Chapter 31
Chapter
Thirty-One
MERRI
The first thing I noticed when I entered the dream was the moon.
It hung heavy and low, looking almost comically large in the star-spangled sky.
The second thing I clocked was the chateau.
Idyllic and beautiful, it made my chest ache with longing for the men I loved.
I could be with them in dreams, sure, but I wanted every moment to be a reality. Instead, I’d gotten myself trapped.
As I wandered the property, I let my power guide me toward my goal.
It wasn’t the sprawling estate or the gardens I was searching for.
It was him. Tall, broad, handsome, and brutal, Chaos stood near the trees at the back of the house.
He took my breath away on a good day, but right now?
The look on his face was so fierce my heart stuttered.
“Where were you last night?” he snapped, pulling me out of my reverie.
“Well, hello to you, too.”
He made a rumbling sound I was pretty sure was a growl. Like an actual growl. The predator-stalking-prey kind.
So why were my panties damp?
“You didn’t come to any of us. We had no way to find you. You blocked Sin from your dreams. Merri . . . We didn’t know if you were—”
I reached out and cupped his cheek as his words took on a new meaning. He wasn’t scolding me; he’d been worried for me. “I’m okay. I’m here now.”
His posture softened, but he wasn’t ready to let it go. “Where were you? Why did you block Sin?”
“The answer is the same for both, actually,” I said with a sigh. I’d known there would be no way to keep this from them, but I’d sort of been hoping we could save this conversation for after. When he was calm from a couple of orgasms.
He raised a brow, silently demanding an answer.
“Lucifer.”
Just like that, he was tense again. “Lucifer what?”
“I don’t know how it happened, but I ended up in a dreamwalk with him.”
A muscle in his jaw ticked as he ground his teeth and released another low growl, but I held up a hand to stop him.
“Nothing happened. We just . . . talked. But afterward, I had to shore up my defenses. If my walls are down for you, they’re down for him too. It’s complicated, and I’m not sure, but it might be that my power seeks the most easily available target if I’m not focused.”
He grunted, clearly displeased with this turn of events.
I tried the hand on his cheek again. “I’m sorry. But I’m fine. I’m right here.”
He held my gaze for several heartbeats before turning his head and kissing my palm. “We have some updates for you as well.”
“You do?” I asked, hope making my heart speed up.
“First I think you should bring the others.”
I snorted out a laugh. “Oh, yeah, okay. I can’t do that.”
“Yes you can.”
“How do you know what I can and can’t do?”
“That’s part of what we need to talk to you about.” Stepping even closer, he wrapped his hand around my nape and squeezed gently. “You can do so much more than you think, Red. You have power over us all. One crook of your finger, real or in a dream, and we will come running.”
I wasn’t sure what to do with those words. I was simultaneously filled with joy and despair. Because while I didn’t doubt the sincerity in his voice, there was a very specific time in the not-so-distant past where that had been far from the case.
And the reminder made me think of Grim.
A stone of anxiety sat heavy in my stomach. The thought of seeing him again made my palms break out in sweat.
“I . . . I don’t . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence, unsure of what I really wanted to say.
“We need you to do this. It’s part of the plan.”
“What plan is that?”
“Which one do you think?”
The way he said it, so matter-of-factly, left no room for doubt. It was about getting me back.
“I don’t even know where to start.”
“So what? You didn’t know how to dreamwalk until you did. It’s all instinct, Red. Just try. You might surprise yourself.”
Thoughts racing, I bit my lower lip out of habit as I tried to figure out how to go about doing this. I’d never pulled someone into a dreamwalk that was already occupied by someone else. But Sin had joined more than once when Lucifer had me in one of his. Maybe I was overthinking it all.
Chaos was right. I was powerful—so powerful I’d been locked away by Lilith.
“Okay. I’ll try.”
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, something in me relaxing when he threaded our fingers as if to share some of his strength.
I released a second heavy exhale, this time picturing those golden threads I’d noticed ever since the mate bonds snapped into place.
I basically just had to think of one of the four of them and the shimmery fiber would appear, like a rope I could follow . . . or tug.
At first the only one I saw was a bright, shiny gold, strong and thick like a rope woven from our bond.
I wrapped my hand around it and heard Chaos let out a soft grunt even as his energy poured over me.
