Page 50 of Visions in Blood
His expression was blank, but his eyes narrowed in concentration.“No.I don’t remember a woman.”
I nodded, then left, forcing one step after another until I almost flew to my room.I slammed the door behind me, arms wrapped around my stomach, and collapsed on the window seat.My gaze brushed over the shadowy grave markers.
I didn’t know why, but Devon had lied when he said he hadn’t seen the woman.
ChapterEighteen
Devon waitedfor Cressa to leave and listened to her increased pace as she ran back to her room.She knew he’d lied, that sour scent he’d caught from her clung in the air.He’d deal with her anger later.He took five minutes to wash the drying sweat from his body and threw on his sweats before clomping down the stairs toward his office.
Sergi and Lucas waited for him, and the whiff of freshly made espressos filled the room, mingling with the wood scent from the fire glowing in the hearth, and gave him a second wind.A cup waited for him, and he picked it up after crashing onto the sofa.
The necklace lay on the table between them.It flickered with the reflection of the flames, almost alive with dark powers.He was projecting, but what else was he to believe considering the change in the direction of the dreams since it found its way to this house.
“Is Lyra all right?”Devon should have gone straight to her room to check on her, but Sergi would have handled everything.Though she responded well to everyone in his cadre, she had a special connection with Sergi.If only any of them could stop her sticky-finger habit.It was increasingly apparent he’d failed at the task.
“She was wearing it this time.”Sergi’s growl told him enough of his friend’s thoughts on the necklace in general.
“Cressa said she was in her dream.”Lucas’s voice was soft, concerned for his new charge.
“I told her I didn’t see the woman, but I did.”His hand trembled as he sipped his espresso, and he set the cup down, running his hands through his hair in some vain attempt to settle his nerves.
“Can you tell us what you saw?”Sergi asked.
He blew out a deep sigh.At least this one wasn’t erotic, though he was beginning to miss those.They didn’t foretell of peril and devastation.
“We were at the lake, and I was wrecked.I didn’t know why I’d felt so empty, so defeated.Something horrible had happened, but I had no reference as to what, just a deep sense of loss and failure.”He released a shaky laugh that wasn’t a laugh at all.“It’s been centuries since I’ve had that feeling.”
“The battle at Petumbra.”Sergi would know; he’d been with him since the old days.
“That was a difficult period for vampires.”Lucas was an expert in all vampire history.He would have been a better instructor than Anna, but his service as a guard was more crucial.
“And Cressa was at the lake with you?”Sergi kept to his questions, not allowing Lucas to sidetrack him.
It would be easier to share stories about the battles, not that Lucas hadn’t heard them dozens of times as a child, then again during long evenings with his cadre reminiscing tall tales.Sergi was right to keep them focused, reviewing the details, no matter how much he didn’t want to relive the dream.He could still feel the darkness—the evil—invading his soul.
“She was trying to comfort me.It wasn’t working.”He grunted.“Or maybe it was.I couldn’t shake the bleakness, but when she laid her hand on my arm, it settled me.I can’t explain it.She somehow balanced the raging emotions I couldn’t control.I know it doesn’t make any sense, it’s just what I felt.”The experience had been deeper than that, but they wouldn’t understand.Perhaps Lucas would, but not Sergi, who relied on facts and what he could see.Yet, he couldn’t forget her touch in that moment.It was like someone pouring a healing salve over a deep wound.
“She mentioned the dead.Was this from the House Wars?”Sergi always went straight to the heart of things.Nothing subtle about him.
He shook his head.“Could I get something stronger?”
Devon finished his espresso while Lucas fetched the scotch and three glasses.After the first biting sting ran down his throat and lit a fire in his belly, he relaxed into the sofa, leaning his head back to stare at the ceiling.And as much as it pained him, he let the dream return, flooding his senses with its dark despair.
“The only constant within the latest dreams is that it begins in one place, in this instance the lake, then it jumps to another.It was an abrupt shift.One moment, I was on the ground at Oasis, a piece of paper clenched in my hand, the next, I was in a house littered with the bodies of shifters.Blood everywhere.They went down fighting, and based by how much they’d been ripped apart, they must have been outnumbered.”
He sucked in a breath, took another long sip of scotch, and shivered.“There were balloons and ribbons strung from the ceiling.It was someone’s birthday.A woman laid on table, pieces of a smashed cake beneath her.She hadn’t died quickly or easily.It was impossible to walk through the place without stepping in someone’s blood or entrails.The kitchen was the worst.”He wiped his face over and over before lifting his head to stare into Sergi’s hard gaze.“Elijah had been nailed to the wall with crossbow bolts.The words ‘had enough’ carved on his chest.”
Sergi paled.“You just met with him earlier tonight.”
“Does Cressa know this shifter?”Lucas’s porcelain skin tone which, on any other day, dramatically conflicted with his California beachboy appearance, had taken on a gray tone.
“No.I’d only met him once before, about a year ago.”
They were quiet for several minutes before Sergi urged him on.“And Lyra?”
“She hadn’t been in the room when I first walked through it.But after the kitchen…” Why couldn’t he get that image out of his head?He’d seen worse, but that had been a century ago.Maybe it was the eyes.The eyes of the dead always condemned, always saw the truth.“She was standing by the windows of the great room, her hair rustling with coastal breezes, although I don’t believe Elijah lives anywhere near the coast.Then she said this doesn’t have to happen.”
“This doesn’t have to happen.Were those her exact words?”Sergi pressed.
