Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Sage
“Do you think something’s happened to him?” I feel like I’d know if something was wrong with Hack, but I can’t help asking anyway.
“We’re just not catching him while he’s asleep. We can try again after I’ve peed.”
I thought I was optimistic, but Saffron is on a whole other level. Considering she’s been in these cave-like cells for goddess knows how much longer than me, I’m surprised she hasn’t gone insane.
On my first night here, I slept for what felt like days, my body coming to terms with being used again after weeks of being in stasis.
It doesn’t help that it always seems like night.
The space is small, but it’s enough for me to stand comfortably—if I stay on the spot in the middle—and I am making sure to exercise and move all of my limbs regularly.
Being able to feel anything again is a literal miracle so I’m not wasting a second of it.
I plan on getting out of here as soon as I can create an opportunity, which means I need to be ready, and not all weak in the corner mumbling woe is me.
“What was with that demon, Slay?” From the sound of her voice, she’s sitting beside the bars of her cell.
Over the last six weeks, I’ve learned to focus my hearing on various things, one of those being where Saffron is sitting.
The water droplets and the harpy sisters are the only other things I ever hear.
No sign of Danika yet, but she was definitely in one of these cells. Saffron spoke to her, she knew things that only Danika could have said. The thing that really made me cry was the misheard lyric snippet my best friend gave Saffron.
“Hit me with your pet shark! Fire away…” Apparently it’s what Danika was singing out loud for hours after she first arrived. Of course, Aggie hated it. Mera, not so much.
“What do you mean?”
“He looked like he wanted to eat me, and I can tell you now…I wouldn’t taste very nice. Not after sitting in the same clothes for years on end.”
“I feel ya there, Saffy.” We’re given a clean—empty—metal bucket every two days to do our business in. Other than that, we have to make do with what we have.
Our clothes on our backs.
A blanket each—albeit moth eaten.
Our bathroom bucket.
And water and bread three times a day. Sometimes four, if we get an extra visit from Mera when she’s bored and Aggie’s busy.
If I never look at bread again when I get out of here, I won’t be sad.
“Okay, I’m ready.” Saffron’s sweet-candy voice rings through the darkness.
My heart jumps the same way it does every time we attempt this, because the hope that I’m going to see Hack, and have him see me, is through the fucking roof…or mountainous tip.
Having never met a faerie, I had zero idea what to expect when Saffron first told me she was a dreamwalker. Apparently, it’s a super rare faerie power that is only in the royal lineage. She and her sixteen sisters all have some form of it, but not all with the same strength.
Her offer to help me see Hack in his dreams felt like a trap, especially considering she doesn’t want anything in return, but I trusted my gut and laid down on the floor of my personal tiny cave, reaching my arm out through and around the bars.
The tips of our fingers touching is all Saffron needs to let her magic flow.
Today is the first time this has worked, but not with Hack nor Danika—because I’ve tried both. Instead, I thought about Slay, because I remembered him telling me once to get in touch with him if I needed help and Hack wasn’t around. So that’s exactly what I did.
He swore a lot, to begin with, asked me a lot of questions about where I am—to which I had no answers—until eventually he took the time to listen to my request. I need Hack.
I need him like I need air to breathe.
He is my lifeforce, he makes me feel stronger, invincible almost, and without him, I’m entirely lost in a void of emptiness.
“You think Slay’s had time to pass the message along?
” I’m stalling now, scared that Hack won’t sleep, scared that I’ll never get through to him.
With the ward on the mountain, I don’t even know if he can feel me like I can feel him.
I have no idea how all of this works. The witchy knowledge that Hekate blessed me with has been a grand total of useless so far.
“The sisters will be around soon, so now’s the best time to try, unless you want to wait another few hours until they’re gone again?” I can hear the smug grin on her face. She knows I don’t want to wait.
“I’m ready, sticking my arm out.” With my back flat against the rock surface, my arm through the bars and reaching as far as I can stretch toward Saffron, I close my eyes.
Our fingertips touch and Saffron murmurs something before an electric shock buzzes from where we’re connected.
It travels through my body and sends me straight to sleep, the darkness clouding into a fog.
I can’t see Saffron, but I can hear her whispers as I continue to picture Hack, allowing the pull for him to be free and search him out.
At the point the fog usually begins to darken again, due to another unsuccessful attempt, this time it doesn’t.
Instead, it brightens into a meadow of white daisies as far as the eye can see.
The sky is dusky, a strange deep-purple color, with the sun setting and a few stars shining. It’s the best of it all.
I spin on the spot, my dirty and ragged dress now clean and bright, and I search out my soulmate.
My whole body freezes when I see him, leaning against a tall tree with one foot up behind him and his arms folded across his chest.
He’s waiting for me.
Tears spring to my eyes and I run toward him faster than I ever have before. The scent of him when I get closer finishes me off and I collapse into his arms in a flurry of sobs. Hack falls to the grass with me and we just hold each other so tightly I never want to let go.
“Hey, Satapti.” Hack grasps my head in both hands and holds it in front of his face, his thumbs wiping away the fresh tears that refuse to stop flowing.
His eyes search mine, for a lie maybe? Likely to try and figure out what trick is being played on him because I have never come back from the dead or done this dream walking thing.
The intimacy in that moment as we truly take each other in, drinking up all the attention and love, is electric. The urge to kiss him takes over and I make the first move, leaning forward and pressing my lips against his like a delicate flower that could break.
