the past six weeks, but something about the low ceiling and the tight space between the walls encourages me with its coziness. “He starved me. I know you didn’t mean to— but it just comes back.”
His golden eyes are soft and warm when he takes a step back to hug me. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I promise to be more thoughtful.”
I want to kiss him.
The need for the sweet softness of his lips is so visceral I need to remind myself why I can’t relent. A shadow wielder isn’t meant to sleep with their promised for the very reason that good sex might make things confusing, resulting in rash decisions. I can see that happening.
Tristan is irresistible.
Beautiful. Chivalrous. Kind.
He is so kind it’s taking my breath away.
“Thank you. Let’s— try joining Lady.”
Tristan nods with a smile and leads me down the stairs, never letting go of my hand. I should probably consider that a more-than-friends gesture, but the gender norms in the Nightmare Realm aren’t as rigid as in mine, so I don’t pull away.
Or I just really want him holding my hand.
The library is empty as we arrive. Eerily so. Before I get to ask about it, Lady is all over me. How an animal can look both so terrifying and cute at once, I will never know.
“You wanna see one of the tricks?” Tristan asks.
I chuckle, because despite the intimidating size of the library, and all its dark corners, I feel safe with my two guard dogs. “Ineed to see what a good girl she’s been,” I say, scratching Lady behind one massive ear. Her tusks are thicker than my fingers, but at this point their size isn’t intimidating at all. Is this how wild cat caretakers feel when interacting with their animals?
I’m elated when Tristan pulls out a wooden horn, twisted like a mythical unicorn’s, and places it on Lady’s head. She has thick paws, and a chunky body, but when her elven daddy gives her the command, she manages to balance the prop on her forehead almost as if it’s a part of her body. I lose it when Tristan informs me she’s now like a ‘real unicorn’, but playtime is eventually over, and we venture farther.
“Do elves not like to read?” I joke as we walk the empty passageways. When Tristan gives me a confused glance, I go on, “no one’s here.”
“Oh no! I made a fake alert about a moth infestation, so we’re not bothered as we pass. But I have to say I’ve been doing more reading in the past weeks than ever before. I hope you’re not bored to death with that by now.”
I blink, because while barring people from the library is a cruel move, the reason for it is so sweet I have to remind myself that my heart is only leaping because it’s being a traitorous idiot. “I can’t imagine ever being bored of reading,” I say as Tristan leads me past the librarian's counter, into a shadowed aisle between two massive wooden shelves piled high with leather-bound volumes. “Maybe it’s different for you, because you were born in a world of magic, and you can grow wings, but for me it was only ever a dream. And reading allowed me to live it.”
“You have books about our realm?”
We pass a tall door, which must be the main entrance, and instead head for a smaller one to the side of the giant hall filled with endless bookshelves. For so many weeks I could have come down here and browsed for myself. I won’t be beating myself upabout it, but I need to be bolder now that I took the plunge and left my rooms.
“Well… not exactly, but maybe some of the stories we tell in our books are inspired by what people saw in the Nightmare Realm when they accidentally ended up here? You know, like that old lady you helped back into my world. What areyournovels about?” I ask, once again angry that I wasn’t curious. In fact, I’ve read nothing that wasn’t unicorn-related.
“All sort of things,” he says, but then goes a little quiet. “Honestly, I’ve not really read much. When I was a child, my mother read stories to me about knights and mysterious creatures of the sea, about rulers past and Dark Companions. Both my sister and I always found the idea of the human realm so intriguing. But while she delved deeper into her love of books, I wanted todoall these exciting things. And since I had a talent for shadow wielding, my father took me under his wing and we trained together a lot.”
“Do you see your parents often?” I ask, realizing he doesn’t mention them much. It might be unreasonable, but I never really considered that a magical being with wings also must originate somewhere.
