I'm still trying to shake off this disturbing, empty dream when, abruptly, I feel hands on me. The invasive, invisible hands roam up and down my skin, squeezing and seeking as that disembodied voice hums in enjoyment. I scream and thrash, trying to get them off of me even as I trip over something and fall to the floor of the little cabin.
"Let me go! Get off me!"
There's laughing in my dream now, but it's a cold, unfeeling sort of humor that makes my hair stand on end.
“Uthe rèidhis.”
"Let me go!” I rasp, disgust clamping my throat shut so the words don't come out right. "Let me out of here. Stop, please stop?—"
Someone is rocking me. "Shh, Sunshine, it's okay. It's just a dream."
"Let me…"
My soft plea dies as my eyelids flutter open, disorientation setting in hard as I finally wake up. All memories of what I was just dreaming about dissipate like smoke in the wind, frustratingly impossible to grasp the moment I’m fully awake.
I realize I've been crying in my sleep, tears dripping over my temples to wet the hair near my ears. I blink up at Ian and the tender way he's cradling me in my bed. His brow is pinched as he keeps rocking, holding me against his chest.
When he sees that I'm awake now, his lips brush gently against my forehead. His voice is a low, familiar lull that makes my stomach flip.
"Are you okay? Gods, you felt soterrified. It was just a nightmare. I've got you."
My disoriented brain is still playing catch-up. Without putting thought into it, I automatically reach up to cover the left side of my face since I washed my makeup off before bed.
Ian clocks the motion and scowls, grabbing my hand, kissing the back of it, and holding it so I don't try to cover it up again.
"Don't. Your face is fucking perfect."
Ian smells good, his very presence is soothing, and he's holding me like I'm the most precious thing in the world. My inner animal immediately starts to get loopy with excitement at his proximity. Being held like this by him feels so unbelievablygood.
But when heat starts to creep its way into my system at the way my body is pressed against his, I instantly scramble out of his arms to put distance between us on the bed.
Because there isno wayI'm about to embarrass myself by giving my brother's best friend a front row seat to how wildly attracted I am to him.
27
HEIDI
Ian startsto protest at the distance I just put between us, nearly reaching for me again before he seems to check himself.
Instead, he leans back against my headboard just like I am as I wipe the remaining moisture off my face from whatever impossible-to-recall nightmare I just had.
When I realize how intensely he's still watching me in the dimness of my bedroom in the early hours of the morning, I give an awkward little laugh.
"Gods, isn't this a blast from the past? Me being a big crybaby, while you have to try patching me up again. Sorry if I woke you up," I add.
"You didn't. What were you dreaming about?"
I hug one of my pillows to my chest, trying to keep my tone light. “I don’t remember what made me cry. But before that, I was dreaming about that time when Crypt DeLune dropped me off. You were the one who found me at the edge of the Frost estate just as he was leaving, remember?"
"Are you kidding? As if I could forget that kind of horror. You were so pale and terrified and cold and…" Ian takes a deep breath, his jaw clenching. "It took me months to get youto tell me the whole story. I still wish I could go back and rip your mom's godsdamned throat out for sending you off with a complete fuckingstrangerwho could've?—"
"I didn't mean to get you worked up," I say quickly, smiling at him despite the lingering chill in my veins from that nightmare. Desperately needing a distraction, I study the handsome vampire who sits an arm's length away from me. "Is it officially time for you to tell me everything yet? Because, as ridiculously happy as I am to see you again, I feel like I'm talking to a ghost."
And not to brag, but I'm kind of the expert on what that feels like.
"I'll tell you everything you want to know," he promises.
It's not hard to put together how Ian is here even after I went to his funeral. Ian's always been smart, and with a curse as awful as he had, it would make sense for him to try to escape it all.
