Page 127 of A Bond with the Dark

A knowing deep within his eyes tells me he does know. He’s familiar with this, and I cannot shake that feeling.

“You burn me,” I say harshly. “In every dream. You kiss me. Then you bite me. Then I burn.”

“I know. I’m in them, too.” His tone is almost frigid.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” he says again, his dark eyebrows dancing above his eyes. “I had to see for myself that you knew who I was, too. That you have been having the same dreams as me. Each one is so real, and the next day, I feel so . . . different. Your light feeds me, and every time I get to breathe you, I live a little easier, and life is a little less painful the next day.”

That’s precisely what he had told me in my last dream of him.

I’m having déjà vu.

“What about the last one? In my room? Were you really there?”

“Yes.” He peers at me through narrowed eyes, a wistfulness passing over his expression.

“How?”

“I don’t know. All I know is there’s something about you that I need to live.”

“I barely know you. I’m with your brother. You’re with Talora. This is crazy!”

“I don’t care about any of that. The feeling I get when I see you in my dreams is something I have ached for. I don’t care how long it takes. I will have you.”

“But you burn me. Doesn’t that mean anything at all to you? Because it does to me.”

“I think that’s a metaphor for something.”

I bite back an angry retort. “I don’t want to try it out” is what I say instead, folding my arms demurely around me.

I can’t move again; his lips inch closer to mine, and I’m curious if it is a metaphor. Maybe it’s a sign to me that he’s that passion, that all-consuming, ineffable love I’m missing in my life, and that’s what the fire is for.

The fog grows thick, and I remember there’s someone I have feelings for, but I can’t think of who that is now.

Then it hits me that this is all his power.

All vampires have a special power; this must be his. To make me feel at ease and to forget that man I came here with.

Fighting against the fog, I push back against it as hard as possible.

My nose wrinkles. I rummage through my soul, trying to find that power, to dredge it up and throw it at him, and there’s something in me that doesn’t want to know what his worst fear is. Even though he’s a monster, his worst fear is probably abysmal.

Backing away from me suddenly, he must’ve sensed that I was searching for something to divest him of. He folds his arms across his chest protectively.

“Bash?” comes Talora’s voice from down the hall.

He looks toward the bedroom and then back toward me.

“Dom can’t know,” he says again.

Then he’s gone.

The further he gets from me, the more and more the fog lifts and the details about the moment that had just happened become clearer.

So many questions are milling through my mind that I almost forgot why we’re here.

The curse and the artifact they have left to retrieve.

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