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Whispers floated in the air around me, indistinct enough I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I could tell at least two people were talking. People... or creatures.
Apprehension hummed through me, and I reached for the dagger Alek had given me. Surely I had it strapped to my thigh if I was out here alone, didn’t I?
But where I expected to find the leather bound to my leg, I discovered smooth, silky material.
“What the fuck?” I stared down my body, only now realizing what I was wearing. A floor-length nightgown of thin, pale blue silk. But that was absurd. I was in a forest. Hunting. Why was I wearing my nightgown?
The answer rippled through my mind like the lapping of water.Dream.This wasn’t real. My palm shot to my belly, fear gripping me as I found softly curved flesh, not the full swell I’d become so used to. Where was she?
Before I could chase away the panic spiraling through me at the discovery, the voices floated toward me once more. Drawing me forward as surely as a hook through my chest. I continued on my path, parting the mist with my arms as I went, hoping the fog would clear soon so I could see where I was, who I was with.
Light loomed in the distance, beckoning me with its warmth. It pierced through the particles of fog, illuminating the thousands of droplets until they shimmered like a veil. If I could reach the light, I’d break through the mist. I knew it.
My answer was on the other side.
I kept my steps slow and sure. My ears were on alert for the slightest shift, but other than the murmur of those voices, there was nothing else here but my thoughts and erratic heartbeat.
Until I heard them.
The muddied words suddenly came through, crisp and clear. One voice I knew; the other was a mystery to me.
“It wasn’t time yet. They’ll figure it out.”
My mother’s voice.
Dread shot through every cell, which only ratcheted higher when the other woman replied.
“I’m tired of waiting and playing these mortal games. Besides, I could not go another day choking on the scent of wet dog.”
“You’re the one who chose him. You could have had your pick.”
“Right, because the options were just limitless. The succubus would have been more fun, but she wasn’t exactly useful to our purpose, now was she?”
“She wasn’t an option, and you know it.”
I took one tentative step forward, needing to see who Mommy Dearest was talking to.
My mother’s heavy sigh sounded much closer than before. I jerked backward. “Besides, we needed forms that would put us in the best position possible. Lilith is too well-connected. Gabriel would have sensed a change.”
Lilith? What were they talking about?
“Regardless, I don’t see howthatbody will serve you any... ” My mother’s voice lost its exasperated edge, and I could sense a newfound tension in her snapped words, “Leave me.”
“But—”
“Now.”
The oppressive atmosphere around me changed, shifting, the ethereal weight lessening but still holding an ominous sense of foreboding. I wanted to leave. This was dangerous. Something I shouldn’t have found.
My blood ran ice-cold as the macabre silhouette of fingers stretched behind the veil. That one small thing took me right back to childhood. This was the boogeyman, come to steal me from my bed. I hadn’t been this scared of a shadow since I’d been a four-year-old lonely girl whimpering beneath my blankets.
And when the fingers broke that misty wall, my heart clamored so hard beneath my ribs I thought they’d surely break. I jumped back, knowing it would be my death if those fingers brushed against me.
When I landed, I was no longer in my misty dreamland.
Harsh, gasping breaths burned my lungs as I stared ahead, the world around me returning to the four walls of Caleb’s bedroom. The vampire slept peacefully beside me as I trembled, coated in sweat, heart thundering.
I hadn’t had a dream like that... ever. It wasn’t quite a nightmare, but it had climbed under my skin and grabbed hold of me just the same. I would never fall back asleep. Not with the memory of whateverthathad been looping through my mind.
