Chapter
One
LUCILLE
Strong arms held me close to their chest, their heart racing beneath my ear. The rough leather of their clothing ground against my blistered skin. That was all I could register between the boiling heat ripping through my insides and the searing cold offering a breath of hope—until it sluiced through my veins, just as cruel.
“Put her on my desk. Now.”
I wanted to screamno, but every step, jostle, and rise of their chest stole my breath, the agony forcing me in and out of consciousness.
A crashing noise split the tense silence. They moved me onto something hard, and I surrendered to the wispy darkness.
Pain never touched me here. The dark tendrils silenced the frigid cold and scalding heat. They wrapped me in warmth and made mewhole. They cocooned me in their gentle, unyielding embrace and whispered words of protection.
I never wanted to leave.
A ferocious fire pierced my wrist and speared into my body. I woke up screaming and thrashing on a wooden desk, pinned by a tingling touch.
Aspen?
He claimed my last thought before I passed out again. But this time, I wasn’t with the wispy shadows. Instead, the darkness flickered with a familiar purple and white light.
The lie hitme the second I opened my eyes. Not a lie—a dream-walk into a dream that wasn’t a memory. Or so I assumed.
Wildflowers tickled my legs as I sat in a moonlit field. Their soft, delicate petals reflected the blue light and turned a shade of indigo every time I moved my head, captured in my dream-walking haze. At the edge of the field, giant pillars circled like silent sentinels. The weathered stone supported arches overtaken by vines, creating an artful wall of green. Firewings danced between the tall grass and landed on ancient pillars. Small zaps sounded every time their wings touched, sending sparks of orange into the air.
I’d dream-walked to Elora. But I’d never been here before.
If I wasn’t in one of my memories, but I inhabited my own body, then what was this?
I felt like I’d entered an ancient elven realm that existed only in the pages of the books I’d devoured as a teenager. I moved to explorethe fantastical land when a tingly finger brushed the curve of my lip, snapping my attention away from the magic.
My heart jumped. “Aspen?”
Moonlight streamed through the oak branches behind us, catching the wetness on his cheeks.
My smile dropped.
I cupped his face, brushing away his pain with my thumb. “What’s wrong?”
“I couldn’t save you,” he whispered.
“Save me?”
He latched onto my hand, and a shot of heartache speared through our bond as he lifted it in front of my face.
What the…A long pink scar slashed across my palm.
“Michael,” he explained.
Slowly, it all came back to me. Magda, Marcus, Michael’s torture, my mom poisoned to sleep, and the male who swore before I descended into a sweet, relieving blackness.
I looked around at the magical perfection of this place and really considered what it could mean.
“Are we dead?”
“I feel like it. I can’t sense our bond anymore.” His low, haunted tone stunned me. This wasn’t the Aspen I knew. He never sounded like this.
