Page 11 of Monsters of Desire and Nightmares of Passion

I take a bite from the croissant. It melts in my mouth, a sweet, soft, delicious, buttery chocolate pastry that robs my senses.

“Yes, you’re right, Powder.”

I’m a young cat lady, but I feel I’m getting closer to being a level three cat lady every day. I try to think about Dr. Martin but, instead, images of Draw pop into my mind. The monsters in my dreams are the reason I don’t have a love life, or a sex life.

Grabbing the Kindle, I do everything in my power to push away the darkness existing in me and focus on my new read. The main character steps into a biker bar. I become more engrossed in the story, page by page, forgetting about what’s happening around me, especially in my busy mind.

2

Draw

“Are you an idiot or just trying to act like one?” I shout at Khal. I kick him in the face, splattering his grey blood all over his body.

“I can’t wait to die the way you and Mrez are.”

I shrug. Khal’s right, in his own way. Mrez and I are dying. I feel it more and more each day. Since Ivy began ignoring us about six years ago, we can’t talk to her anymore, which means we’re stuck in this limbo. The only way we can feed is by invading her dreams and hurting her.

“Why did you talk to that girl?”

“She saw me.” Khal sat on the floor. This place is grey in grey, and his ashen skin is almost the same color.

I’m silent. I throw a glance toward Mrez. He’s the youngest. Mrez still can’t get over how much he feels for Ivy and how badly he misses her. We’re connected to her bloodline. Ivy is his first, and the pain is worse than anything he has ever experienced.

“Maybe it’s time to find someone else.”

“No.” My reply is fast. My hand shoots out to Khal’s neck, and I press him against the wall. We’re weakened, but I’m still the alpha, and he better listen to me.

As soon as I loosen my grip, he starts talking again.

“That girl can see us. She has the sight. We can connect to her, feed on her, have a female again. How long do you want to wait for Ivy?”

I bit my lip. I could taste the bitter taste of my own blood.

“We wait. That’s my final last word.”

“We’re weak,” Khal responds.” If any other nest stumbled across us, they’d shred us to pieces. Don’t be an idiot, Draw.”

This time, I refuse to show mercy. My finger darts into Khal’s eye socket and pulls out the orb. Dark blood drips from the wound. Khal falls to his knees and claws at the empty socket.

“This will teach you.” Opening my mouth wide, I swallow the eye whole. It doesn’t please me to do so, but I must teach Khal not to disobey me. So long as I’m alpha, he’ll do as I say. And so long as I love Ivy, I won’t give up on her. My mind and essence are so attuned to her I can feel her. I feel her close to me every second. Yet I can’t touch her, can’t kiss her, and can’t make her remember me, no matter how hard I try. Even in her dreams, when we talk, she refuses to believe that I’m real, that we’re real, and that this is part of who she is.

She has the sight.

Mrez steps over to me. His body is made of tendrils of darkness. Mrez is the only one who can sense when she falls asleep. He touches my upper arm softly, and I nod. Ivy is asleep. Since she doesn’t remember her family or us—she can’t remember anything—the only moment we get to be with her is in her dreams. Ivy is our anchor, and we would drift into the grey sea of nothingness without her. I’m not ready to become nothing yet.

“You can’t enter her dream, not now, Khal. Get some rest and grow your eye back.”

Khal drops his head in submission and slinks away into the darkness.

I look over to Mrez and his red eyes glow. He’s excited, as am I, only during the many years of my long existence I learned to hide my excitement. With the little power I have left, I open a portal into her dreams.

Everything around me is muted and foggy. Ivy must have taken those chemicals that can change the way her brain works. I hate those. In what is the real world for humans, we’re only shadows and can’t do much except maybe bring up a feeling or a fear, and then only sometimes. This dream is also her world, and we’re mere actors in it, but we’re not powerless here. In her dreams, we’re almost godlike and have powers over matter and form. Ivy built this place, and I like it.

Mrez and I enter a biker bar. I look down at myself and glance over at Mrez. Damn, Ivy has a great imagination. I’m tall, human in this case with a strong build, and wearing biker gear. Mrez looks like the poet he is.

I see Ivy. She’s a born anchor. There are two types of people in the world who can connect with us. Well, three types if you consider that most people can’t perceive us at all because as the old believers died, so did we. We melted away until not even our legends survived anymore.

The second category is humans who can see us. They’re exceptions, people who have the sight, like that girl who I wasn’t tormenting but who got too many glances into a world that was not hers. A human can break if they fall into our existence without a connection. That girl was susceptible to a connection, and I hope she’ll find the right monster for that. Even if I am starving, even if I must chop off my own hand and eat it to survive, even if my body burns itself, I refuse to give up on Ivy. She understands we’re real. We’ll never give up on Ivy until our existence falls into the nothingness of the void.

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