Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
The darkness twitched, sweeping sideways, then back again. The wardens had been chasing me. I’d been running, screaming, desperate to get away, but somehow, they’d suddenly vanished. I was alone again and tired. So tired.
The blackness receded, and the edges of a cell came into view. I rubbed my eyes. Was this real?
Even if it was, it was still a nightmare.
I looked around. I was in a single holding cell, lying on a waterproof mattress on top of a concrete slab. My legs were tangled in a scratchy brown blanket, too short to cover my legs completely. No pillow. Just like in the psych hospital.
Nothing to kill myself with.
I was so tired. Too tired to even throw off the repulsive brown blanket.
I closed my eyes. For the briefest moment, I felt the blissful floating feeling of being on the edge of sleep—that place that caresses you gently before you’re plunged into unconsciousness.
I relished it, trying to stay there, but I was too tired.
I dreamed of him. Donovan.
But it wasn’t the one I recognized. Not the flesh-and-blood man, the hard muscled one that smelled rough and manly, like river, leather and sandalwood.
This Donovan was not physical, rather, he was made of golden light.
I watched him from a distance, entranced, as he walked with purpose through a strange landscape, shockingly, blazingly handsome, like a demigod on a sacred journey, cutting his way through thick jungle, striding up a mountain pass, holding his shield up against the almost-sideways sleet that smashed into him.
My eyes followed him hungrily, watching every step, as he traveled thousands and thousands of miles.
I ached to touch him, but it was just a dream. And I wasn’t really there.
At the edge of a raging river, he paused, shaded his eyes, and looked into the distance. I drifted closer. An expression of desperate heartbreak came over his face. I ached to touch him, but I didn’t even have a hand.
“My Prince,” I whispered.
He flinched. His mouth dropped open. “Chosen?”
He could hear me?
“Chosen, are you there?” He whipped around in a circle. “I cannot see you. Are you with me?”
I wanted to scream, but I had no mouth. No body, either. I wasn’t really here. He was, though. He was in the Under, moving through it in his physical body. But I was just dreaming.
Donovan clenched his golden fists. A rumble of thunder boomed across the sky as the heavens shook. “I swear to all that’s sacred and holy, I will find where the curse is tied, and I will break it. I will have you back, Chosen. Body and soul. I will have you back.”