Page 96 of A Bond with the Dark

It’s Sebastian.

I see him as clearly as if he’s in my room at the foot of my bed with an announced purpose.

I sit straight up.

He’s wearing all black, and there’s no light in my room except for the tiny nightlight in my bathroom.

His blue eyes, haunting in the darkness, filled with sweltering passion and intense longing, hold me transfixed and stop my breathing until I force myself to take in the air.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, clutching the sheets up to my chest, aware that I’m only wearing a thin tank top and no bra.

“I don’t know,” he answers, his voice sexy and deep. “I haven’t seen you in my dreams lately. I guess I missed you.”

“What is it that you want from me? Every time you visit my dreams, you kill me, or both of us. I don’t know what this dream is trying to tell me.”

“I don’t have any answers for you.” He steps toward me, and the urge to run screams at me. “All I know is that when I dream of you, I breathe a little easier the next day, the burden a little lighter. Your light feeds me, and every time I breathe you, living is simpler and a little less painful the next day.”

“Well, every time I dream of you, I wake up confused as hell,” I spit out, my voice querulous and demanding.

The all-consuming passion and love for him is dwindling, and I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that I have now found love.

He takes another step toward me, and as soon as he does, something about his gaze disassembles me. It divests that wall that had started to build up, and again, I feel immured by him like I need him to live. As he grows closer, my limbs weaken, and that hot rush tingles in my toes.

He’s at my bedside within a second, and his gaze is greedy; those eyes are burning into me.

His angry mouth, which seems like it has turned cruel at my words, softens, and I need it on mine. I want his fire. I need it.

His rough hands suddenly brace the back of my neck and pull me up to him, his lips careening against mine as though one more second without them would indeed rip him apart. I feel his tongue, the fire begins, and the invisible agony of burning starts at my toes.

The surrendering sanctity of my neck is under his fangs again, and the sound of the flames engulfing us both is all I hear, along with the feeling of that extemporaneous fire.

When I open my eyes, I swear there’s smoke swirling in the sunlight.

The fact that the dream has returned puts me on edge and makes me curious as to why this strange man is revisiting my dreams.

I know he’s a vampire.

Playing with the thought of if I should tell Dom catches in my mind a few times, but there’s a lingering feeling of guilt as if I’d cheated on him.

I’m an honest and sincere person. I have no need to dissemble.

But even though itwasjust a dream—I couldn’t have cheated on him—the feelings that arise whenever Sebastian enters my world make my feelings for Dom pale in comparison. I wish that I had those feelings for him.

Feelings that the world stops moving and changes its rotation to pull the two of us together. A force of nature that’s incomprehensible but tangible and real and downright impossible to ignore.

I remember the way I first felt those feelings for him fading, not as intense as my first couple of dreams. But then, as he got closer, I felt them come flooding back.

This scares me because it tells me that this vampire is real and is infecting my dreams and making me feel real feelings. He can control my emotions and the Earth he stands on.

Last night's dream might have been real; he could have been in my room with me and then veilweaved me to make me think it was a dream.

It was too real.

There was smoke.

But then why am I not burnt?

Laying in bed still, I extend my arms to check for burns, and nothing is there.

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