Page 88 of Centaur Bolt

“No.” I swallowed. “Rafael, I think.”

Her mouth pulled straight. “Here. Eat this, and then it would be best for you to rest.”

Rest? My muddled brain coughed up one pertinent fact—Marcus’s stuff was in the spare room. I wolfed down all three sandwiches she offered me. And then yawned.

It wasn’t faked, but Cara smiled and asked, “Can you make it up to the dorm on your own steam?”

Dammit.I’d hoped for a spare room offer. “Do you mind if I use your washroom?”

“Of course not. Go ahead.”

I headed down the hall and glanced back over my shoulder before quietly opening the spare room door.

The room had been tidied. Not a sign of Marcus’s stuff. Was it all in the closet? Or had Cara sent it back to his parents?

Keenly disappointed, I withdrew to the washroom. Minutes later, I took the stairs to the dorm floor. Only one level up, but it seemed like I climbed Everest. I should’ve taken the elevator.

By the time I got to my room, my legs were sending clear warnings that they were about to go offline. I collapsed on the bed and rolled up in the quilt…

I was enveloped in a gray fog that left water droplets on my skin. The air felt heavy and cold, and I shivered.

Barely visible before me was a pond surrounded by tall reeds. Just beyond it, I could make out the lines of a building. Or at least, a couple of walls. Most of it looked as though it had collapsed.

Where was I? I was pretty sure I’d never been here before.

“Riley?”

I spun. He rose from beneath a tree with a trunk so contorted that it looked as though it had a face.

“Marcus!” I flung myself at him, and he opened his arms to welcome me. Held me to his damp form with so much strength I nearly couldn’t breathe.

He lowered his head into my hair, and inhaled. “Riley,” he repeated, the word almost a groan.

Then he placed a big hand beneath my jaw, and tilted my head to kiss me. His skin was cool, but his lips were warm, and he thrust his tongue past mine. I tangled my own with it, pushing into him.

He inhaled harder this time, and then his fingers closed on my shoulders, and he pushed me away.

I resisted—but when I looked up into his eyes, they’d gone inky dark.

His mouth pulled straight. “I can’t. That last dream—Iskar almost lost the battle.”

My heart twisted. “I am not afraid of you, Marcus.”

His eyes flickered, changing color so rapidly I couldn’t follow them. “Whatever this thing is, Riley, it’s dangerous.”

“It can’t hurt me in a dream.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Dream or not, it wants out.”

“You need to let it out, in order to learn to control it,” I said. I didn’t know, not really. I only knew that avoiding it wasn’t doing him any good.

He exhaled. “That’s what Iskar says.”

“He is a very wise Gryphon.”

“I think he was.”

The past tense saddened me, too, but I needed something from him. “Do you know where Isobel is?”

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