Claire shook her head. “No. No. No. She wasn’t hurting me. She was trying to tell me something… something about Elana. But she had to go, and borrowed energy so she can come back.”
Vox and Sol gaped at Claire. Titus, too. In fact, we were all gaping at her.
“How do you know that?” I asked, my voice a rasp of sound.
“She told me,” Claire said. “She whispered an apology right before she latched on, saying she needed the strength to make a future connection.”
I just stared at her.
“Does she often visit your dreams?” Cyrus asked, his voice a lethal calm that I recognized.
Claire shook her head. “This is the first time.”
The tension radiating from my brother seemed to dissipate a fraction. “If she’s reaching out on the spirit planes, then she’s growing in strength,” he muttered.
“She was in a cell,” I said, frowning. “Not the spirit planes.”
“What’s the difference?” Vox asked, his fingers running through Claire’s hair.
She hadn’t yet released my neck, so I shifted with her in my arms, sitting up and cradling her in my lap. Claire buried her face against my throat, her face wet with tears. “Spirit Fae can access the spirit planes. It’s where we pull life and death. But Ophelia created an entire background for her visit, suggesting she might have taken us to a real place.”
“A cell,” Claire whispered. “She’s being held there.”
“How do you know?” I wondered out loud.
“I just do,” she replied, shivering. “It was so cold there, Exos. So… dead.”
I met Cyrus’s gaze again. “It reminded me of the death fields, only slightly more lively.”
He shook his head. “This is insane. You’re saying Ophelia dream-walked and took you to a cell, to what? Share stories? Warn you?”
“She wanted to test Exos,” Claire breathed. “She doesn’t trust him.”
“Yeah, well, the feeling is quite mutual,” Cyrus assured.
He wasn’t wrong, so I didn’t comment. Instead, I palmed Claire’s cheek and pressed my lips to hers. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “She didn’t touch me, but I felt her siphoning energy from you. I… It scared me.”
I nodded, understanding, and pulled her against me once more. “I’m all right, baby.”
“What does she want?” Sol asked. He’d moved up to lean against the headboard, his bare chest on display for the room. “What’s her goal? Why does she need to trust Exos?”
“She seemed to be worried about my intentions with Claire,” I replied, my brow furrowing. “Honestly, it didn’t make a lot of sense. She kept talking about a Dark Fae, or someone who was part Dark Fae.”
“Part Dark Fae?” Cyrus repeated. “That’s… not a thing.”
No, it most definitely wasn’t. Elemental Fae did not mate with Dark Fae, or any other kind of fae for that matter. We stuck to our own kind for a reason. To do otherwise would tip the balance of power. “We need to talk to her again.”
Cyrus’s expression conveyed his response before it left his mouth. “Absolutely fucking not.”
“I wasn’t asking permission, Your Highness,” I replied. “Oh, wait… I’m king now.”
His ice-blue eyes narrowed. “Don’t be a conceited dick.”
“Pot, meet kettle,” I tossed back at him. Similar to spirit, meet element, but I preferred the human phrase because it sounded ridiculous. It also irritated Cyrus. Win-win.
“You two are like twins,” Titus marveled, pulling on a pair of sweatpants. “Claire, sweetheart, what do you want to do?”