I supposed that was possible, but it didn’t feel right.
However, it did give me an idea.
“I can inherit the memory and feed it back to you.” It would be tricky, but it should work. “It’ll be sort of like a looping feed in our minds.”
“That sounds surreal.”
“I imagine it’ll feel that way, too,” I admitted. “But it’s the only way to let you see the memory since it appears to be locked away.”
She seemed to consider that for a moment, then nodded. “Okay. Do it.”
Yeah, I wasn’t going to do this in the foyer of Adrik’s flat. “Go lie down on the bed in the other room, and I’ll be right in.”
Zaya frowned at me. “Why?”
“Because I’m about to royally fuck your mind, Zay. You don’t want to be standing. Trust me.” With that, I left her in the foyer and headed to the kitchen to fetch us both some glasses of water. We were going to need it.
I lay on the bed and closed my eyes, dizzy from the several hours of traveling all over the human world to escape Noxia Kingdom.
How did this happen? I wondered, overwhelmed by the bizarre shift in reality. I went from being locked in a cell to here. All in the span of what felt like a blink.
And now Grigory was about to penetrate my mind.
I felt him enter the room, our connection deeper than ever before with him hovering on the precipice of my mind. I sensed him there, reading me, waiting for my true consent, and measuring my emotions.
Such a bizarre awareness because I could feel him, too. His concern for me. His frustration over our situation. His shame at having turned his back on his kingdom. The latter lurked in the back of his conscious, a thought he seemed to refuse every time it rose, but I heard it loud and clear.
He’d chosen me over his kingdom.
“Don’t,” he whispered, lying down beside me. “I need to focus on you right now, not my burdens.”
“I thought I was one of those burdens,” I replied without opening my eyes.
“You’re not.” The mattress shifted as he moved closer, the heat of his body
warming mine as he positioned himself right beside me. “I never should have called you that.”
“You were just speaking your mind.” I couldn’t fault him for that. Not entirely. “I’ve not exactly been very easy to deal with.”
He cupped my cheek, pulling my face toward his. I opened my eyes to find him only a few inches away from me. “You’re not a burden, Zaya. If anything, you’ve provided me with a needed escape from reality. And I’m not talking about our literal escape, but the mental one.”
I frowned at him. “Mental one?”
His gaze fell to my lips. “Yes, Zay.” He leaned forward and brushed his mouth over mine.
My heart leapt in response. “The dreams?” It was a whisper of sound, one that escaped me before I could take it back.
He smiled. “Among other things,” he murmured, his lips touching mine again. “Mmm, but kissing you in reality is so much better than the fantasies.”
“Because you know about the dreams.” It came out as a statement. He’d already implied he knew about our midnight affairs before, but I hadn’t been given the opportunity to question him about it.
“Yeah, Zay. I know about the dreams.” He slid his fingers into my hair and tugged on the strands to pull me into a new angle. This time he led with his tongue, parting my lips and kissing me so deeply it resembled a brand against my very soul.
I moaned against his mouth, enthralled by the taste of him. Spicy, hot, dominant male. Heat erupted between my thighs as he slid his leg between mine, tying us together in a passionate knot of promise.
The dreams were real, I marveled.
Yes, he replied, his voice warm and sexy in my mind. I could feel your pain while you slept… I had to do something. I just never expected it to become what it did.