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Something snaps the moment we’re all together. Cain throws his head back, and an inhuman growl rumbles through the room.

The shattered glass seems to duplicate and expand over the floor until we’re standing on a broken mirror.

I look down at my bloodthirsty reflection, only to feel the world spin and change.

And then we’re in the Dream Realm.

And falling into a place of blood, of tears, and of endless suffering.

This must not be how portal travel is supposed to work in the Dream Realm, because Cain growls a single word.

“Fuck.”

CHAPTER 31

SCARLETT

“Cain!” I cry as I spot him finally appear in the blood red sky.

I’ve been stuck in this place for hours. It made no sense why I couldn’t find him. It seemed like every time I closed my eyes my figment was there, waiting for me.

I should have known something was wrong.

My heart races and I lift onto my toes as if I can reach him if I just try hard enough.

The first time I met him in the real word, he caught me when I lifted in a dance.

Now, I wish I could catch him.

He’s not alone. Two others fall with him as they plummet through the clouds. Dark shadows streak above them as they twist and writhe, making me wonder if they are in pain.

The world cracks with Cain’s roar and the rivers of blood surge as if ready to gobble them up.

My chest tightens as they strike the surface of a river swollen with blood. The impact shatters the world as if everything had fractured into glass. Very real shards splinter out in all directions and one of them drives right into me.

My reality splits into multiple possibilities. The shard engulfs me for a moment, showing me what my life could have been like, had things been different.

In an alternate world, I’m still lying in my bed. Edward’s mother never came to have me humiliated and I wasn’t found wanting.

My dream beasts aren’t lost in this world. They aren’t plummeting from the sky.

They’re with me, revealing the truth to me in a much more pleasant way.

I watch from inside my own body like a spectator as this reality’s emotions play out. Only a glimmer of broken glass informs me it’s simply a projection of what could have been.

“Get off me!” I scream, not because it doesn’t feel good what the one with an unnaturally long tongue is doing, but because this was supposed to be a dream.

“Not a chance, Sigil.”

Why do they always call me that?

I move to push the one between my legs away, but I realize I can't. My muscles don't comply.

Red eyes glow at my right. Eyes that belong to a face crafted by a master sculptor, but his fangs dripping with my blood suggest he’s anything but a benevolent being. “You’re far too delicious to release now. Plus, you invited us into your mind. You told us to play.”

Yes, but that had been when this was all a fanciful dream full of orgasms and forbidden desires.

I open my mouth to say as much, but the creature on my right groans at the sight. “Yes, open that mouth wide, our Sigil. We’re starved for more of your screams.”