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The truth is, as much as she doesn’t want me to leave, I don’t want to go either. I want to be with her always, every moment, sleeping and waking. I would bring down the moon for her, move mountains to reach her, give her the deepest desires of her heart.
In some ways, it’s truly a terrifying realization. I’m wrapped so completely around her finger that I’d rather die than resist her needs.
My heart belongs to a witch.
I hold her tighter as if I can erase the thought.
12
Sable
I’m not even aware of falling asleep wrapped in Ridge’s arms. But as his warmth and that crisp, woodsy scent so unique to him wash over me, my eyelids fall shut. A short while later, I give in to dreams.
I’m back in the mating cabin, standing in the middle of all four men: Ridge, Dare, Trystan, and Archer. I don’t have a care in the world—there’s no magic around us, nothing but the desire rising between us. Ridge’s lips meet mine, and Trystan’s hands move over my bare skin. Dare presses into my back, evidence of his arousal hot against my ass, while Archer places a dozen tiny kisses to my collarbone, moving with agonizing slowness. I close my eyes, my skin humming with need.
Then I’m on a bed with them. This is where it changes from memory to fantasy, as Ridge’s naked form rises over me and settles between my legs. I don’t know what it feels like for a man to be inside me, so in my dream, I can’t even make out the sensation. Trystan and Dare are on either side of me, fingers on my breasts, dipping between my legs, even as Ridge moves inside me. I can’t identify the feeling—I can’t even fantasize it without the experience to back it up.
Regardless, I’m lost in the perfection of it all. This is what I wanted to happen, before the witch took over and ruined everything. Maybe this is what would have happened if the magic hadn’t risen up inside me.
I’m staring up at Ridge, trying desperately to feel what he’s doing to me, when the scene abruptly changes. I’m no longer lying in bed naked with the shifters I desire, but standing fully clothed at the bottom of the basement stairs as Uncle Clint stalks down them.
The change was so abrupt and violent, I immediately have the vague thought that I must be dreaming. Typically, if I can recognize my dreams for being just that, I can snap myself out of them.
But not this time.
The bare lightbulb hanging over the stairs casts a sickly green glow over Clint’s sneer and turns the shadows on his face darker. He’s holding a knife in one hand, and black smoke billows around him, filling up every corner of the room the closer he comes. I back away, my heart hammering as I look for a way out. The windows are covered in iron bars that didn’t exist the last time I set foot in his house. The door is behind him, and it’s the only exit. I’m cornered.
My back hits the wall, and my vision darkens. The black smoke is everywhere now, seeping into my skin and turning my scars obsidian. Uncle Clint’s knife digs into my stomach, but instead of blood, more smoke filters out from inside me. I can feel the darkness brewing inside my chest, and it’s responding to the violence as my uncle moves the blade and begins to drag the knife down my arms one small nick at a time.
The smoke builds further, until I can’t see the knife anymore, though I can still feel it making more black marks on my skin. Every slice brings out more smoke, more magic, until the darkness is no longer inside me but all around me.
I wake up screaming.
I don’t even recognize my own voice. I scream and scream until a voice breaks through my panic. Ridge, saying my name.
The scream finally cuts off, leaving my throat raw and ragged, but I can’t seem to take a breath. Fear has frozen me to the sheets, and my arms are curled up over my torso, locked into place. I gasp desperately at the air, trying to remember where I am. The room is too dark. The darkness is everywhere.
Ridge sits in bed beside me, his hands on my arms as he leans over me and says my name again. “You were dreaming. Sable, look at me. It was just a dream.”
The sound of his voice breaks through the paralyzing feeling in my body, and I look up at him, focusing on his rough grasp on my arms. He’s become a kind of touchstone in the midst of my attacks. Just his voice and his face can get to me now, and I cling to his arms, gasping in breath after breath until I feel like I’m surfacing from the panic.
Before I can let his presence soothe me, something even worse than the nightmare draws my attention.
I can see the black marks on my skin.
My scars are painted with magic. Now that I see it, I can feel the energy billowing beneath my skin, obviously awakened by the dream.
The panic I carried over from my nightmare returns full force. I’m being overtaken by the magic inside me. This is it—the moment I lose control and everything I’ve come to love will be destroyed. The East Pack will discover my secret, and they’ll hurt me. Put me to death. Something, I don’t know.
Terror crawls across my skin at the thought of what the shifters would do to me, their enemy.
Ridge is in danger, I realize, my breaths becoming shallower and more ragged. I stare at his face with unblinking eyes, and even though I can see his lips moving and feel his hands on my arms, I can’t hear anything but the whooshing in my ears.
I want to scream at him to let me go before the magic hurts him, but I have no control over my voice. So I just tug against his grasp, trying to break free so that I can fall off the bed onto the floor where he can’t touch me. Where he can’t be hurt. If he would just let me go…
“Sable!” Ridge shouts.
Suddenly, the whooshing in my head stops. I blink up at him, dangling by my arms from his grip.
