“If you’re here, does that mean your angel is around this corner?”
She didn’t react, too busy pressing her head into my hand, her tongue lolling out like a dog.
I contemplated turning around, but I was exhausted, and he would not keep me from bed. Hiding the book behind my back, I continued down the hall. Then froze.
It wasn’t just Ronen I found. Aspen was there too—and they were talking to each other.
Talking may be too kind a word. By their tense shoulders, Ronen’s ticking jaw, and Aspen’s flexing hand, I’d assume it was more of an argument. The urge to turn around before they saw me doubled. But I couldn’t move.
So I stood there with Rune beside me and gave myself twenty seconds to… compare.
There was no question that they were both attractive. One looked like a tall, dark, and handsome storybook prince, even more so now with his shaved face, trimmed hair, and slacks. The other, in similar attire, looked like something out of my forbidden imaginings—a toe-curling, sinful, tattooed god.
I wanted to say they were both different. In a way, they were. Ronen’s personality was a quiet, unsuspecting force, luring me in with his magnetism. He was both calm and storm. Unpredictable, dangerous, yet soothing and steadfast. Aspen, by contrast, was roguish and turbulent. When he came alive, he was vibrant and hopeful. His dimples creased his face, and he seemed to embody light itself. Then the Hell Rune would twist him, making him cold and cruel. Now, I wasn’t sure who he was. Who either of them were.
But like it or not, they were also very much the same.
They were both Hell Runed. They both had done atrocious things. They were both bonded to me. Also, they both hid things from me, manipulated me, and stomped on the shattered pieces of my heart.
As much as my messed-up feelings yearned for them, I was better off without them.
“Lucille, we know you’re there,” they saidsimultaneously.
Of course they did.
They glared at each other. I rolled my eyes and rubbed Rune’s ear for a touch of comfort before I walked the gauntlet.
Their eyes swallowed my every step. Under their scrutiny, my heart rate increased. It was one thing to have one intense gaze on me, a whole other to have both. I wasn’t sure if I enjoyed or hated it.
Almost to my door, they both looked ready to say something.
So, like any grief-stricken, exhausted, overloaded female would do, I rushed to my door, opened it, then shoved it closed. Only a second went by before I heard a knock and a scratch. I groaned, knowing I couldn’t leave Rune out there.
Quickly, I opened my door, letting her in.
“Lucille—”
“No.” I cut off Ronen, holding up a hand. “And goodnight.”
Then I slammed the door in his face and locked it. If he really wanted to, I imagined his sneaky shadow powers could get him in. But I hoped he was intelligent enough to realize that wouldn’t end well for him.
Once I managed to get the fire crackling in the hearth, eat dinner, and change, I sat on my bed with Cato’s book. Rune settled next to me like the perfect body pillow, warming me to the point I needed to shed my pants and fan the bottom of my camisole. Finally comfortable, I read.
For the first time since knowing I had dream-walking abilities, I learned what to call the four types. They were listed in order from least to most difficult.
Somnivado: to invade someone's dream to learn secrets.
Intraverso: to invade oneself to witness and reexperience your past.
Inviso: to invade the body of another and witness their past.
Praetervado: to invade the past as your present self.
Each levelof dream-walking came with unique pitfalls and nuances. Some, like the nausea with Praetervado, I had experienced for myself. Cato’s book explained the feeling was caused by your soul bouncing between your two bodies, unsure of which to inhabit. It also noted that Praetervado was the most dangerous of the four abilities, as it posed the highest risk of altering the future. To me, that sounded like the best place to start. But as I tried to skip ahead, the pages wouldn’t budge, as if they were glued together.
“What the hell?”
I grabbed the page I was on and turned it just fine, but then it wouldn’t let me skip to the next one. So I read through the two pages on Somnivado, and only then did it finally let me flip it. I thought that was all it’d take for the next pages too, but nope—stuck. I even reread the section, noting the exercise at the end describing how to test out Somnivado.
