While fear initiated our performance, I wasn’t altogether sure it sustained it. The passion with which Raudrich pulled me against him—the heat and the weight of how he pushed me against the back wall of the dungeon—felt very real. And my response to him was no put-on. It was chemical, completely involuntary. I moaned against his lips as his tongue sought entry into my mouth. As his hands roamed down the side of my body and he backed me into the stones behind us, his lips moved to my neck. I let out a shaky breath in his ear that caused him to growl.

He pressed himself into my stomach, and I could feel how hard and ready he was. It was a familiar sensation, one I remembered all too well from only the night before. His hand cupped at my breast and I closed my eyes from the pleasure of it. I was losing myself—quickly forgetting about the evil faerie standing only a few short feet from us.

Then she spoke, and the reality of our surroundings crashed down on both of us as we awkwardly pulled away, both breathless and weak as Raudrich turned from me to look at her.

“I’ll not waste my energy trying to harm ye, lass. Ye are not a threat. If ye are not in love with Raudrich now, ye are well on yer way to being so. My efforts would be better suited to trying to fight my way out of here while The Eight dwindle in number and power.”

“Try as ye might, Machara, ye willna succeed as ye hope.”

Raudrich’s voice was deep and pained. He was still struggling to gain his composure. His response to me had been no performance. I was sure of it.

“Nothing stays buried forever, lad. Each and every one of ye should know that by now. One day I will be free of this cell. When that day comes, ye each shall suffer a fate far worse than Freya’s.”

Raudrich’s left hand clenched at his side. I could see that he was growing angry.

Eager to be away from the smell and the terrifying gaze of such evil, I reached for his arm.

“Let’s go. I don’t think there’s any need for either of us to say anything more.”

Without a word, he took my hand and we turned to leave.

I knew I would hear her laughter in my sleep.

---

“Lass…”

Raudrich waited until we were far away from Machara—until we stood in the hallway outside his bedchamber—to say a word.

The hallways were dark, the castle quiet, and as he stopped and turned to look at me, all I could hear was his breathing, still ragged and strained.

“Yes?”

My voice shook as I answered him. The energy that passed between us as we stood facing one another, our chests nearly touching with each intake of uneven breath, was palpable in its heat and need. I’d never been so turned on in my life. I’d never been so confused.

This wasn’t like me. I didn’t do this. I wasn’t the sort of person that got swept away with anything. I didn’t know this man. How, then, could he make me feel so much?

I felt safe, yet scared—curious, but cautious. I wanted to throw my arms around him. I also wanted to run away as quickly as I could. Too many things stirred inside me as we stood in the darkness and silence together. It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, but the span of time between my breathless “yes” and his answer felt like an eternity.

“Ye lied to me before. Why?”

It was hardly what I expected him to say, and with my thoughts clouded by his closeness, I couldn’t recall what he might mean.

“Lie? When did I lie to you?”

He took one step closer and I felt my back bump into the wall behind me. I liked being pinned by him. I liked knowing that I couldn’t avoid whatever he might do or say next. It was nerve-wracking in the sexiest way.

He leaned in and whispered in my ear. My whole body shivered as his breath wafted across the exposed skin of my neck. I closed my eyes and leaned back into the wall as he spoke.

“When I apologized for touching ye, ye said that I dinna do so. I know that I did, lass. Why did ye lie?”

“How do you know I was lying? Even if you think you touched me, perhaps it was only a dream.”

I enjoyed this dance between us—his gentle prying, my pointless denial—it only served to increase the tension between us. It was so unlike me, but oh, so much fun.

“Because, lass…”

I gasped as he leaned in and cupped my breast in the small hesitation between his words. My breast filled his hands and he groaned.

“Machara’s dungeon was not the first time I’ve held this breast in my hand. I knew how ye felt in my arms before this night. My body remembers it clearly.” He removed his hand and stepped away. “I’ll ask ye once more. Why did ye lie?”

I reached out and placed both hands lightly on his chest. I wasn’t ready for this closeness between us to end. I sighed as I prepared to come clean.

“I was embarrassed, Raudrich. You didn’t touch me. I…I turned toward you in the night. You didn’t pull me into your arms. I placed myself on your chest. I touched you. I rubbed against you with my leg. It wasn’t your fault. None of it was. In my defense, I did believe I was dreaming, but when I woke and realized what I’d done, I was embarrassed.”

I couldn’t see his smile, but I could feel it in the darkness. He raised his hands and gently cupped my face.

“Embarrassed? Why?”

“I think because I enjoyed it so much. If it was a dream, I was safe in it. Once I knew it was real, I felt embarrassed that I wasn’t really the woman I was in my dream—the woman who believed someone like you would want to hold me in such a way.”

Only upon saying the words out loud did I realize the truth in them. It wasn’t my actions I was embarrassed by. It wasn’t guilt at having touched him while he slept.

It was knowing that for me to act in such a way while I slept, my subconscious self must’ve believed I was desirable enough that there was no threat of rejection in my actions.

I wanted to be that person so very much. But—as many things seemed to be showing me since arriving in this time—my old self-conscious wounds weren’t as healed as I thought.

I wasn’t that confident go-and-get-what-you-want woman that had rolled over in my sleep and plastered herself against Raudrich as if she were doing him a favor. I was the woman that suspected every man’s kind word held a motive. I was the woman that disbelieved every compliment—the woman that pulled away the moment a man got close because I couldn’t see how they could possibly be genuine. Why on earth would they want me?

I was the woman that could play confident really well, that could sometimes even convince my mind that I was the confident woman I so desperately wanted to be. But deep inside, in my core, I was still that woman who didn’t love herself enough to truly believe that anyone else could love her back.

When I’d woken in Raudrich’s arms to find that my dream was real, it had broken my heart. For in real life, no longer free from all my self-loathing talk, all I could think was how much he wouldn’t have wanted me if he had known I was there.