Backing myself against a bookshelf, I take a steadying breath.
“Hello, pet, I’ve been waiting for you,” says a rich voice. A voice I have heard only in my dreams. Until now.
forty-four
Dove
Trembling, I close myeyes, hoping this dream will be over soon. I cannot be stuck here again. Usually, I get some warning that I’m sinking, but this time… Nothing.
Clawed fingertips trail a line along my jaw, and I shudder at the biting touch.
“Please,” the plea is a whisper from my lips.
“Please, what, pet?” His claws trail down my neck, raising the delicate skin and leaving it pinched as he continues to move towards my chest.
“Please, stop.” His nails disappear, and I open my eyes.
“Mesmerising,” says the daemon standing before me. It’s the only word that seems to fit him. He once called himself an angel fallen, but with hisblack horns, pale skin and sooty, feathered wings, he reminds me of the daemons of old. The scary creatures we were told would get us in our dreams if we did not do what our parents told us. And mine came to do unspeakable things. Things only Argus knows about.
How did my daemon come to life? He was just a figment of my mind. A warped creation. Now he’s standing before me, beyond my dreams. Beyond the darkness.
His endlessly dark eyes hold mine. I struggle to pull away, and I stumble from the bookshelf, moving around him towards the wolf in human form, still not looking our way.
Argus rears his head within my chest, igniting the embers.How could he bring me here? To him? Is this life even real?
But this is not like the past times he visited me, when all feeling left my body and only soothing tones prevailed. No, this time feels too real. This time, I can feel the chill in my bones, and the salt on my tongue, the bite of his claws. Argh. This must be real. None of this makes sense. I have already experienced the impossible, so what is another impossibility? Just another part of my life. Surely, the Goddess is laughing at the show I am putting on for her.
“Hey, you. WOLF.” My voice comes out high, and I notice his slight flinch.Finally, a reaction from the brute of a wolf beast standing by the fireplace.
He doesn’t turn, instead letting the thing behind me speak. “Come now, Pet. Gideon has informed me you are after Saff’s egg, and I possess such an egg. He has not lied.”
Whirling in my boots, I point a finger at his towering, ominous frame. “I don’t trust a word that comes out of your mouth.” Our eyes fix, my flicker of licking flames, ready to take hold of anylooming threats.
“I really must thank you. I have not seen my creations in the flesh in an age. It was quite the surprise to see you on your way to me earlier than expected.” He grins my way, not a care in his dream-waking world.
Without apprehension, I take a step towards him. His almost grey-toned skin ripples over hard edges. Only black leather pants cover the expanse of his lower half, leaving his wings to flex through our dance of words. “You are the reason I’m here?” My breath comes out hot and heavy, words thudding at my feet. If I were Saff, I’m sure I would have smoke billowing from my ears, with the heat rising within my chest.
With a slight snicker, he steps forward, meeting his black-booted feet with my brown-booted ones. “I am a lot of things, but unfortunately, I cannot take full credit for your rise.”
Just seeing his steely black eyes and thickened, pointed horns, I want to strike him down. I want to make him feel an inch of the pain I’ve had to experience since he started visiting me in my dreams all those rotations ago. His paleness is almost translucent, giving way to the blackened veins beneath, further leading down to his raven-tipped claws.
“Come, now, pet, I thought we could make a deal.” His sharp nail tip traces a line over my tunic. I shiver at the contact and back away from him.
“What deal?” My voice crackles, unfamiliar to my own ears, anger rising.
“I give you what you want, and you give me what I want. Easy. A fair deal, really.” His head cocks to the side, a sly smile on his thin lips,every word out of his mouth a slippery slope I don’t think I’ll be able to return from.
Continuing to burn a hole into the floor beneath me, I glare at the daemon.
His chest muscles ripple as he takes another step forward, and as I step back, I feel the coolness of the stone behind me. “You see, my pet, I want my revenge, and you have the ability to help me.”
Balking at his admission, I ask, “What? How can I help you?” My whisper is choked, but he hears me.
“The fae—their Goddess, Oona, was the instigator of my prison.” He opens his arms, indicating the room around us.
“This is your jail?” I ask, my curiosity getting the better of me.
“This island is my prison, and just like any other creature, I wish for freedom.” Something about his hard-cut words cries out to a piece of me—the part I found when I saw Rivern’s intimate for the first time, my first real taste at freedom through the feelings of another. Something I could only ever wish for, but so far, had been bogged down by the wants of others. Until Saff, that is. My newest freedom fighter and my first real friend.
