AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I can see why your kind has the reputation it does.” Valerian pushes back his sweat-soaked hair. “You know my questions. Do you have an answer?”
“Send an anonymous email to Kain, the new head of the New York Enforcers,” the seer says. “Tell him you know of the murder investigation Kain is leading, and that you have a perfect candidate for him.”
Despite the room’s heat, I feel cold.
It can’t be.
He wouldn’t.
He didn’t.
Valerian frowns. “Who?”
“The dreamwalker who’s done a few jobs for you,” the seer says. “Suggest her, and you’ll get what you want.”
“You’ve got to be pucking kidding me,” I mutter.
Valerian looks right at me.
Puck. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.
Valerian’s frown deepens, and he must assert the reality of his dream the way Hekima once did, because I become visible against my will.
He squints at me. “Bailey? How are you here?”
My disbelief transforms into fury. “You threw me under the bus, didn’t you?” I advance on him. “Kain and his vampires kidnapped me and forced me to work for the Council because you suggested it. How could you do that to me?”
He blanches. “I’m sorry.” He stands up, sweat dripping everywhere. “I didn’t know you when I spoke to Yaroslav. We’d only emailed each other.”
“And you think you know me now? Because I certainly don’t know you.”
And before I do something I’ll later regret, I jolt myself out of his dream.
Chapter Three
I emerge from the sleepwalking trance in utter fury. It’s a good thing I did my dreamwalking from a distance. I don’t want to be touching him right now.
Valerian’s eyes pop open.
I narrow mine.
He jackknifes to his feet.
I turn and sprint to the door.
There’s a sound of footsteps behind me, so I slam the door in his face and run down the corridor.
“I have as much right to be angry with you as you do with me,” he shouts from behind me.
Reaching the elevator, I stab the button and glance back.
He’s twenty feet away but gaining on me quickly.
“Why were you in my dreams?” he yells. “Were you hoping to find something about Soma? You know how I feel about that!”
The elevator doors open, and I leap inside, smashing the button for the ground floor. “Your whole ‘I didn’t know you’ excuse is weak,” I yell back as the doors slide closed. “The first time we met face to face was in that castle.”
He lunges at the doors, hand extended, but doesn’t make it.
Whew.
The last thing I want is to continue that conversation—or look at his gorgeous, traitorous face.
He’s mad at me? Our crimes can’t even compare. True, he was cagey when I asked him about Soma—the place where his and my kind seem to live—but I didn’t even know his black windows and Soma had anything to do with each other. He, on the other hand, was directly responsible for that whole mess with the New York Council.
The elevator doors open, and I dart out and grab a car, directing it to take me home. Settling comfortably into the seat, I touch Pom’s furry body on my wrist.
The dream world is where I have the best chance of calming myself.
Pom greets me, his fur black and his expression worried. “What’s wrong?”
Pacing between the impossible shapes populating the lobby of my palace, I fill him in on Valerian’s betrayal.
As I speak, Pom’s fur lightens to a mixture of blue and light orange. “Well,” he says when I’m done, “it is true. He didn’t know you yet.”
My hair turns fiery without my willing it to. “If you like him so much, why don’t you attach yourself to his wrist. Or ass. Or—”
Pom disappears in his signature Cheshire cat style. When only his mouth is left, he says, “You might want to visit your memory gallery to calm down.”
“Coward,” I mumble when he’s gone.
I contemplate creating a version of Valerian I could scream at, but I decide against it. Going to the memory gallery might actually be a good idea, since it’s a bit like opening a photo album but on steroids. It’s bound to distract me from my crazy thoughts, but I know Pom is still watching and I feel like being contrary, so I teleport to the tower of sleepers.
Aha. I’m in luck.
Ariel, Kit, Itzel, and Felix are all dreaming at the same time.
I pull them all into one dream, take us to my cloud office, and fill them in on everything, from my discovery about my twin sister and the encounter with Phobetor to Valerian throwing me under the bus with the New York Council.
“Wow,” Felix says, his unibrow bunching on his forehead. “You’ve been busy.”
I sigh. “Understatement.”
Kit shakes her head. “I can’t believe Valerian was after Hekima’s Council seat. When we offered it to him, he seemed so genuine when he pretended not to want it.”
