Should it mean so much that Dorian felt it too? Hunter had seen it–been subjected to it, really–between him and Amelia. But something about Dorian noticing it now made pride inflate in his chest. “It clicked into place,” he said simply.
“That’s marvellous,” he whispered.
Daphne rolled her eyes and instantly grimaced, a sharp inhale betraying how much the motion hurt. “Hey, both of you. Can we pause the celebrations and fix this mess?”
I love you, Hunter sent through the bond, because damn, what a woman.
I love you too, but this is getting a lot, she replied. And her eyes softened as they met his.
Hunter nodded and turned his attention to Dorian. “Alright. So, what’s up, boss?”
Dorian stood and paced to the window, where the distant pulse of red and blue lights painted his face in emergency hues. “You tell me.”
“Long story short,” Hunter said, “she started to lose it here and there. Only way I can reach her when it happens is through the bond. Her mind is squeaky clean. Like, polished. Then there are people out there going insane per Deputy Harper. Oh,” he added, turning to Daphne, “she called to give you a heads-up.”
Daphne nodded. “She’s great. I’ll call her back as soon as this is done.”
“She’s having non-sanctioned nightmares that bleed into reality,” Hunter added. “Hence the bruises on her face and on her ass. Which, for the record, she won’t be showing you.”
You’re jealous?she sent through the bond.
Well, yeah.
That is so sweet.
He took her fingers and kissed them, before turning back to Dorian–who was staring at them with one perfectly arched raven-black eyebrow and the kind of expression that said he had officially run out of patience and goodwill.
“Okay, let’s run through the options.” Hunter pushed to his feet and started pacing around. “We know it started with and from her. Is she possessed? No. Cursed? No. Losing her mind? Possibly, but it wouldn’t bring this mess out of her head.” He kept moving, hands on his hips. “It’s like... Some piece of her soul rioted and learned how to scream back. Her pain got volume, and it’s rolling out and into the entire goddamn town.”
Dorian stilled to a point where he could have been made from onyx and night, his quiescency more violent than any scream. The air around him thickened, oppressive, too heavy to breathe and too charged to ignore. Even the shadows in the room seemed to recoil, gathering tighter only around his Oxfords, knowing better than to touch him. “Noctis Echo,” Dorian said with a finality that was horrifying.
A coldness crept in, bone-deep, crawling over Hunter’s arms like unseen fingers. “Okay.” He dragged both hands down his face, then muttered, “Noctis Echo. Love that. Latin’s always a good sign. And you,” he said, gesturing to Dorian, trying to keep it light because he felt Daphne getting freaked out by the minute. “Your baseline when Amelia is not around is graveyard chic, but this is a lot worse, and you need to elaborate.”
“I’ve seen this before,” he said quietly, turning his wedding band on his finger with an ease that didn’t match the weight ofhis words. “Long ago.” He flicked his wrist once to shake off a memory he had no time to entertain, then slid one hand into the pocket of his suit pants, and his voice slipped back into its usual cool lilt, all practicality now. “An Echo Noctis is the living fragment of a trauma. Part emotion, part nightmare, part memory. It leaks into the waking world by tethering itself to anything that echoes the original pain–a moment, a memory, a feeling.” He sat on the couch, crossed his legs with unhurried grace, and linked his fingers. “That Noctis Echo clung to one host, never made it out. This one, though, seems to be adapting, learning how to bleed into others’ nightmares, how to spread. It came from her, but now it’s using her to fracture the boundary between dreaming and waking, feeding off the terror that breaks in its wake.”
Hunter sat, too, beside Daphne, resting a hand on her thigh. “How did you stop it, back then?”
“I didn’t. The dreamer ended it, but...” Dorian’s gaze fixed on Daphne.
“Butwhat, Dorian?” Hunter hissed.
“He lived. Technically. But something inside his mind didn’t make it back. A piece of it fractured, and whatever returned wasn’t whole.”
Hunter’s voice was controlled again. “You read him?”
“I tried.” A beat. “There was nothing to read. It was like looking into an empty room where the lights still flickered. Something remained, sure, but it wasn’t him. Not really.”
Hunter stilled, then leaned back slightly, resting an arm along the back of the couch. “I will not let anything happen to her. If the world has to burn for it, so be it.”
Dorian nodded, slow as drifting fog and menace. “I know.”
Chapter 11
So, Daphne thought idly.
She was the reason for this mess. She was the key to fixing it. She might lose her mind, literally, in the process.
Nice.