Saffron and I didn’t exactly discuss what would be able to happen while in this dreamscape, but I’m too desperate for him to not try and kiss him. I don’t know why I’m tentative with it because the hug was tighter than ever, but I’m afraid something is going to pull us away from each other again.
“Hey, Zelos.” I kiss him again and he stills, allowing me to believe I have a modicum of control.
The low grumble from his throat tells me he’s about to throw that idea out of the window, just before he proves me right and moves one of his hands from the side of my face to the back of my head.
His fingers entwine with my hair at my scalp and fuck yeah…
he pulls it oh so good before encouraging my lips to part with his tongue.
I know my body is lying on a cold, stone floor in a cave-cell inside a mountain, but this feels so real. Every touch, every lick…my nipples are throbbing in anticipation of being set free, pinched, bitten…just as long as it’s with Hack.
Our kiss is heated, raw, hands grasping and breaths panting before we eventually part.
Hack rests his forehead against mine and takes a long, deep, inhale, and I close my eyes, soaking the moment in with my palms against his chest. His heartbeat is grounding me so deeply it’s easy to forget this is a dream.
“How…?” His voice is hoarse and he barely gets the word fully out as he pulls back a little, stroking the sides of my face with his thumbs again.
It’s impossible not to chuckle at his emotion-fueled question because the how of all this is a whole heap of crazy.
“Well, I’m alive again and I’m not a witch.
Or I am, but only because Baba Yaga put some hex on me…
reason still unknown. I’m a demi goddess too and Hekate is my original mother, not Baba.
Thank fuck.” True to form, I blurt out the information as though it’s nothing, when in actual fact, it’s everything.
My world has been flipped upside down and sideways and dragged along the edge of a cliff, but it seems I thrive in madness because I’m handling it all like a fucking champ.
Shaking his head, Hack’s lips tip upward at the corners. “Well, that explains a lot and nothing at all. Where are you?”
“I don’t know. Inside a mountain. There’s water somewhere because I can hear a constant dripping.
I made a faerie friend. Her name is Saffron and she’s the reason I’m here now.
The harpies said there’s some kind of ward, making it impossible for you to know where I am.
You could be standing on the mountain and never know I’m here. ”
His hands at the small of my back are firm, holding me in place with his natural warmth.
“That’s more information that I had, so if that’s all you’ve got, it’s enough. How long have we got?” His eyes glow a little, the green growing darker and yet brighter, his breaths heavy and wanting.
“I don’t kno—”
Without giving me a chance to finish, Hack’s lips find mine and I melt into him.
My hands slide up and over his shoulders and my chest presses against him, giving my nipples a little of the friction they’re begging for.
Thin vines slide around my wrists as I dig my fingers into his back, wishing our clothes weren’t in the way of touching his bare skin.
His tongue massages mine in a way that makes my knees weak as I stroke my fingers up to the back of his neck.
“I missed you so fucking much.” His breathy words are growled into my mouth between nips and licks. All I can do is moan in response, too drunk on his attentions to be coherent.
A familiar tickling against my ankles makes its way up my legs, wrapping around my thighs, and before I can protest about the clothes, they’re gone…
It’s so fast, I pull away, eyes wide.
“It’s a dream, Satapti. Mine, to be exact.
It’s easier to imagine the clothes gone than to waste valuable time undressing you.
But I promise you this…” He pauses and kisses my nose, my cheeks, my eyes, my forehead, and finally my mouth.
It’s so soft I can barely feel it, but it calms me all the same.
“When I find you for real, I will bring you to this exact meadow. Then I’m going to take my time unwrapping every inch of you like the most delicate gift before I spend hours worshipping your naked body. ”
“I can get on board with that. What else can dream-you do?” I wag my brows and grin, loving the fact that there’s no chill in the air.
With a growl worthy of the most dominant bear, Hack goes right back to where we left off.
His mouth devours mine and his vines continue their exploration of my thighs.
Thick fingers twist into my hair, gripping the perfect spot at the back of my head as he controls my movements.
The vines tighten, giving just enough pressure that the twinge of pain is pleasurable, and I use my grip against his neck to jump up.
Wrapping my legs around his waist, I don’t hesitate in rubbing my slick heat against his thick cock.
He holds me as though I’m weightless, one palm on my ass, one still wrapped in my hair, and his lips are working miracles as he kisses across my jawline and neck. I’m simultaneously at his mercy and in control, ready to spend my days having all the orgasms I missed in this life.
Yanking my head backward gives him better access to my throat, where he bites and sucks, kissing away the pain. My clit is thanking me for the friction against him as I continue to grind myself on his dick, and all it would take is just one little move for him to be inside me.
I claw at his back, his shoulders, and adjust my position…
“Ah fuck…yes!”
“You feel so damn good.”
We both speak at the same time as his hard dick thrusts into my pussy, no lube needed because I’m wet enough to fill a small lake.
I bounce up and down, using his shoulders for leverage, but realistically, he’s controlling every move.
The fullness is addictive, the way the ridges of his cock slide in and out is like a drug.
All thoughts other than Hack and my impending orgasm go flying out the proverbial window.
A soft tingle begins to spread through my body, starting from my clit. The intensity grows with every movement, every kiss, every thrust, every pull of my hair. Our bodies are one, the vines squeezing against my pressure points and invading my senses in the most perfect way.
It’s quick, it’s rushed, but I’ll take what I can get with him. Our time is always cut so short, and now we have a real chance at a life together.
The orgasm is so close I can almost taste it, our bodies working together like a well-oiled machine. A whimper escapes my throat and my breaths are ragged just as…
“Quick, wake up, someone new is here!”