“Chandi told me they would show me… memories. Secrets. Lost truths.”
“Sometimes they do. Some among the Folk ingest the black flowers for their hallucinogenic visions, which are often truth couched in delirium. But when humans ingest them—” He trailed off.
“Tell me.”
“They leave humans… open to suggestion.”
Even in the steamy air, a chill shivered through me. “How open?”
“During the War, the Folk used them to turn human troops against their own brethren. They overcome loyalty, love, allegiance. Only a will like iron can withstand them.”
“But I’m not fully human.”
“Neither are you fully Folk, colleen. Because you were—” Again, he hesitated.
A shudder racked me, and I curled forward. Sweat-damp hair clung to my forehead. “Say it, Irian.”
“The distortion.” Horror whetted his voice to a dark blade. “You were heading straight for it.”
I remembered now. It was like recalling a dream long afterwaking—images and feelings stitched together like scraps of cloth ripped from a blanket.
The figure with the antlers.
The beguiling forest.
The crowd of family and friends and admirers.
Home.
A tear slid down my cheek and splashed onto the arm supporting my neck. Irian’s bicep contracted. He pulled me closer.
“So it wasn’t real?” Pain made my whisper hoarse.
“Does it have to be real?” His voice held infinite gentleness. “To be true?”
Another tear squeezed beneath my eyelashes and mingled with the beads of sweat clinging to my face. I wanted it to be real. I was glad it wasn’t.
“It is over now.” Irian smoothed my tangled hair from my face. “Sleep, colleen. By dawn, it will have been nothing more than a dream.”
I surrendered to sleep.
A thick ruff of black feathers smothered me, prickling my back and neck like thousands of tiny needles. I struggled, summoning a scream, but I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, couldn’t make a sound. The monster wouldn’t let me go, sheathing me in giant black wings. I was too hot. I drowned in the muffling dark.
Panic jolted me out of sleep. I sucked in a breath, shaking off the vestiges of the nightmare. It had been so real. But there was no Folk revel, no beckoning forest. No winged monster. There was only a man, lying with his chest against my back, arms looped loosely around my neck and waist.
Dismay crept through me. After I’d tried so hard to cut him out of my heart, had I really fallen back in bed with Rogan?
I twisted in the man’s arms. He wasn’t Rogan. Black tattoos slid sharp over sculpted arms. His hair was short and dark. His jaw was a blade. His mouth was soft. His eyes were closed, but I knew they were silver.
Pleasure warmed me before cooling to confusion. I stilled. What was I doing with Irian? Jumbled memories licked at me like flames. Had I danced with him somewhere? Had he kissed me beneath trees dripping with spring blossoms? Had we—
No. That, I would have remembered. But I didn’t know why else I would be in his bed, nearly naked, dozing in the circle of his arms.
It occurred to me—this was another dream. Like the revel, the forest, the monster. Abetterdream.
Irian stirred, curling in closer to me. His face was an inch from mine. His eyelashes fluttered over chips of opal. His lips parted.
It seemed like an invitation. I saw no reason not to take it—after all, this wasn’t real. I tilted my chin and kissed him, sliding my tongue over his lower lip before taking it into my mouth. He tasted like cold wind and new-forged metal. I swept my hands over his chiseled shoulders and buried my fingertips in his hair. It was short and soft and damp with sweat. Heat burned through me. I deepened the kiss, swirling my tongue over his teeth and pressing my barely covered breasts against his hot, bare chest.