On instinct I released it, confident he wasn’t going anywhere.
Chaos wouldn’t leave this dream until I ended it. He was mine.
Sweeping my gaze farther through my consciousness, I found two more woven threads, not as vibrant, but still glowing and golden.
It didn’t take more than a passing thought to know Sin’s was the one on the left and Malice the right.
Without giving myself a chance to second-guess, I reached for both of them and tugged. Hard.
I felt their presence the moment they arrived, their ropes now shining as brightly as Chaos’s.
That just left one more.
The one I dreaded.
But when I reached for Grim, his thread was wispy and dull. It was still there, but when I tried to touch it, my fingers moved through it as easily as if it were a cloud.
I knew this was a bad sign. Our bond was damaged.
But I didn’t know if it was his fault for rejecting me, or mine for being so torn about seeing him again. Like a self-sabotaging thing. Or maybe I was just subconsciously protecting myself. No matter the reason, it seemed like a future Merri problem.
“She did it,” Sin whispered as I opened my eyes and came face-to-face with him and Malice. “I knew she fucking could.”
Malice didn’t give me words right away; he chose instead to wrap me in a tight embrace. “Good job, hellcat,” he murmured as he pressed a soft kiss to my temple.
Fuck, I’d missed them.
“Where’s Grim?” Chaos asked.
“Stubborn ass probably refused to come on principle.” Sin took the hand Chaos wasn’t holding and brought it to his lips. “His loss.”
I shook my head, stepping back as Malice released me from his embrace. “No. I tried. I couldn’t grab hold of him. I think the bond is messed up.”
The guys wore various expressions of anger, though I could tell none of it was directed at me. Despite seeming the most upset by my admission, Sin was the first to recover.
“That shouldn’t matter, though, right?” He looked at the others. “Lilith didn’t say anything about requiring a mate bond to bring people into the dream realm. I mean, for the plan to work, it literally can’t be a requirement.”
“Maybe you three should fill me in on this plan. I’ll work out my Grim stuff on my own.”
Malice nodded, taking a beat before he said, “You’re strongest in the dream realm, especially when you keep yourself fed. Whatever happens in these dreamwalks happens in reality, so you cut me, I bleed, you drain me dry, I wither with a smile on my face.”
I nodded, none of this information news to me.
“And now that we know you can bring as many people as you want—”
“That feels like a bit of a stretch, Sin,” I said. “So far we can only confidently say I can bring three.”
He waved my concern away. “That’s just a matter of practice, and in reality, you only really need to be able to bring in a couple more.”
I was about to ask who he meant, but it was obvious. They wanted to face off against Lucifer here, where we would have the upper hand.
“You can do this, Red,” Chaos said.
Taking a fortifying breath, I straightened my posture and gave a curt nod. “Okay. When do you want to do this?”
They looked to each other again, silently communicating in that way of theirs.
“Soon,” Malice murmured.
“I think we plan on practicing tomorrow. Making sure you can get Grim here and limit testing your power to see what you can really do when the training wheels come off,” Chaos said.
Sin nodded his agreement. “And then if everything goes as well as expected, we pull the trigger the next day.”
My belly churned with nerves. “Two days?” I squeaked. “You want me ready to face off with the devil in two days?”
“We don’t have the luxury of time, Red.”
“Besides, you already have everything you need. You just have to believe in yourself. That’s what tomorrow is for. By the time we’re done, you’ll be as confident in your abilities as we are,” Sin added.
“You have a lot of faith in me.”
Had they forgotten how out of control I’d been only weeks earlier? That I’d nearly died multiple times because of my lack of understanding of my power?
“We do. And nothing is going to change that,” Malice murmured, reaching for me and brushing a lock of hair behind my ear.
Hunger washed over me at their proximity. Three strong, virile horsemen in my dream realm after going a night without feeding were proving too tempting to resist.
“Did you guys feel that?” Sin asked, his pupils blown as my lust hit him.
“Yes.” Chaos’s voice was like gravel.
“Hungry, hellcat?”
“Famished.”
“Then maybe we shelve talking and get to the feeding portion of the evening,” Sin offered.
“Oh yeah?” I practically purred. “What did you have in mind?”
Sin’s smile was pure sex. “Remember that time you said you wanted to be chased? How about a little hide and seek?”