Page 201 of Blue Moon Mistress

I bank it to the sound of gentle snores.

Chase is the only one still awake with me and I almost make a joke about his nap, but why even pretend to ridicule a thing that’s given me something I want?

Placing the screen back over the fire and making sure the other three aren’t likely to roll into it as they sleep, I step over them and go back to him, but he holds out a soft nightgown and when I take it from him, I know it’s not one from my room.

“It’s an early Christmas present,” he says sleepily as I slip it over my head.

The black fabric sends a shiver down my spine as it slides across my skin. It’s not warm enough to do anything other thanhide me from view, but I have the four of them for any heat I might need.

Snuggled down against him, I let Chase’s warmth seep into me

His fingers trail over my stomach.

“I think,” He says, words a whisper that won’t wake the others. “This is going to be my favorite Christmas ever.”

“I hope so.”

“UntilnextChristmas.” He smiles against my skin, pressing a kiss to my shoulder. “And then the next.”

I fall asleep in his arms as the first, weak beams of light begin to filter into the room.

But my dreams are a turbulent sea of white mist and gray water. They whisper lies and cold sinks through to my bones.

Four

I wakewith a shiver and a puff of white breath in my face. Blinking at what little of the midday sun has penetrated through the canopy, I try to take stock of where I am.

It takes a minute to convince myself I am really out in the middle of the forest with nothing but the thin black slip covering me.

This isn’t just another part of my dream.

Alone, cold sharp sticks poke at my feet and the gentle wind breathes over my goose-bump covered skin. But there’s warmth at my waist.

A soft, furry head knocks at my hand.

All four of the wolves gather close to me, more solid than I’ve ever seen them in daylight. But whatever danger they sense, I can’t see it. I can feel it though… and I can smell it.

There’s a cloying scent of decayed magic on the wind, and my skin is chilled by more than just the December air. The fingers of something dark drag down my arm like bare branches, cold and scratching.

I draw in another breath that stings at my lungs, and when I exhale with a puff of white vapor, there’s a flash of something in the trees to my left.

But when I turn to it, it’s gone.

Under other circumstances, I might have thought it was a figment of my tired mind, but I’m here. And something definitely drew me out of the house.

Between my dreams and this, something is very definitely wrong.

“Arata.”

The single world pulls a specter from the depths of the darkness. It claws and fights the whole way, tearing at tree bark and throwing up stones…

It breaks free the moment I inhale, taking back the breath that gave that single word its power.

But what it showed me is not good.

Aphrodite lourdes is dead.

I saw the twisted remains after her spell backfired and consumed her. This shade was not brought forth by the living. And the dead rarely want to stay that way.

---