Boom.
I floated on my back in a pool of water. Comfortable in a way I hadn’t been in a while. The sore muscles from all the fighting were barely noticeable as I drifted, content to let the water cradle my body.
Ripples disturbed my peace, causing me to bob up and down as someone moved toward me.
Even knowing something dangerous was approaching I couldn’t bring myself to move. It was like I was wrapped in cotton. A thought I knew should be alarming but wasn’t.
Ahrun looked down at me. “Child, if you continue to lie here, you will perish.”
I lifted a hand, staring at the rivulets of red running down my arm. “What is it with you and blood?”
“We are vampire,” Ahrun said in explanation.
I dragged myself up to sitting. “Where are we?”
We were once again surrounded by complete darkness and a pool of never-ending blood. The same as in my last few dreams.
“My mind.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Not what I expected.”
My internal world took the form of an old growth forest. It was nothing like this.
“It never is.”
Blood clung to me as I climbed to my feet. It trickled down my body in rivulets. “Why do you keep pulling me back here?”
And could I ask him to stop?
Peaceful as it was, not everyone wanted to spend their dreams floating in blood while staring into the abyss.
“You think it’s me doing this?” Ahrun shook his head. “No, my child. Except for the first time, when I initiated contact after discovering a heretofore unknown connection branching off my youngest, you’re the one who keeps coming back. So far, you’ve resisted all of my efforts to ward this place against you. As they say, stare too long into the abyss—”
“And the abyss stares back at you,” I finished for him. “Nietzche.Beyond Good and Evil. I’m surprised you know that.”
It wasn’t written until the late 1800s, long after I got the impression he’d gone to sleep.
“The concept has been around a lot longer than that,” Ahrun said with a chiding look.
Great. He was reading my mind.
“If I’m the one responsible, why do I keep coming back here?”
“Fae magic is tricky. When combined with the force that creates a vampire, unexpected things often happen.”
I guess that explained the enigma that was Connor.
“Not just him. Liam and Thomas too.” Ahrun smiled at my surprise. “Our entire line really. It’s why you survived Thomas’s curse. Well, that and your own special abilities.”
“I’m beginning to see why Connor doesn’t like you,” I muttered.
Him reading my mind was getting annoying.
“There’s also the whole leading him into Niamh’s trap thing as well,” Ahrun drawled, moving past me.
I twisted to follow. “Why did you do that? You had to know it would hurt Thomas.”
And from all accounts, Ahrun loved his adoptive son.
