Chapter Nine
The nightmare was something far beyond anything Viktor could have imagined.
He had experienced enough premonitions, both awake and asleep, to recognize the unmistakable sensation of a vision.
He knew the strange shift in the air, and the way reality seemed to blur at the edges.
Normally, his gift showed him flashes of future events, in fleeting images or a brief scene that was like watching a clip of a movie.
This was different.
Shortly after he had fallen asleep with his arms wrapped around Naomi, the dream had taken over.
It didn’t take long for him to figure out what he was experiencing was no ordinary vision.
He knew with a certainty that chilled him to the bone that he wasn’t seeing some random event that would happen in the distant future.
He was viewing pieces of his mate’s various lifetimes.
More specifically, he was seeing glimpses of her countless deaths.
The realization came slowly at first, followed by a mounting sense of dread as one scene blurred into another.
Naomi appeared in different places, wearing different clothes, surrounded by unfamiliar faces.
Sometimes she was alone. Sometimes she was laughing.
Sometimes she was frightened. Each glimpse seemed to belong to a different version of her existence.
A different path she had taken through the six realms.
But they all ended the same way.
With her death.
One after another, the visions tore through his mind.
Naomi drowning. Naomi falling. Naomi running for her life.
Naomi trapped in places from which there was no escape.
He saw flashes of violence, accidents, and destruction.
He witnessed countless moments of helpless terror.
Some deaths were quick, while others stretched on long enough for him to experience true fear through her eyes.
He watched helplessly as his mate died over and over again, each death more horrifying than the last. The sheer number of deaths she had experienced completely overwhelmed him, leaving him shaken.
His gift had always shown him danger so that he could prevent it, but this was different.
There was no single threat he could identify, no enemy he could hunt down, no future moment he could change.
There was only Naomi.
Living.
Dying.
And starting over.
Somehow, she had endured it over and over again.
Viktor woke with a violent gasp, his entire body jerking as though he’d been drowning in deep water.
For several seconds, he had no idea where he was.
After seeing flashes of so many different locations, it left him feeling slightly disoriented.
His heart hammered against his ribs, each beat painfully loud in the silence of the room.
He relaxed a little when he discovered Naomi sleeping peacefully next to him. For several long minutes, he simply stared down at her as he fought to slow his ragged breathing. He needed to see her safe and unharmed in order to replace some of the horrible images he’d seen in the nightmare.
Unfortunately, nothing would make him forget what he’d seen. The visions of her dying over and over again would remain burned into his mind until he took his very last breath.
He dragged a trembling hand over his face.
He had seen death before. More than most beings could ever comprehend.
During his long life, he had witnessed wars, executions, massacres, and participated in epic supernatural battles.
He had been forced to watch people he cared about die, and had seen an endless amount of strangers perish in a variety of circumstances.
But this was different.
Naomi hadn’t died once.
She was being tortured over and over again.
Not wanting to disturb her, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood, unable to remain still.
He stalked toward the bathroom, trying desperately to make sense of the chaos in his mind.
He automatically began cataloging the details of the vision, searching for patterns and connections.
Different locations. Different circumstances.
Different lifetimes. There were simply no hints that helped him decipher who had caused the turmoil in her life, or how to stop it.
The implications of that were horrifying.
Turning on the shower, he stepped under the hot water.
He could have used his magic to clean himself, but he felt a desperate need to physically wash away the memories of Naomi’s various deaths.
Yet, he knew there was nothing within the six realms that was powerful enough to wipe his mind clean of her suffering.
For the first time in centuries, Viktor found himself genuinely afraid.
He wasn’t sure how to stop the death loop.
Her safety was his top priority, and not being able to protect her left him feeling completely out of control.
It was soul-destroying to imagine how many more times he would be forced to watch her die.
Even the thought of that made him feel sick.
He felt an immense amount of comfort when Naomi wrapped her arms around him from behind. “Did I wake you?”
“No. The thought of a big bowl of noodles did.” She paused before saying, “I’m sorry you had to see all of that. I know my situation is pretty fucked up.”
He spun around and pulled her into his arms. “Don’t say that. It is important to me to know what you’ve been going through. You need to know that you are not alone. Not anymore.”
Naomi traced the circular mating mark on his chest with her finger.
She thought the silvery iridescent mark was beautiful, though she was a little surprised at just how bright it was.
When she had first seen the ancient symbol on his chest, it had been a faded impression.
Like a shadow that had somehow carried over from the previous cycle.
Now, it was like a freaking beacon of light.
She’d seen bond marks on other mated couples, but never any that were this bright.
She wasn’t even sure regular clothing would be enough to cover it.
She didn’t mind, though. Seeing him branded with physical proof that he belonged to her filled her with a primal sense of satisfaction. She’d never realized just how possessive she was before meeting Viktor.
Then again, before him, there had never been a need.
Being with Viktor was a rare, precious kind of joy in her life.
One she had never expected to find and wasn’t entirely sure she would be allowed to keep.
After everything she had endured, finding him almost felt like a reward for surviving it all.
Every cycle, every terrifying death, every moment when she had been certain she would never make it to tomorrow, all of it suddenly seemed worth enduring since it had ultimately led her to him.
She was trying not to think about how long their happiness would last. Trying not to obsess over what could go wrong, or when the universe might decide to take it away from her.
Her life had taught her that happiness came with an expiration date, and she had learned the hard way that no matter how careful she was, tragedy could find her at any moment.
Initially, she had been in a rush to have sex with Viktor before some disaster struck. Like a sudden storm destroying the island, or the house bursting into flames. Before some completely ridiculous, horrifying accident once again ended her life.
It had seemed almost absurd to believe she could have something as simple as a night with her mate without the universe finding a way to ruin it.
At first, that urgency had made her want to rush. If she only had a limited amount of time with Viktor, then she wanted to make every second count. She wanted to hold him, kiss him, and lose herself in all the feelings she’d spent so long believing she would never have the chance to experience.
Their first kiss had stripped the urgency away.
For once, she hadn’t been thinking about the next death, the next loop, or the countless ways everything could go wrong.
She hadn’t been calculating how much time she might have left.
She had simply been there with Viktor, enjoying his warmth and the way he made her feel.
For the first time in what felt like forever, she didn’t want to rush toward anything.
She wanted to savor it all.
Every kiss.
Every touch.
Every conversation they shared.
Every laugh that escaped him when she said or did something ridiculous.
She wanted to memorize the sound of his voice, and the way his eyes softened when he looked at her.
She wanted to remember what it felt like to be held by him, to reach for him without fear, and to know that he would always be there by her side.
She didn’t want their relationship to become another countdown.
She wanted a future with him.
And maybe that was the hardest part. She had spent so long surviving in her fucked up version of reality that she had forgotten how to simply live with the promise of tomorrow. She refused to let fear steal the happiness she had fought so hard to find.
Whatever happened, she had Viktor now.
And for once, now was enough.
“Now that you mentioned it, our mating marks are particularly bright,” he said, glancing down at the matching symbols they wore.
She hadn’t mentioned it, but since he had access to her mind now, she hadn’t had to say it out loud.
“Did we mess it up somehow?”
He chuckled. “No, my little pessimist. Usually, it doesn’t take much to complete the bond, but we exchanged a lot of magic. Perhaps that is why it is brighter.”
“If you had a shadow of the mark in this life because of my magic, do you think the mark will still be there in the next cycle?”
He ran his fingers through her wet hair under the gentle cascade of water while he considered that. “Maybe. We might have to activate it again before it works, though.”
“That makes sense. Let’s hope we don’t have to prove that soon.”