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The kiss.
The physical need.
His body pressed between her legs.
Then gone—over at first touch—leaving her breathless and yearning. She pressed a hand between her thighs for relief and thought about Lucian lying next to her only moments ago, watching her with those pensive, golden eyes.
She took a shaky breath.
Just a dream, and she knew she should be grateful that was all it had been. But as she worked over the memory of it, she noticed differences about this dream from others she’d had, though she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what. She was used to dreaming and used to the lingering effects of a dream nagging her to pay attention. Mostly her dreams were impressions, as if they were pictures pressed into parchment in a single color, allowing awareness but without discernible details.
This dream, however, had been vibrant with detail and somehow unfamiliar. The color, the striations of petals, the fragrance of flowers, the sound of a creek, the sweetness of the berries on her tongue—and Lucian. There hadn’t been anything missing in him. It was as if he’d walked into her dream, a full, complete version of himself, then took her to places he seemed to recognize.
He was a god. Could that be something he could do, she wondered?
How might she bring it up?
But if she did, then he’d know she’d dreamt about him.
The heat in her cheeks grew more intense. No. She couldn’t. Not after embarrassing herself.
But then she remembered what he’d told her. His father had taken his power.
She sat up, pressing her fingers to her face to subdue her dramatic reaction to something that had only happened in her mind. The dream hadn’t been real, and it wasn’t as if she hadn’t had pleasure dreams before. Even ones about Lucian. She’d had lots of them. Loved them. She just hadn’t ever had to look the object of one in the eye the next day. She imagined seeing Lucian later and the heat in her body intensified.
“It was only a dream,” she reminded herself out loud. “My dream. He doesn’t know.”
Heartened by that realization, she flung the covers off, made the bed, and went into the glorious bathroom. Lucian was making breakfast, and her stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten since the wedding. Somewhat reluctantly, she finished showering, then slipped back into the dress and cozy sweater.
It was time to face Lucian.
Retracing the route from her bedroom, she found her way to the glass skyway. Today, she felt brave, enough to stop and admire the view. Below her, clouds drifted between her and the bright, verdant landscape below, a patchwork of varied greens. Breathtaking mountains reached toward the house, capped in clouds and snow. In the distance, the sapphire ribbon of a river meandered like a serpent through the landscape. Standing in the sky was incredible and surreal.
She left the walkway behind and entered the atrium, still awed at the spectacle of a wooded forest in the center of a house. Instead of skirting it, however, like she had the night before, she followed a path into the garden. The trees, the greenery, the blooms reminded her of something. The deeper she wound along the path, the more the impression tightened and strengthened. The trickle of water—the sound—hit her with how much it resembled the magical glen from her dream. Though there weren’t any pink petals showering the space, it was eerily similar. She turned in a circle, unclear how that was so.
“That doesn’t make sense,” she whispered.
But dreams were strange things, she knew. Unruly and very rarely straightforward. She decided she must have unconsciously stored away the information when she’d walked the garden with Lucian the night before.
When she reached the entrance of the path, she looked at the three doors directly in front of her. The day before, Lucian had opened one to reveal the sea. She wondered what she might find if she opened another. It was probably a terrible idea, but she didn’t think Lucian would keep monsters behind Elsewhere Doors. No, he’d said they were places he’d been during his Roaming. Besides, he hadn’t told her she couldn’t or shouldn’t open them.
Curious, and telling herself that just one peek wouldn’t hurt anyone, she walked to a door and turned the knob. Opening it just a touch. she peered through, then threw it open wide with a gasp. A gray-blue lake stretched out to the horizon as far as she could see. At her feet, dappled pebbles of in a variety of colors lined the shore as frothy waves lapped toward her.
It was the lake from her dream.Herdream!
“What the–” She breathed the words like a curse, knowing. “How?”
And yet she’d never seen the lake.
Until now.
She shut the door and leaned against it, her heart beating an errant rhythm in her chest, unable to explain what she was seeing and how it was in her dream. She could explain the gardens—she had walked through them, even if it had been rushed and dark—but the lake behind the Elsewhere Door? That, she couldn’t explain, and it made her feel like she might not be able to catch her breath.
A muffled noise drew her attention away from her unanswerable questions. She left the Elsewhere Doors behind and crossed to the atrium to the glass bridge she knew would take her back to the main room. The din of boisterous and happy voices drifted through the hallways toward her, sounding like… Auri!
Brinna hurried over the glass walkway—ignoring the view this time—not exactly ignoring it; she thought about how amazingly beautiful it was as she dashed through the hallway, bursting out into the great room. It smelled of something delicious. And?—
“Auri?” She froze. It wasn’t just Auri but also Mattias along with Nixus. “Mattias! You’re alright!”
