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Warmth floods my chest, watching her eyelids flutter with coming sleep. I’ve never felt so content. So at peace.

“Tell me how you knew about your mother.”

Her fingers pause their exploration on my scalp, then grip the tendrils in her hand. A light tug. One that has my cock hardening again. It bobs against my lower belly, never so easily aroused.

This fucking girl.

I ignore it, focusing on her lips, waiting to hear her sultry voice tell me the one thing I’m at a loss on how she could know.

“I overheard you and that horrible man.” Her words are tired. It doesn’t mask the sadness coating each and every one of them. “I heard him say what he did to her.”

My eyes narrow, thoughts rushing back to that night. She was there when I was talking to my uncle. I knew she was there. I could feel her. It doesn’t make sense though. Sumner was in the forest. Cast into a realm of nightmares. She was unconscious. There’s no way she would have heard us.

When I look at her, though, none of that seems to matter, because she’s here. For some miraculous reason, Sumner is here. “You got out, Vix. How? No one gets out.”

And then my eyes flash to her hand, finding the finger which holds her newest scar, and I swallow. Sumner’s run in with death isn’t over. She’s marked. In my world or hers, the shadows will come back for her. Only next time, it will fall on me to carry out the unthinkable act my uncle has passed over.

Mine to waste.

I hold her tighter. A silent promise to do everything in my power to protect her from such a fate.

“I don’t know, exactly,” Sumner begins to explain. “When I finally remembered what happened, it wasn’t from a memory. It was like I was watching a movie of myself. I could see it all. I saw you offer your life for mine.” Even though her words are soft, they catch at that. “I saw you holding me. It was like a daydream inside a dream inside this other world.”

I stay silent, unmoving. Watching her. Listening.

“When the shadows came, I knew I was going to die. So, I…I went inside myself, into the nightmare. You were there with me. I…the me that was trapped…was standing in the dark. You were behind me, calling me, only, I couldn’t hear you. I, she, thought she was alone. I tried, but I couldn’t reach her in time. She was too far. All I could do was call out to her.”

I lie quietly for a long while, trying to piece together everything she’s just said. Every scenario leads me back to one answer. The only thing that could explain her story. Fuck, her survival even.

A Dream Shifter…

I shake my head. It’s not possible.

Shooting my focus back to Sumner, I ask, “You said it was what, like a daydream inside a dream?” She nods, not alert enough to hear the urgency in my voice. “And you saw yourself? Like, fully saw yourself as though through someone else’s eyes? You could move around and interact with the things around you in a way that altered the illusion?”

She’s bordering sleep. Her breathing’s getting heavier, chest rising and falling evenly. “If that’s what yelling to get my attention means, yeah.”

God, she’s so casual right now. Fuck her sleep though. Everything’s just changed.

I take her hand in mine, squeezing her fingers lightly. “You’re a Dream Shifter, Vix. That’s how you were able to escape his nightmare.”

She yawns, curling farther into me. “You know I don’t know what that means.”

“It means,” I pause, bringing her knuckles to my lips, “someone in your bloodline was from my world. It means this is where you belong. With me.”

CHAPTER SIXTY

SUMNER

Istretch my back, running my hand under the soft blanket. My fingers glide across the sheet, finding the place beside me empty. Sitting up, I rub the sleep from my eyes, then look around the room.

Warm rays of sunlight filter through the open curtains. The trill of songbirds fills the morning air, sharing their happy melody with the world around them.

My clothes rest in a rustled heap near the floor’s center. It is my clothes alone. I step past them, making my way into the restroom. I slept well, but my mind feels tired. Rhenn kept me up last night, probing me with questions about my mom and the night I’d found out about her. The conversation is kind of a blur though. I was more than tired after the whirlwind of emotions I’d had leading up to coming to see him. And what we did after… I was in desperate need of recharging.

Ice cold water from the sink sparks my pulse to life, forcing the drowsiness away. I rub it over my face, letting the clear droplets slide down my chin. When I look into the mirror, my breath catches in my throat.

My hair falls in loose tendrils down my back and over my shoulders. It’s messy, unbrushed. My eyes look past that, landing on the open space between my breasts and collarbones.