Page 122 of Diamond Kisses

I felt his affection for me. The wonderful intimacy between true friends.

The urge to snatch him in a hug overwhelmed me. He touched me.Willingly.He smiled at me. Happily. He didn’t look at me like a monster or leave me to burn.

Tears stung my eyes. I cleared my throat. “So all of it…was just a dream?”

“Oh, it wasn’t a dream.” He let me and Ily go, reaching for a sparkling flute of champagne. “It was all real. Every bit of it.”

“Even the fire?”

“Especiallythe fire.”

I frowned.

Ily left her chair and came to me.

With my heart winging, I shifted back and made room for her.

Sitting on my lap, she looped her arms around my neck and pressed her lips to mine. “That’s the key, you see. In these realms, we remember. They’re all happening. All at once. We’re both dead and alive. Everything and nothing—”

* * * * *

An awful high-pitch buzzing jerked me from paradise.

Like a beetle in my ear. A bee in my brain.

I groaned and tried to shove it away.

Something held me down.

Something grew hot around my throat.

The noise grew louder, insistent.

“You’d think after removing it from the others, you would’ve gotten quicker at this.”

“The metal is hardened steel, Q, with a locking mechanism that was never made to come undone. It takes time.”

“Just get it the fuck off him.” My brother’s voice hissed far too close to my ear. His fingers flexed on my shoulders, keeping me pinned.

I was aware but…unaware.

Awake but not.

Dust scattered over my chest, itchy and sharp as the buzzing reached its crescendo, then stopped.

“Finally.” Q huffed. “Now remove it.”

A metal cracking.

A sudden draft around my neck.

“There.” The unseen man sniffed with pride. “His collar is off. Now, if you’ll hold up his left wrist for me.”

Q shifted and stole my arm.

I tried to steal it back.

But the tentative hold on reality slipped through my fingers, and I fell again.

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