Page 63 of Dream Reaper

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “You’re okay now. You’re safe.”

He shook his head against her legs. “No, it’s still there.”

A chill tingled down her spine, and her chest tightened. So, they had gotten Jerrid out, but was it as Dragon had feared?

Had they trapped Dragon with the shadow inside of their mind?

“And Dragon?” she asked, a tremor in her voice.

Jerrid pushed up slowly, shifting so that he braced his hands on either side of her folded legs. “He’s alive… Angry…but alive.”

She leaned back to put more distance between them as relief cascaded through her soul. For a moment, she’d been afraid that she had sent Dragon back just to die.

“Can he fight it? The shadow thing?”

Jerrid met her gaze at last, his human eyes darker than normal. “I don’t know.”

Something inside her shriveled a little. “He’ll fight it. He’s cantankerous. He’ll fight.”

“You don’t know what it’s like.” He sounded so hopeless.

“You forget,” Ava said gently, “that I’ve had nightmares about this thing too. I know how terrible it is. What I don’t know is what it is or where it came from. If we knew more about it, maybe we could figure out how to get rid of it.”

He laughed mirthlessly.

Heat filled her cheeks. “I’m serious. I’m not just being naive or optimistic. I’ve had some experience with this sort of thing.”

“Oh, have you?” he mocked. “You had experience battling monsters?”

They stared at one another, a mere foot or two separating them, her blushing furiously and him smiling in condescension.

“Yes,” she said slowly, firmly. “You forget that Prince Haryk suffered under a similar ailment. He had a curse put on him, and it caused him terrible nightmares. Persis talked about it as if it were alive, just like this thing⁠—”

She broke off with a hiss, her gaze wrenching free of Jerrid’s and swiveling to the forest beyond. The puzzle pieces began to shift in her mind as she remembered how she had ended up in the Shadewood to begin with. Why they had come. What they had done.

“What is it?” Jerrid’s voice had lost its wry humor.

“I don’t know.” She licked her lower lip, still trying to sort out the pieces.

They were falling into place, slowly…so slowly.

“What if… What if Persis cast out the thing that was making Prince Haryk sick. I thought they had broken the curse—killed it. But what if they didn’t?”

Jerrid inhaled sharply. “What are you suggesting?”

“What if,” Ava said, still staring wide-eyed into the woods, “they just drove it out? Set it free? What if it’s out there in the Shadowed right now, searching for…for…”

She couldn’t say the words.

“Searching for what?”

Ava’s lips began to tremble. This couldn’t be happening…not again.

“Searching for what, Ava?” He caught her chin in his hands and turned her face toward him, his lips slightly parted in a frown as he stared down into her eyes. “What are you thinking? What does it want? What is it searching for?”

She pressed her lips together briefly before releasing a low moan. “Oh, Jerrid. What if it’s looking for a new home?”

He stared at her, hands frozen along both sides of her jaw. His calluses scratched against her skin, and yet his touch was impossibly gentle.