Chapter 1
I rolled over,soft sheets slipping away from my shoulders as I snuggled into my pillow. A heat shifted behind me, the mattress bending beneath another body’s weight. A heavy arm slipped around my waist.
“Morning, Myra,” Bathin’s sleepy grumble rumbled in my ear.
Bathin? No, that wasn’t right.
I opened my eyes, blinked. Bathin leaned and kissed the back of my shoulder, his arm tightening to position me fully against him.
“What are you doing in my bed?” I couldn’t have invited him. I didn’t like him. As a matter of fact, I wanted him to leave Ordinary forever. He was the demon who had taken my sister, Delaney’s, soul and wouldn’t give it back.
He’d been using her soul to stay in town for over a year, and for over a year, I’d been trying to find a way to get her soul back and throw him out.
But the heat of him behind me, the strength of his body, was tempting, soothing. I might not have invited him here, but my untrustworthy heart didn’t want him to leave.
“Bathin?”
He hummed as he placed a kiss in the curve of my shoulder and neck.
I moaned just a little.
“This is a dream, isn’t it?” I tried to stop my body from reacting to him. Tried to stick with logic and facts, which had never let me down.
“It could be,” he said.
“It must be.”
“Must?” His lips pressed gently up my neck, beneath my jaw.
“I don’t like you.” My shiver betrayed my words, and he chuckled.
“No?”
“No.”
He stopped, his mouth near my ear, his breath warm. I still hadn’t turned to look at him. Didn’t know if I’d be able to look away once I did.
My family gift meant I was always in the right place at the right time. It was handy for living in a town full of vacationing gods, and supernatural creatures, handy for being a police officer here. That gift had never let me down.
But my heart, well, that was another matter. I’d followed my heart instead of my head before. Fallen in love.
And unlike my gift, my heart had been wrong, and then it’d been broken. I knew better than to trust it now.
“This is a dream,” I said again.
“Mmmm.” His thumb rubbed a small stripe across my stomach.
“I’m dreaming. I know I’m dreaming. You’re not really here.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“If you’re dreaming, and I’m not really here, then you can do anything you want. Anything at all. No one’s going to know. This is just a dream.”
He pressed another kiss at my temple, then bent to gently bite my earlobe. “It will be our little secret.”
I pushed his arm off my waist, twisted quickly, and sat up. The covers didn’t tangle with my pajama pants at all, so, yeah, this was a dream.
