* * * *
Her head hurt. Hope opened her eyes to find herself on her favorite dream beach, the one with pink sand. A bright bluish-green ocean rolled waves gently toward her, while pretty white birds floated in the clear blue sky.
She sat up. Why was she in the dreamworld? She hadn’t gone to bed yet.
Rocks led up to bright purple trees. A hidden bird squawked, and then her friend Drake ran out of the forest, straight toward her.
She squinted her eyes against the pain.
Drake was wearing dark jeans and a green shirt that brought out the color in his eyes, even at a distance. He ran faster, slid on his knees, and reached her. “Are you okay? Who hurt you?” He reached up and touched the pain at her cheekbone.
She blinked. Tears filled her eyes, and the flash of the bike hitting the tree moved through her brain. “I crashed my bike.” She looked around frantically, but the dreamworld didn’t go away.
“Okay.” Drake helped her sit all the way up and patted her shoulder. “Take a deep breath.”
Why was she here? It didn’t make sense. “But—but I’m not asleep.” She rubbed her aching cheekbone.
Drake settled on his knees in the pink sand, looking her over. “You must’ve knocked yourself out.” As a Kurjan, he had pale skin and dark straight hair that reached his shoulders. But unlike most Kurjans, he could pass for human with his greenish eyes. He was very tall for a boy of seven, and Hope didn’t think she’d ever reach him in height.
But they were friends.
He took her hand. “You’re all right. I’m sure of it.”
Her heart warmed. “You can’t be sure.”
His grin made her smile back, even though her head still hurt. “You wouldn’t be in our dreamworld if you weren’t okay. Just unconscious. Don’t worry. You’ll wake up soon.”
Our dreamworld. It was the first time he’d called it that, and the idea made her smile. Her mama and daddy had met in a dreamworld that had blown up, but they’d been friends for a long time before getting mated. Now Hope and Drake were meeting in a world nobody else knew about. Well, almost nobody. She told Pax and Libby, of course. “How did you know I was here?” she asked.
Drake shrugged. “I’m not sure. It’s like when you call me when you’re sleeping. I heard you, then I lay down and got here somehow.” He snorted. “I lay down in the middle of the training field. Hopefully nobody is kicking me.”
She giggled. “Nobody would kick you.” He was too tough. Even at their age, Drake was already learning to be a leader. She liked that about him.
Of course, the Realm and demon nations hated the Kurjan nation. But she and Drake were gonna change that.
He looked at the quiet sea. “Who let you get hurt?”
She dusted sand off her jeans. “Nobody. Just me. I tried to jump a fallen tree.” Maybe she should’ve listened to her friends. “Paxton told me not to, but I didn’t listen. Libby jumped over it, and I thought I could, too. But the rain and mud kind of got in my way.”
Drake’s hand felt cool around hers. “Paxton is the vampire-demon you told me about?”
She nodded. Someday, all of them were gonna be super good friends. “Yeah. You’ll meet him and Libby once I figure out how to bring them here. You’ll like them.”
Drake twisted his face. “Probably not.”
“You will,” Hope insisted, holding his hand tighter. “We can make things better. The four of us.” If they all became friends, then maybe the grown-ups would, too. “Trust me.”
“I do,” Drake said. “But Pax and Libby are probably training to fight me right now, just like I’m training to fight them. The past won’t just go away because we want it to. You understand that, right?”
No. Not at all. She was training, too. But not to hurt him. “You don’t understand. You and me, Drake. We’re supposed to fix everything.” The dark, winding prophecy mark down the back of her neck proved that. If she wasn’t meant to stop the next war, then she and Drake wouldn’t be meeting in a world so far away from their own. “Fate is on our side.”
“Why does everyone always think Fate is on their side?” he asked quietly. “Maybe Fate wants something different. Maybe Fate likes war.”
Hope coughed. What a bad thought. Fate had to be good, right? “I don’t think so.”
“Okay.” Drake lifted his head and stared down the beach. “I think you’re waking up.”
Cold rain splashed into her face, and she lifted her head, coughing, next to a big tree. Her bike was beside her, covered in pine cones and mud.
