Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
Z
T hat night, I dreamed I was in a garden.
The sun was high in the sky, glimmering like freshly polished gold, and illuminated the colorful flowers and bushes lining the paved walkway. In the distance, a fountain shot water into the air. Birds chirped overhead. Everything was serene and beautiful and?—
I paused, a frown tugging at my lips when something crackled beneath the weight of my shoe. I glanced down to see that the grass, once a vibrant green, was now brown and brittle, the blades snapping with every step I took. The flowers began to droop and wilt, and bugs scurried up their stems.
On closer inspection, I saw that the fountain was cracked and decaying, graffiti covering every square inch, and the water inside of it was a greenish-brown color. Dark storm clouds skidded across the sky, blotting out the sun, and the temperature dipped dramatically. Goose bumps pebbled on my arms as a cold wind skirted through the garden.
“It’s sad, wouldn’t you agree? How easily things can die?”
I spun on my heel, sucking in a sharp breath.
Aaliyah sat on the edge of the fountain, her long legs folded at her ankles. She wore a stunning black dress with lace sleeves and a plunging neckline. Her red hair was styled in loose waves today that cascaded down her back like a cloak of blood. One of her hands absently stirred the disgusting water while the other rested primly in her lap.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, anger thrumming through me, briefly eclipsing any fear I might have felt in her presence.
“In this garden or in your dream?” Aaliyah turned to stare at me, her expression unreadable. “I didn’t choose the location, I’ll have you know.”
Even before she had finished speaking, I was shaking my head. “You’re not truly in my dream. You’re just a figment of my imagination.”
One of her brows lifted. It made her look even more arrogant than normal, a feat I didn’t think was possible.
“I happen to have a dream eater in my employment.” Aaliyah straightened and folded both hands in her lap.
“A dream eater?”
A smirk tugged up her blood-red lips. “It’s exactly as it sounds, my darling sister. He can help me enter dreams…and of course, destroy them afterwards.” She waved a flippant hand in the air. “But don’t worry. I want you to remember this dream.”
My heart rate spiked. “That’s?—”
“Impossible?” She laughed and then stood gracefully, smoothing her hands down the length of her skin-tight dress. “Nothing is impossible, my dear sister. Not when you have hell at your disposal. But don’t worry. I don’t enter your precious mates’ dreams…much.” A taunting smirk curled up her lips. “Though I have to say, the one time I paid a visit to Killian, he showed me things no man had ever shown me before. The things he can do with his?—”
With a roar of rage, I lunged at her, wrapping my hand around her throat. I shouldn’t have been able to touch her, not in real life, but this was a dream, after all. My dream. And I wanted her to suffer for even insinuating that she’d touched Killian.
She dangled in the air, her feet just barely grazing the brown grass beneath her, and managed to smirk. The sight infuriated me like nothing I’d known before, and I tightened my grip.
But Aaliyah simply waved a hand, and I was thrown backwards. I landed on the ground with a startled “oomph” as the wind knocked out of me.
“Don’t worry your pretty, little head. I never touched your incubus.” Aaliyah brushed at her clothes with a haughty sneer. “I just wanted to see how you’d react.” Her lips firmed, disgust rippling across her features. “It seems as if I was correct in my assessment.”
I jumped back to my feet and balled my hands into fists. “What assessment?”
“That you’re not over them yet.” She heaved out an elongated breath. “That you still love them.”
I gaped at her. “Of course I still love them!”
“Why?” Aaliyah’s eyes flared with fire—it felt as if I were looking into the bowels of Hell itself, a deep, dark abyss full of wicked monsters and things that go bump in the night. “What have they done to deserve your loyalty?” She held a hand up before I could respond. “You know what? Don’t answer that. It doesn’t matter.” Her upper lip curled away from her teeth in a snarl. “I see that Mommy Dearest has been helping you.”
“Lilith?” I asked in disbelief.
“First the mages, then the vampires, now the incubi.” Aaliyah threw her head back and laughed, though the noise was devoid of any genuine mirth. “You were always Mom’s favorite.”
“She’s not helping me, Aaliyah.” I didn’t know why I was trying to reason with her. I’d learned long ago that there was nothing I could do to help her, save her, heal her. Still, I found the words leaving me despite my better judgment. “She’s just fulfilling her promise to the nightmares. If you complete the trials, you’ll get her blessing.”
“Yes. Yes. Yes.” Once again, Aaliyah waved her hand in the air, almost as if she were physically swatting away my words. “The Trials of Lilith. I’ve heard of them.” Molten green eyes speared me with an unreadable look. “You’re trying to get enough support to kill me, aren’t you?”
I sucked in a sharp breath and then managed to say, “You’re not leaving me much of a choice.”
She canted her head to the side and frowned. “Is it wrong for me to love you?”
“When you hurt other people? Yes. Yes, it is.” I took a step closer to her, adrenaline and something else, something I couldn’t name, controlling my movements. “When you try to kill my mates? Yes.”
“I was trying to protect you from them!” Aaliyah snapped. “Everything I’ve done has been to protect you.”
That indecipherable emotion pierced my chest, making it suddenly hard to breathe.
I squeezed my eyelids shut and then forced myself to reopen them, to focus on her face. “If that’s true, then stop this, Aaliyah. Stop all of this. Turn yourself in?—”
“But I didn’t do anything wrong!”
