“How are you here?”
“What are you talking about, sweetie? You’re the one who invited me to this picnic.”
I had?
I looked around. I thought… whatdidI think? I didn’t know. Everything was sort of hazy. But did any of that matter when my beloved was in front of me?
“I missed you,” I murmured, pulling her into my arms. Fortunately, my body was moving in normal motion now instead of impossibly slow, so I was able to draw her into my arms.
“Millia,” I breathed, burying my nose in her hair. She was much smaller than I remembered, with none of the softness from growing into a woman or carrying our child, but she was still my beautiful Millia.
Wait.
Carrying our child?
Right.
We were older.Iwas older. We had a child. Benjamin Poynter Jr. We weren’t kids.
But if we weren’t kids, how could I be embracing her?
“You forgot me.”
“What?”
Suddenly, the entire world changed. I was no longer in the meadow, and Millia was no longer her teenaged self. Instead, we were in what remained of our ransacked home, and she was exactly how I found her on that fateful day: sprawled out on the floor in a puddle of dried blood.
Because of our healing abilities, it took a lot to kill a shifter. But the bite on the side of her neck and the long slash down her leg told an awful, grisly story.
“Millia, no!” I cried, collapsing beside her. No, no, no, I couldn’t go through this again.
“You weren’t there for me.”
It was her voice, but older and rotted, just like her body. Her eyes were gray, completely lifeless, but they flicked to me.
“You were supposed to be there for us. But you weren’t. And now we’re all dead.”
“This isn’t real, this isn’t real!” I cried, clapping my hands over my ears. I was in a night terror. That was the only thing that made sense.
But even though I knew that, it didn’t ease the grate of her voice as it chanted.
“This is your fault. This is your fault. This is your fault. Thisisyourfault. Thisisyourfault. Thisisyourfaulthisisyourfaultth?—”
“STOP!”
I lurched forwardand toppled out of bed, gasping and gagging as my brain scrambled back to reality. It was just a dream.
Just a dream.
But was it?
Had the nightmare come because I’d agreed to go on a date with my son’s teacher?
Whyhad I done that?
I’d fully intended never to go on another date in my life. I’d already had the love of my life, and I was well aware that there were no do-overs.
Except…
