Page 128 of When the Woods Go Silent

I grit my teeth at her saccharine smile. I’ve seen hundreds, thousands even, of humans deteriorate and die as blood slaves, yet I’ve only now connected that possibility with Ruby. Would I really keep drinking from her if I truly cared about her life?

“You know, Torrence, anyone besides my son would already be strung up and bleeding out as an example. But I do have my limits.”

She’s gone before I have a chance to spit out an answer, and for the thousandth time, I curse my decision to stay with her instead of siding with the fae or striking out on my own. It was an impossible choice then, and it still is.

I tell myself it’s smarter to pander to my mother, that rebelling would only make everything worse. But it’s cowardice that keeps me here, doing her dirty work. I’ve never had a reasonstrong enough to risk the danger, but I’m not sure that’s true any longer.

I’m a chained beast to my mother, but Ruby called me a savior. Maybe what I really am is beyond both of those. Protecting Ruby could give me the courage I’ve lacked to bite back, and drinking her blood could bring me the power I need to break that chain, once and for all.

As much as I hate Julianna, she’s right. I’m not leading, I’m following. With Ruby by my side, I could finally step onto a different path.

Ruby hasn’t seen my true gobbelin form, but somehow she’s sifted through the dark places of my soul and found the light I hid there so long ago. Now she holds it like a beacon, beckoning me forward.

Realizing I’ve been pacing through the woods as I think, I look up and find myself behind the bookshop, drawn there like an insect to the flame. I don’t know how or when it happened, but Ruby owns a piece of me now.

Standing outside the building in the darkness, I look up at the window of Ruby’s bedroom. I can feel her sleeping there.

Dreaming.

My mind stretches and reaches for her, the wisps of her dream like plants waving at the bottom of an ocean. I dive in deep, craving to see what she dreams about.

I follow the tendrils deeper into the dream, even as I freeze the door alarm and slip inside the building. Silently climbing the stairs, slipping into the folds of her mind. I’m no good for her - I’ll ruin her, like I told her in the beginning.

But I can’t seem to stay away.

Leaving wouldn’t protect her, though. Not now. Julianna would send someone to kill both girls, or relish doing it herself.

Would Ruby let me hide her? Idris would help me find a place where she could be safe until after the war. She wouldn’tleave without Rose, though. I see that now. I have to find a way to make them both leave Clearwater. The question is, how? Where can I hide them that my mother won’t find?

Ruby’s dream dissolves around me as I gaze down at her, and her long lashes flutter.

“Torrence?” she whispers, blinking up at me with a soft smile. There’s no fear at all in her voice - a marvel to someone like me.

“I’m here for you,” I murmur, settling next to her on the soft bed. She curls into my chest like the kitten I imagine her to be, and something deeper than hunger twists in my stomach. Something stronger than fear aches in my chest.

“Do you need blood?” Ruby says, her words soft and blurred with sleep. She arches her neck, and I swallow down a groan as her eyes flutter closed again.

“Ruby...”

“Take it, Torrence. Take what you need.”

I curse under my breath as she closes her eyes again, so incredibly trusting. What kind of man would I be, if I broke this trust now?

Leaning down until my lips brush her neck, I give the trust back to her and do what she asks. I feed, but gently. Slowly. Carefully, without taking more than she can bear. She sighs and sleeps again easily, slipping back into a dream and pulling me with her.

We’re twined together on her bed and in her dream, and my mind spins with the power of the combination.

Take me, Torrence. Take what you want.

Dream Ruby dances away from me in another fuzzy, dreamy woods, teasing and begging. Dream Ruby doesn’t want to go slow, she wants to be tasted and tongued, forced onto her back in the leaves and fucked until she screams my name in the pleasure she’s been craving all along.

As I drink her blood and dream with her, I begin to wonder if Ruby herself is tired of holding back the same desires.

RONAN

Fucking Torrence.

His scent is everywhere around the bookshop, as is the sickly sweet of dreamwalker magic. And none of the biting ice that Julianna would bring.

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