For the first time since I’d met her, Aaliyah didn’t sound like a confident demoness, but like a vulnerable, forlorn child throwing a tantrum. I half expected her to begin stomping her foot or throwing herself to the ground.
“Aaliyah, please. We can end this without any more violence. We can?—”
“No!”
I swore that the entire world began to shake with the force of her scream. The trees dipped and swayed, the flowers tilted precariously, and the ground rumbled beneath my feet.
“Aaliyah!” I begged, reaching for her.
“If I can’t have you, then no one can!” She shoved her hands out, and though she didn’t physically touch me, I felt myself fly backwards.
Then I was falling, falling, falling, falling, falling, falling?—
I jerked upright in bed, my heart battering against my rib cage.
“Z!” Dair, who slept beside me, immediately pulled me into his arms. “What happened? Are you okay? Did you have a nightmare?”
I sucked in a ragged breath, but it got stuck in my throat, causing me to gag. Quickly, Dair reached for the pitcher and cup on the nightstand and poured me some water.
The rest of the tent was eerily silent. I didn’t know where the rest of my mates were, but I imagined they were debriefing with the others. Perhaps establishing a game plan now that we’d stopped the goblins.
I greedily chugged down the water, blinking away the final remnants of sleep. Through the tent flap, I could just make out the sun playing a game of peek-a-boo with the horizon. Purple and green streaked the gray sky here and there. It must’ve been six or seven in the morning.
Once I felt as if I had some control of myself, I told Dair about my dream…my nightmare. Dair listened silently, one of his hands inching up to stroke my back.
When I finished, his brows drew together, and he sucked in a sharp breath.
“You don’t think it was real, do you?” Dair asked, concern tightening his expression, causing his lips to curl downwards.
“Maybe?” I scrubbed a hand down my face, feeling exhaustion settle marrow-deep in my bones. “I don’t know. But if it really was Aaliyah, then she’s becoming more unhinged.”
“More dangerous,” Dair agreed with a decisive nod. He continued stroking my back, his heat migrating through my clothes. “We can talk to the mages in the morning. See if they have anything that can keep Aaliyah out of your dreams—out of all our dreams. Maybe there’s a way to ward the camp.”
A companionable silence settled between us, both of us lost in our thoughts.
Dair broke it first. “What do you think my trial is going to be?”
“Huh?” Out of everything I expected him to say, it wasn’t that.
I twisted so I could see his face better—all chiseled lines, soft lips, and guileless blue eyes, framed by the softest blond hair imaginable.
“My trial.” Dair’s eyes briefly dipped to my lips before refocusing on my own. “What do you think it’s going to be?”
I gently placed my palm in the middle of his naked chest, the skin hot beneath my touch. He flexed slightly, a shudder reverberating through him, but never pulled his gaze off of me.
“I honestly don’t know,” I confessed. “Every trial has had to do with the nightmare’s sin, right? Bash had to free me without using his magic—or choose to use his magic and risk hurting me. Jax had been starved and then was forced to hunt me down. Killian had to resist the temptation of his perfect woman.” My lip curled at the reminder. “So my guess is your trial will have something to do with envy.”
Dair’s lips firmed, and he turned his head away, focusing on the tent wall. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
I opened my mouth to respond but quickly shut it when the flap opened, and Ryland stepped inside.
He volleyed his gaze between the two of us, and one of his dark brows arched. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Yes,” I responded at the same moment Dair said, “No.”
I shot him a glare, but he simply shrugged unapologetically, offering me a sheepish smile.
“I’m fine, Z. Promise.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “Now get off of me for a second so I can get in my chair.”
I scooted to the edge of the bed as Dair reached for his wheelchair. His strong, golden arms flexed as he heaved his body up and then repositioned himself in the chair. I’d never get tired of watching him do that. There was something so inherently sexy about seeing his muscles ripple.
Dair caught me staring and offered me a shy smile. “What?”
“You’re just sexy,” I responded bluntly.
The color in his cheeks heightened. “W-what?”
“You heard the lady,” Ryland said with a smirk. He folded his arms over his chest and leaned against one of the pillars keeping the tent upright. “Our mate wants to fuck you in the chair.”
“I didn’t say that,” I protested…albeit half-heartedly.
“You implied it,” Ryland countered.
I flipped him off.
Dair seemed at a loss for words. He sputtered something inarticulate as the red in his cheeks crawled down his neck.
“I…um…” He brushed at a strand of golden hair.
“You can have kinky wheelchair sex later.” Ryland gave the mermaid a wink before turning towards me. “We need to talk.”
The smirk on his face faded as if it had never been there to begin with.
I felt my own smile wilt before disappearing entirely. “What? What happened?”
“Two things. First, it appears as if some of your mates got impatient being left behind. Jax and Bash arrived at camp a few minutes earlier. They’re okay—and the camp they left is okay— but they told us that the only way they’ll leave you again is in a body bag. Dramatic assholes.” Ryland shook his head with a wry smirk, even as my heart leaped.
Bash and Jax were here? I missed them. So much. I knew I’d told them to remain behind, but fuck me, I was so happy they disobeyed me and came. I needed to see them, hold them, kiss them.
“And secondly,” Ryland continued, “we finally heard back from Atta and Axel.”
Suddenly, his somber expression made sense.
Quickly—not even caring that I was still in my sleep cami and shorts—I hurried towards him. “What did they say? What’s going on?”
“You’re going to want to read the letter yourself,” Ryland said gravely. “We have a problem, Z. A big, big problem.”