Nightmares and Daydreams (The Blood Falls Book 4)

I cried until I didn’t think it was possible to cry anymore. It wasn’t because I was sad or scared. There was just too much emotional energy surging through me from the memory that it had to go somewhere. And all I knew to do was cry.

I sat in the middle of the shower, water pouring over me, knees pulled up to my chest, and sobbed my eyes out for an hour. Then I pulled my wrinkled ass out, threw on a robe, and sat in front of the fire doing the same thing, only I was out of tears and mostly just heaving.

How had the whole world not stopped at that moment? Not only the sacrifice of Graygore and Lorelei, but the brief moment our world was not our own anymore?

Another chill ran down my spine and I began shivering again.

“Rhysa?” Dray’s voice echoed off the glass windows and doors of the treehouse.

“Here.” I made Bo promise not to run off and tell Dray right away. To wait until he was free. I needed some time to process, and it was impossible to process with an overbearing alpha male trying to fix everything.

“I will kill Bo.”

I sighed even though I knew that was exactly what he was going to say. “You can kill him tomorrow if you really need to, but I asked him to wait so I could get myself together.”

“You are not together.”

I looked down at the fluffy robe and damp hair wondering what was so bad about it all. “I’m almost naked in front of the fire. Are you really complaining right now?”

“The look on your face is unacceptable.” Well. He was indeed overbearing, but he was also quite sweet.

“Pour me some bourbon and come join me.”

“Bourbon, huh?” Glasses clanked with ice. “Straight to the hard stuff. This can’t be good.”

“Bo didn’t tell you?” I eagerly took the glass he handed me and sipped a very small sip. The burn was harsh and welcome.

“He told me.”

“Then why are you surprised?”

He sank down, which took a moment to fold all those arms and legs into an origami dragon. “You should see your face. Rhysa, my love, you look like you’ve been broken and sewn back together by a terrible tailor.”

Yech. That sounded awful. “Well. Yeah.” I took another sip. Then another. I didn’t want to talk a whole lot about his parents dying. I wasn’t even sure I could stomach discussing the moment Destiny transformed him and his sister. And me. Distantly, but the me before me existed. That was hard to wrap my small mind around which was a big reason why I wasn’t ready to think about it. “We should talk about what I felt. On the other side of the door.”

“Fuck.” He threw back his bourbon and refilled the glass. ‘I’m listening.”

It was hard to describe the indescribable. “For a moment, that moment the door was open, our world and theirs was one again. The impossibility of it was gone. It just was.”

I shivered and pulled the robe even more closed than it already was. I knew the fire was hot and I shouldn’t be this cold, but the fibers of my being had turned to ice and there seemed to be no way to escape it.

“But it’s not that. Different realities just are. I’m not ever going to understand how it works. The problem is with what I felt. They aren’t like us, Dray. There’s no hope there. No love. All I felt was cold and pain and greed.”

“Power?”

“So much,” I whispered. “It rushed the door. All that power was sitting there waiting for the chance to escape. And now it’s had decades to build.”

He finished his second bourbon and set the glass aside. “Why this reality? If there are so many others, why is this one a problem? And what does Ryddyck have to do with it? Why was he really sent to us?”

It was hard to explain all the things I suddenly knew now simply because of that moment. It was as if the memory also downloaded a file into my brain. “I think our realities are tied together. Others exist but they don’t connect to ours. Before the Dark Times, we coexisted.”

“You’re still shivering.”

It seemed to be getting worse, not better. “I can’t seem to stop.” It was as if the vision opened up a part of me and inserted a sliver of ice that froze my soul.

“Come here, baby.” He pulled me into his arms and hugged me hard. “I’ve got you. Focus on this. You and me.” He pulled at my shirt then whipped his own over his head, pressing our skin together. “Just you and me.”

I clung to him like a buoy in the ocean. Dray was always my center and I needed to let him be that now. There was no future or past. No pain. No danger. I sank into his vein without thought, pulling his warmth into me until the shivers stopped.

“Fuck, Rhysa.” He groaned as he rolled me under him.

I fumbled with his jeans, pulling him to me. We moved with instinct and need. With practice and ease. By the time he stretched me around his hard cock I had my fill of his blood, licking away so I could arch and moan and enjoy. It was slow at first, then fast and urgent. No games. No tricks. Just desperate need to be together.

“More.”

He groaned in response, gripped my wrists, and locked his gaze with mine. There was more, and then there was more. The intensity in his eyes undid me. The bare need, the unmasked ferocity took my breath away. I had rattled Dray. To his core. Nothing truly scared Dray, but this did. Seeing me this upset had shaken him, and knowing that shook me right back.

“Give me my hands back.” The moment he released his grip I wrapped my arms around his neck, threaded my fingers into his hair, and kissed him.

“Oh yes,” he moaned into the kiss, hugging me just as hard. Just as desperately. It was as if we were both trying to make our bodies become one, as if we could somehow mash all our cells together until they recombined.

It was all too much. “I’m coming.”

“Yes. Please. Yes.” He buried his head and came right along with me. But instead of going still and catching his breath, he popped his head up, cupped my face in his hands, gifting me with that intense gaze all over again. “I will always protect you, Rhysa. From nightmares, demons, and anything else that comes at you, baby. I promise.”

I released his hair and let my hands fall to his scruffy beard. “I know, baby. I know.”