I wanted to pinch myself. I was so happy. This was too dreamlike to be a reality. I mean, it was a dream. At the same time, it wasn’t. With Knight blood running through my veins, I could meld my mind with my mates’ and warp their dreams as I saw fit. Or I could just allow myself to get carried away by my host’s imagination. In Eros’ case, especially, the natural course of his dreams was bound to be at least a tad more creative than anything I could think up.
Not that this was the time for freaky dream sex. Even if I desperately needed a distraction from reality.
“Sterling was right,” he muttered, shadows shifting across his face and making his piercings glint as he shook his head.
“You have your father’s power to enter the dreams of your bonded mates. At first, I was confused when he told us we’d be sleeping in shifts in case you tried to contact us. It’s not exactly an ideal time to be taking naps, what with the vampire king prepping to bend us over our coffins and fuck us into the true death. “
His venomous glare cut to where he had the faux Vin restrained at the center of the room.
“And they call me the coven’s liability. Please tell me he hasn’t hurt you. Tell me that half the shit Corry’s telling me isn’t true.”
My heart squeezed. “I— I—”
An electric charge lanced through my core when my mate took me by my arms and jerked me toward him, pulling me against his muscled heat.
He burned so hot, the flame light dancing across his sweat-slick skin was actual fire.
I closed my eyes and melted into him. “Hold me.”
It wasn’t until his arms enclosed my shoulders to steady me that I realized I was shaking. After everything that happened, more than anything, I just needed to be touched. Loved.
I needed something, anything, to take my mind off Vincent.
The blond vampire smoothed his hands still covered in blood through my hair to comfort me. I shouldn’t have cared. It’s not like I’d wake up with blood in my hair...
But Vincent’s scent was as strong as ever, even if it wasn’t really him strapped to Deathwish’s coffin, and it closed in around me like a collar. No. Like acage.
I stumbled backward, some of Eros’ tools clattering against one another, when my rear bumped into his workbench. He stood there with the back to the furnace, but even with his features masked by shadows, I could still make out his scowl.
His knuckles audibly cracked over the roaring fire when his fists balled at his sides. “So it’s true what he did to you.”
My throat convulsed as I gripped the edges of the workbench surface, almost welcoming the way it painfully bit into my flesh. “What did Corry tell you?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed with a hard swallow. “How he found you two in the cemetery. How it looked like Feral had—”
Eros’ voice went tight, then broke. A beat later, he spoke again with a hushed, “I’ll kill him. I’ll fucking kill him for what he’s done.”
He moved so fast. For a moment, it seemed like he was going to hit me, but I didn’t so much as flinch, knowing he would never. His arm shot past my head, and he ripped a pair of primitive sheers from the rack of wicked equipment mounted on the wall behind me.
In the same smooth action, he seamlessly pivoted on his heel and plunged the sheers into Vincent’s groin, just a couple inches off from severing the male’s pride and joy.
The dark fae’s body bulged, his various limbs morphing into different shapes that never fully formed because of the iron chains keeping him pinned.
My heart lurched into my mouth as I stared at the illusion of my brutal mate, trying to keep my head above the emotional tidal wave that tried to pull me under.
“He didn’t rape me. He wouldn’t.”
Eros’ brows furrowed into a fierce scowl. “His monster would.”
“Well, he didn’t.”
“But he did forcibly remove your birth control.”
The reaper moved closer, the air shifting and growing hotter with his proximity. He was so...frustrated. I hadn’t seen Eros so furious since the first night I met him when he’d dragged one of my attackers down into the basement to torture as punishment for so much as breathing on me. But then he’d been completely in control.
“Feral kidnapped you, Ruby. He took you to one of the most dangerous realms in existence, all so he could breed you without the rest of your mates interfering. He’s prioritized his balls over the fate of his home.”
I gave a frantic shake of my head. “He didn’t force that, either. I egged him on. It’s my fault he lost control.”
