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The tip of the blade dragged against my skin, down the length of my cheek, and I froze, my chest heaving as his eyes looked down on me. “Yes, I love that fear in your eyes. You’re ripe to be put back in chains.”
Not again! You won’t do this to me again!
Anger flared in me as I met his gaze. My skin grew hot, fingertips burning, and I fought to get out from under him.
“Cas! Wake up!”
I gasped as Damien shook me awake, and I shot up, frantically looking around in my panic. The smell of smoke burned my nose and lungs. Was something burning?
“Cas! You need to calm down!” Damien was frantic as he tried to smother the tiny flames struggling to spark to life on our bed. Where the blankets touched me, they smoldered, and my body felt hot. I lifted my hands to see the tiniest of flames dancing at each of my fingertips.
Iwas on fire, but I wasn’t burning, it didn’t hurt.
“Close your eyes, Cas. You need to focus on your breathing. Calm your mind.” Damien grabbed my wrists. He hissed as my skin burned his palms, but he didn’t let go and pulled me off the bed. I tried my hardest, closing my eyes to focus. Tears streamed down my cheeks.
Calm, Cas. Calm. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
The heat lessened, and after a few moments finally faded away entirely. I looked back down at my hands. My palms were red, but somehow not burned.
“What happened?” Damien brought his hands to my face and wiped the tears away.
My eyes didn’t meet his. “It was Marcus… I had a dream about him.” It had been so real that it felt like he’d physically been there just now. “What was that? What happened to me?”
“That was Stichion, an elemental ability that I wasn’t prepared for you to start learning quite yet. Your body seemed to have used it in defense.” Damien pulled the sheets up, making sure the fire was fully out. The blankets and mattress were completely ruined, but thankfully the bed frame remained undamaged.
I made a poor attempt to help him, my body still trapped in a state of panic. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t worry about the bed,mea luna. We’ll get a new one.” He turned to me then. “You said you saw Marcus?”
I nodded. “He appeared in my dream. It was just very real. It scared me.”
Damien’s jaw tightened, his eyes widening as they locked on my neck. His hand rose slowly, lifting my hair away from my shoulder and I winced the moment his fingers touched what felt like a cut, the same place where Marcus' knife had just been. Our gazes met and I saw the horror in Damien’s eyes, and in that moment, he knew something I didn’t.
Damien pulled me into a tight embrace. I could feel his emotions like chaos boiling over within him. “That bastard. He must have tethered himself to you.”
The words clicked but didn’t make any sense. It had been a dream; how was I cut? “Tethered?”
Damien growled as he walked over to the closet and threw a shirt on before he grabbed his phone, dialing. “It’s an old ability, long forgotten. Certain members of the house of Nous were known asOneiroi,dream walkers. Those warriors possessed the unique ability to enter a person’s dreams while they slept. They could even hurt them physically if they were good enough. It’s an ability that hasn't been practiced for centuries, not since the wars fought before the darklings. I didn’t think there was anyone still able to use it, let alone Marcus. It isn’t something you can just do to anyone though. You must mark them, through touch.”
The weight of what he could do to me while I slept hit me. I was defenseless against him. “He had me unconscious so many times, he would have had numerous opportunities to do it without my knowledge.”
“And he could have attacked you anytime while you slept at this point. No, he was waiting.Sick fucking bastard.” He grabbed onto the post of the bed, as if he might rip it from the frame, but he steadied himself. “This won’t be the last time he shows up. You can drive a person insane tampering with their dreams. TheOneiroiwere especially useful in their ability to assassinate enemies in their sleep.”
I swallowed, hands trembling.
"Mea luna?"
"I… I thought for a moment I’d never left that cell… that you’d never found me…" The panic was still threatening to take root, crawling over my skin. "That all of this had been a dream."
He returned to me and took my face in his hands. "You are here, not in a cell. This isour room… andI'mreal.Thisis real." I lifted my hand over his, feeling his skin against mine, feeling everything that he was, using it to ground me here to this reality. "He no longer has you, and I won't rest until we find him."
I smiled weakly.
Damien’s muscles twitched as he released me and pushed the call button on his cellphone, placing it to his ear. “Barrett, Marcus must have tethered Cas for dream walking when he had her. He attacked her in her sleep just now… She’s okay, but I need that hideout found, yesterday. Has James dug up anything on his end?” Damien went silent as Barrett told him whatever information they had.
I walked over to him, taking his hand, gently squeezed it as I tried to assure him that I was okay now. He gave me a half smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“Understood. Gather everyone. We’re finding him before the sun sets.”
