The fire is swelling, shivering, leaping into a great inferno. And something will come through.
A breath catches in my throat.
The sound betrays me.
Everything abruptly stops.
The chanting. The growing fire. All movement.
A tremble skitters down my spine.
Every set of haunting yellow eyes turns in perfect, eerie unison.
And lock onto me.
Watching.
Always watching.
Thrashing awake, I struggled against the sheets tangled around my legs. Chest heaving, throat burning, I shook away the horrible spinning blur in my vision. Gradually, painfully, the edges of the world cleared despite the nightmares clinging to my mind.
The panic was fading, but insistent, prickling under my skin until restlessness prevailed. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, shivering against the chill in my room. Something crinkled under my hand, and my head snapped down to find a scrawled note from Luther.
Be back soon.
—L
I couldn’t have said how long I remained there, balanced on the edge of the bed where my mind was halfway trapped between hellish dreams and reality. I fiddled with the little slip of paper in my hand, thoughts churning faster than an avalanche.
What a horrible dream.
Except it hadn’t felt like one. Every second of that nightmare had been as tangible as the world now. While the sudden shrieks of the stolas and my terrified scream had ripped me from that horrible dimension, part of me struggled to separate it from the current silence of my room.
Moving to drag myself from the bed, my hand passed over the lingering warmth where Luther spent the night. His absence left an inexplicable ache inside me, and now I felt nothing but the bitter cold of an unseasonably early winter penetrating the room.
I cursed him for leaving so early in the morning. His comforting embrace and tender affection had made the lonely dark seem a little more bearable. Without him, my bedroom seemed suddenly vacant, and I couldn’t stand another minute sitting there all by myself and wallowing in the slime of a nightmare.
Slowly, I made my way to the bathroom to wash the cold sweat from my skin and warm me up. There was no evidence of the night before in the bathroom, which I found odd. No usedtowels, no dirty clothes. Even my hairbrush was sitting on the counter where it belonged.
Had he cleaned? How had he known where my things belonged?
Slightly shaken, I quickly rinsed off under the scalding water. Once cleaned, I returned to my room, donning a sensible crimson sweater and fleece-lined leggings. The sweet tobacco scent stained my room, and for the first time I realized how it had invaded every corner of my life. Even when he wasn’t here, I could always smell him.
At first, it comforted me. His overwhelming presence followed me at every turn, and I’d wanted nothing more than to wrap myself in him completely. And recently I had submerged myself in the oceanic depths of him. All the hard muscle, the heat, the dominating energy that made me come undone…
Halfway down the hall, I came to a stop, staring at the wood grain in the flooring. My mind whirled a thousand miles a minute, piecing together fragments into a complete picture.
The front door swung open, and I clamped down on a scream. I threw myself against the wall, heart hammering, until Luther walked over the threshold before stopping short.
“Ophelia, are you alright?” he asked.
I collected myself, nodding numbly at him. He smiled in reply, then turned into the kitchen. Placing a hand on my chest, I begged my painfully racing heart to calm.
“I’m sorry I left so early,” he was saying as I entered behind him. “I had some errands to run and grabbed breakfast on the way back.”
“Oh, thanks,” I replied, tone flat.
He noticed.
