Page 81 of Gift from the Wing

“Focus on me for a moment, dragon,” I purr softly.

“All I ever focus on is you.” He smiles down at me, leaning in for another kiss that I allow.

Cupping both of his cheeks, I pull his face back to look at me. “Is there a reason we’re here, dragon? You can tell me,” I whisper softly against his lips.

Leaning in, his breath brushes across my ear, and I repress the shiver that wants to escape me.

Fuck, it’s so real.

“We’re not alone.”

I attempt to pull him closer, ask what that means, but he slips through my fingers, literally. My dream Draken fades to nothing and I sit up straight, searching my surroundings.

What the hell is happening right now?

Standing, I turn in circles slowly. There’s no sign of dream Draken anywhere. There’s nothing actually but flowers and a tree line. I’m not alone,though. Now that it’s been brought to my attention, I feel the eyes watching me.

“Show yourself. What do you want?” I yell out, continuing my turning.

The cracking of a branch has me whipping my body around to the noise and although heavy silence falls over the field, it’s deafening as I face off with a man I’ve never met a day in my life.

His jet-black hair frames his face in tight curls and it seems darker than night laid against his pale skin. His eyes, although bright with touches of both blue and green, barely hold any life. I see a flickering of it in there somewhere, but it’s far, far down in there. He stands statue-still, staring at me as I glare at him.

There’s something oddly familiar about him despite me knowing I have no clue who this is. His clothes give me no clue as he’s not dressed in an E.F. uniform, or robe, or anything that even resembles what we wear.

“Wait!” I shout as he turns around and takes off through the trees.

My feet move faster than my mind as I charge after him. Whatever his reasoning is for being here, I’m supposed to know. I need to talk to him. This is the strangest dream walking I’ve ever done, but every time it happens, we get one step closer to ending the Mastery. I can’t let him get away without knowing what he needs me for.

“Please stop. I won’t hurt you,” I call out as loud as I can as the distance between us continues to get farther apart.

Fuck, he’s fast for this to be a dream.

Suddenly, he slams to a stop and pivots on his heels until he’s glaring at me with so much malice, I halt my pounding feet about twenty feet away from him. I sense the hatred rolling off him in waves and my body tenses under the pressure of it.

I don’t know what I could’ve done to this man, but whatever he believes it is, it’s strong. He truly loathes me.

“Won’t hurt me.” He laughs humorlessly, taking a step closer to me. “You’ve already done plenty of that.”

“How? I don’t even know you,” I say softly, holding my hands out in frontof me.

“No, not directly. But I know all about you, Willow. And I’ll kill you for what you’ve done to my brother.”

His brother?

“No, wait, please stop.”

I charge forward, but I’m too late.

“Wait,” I scream, sitting straight up in bed.

My limbs flail about around me as if I’m still trying to run, waking all my men up in the process. Tillman and Draken are up and out of bed in a millisecond with their elements and gifts at the ready. Corentin’s body slams into mine until I’m pressed into the mattress and shadows that are thick enough to steal my sight drape over us.

“Where’s the threat?” Tillman shouts at the same time Corentin asks, “Willow, what’s going on?”

“Everything’s okay. Everyone can stand down. It was a dream.”I pant mentally.

The rush of the dream plus waking up and scaring the shit out of everyone has stolen all the air in my lungs. I can barely breathe under the weight of Corentin and the adrenaline, but my words seem to simmer everyone down. The dark cloud slowly recedes, returning my sight, and Corentin gracefully gets off me, pulling me into his lap.

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