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“I dream of monsters,” I whisper. I hate myself for saying the words that will drive him away, but I can do nothing else. I can’t lie to him. I won’t, even if the truth takes him from me.

Slowly, he raises his gaze to mine. What I find there is not what I expect. There is no scorn, nor the creeping suspicion of madness. There’s wariness, but little more. I’ve dealt with worse than wariness before. I draw a breath and, slowly, I begin to speak.

“I barely knew my family.” I can’t look at him as I tell this story. If wariness turns to scorn, I don’t want to see it. “I was young when they died, but I remember I had a sister, and that my mother was very beautiful.” I wrap my arms about myself, tense with pain. “I’ve dreamt about them all my life, though. About their deaths. It always starts the same, with my sister screaming. We share a bed at night and I reach for her to comfort her, but she’s not there. She screams again and calls for our mother, and I know that the gwrach-y-rhibyn has taken her. She’s screaming and I’m running through the house trying to find her, but I can’t. Her screams are terrible, but when she stops screaming, it’s worse.”

I close my eyes. I’m shuddering, but I can’t help it. Aneirin reaches for me, but I shy away. “I find the gwrach, but it’s too late, and my family lies at her feet. She smiles at me, and it’s horrible. Her mouth is covered in their blood. There are screams again, but this time they’re my own, because she’s chasing me and I know she’ll kill me too. But I always wake before she does. And when I wake, I always wish that she had.”

Silence settles over us after I finish my story. I can’t look at Aneirin; I’m afraid of what I’ll see. I wait for him to condemn me, but he says nothing, and I can’t decide whether that’s better or worse.

When he does speak, all he says is, “It’s just a dream, Kynan.”

I shake my head hard. My hair is damp and the strands cling to my cheeks. I think I must look as mad as everyone believes I am. “It is truth,” I insist. Aneirin steps back from the heat behind my words. “I know it is. Everyone thinks I’m mad because of it, but I know it, Nye.”

He takes my hand and draws me to the bed, though I fight him every step of the way. He pulls on me until I sit, and he wraps his arms about my waist. “Tell me about the gwrach,” he says.

I suspect he’s humoring me. I almost hate him for it, but it’s been so long since I’ve been able to tell anyone. Perhaps he is only pretending to believe, but I will take what I can get.

“She is horrendous,” I tell him, “with skin as pale and translucent as ice, and madness in her eyes. Her clothes are in tatters and she’s covered in blood. Not just my family’s, but old, dried blood, from others she’s come to. There are many. So many.”

I shiver at the thought, remembering the caked layers of blood, cracking and flaking as she smiles at me. I feel like a child again, back in the orphanage in Ceredigion. I try not to cry, and try not to let Aneirin see me struggling.

Somehow, though, he knows. He moves his hands from my waist to my shoulder and turns me to face him. I look up into his eyes and they’re sad and sympathetic and they tell me many things, but they don’t tell me that he thinks I’m mad. And then I am a child again, clinging to him and weeping in his arms, overcome with pain, grief and fright.

He holds me and rubs my back. The tears go on and on and on, but he doesn’t sigh or show impatience with my lost control. I have held it in since I was a child and learned that it was a weakness and would bring me nothing but censure. There was no patience for tears in the orphanage. I know Aneirin must be getting tired of the flood but I can’t stop.

Finally, he gives a soft sigh and lifts my head from his shoulder and presses his mouth to mine. I cannot think of anything beyond the comfort that he offers. I fist my hands in his hair and kiss him with desperation.

It is not what I expect, but it is everything I need. Heat and warmth and tenderness. Aneirin’s hands slide gently into my hair. He does not grab as I do—I try to gentle my grip, but I am unable to do anything but cling. He strokes and soothes, with his mouth as well as his hands. He slips into my mouth as though he belongs there, and I welcome him. His tongue is slick against mine, lithe and quick. It is like dancing, and just as exhilarating.

When he tries to draw away, he takes the calm with him. The horror of the nightmare creeps back in on me. “Oh, don’t,” I whisper and chase his mouth with mine.

He protests for a moment, but then he curls a hand around the back of my neck and kisses me again.

Gold he calls himself, but I am the one who shimmers in his hands. I am molten, liquid and vibrant and brilliantly hot, and he is the flame that heats me. I press in against his chest, closer to the fire. His chest vibrates beneath my hand with his groan.