My eyes fly open and I scream.
Pain rips the pleasure away.
I don’t know when I wake, or that I passed out at all, only that when the darkness recedes, I’m cradled in his arms and we’re flying over the town. My clothes have been placed over me, though my skin feels like it’s on fire. We descend as the glow of morning gleams across the horizon. My house rises over us as he lands on my balcony and carries me into my bedroom. The curtains billow as he lies me on my bed.
“Find me,” he commands. “When you wake, find me.”
I blink as he moves back toward the balcony door. With a final look between us, he’s gone.
Turning over in my bed, I drift back to sleep.
Chapter13
Breaking Bread
Summer
My dreams are endless,one leading into another. A lifetime of days drifts by, murky and vivid all at once.
Through it all, no matter what changes around me, I’m frozen in place. Desperate, I struggle to lift a hand or twitch a toe, discovering I’ve become still as a statue. I drift again.
There’s light and darkness—mostly darkness. It encapsulates everything with long bouts of silence. My chest aches, melted and solidified by scars.
There are voices, lots of them, all different. They drift by, one by one. I don’t understand what they say, and when I try to listen, they vanish.
The voices grow distant, farther away. I’m naked, alone in this place.
I can’t move. I’m a statue.
I can’t move!I panic.
Something finds me. There’s a castle in the distance, and bats fly overhead.
Then Zuriel is there, frozen at my side. In the stillness, he doesn’t acknowledge me, though it’s enough to know I’m no longer alone. Together we watch, listening, as the centuries pass.
The morning glow streams through the skylight as I slowly stir. Blinking rapidly, the grogginess clears. Without my glasses, I can’t read the time on the clock. I suspect my alarm should have gone off hours ago—if I’d been here to set it.
But I wasn’t here, I was… I was…
In a dream? One that made me feel like I lived a hundred lifetimes.
Memories from last night flash through my mind, the details frantic and difficult to track. Zuriel spoke of a demon—Adrial. There were bats. Zuriel flew me to the Old Church where he broke open the building—and that was when his hands turned to fire.
I grasp my chest. He’s inside me now, more than before, manipulating my emotions, but as I think this, I understand this distortion goes both ways. I didn’t understand the significance of what he meant—I didn’t take it seriously enough. And now, I’m afraid it’s too late. He wants me.
He has no idea why.
I leap out of bed, grabbing my glasses as I head for the large mirror above my dresser. I’m still wearing the destroyed sweater, my skin marked with dirt and grass. My hair is tangled and knotted, crimping against my shoulders. I lift away the scraps of my sweater and tug off my bra so I can stare at my half-naked reflection.
There are two large handprints.
One is over my stomach and the other covers my left breast, nipple included. The brand’s outlines are dark and thick, a rustic gold, and each is filled in with threads of lighter gold, forming tightly-wound swirls and spirals. The design is reminiscent of a human handprint, although more structured and more ornate.
This is what he meant by branding me.
He…Bastard!
And I begged him to do it with a kiss. A kiss now cemented on my body.
