“Remember the feel of the ice,” Hunter spoke intently now, as if they had run out of time. “Remember the way it breathes and the vastness of its reaches. Remember how it strikes your heart, and everything that roars within you to feel him pass by. You will find your father, Layla Price. You will find him if you feel your way to him. Begin your hunt. And find what it is you seek.”
With one last brush of Hunter’s warm fingers over her cheek, the dream fell apart. As Layla rushed back to the universe, she heard a voice calling her. It wasn’t the tall man on the veranda or Hunter, but it was so familiar that Layla turned, looking for it. But she was lost in the stars; careening around her now in every direction. As Layla turned and turned, panic began to fill her that she could not find her way through the black.
And then lips descended upon her from the stars – and she rushed up towards them fast.
They were her way. They were her path and her guide as she rushed up into those ultra-soft lips – so gentle, loving, and bright. And yet, they were tinged with the darkest nature of the universe also, as if they had seen all the good, the bad, and the ugly, and knew there was nothing to fear. Layla gasped awake, snapping out of her dream and back to reality in a rush.
To find Heathren Merkami kissing her – deep.
Layla rushed back to consciousness, breaking Heathren’s kiss. He shuddered back from her just as quickly, heaving hard breaths as they stared at each other from two inches apart. He didn’t pull away and neither did she, and Layla realized her arms were up around his neck, holding him. Braced on his hands, Heathren was carefully holding his body away from hers in his bed.
Though if he’d dropped just two inches, he would have trapped her beneath him.
“At last!” Heathren breathed as if he’d just finished running a marathon.
“At last?” Layla spoke, still feeling the echoes of her dream.
“I didn’t know if I could wake you.” Heathren spoke with deep concern, and as he reached up, Layla felt him stroke a very damp curl from her cheek, as if she’d had a fever. “You were so far out in the ether, and something was trapping you there. I’ve been trying to shake you awake, startle you with my wings, bang pots and pans, anything I could think of… until I thought of this.”
“Kissing me.” Layla breathed, blinking as she realized she had just been in very real danger during her dream – and Heathren had pulled her out of it.
“Kissing you.” Heathren breathed again as he stared at her. A long moment passed, and Layla felt all they had shared the night before flow between them, as if Heathren had reawakened it with his kiss. But at last, he unwound Layla’s hands from his neck, though he held one trapped to his heart, gazing at her. But then with impeccable grace, he moved to sit beside her on the bed, as Layla slowly pushed up from the pillows. Her entire body was soaked with sweat, every muscle and sinew aching from dehydration. As she scowled and clutched Heathren’s fine sheet over her nakedness, he reached for a glass of water on a bedside table. He gave it to her and she drank it down.
“Thanks.” Layla spoke as she handed the glass back.
“What did you dream, while you were so far out in the etheric realm?” Heathren asked her as he set the glass aside, watching her with something deeply concerned in his gaze.
“Was that where I was?” Layla asked. “It felt like a lucid dream.”
“It was far more than that.” He spoke with a lifted eyebrow. “You werejourneying, Layla. Sending your consciousness through the ether to actually connect to other beings that can do the same. I felt you contact a very high Ascendant at one point. And then you were hauled away and trapped somewhere even my accomplished consciousness couldn’t penetrate. Where were you?”
“Hunter called me.” Layla spoke at once, recalling her dream as if she had actually traveled there. “I went to him, wherever he is. Some kind of ancient, ruined fortress.”
“His primary lair.” An eager glint took Heathren’s eyes as their silver-bright depths cored into Layla now with the look of a raptor. “Did he say where it was?”
“No.” Layla spoke, lifting her hand to rub her chest as she recalled Hunter’s scar. “But he was still damaged from our battle at Deep Harbor, from the wound I dealt him. He’d healed most of it, but a ragged scar right over his heart wasn’t healing. He said Imarkedhim.”
“You’ve established a personal connection to him.” Heathren spoke thoughtfully now, though the tension in him told Layla how eager he was at this news. “You have a trail back to him, Layla, especially now that he has shown you his lair. A trail we can use – with the proper preparation.”
“To find him?” Something in Layla leapt at that, while something else darkened.
“Precisely.” Heathren was viciously alert now as he watched her. “But I sense something else happened while you were in the ether with him?”
“Yes. Hunter showed me my father… or at least as much of him as he could see.” Layla realized as she spoke it. “He has a general idea where my father is hiding, though he can’t see my father specifically through the ether – he looked like a moving blur when Hunter showed him to me.”
“So Hunter appears to me also, when I search for him in meditation.” Heathren spoke thoughtfully now, frowning. “I see images of places he’s been, but he is a blur – as if he can bend the ether around himself to hide from my sight. It seems Hunter has the same trouble finding your father. Interesting.”
“Hunter’s not as all-powerful as he seems.” Layla spoke, understanding Heathren’s logic.
“He is no Ascendant,” Heathren spoke with a nod, “no matter how much he has learned to manipulate etheric currents to his will. But Hunter has shown you the way to him now, Layla. He wants you to find him – and come.”
“But I have to master etheric magic in order to find him.” Layla frowned, seeing yet another of Hunter’s manipulations to help her grow her power. “And he wants me to find my father first, also.”
“Indeed.” Heathren spoke with a dire nod. At last, the Fallen Ephilohim rose from her bedside. As he glanced to the windows, Layla found herself shocked to realize it was darkening towards sunset outside. She had been trapped in the ether all day, though it had only felt like minutes to her – her entire sense of time warped in a way that felt deeply shocking now.
And deeply dangerous.
“In light of all that’s happened,” Heathren suddenly spoke with a dire eyebrow lift as he glanced back to the bed, “I’m afraid we must take our explorations into etheric magic far further and faster than I had hoped. Prepare yourself for a tough journey tonight, Layla. Because we are going to push you to the edges of your sanity. And we are going to find your father while we’re at it.”
