Aspen moved, pinning me gently against the tree and removing the space between us. A soft moan escaped my lips, and our slow, tingling kiss deepened, growing hotter. I felt him harden against my stomach, sending heat pooling low in my belly. He groaned when my hand grazed him over his leathers.
I smiled against his mouth.
He dropped to his knees, running his hands up my legs and bunching my skirts. “Do you know the best part about dresses, sweetheart?” he challenged. His fingers trailed higher, nearing my throbbing core. “The ease with which I can touch you.”
I gasped, throwing my head back as his fingertips slid against my center. Before he reached my clit, a sudden rush of noise broke through the moment—and his face blurred.
“Dream-walk to me again soon!” Aspen’s voice reverberated through my mind as everything went dark.
“Wake up!”someone shouted, shaking my shoulders with a bruising grip.
“Quiet down. There are other patients here, you know.”
“Leave us. You healed her. Now she needs to answer my questions.”
I opened my eyes to the general standing over me, the shadow of his body blocking the ambient light streaming through the high, vaulted windows. The warmth from my fresh clothes and the blankets covering me slowly leached away under the cold wrath in the general’s face.
“What—” I moved my arms to push myself off the cot and found them restrained by wispy black shadows. “What the hell is going on?”
Oliver lay on a cot beside me with his eyes closed. I jerked on my restraints. “Oliver?”
He didn’t stir.
“Oliver!” I shouted. When he didn’t respond, I whipped my head back to the one holding me captive. “Is he okay?”
The general stared at me, something vicious writhing in his cold gaze.
“Is he?”
He crossed his arms. “Tell me if you’re working for Lilith, and I’ll let you know if your other precious boyfriend will live,sweetheart,” he spat.
“Will live?” I demanded.
What happened after I passed out?
“Are you a traitor?”
“How can I be a traitor when I’m not part of anything?” I yanked against my restraints, and for a moment, the scenery changed, and I was begging for my life as Michael cut me open.
“You’re working for Lilith,” he accused, tightening the wisps around my wrists.
Why was he bringing up Lil—And then I figured it out. That had to be what the dark, wispy shadows were, like when he sent a ball of them into Aspen’s back and knocked him unconscious in the butcher’s basement. Somehow, the general who knew absolutely nothing had snooped in my dream-walk.
What else could those shadows do?
My skin flushed, and my vision kept flipping between past and present—between rage and embarrassment over what he’d witnessed. My hands trembled in their restraints, my heartbeat thundering in my chest. I needed him to release me. I needed him to release menow. Heavenly Hell, I was about to hyperventilate.
“Let me go.”
“Tell me what I want to know.”
I couldn’t think. The knife sliding down my thigh, making a squelching noise as my flesh split, invaded my senses. Blood pounded in my ears, and my breath became uneven.
“You were there. You saw how Michael used me as his personal knife sharpener,” I seethed between breaths, trying to stay strong and keep the panic at bay. Hopefully, he thought my uneven breathing was from rage and not the undeniable images and sounds of my torture flashing through my mind.
Black swallowed the gold in his eyes. “Yes.”
“It wasn’t a question. It was an accusation. For someone who saw what torture I endured while bound and immobile, it takes a realsmallmale to restrain me—not even a couple of weeks later.”
