I walk through the streets, passing a woman lying in a doorway, her body half swallowed by the shadows of her house. Her eyes are unseeing.
I don’t want to be here. I’ve explored this memory more than enough for one lifetime, but as I try to conjure up a door out of here, none appears. Instead, I walk on, passing another corpse, this one a young man dressed in black, a scarlet piece of fabric tied around his wrist.
I try to turn my head away, but my eyes are fixed on the sight, my feet carrying me forward against my will. As I head toward the center of the town, dread rises in my heart. I know what I’ll find there: the pile of fallen soldiers. A crazed Herrydan, ready to cut his own throat.
I dig my feet into the dirt, trying to fight my own magic. I won’t go any further. I refuse.
And yet my legs keep moving, my footsteps pulling me toward the town square. I roar with frustration.
A hand catches mine.
“It’s going to be okay, my love.”
I look over my shoulder, and Ana’s here. Her chestnut hair tumbles over her shoulders, her hazel eyes shining brightly at me. She’s a beacon of life amid all this death. As she tugs on my hand, my feet stop at last. I manage to turn, and she pulls me in close, tilting her face up so she can meet my eye.
“I’m here now. And we’re going to stop this for good, together.”
I know she’s right. Somehow,weare the answer to my faulty magic. Together, we can bring my body and my soul back into alignment.
She presses her hand to my heart, and the sound of her own heartbeat swells around me, vibrating in my chest, until our pulses fall so perfectly into rhythm that I don’t know whose belongs to who. I let my body thrum with the sensation—even though I’m only in the dream realm, every nerve feels alive.
“Stay with me,”Ana says, her voice soft and strong at the same time.“Focus on me.”
She pushes up on her toes, tugging me down by my neck to press our foreheads together.
I try to do as she asks, wishing we were far away from this ugly place. Almost as soon as I have the thought, the light shifts around us. The morning sun over Mistwell disappears, and awarm glow like incendi lamplight rises up around us instead. We’re finally somewhere away from the dreams, a place where it’s just her and me—Ibrought us here.
The idea gives me hope. Our lips touch, and the mooring comes alive, burning brighter as I wrap my hands around Ana’s waist. She slides her hands across my chest—which is suddenly naked, as is hers. I don’t know when we lost our clothes, but we both seem to know what to do, letting our bodies collide.
With every inch of our skin that touches, something’s slotting into place. As our bodies entwine in the dream world, the separate threads of me are twining back together too. Through my connection with Ana, my magic and my soul are finding their way back together.
I feel a surge of gratitude toward her as the sensations reach a shattering crescendo…
I wake to find us tangled together, my legs hooked between hers, her arms wrapped around me. Ana opens her eyes seconds after me. The heat burning between us is palpable.
As I meet her gaze, I’m certain that my magic won’t spin out of control again. I’m safe from the endless nightmares, and it’s all thanks to her. Tous.To what we’ve built together.
We’re both breathing heavily, gasping together, sweat on our skin as if we really have just been making love. I’m rock hard, and even through her nightdress, I can feel the sweet dampness between Ana’s legs.
“That was…” Ana murmurs, clearly lost for words.
“Perfect,” I say, kissing her, sliding my tongue against hers so I can taste her like I did a few moments ago in our minds. I canfeel her breasts peeking through the thin fabric between us, and her knees open a little wider so she’s nestled closer against me.
A dream isn’t enough. I need to possess her in that realmandthis one.
I trail a hand up her leg, curving my fingers over the soft skin of her thigh. She shifts, tilting her pelvis toward me, and my cock twitches in response. That little desperate movement, the way she presents herself to me, wordlessly begging to be fucked, drives me insane.
“Do you want me to make your fantasies real, my love?”I murmur across the mooring.
She smirks wickedly, though I make her breath hitch when I dip my fingers between her legs, my touch whispering across her sensitive flesh.
“I seem to remember we were inyourhead, my love,”she replies.“That was your fantasy, soIshould be making it real foryou.”
She pulls away, slipping down the bed and pushing the sheets aside. Her hand finds my cock, gently caressing the head, her delicate touch making me throb with desire. Her mouth soon follows, and as her tongue swirls across the tip, a deep groan rumbles through me.
My hands fist in her silken, chestnut hair, encouraging her. When she takes me down to the hilt with a throaty moan, it takes every inch of willpower I have not to come. I raise my eyes to the ceiling, wrestling myself under control even as she threatens to undo me, her fingertips lightly grazing my balls as she sucks and licks.
But I’m determined not to give in, not when I know how good it feels to finish inside her as she climaxes around me. Still, this is a sweet taste of bliss before the main course.
