Ten
KILLIAN
The darkness is familiar now.
I’ve been here long enough that I’ve stopped fighting it. Time doesn’t work right in this place. I might have been here for hours, or years.
The cold seeps into everything, this wet, bone-deep chill that never quite lets me sleep but never lets me fully wake up either.
But the dreams come anyway.
Always the same fucking dream.
I’m running through the woods on all four paws. In the dream, I’m always shifted, but not as my wolf.
As thatthing.
I tear through underbrush and dead leaves.
The moon looks wrong overhead. It’s too bright, throwing fucked up shadows across the forest floor that move when they shouldn’t.
And I’m hunting.
I can smell her. That’s the worst part.
Even in the dream, her scent is perfect. Old magic and ancient forest and emerald green. It pulls at me like a fishhookthrough my chest, reeling me forward through the trees no matter how hard I try to stop myself.
My mate’s scent, stirring something profane inside me. Not the love I’ve felt from the moment I saw her, but another emotion that’s dark and hungry and sick.
No.
My legs won’t obey. They just keep moving, faster now, the scent getting stronger.
Please, no.
I can hear her breathing somewhere up ahead. Quick and scared, like a rabbit’s panting. She knows I’m coming.
Run,I want to scream at her.Run, get away, don’t let me catch you.
But my mouth won’t work either. Nothing works. I’m a passenger in my own body, watching through eyes that have gone yellow and cruel, feeling the hunger rise in my throat like bile.
The trees thin out around me. I burst into a clearing, and she’s there.
Regina.
Standing in the moonlight with her hands raised in defense, magic crackling between her fingers, that stubborn set to her jaw I love so fucking much.
Her scars are fully visible, her magic worn too thin to keep up her usual armor, and she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
But it’s not her beauty that captivates this creature wearing my skin like a suit and moving my bones like some cursed puppeteer. It’s hunger. Sheer, unadulterated bloodlust.
“Killian.” Her voice cracks on my name. It always does in this nightmare, but it never changes anything. The monster wearing my skin is beyond recognition and mercy. Please. I know you’re in there. Youcanfight this.”
I can’t.
I’ve tried.
Every time, I try.
