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I laid my hands on his face, my right fingertips over the black swirling lines, the skin equally silken on both sides. His skin seemed unnaturally warm, with a slight buzz to it, as if there were a mild level of static charge. A spark ran through me.
“Look into my eyes.”
As if I wasn’t already hypnotized by the ardent blue of them. There were gold flecks in his irises, and they were ringed with a thin line of desert black. Rogue drew me in a bit more, fingers flexing on my hips. The fire crackled softly.
Now follow my surface thoughts.Too loud?he asked when I winced.
A bit,I tried quietly.
He chuckled. Yes, ironic. Ha-ha.
This better?
Yes.
Now look around, as if you’re looking just under the surface of water.
Like snorkeling. I pictured the Caribbean and felt his interested response.
Then images not my own began to float by—a dark pool in the woods, the water chill, a bright ocean, waves tumbling, a black-haired, long-legged boy running on the beach, rocky, uneven.
Now deeper.
I dove down. Private here, quiet. A sense of walking through someone’s house at night while they slept. Scenes flickered, as if in a movie. Me, laughing at him, my eyes a green flash. My throat torn open, satisfaction shaded with guilt and grief. Me, lying unconscious on the bed, throat smooth, saved but vulnerable. The need to protect me shimmered around the image, like heat waves.
Did I believe it?
I dove deeper.
Something shadowed. A raven’s wing swept across my vision, shrieking whispers. Hot blood in my mouth, tearing flesh and tears, howls and water. Rogue, drowning in black-and-blue magic, the Dog tearing scarlet chunks out of his chest until Rogue’s howls became blood themselves.
I wrenched myself away.
Abruptly I was in sunlight.
Or rather, back in the firelit room, chill gray fog out the windows. Rogue blinked up at me, eyes turbulent. His fingers dug into my hips, almost all that was holding me upright. It took me a moment to clear the dark howls from my mind.
“What did you see?”
“You don’t know?”
He shook his head. “I kept to my agreement. You were to look on your own. Hopefully you saw that I want only to protect you.”
“But you said you weren’t my friend.”
“I’m not.”
“Then what are you?”
Rogue stood abruptly, which brought him hard up against me. My hands fell away from his face and I tried to step out of the way, but he held me with one iron arm. Stronger than he looked.
The other hand reached up to toy with the short lock that had escaped from my braids at the nape of my neck. He stared at me fiercely from inches away and my heart pounded. Heat simmered from him and I thrilled to it, despite what I’d seen. Or maybe because of it.
Did the Dog also stalk his dreams?
“Do you trust me now?”
He didn’t know all I’d seen in the depth of his heart. Maybe they were things I should not have seen. I wouldn’t want anyone to see my nightmares. Especially now that they were real.
