Page 39 of The Second Sight
“King, I believe she’s Theia’s daughter.”
“A daughter? Go and confirm if Theia is her kin.”
Mama. They were talking about my mama. About me. My heart began to race. The physical sensation bled from my sleeping body and into the dream. Sweat broke out across my skin, dampening Seven’s sheets though I couldn’t feel themanymore. My breath came in shallow gasps as panic overtook me.
Desmond raised a hand, the movement drawing my attention. He wore a ring on his middle finger. The ring was a thick band of what looked like bone, carved with symbols I couldn’t read but somehow recognized as dangerous.
“Bring the girl to me.” His voice boomed. “If she carries Yumboe blood, she will serve our purpose. If not, she will die.”
The vivid images began to dissolve around me as my fear intensified. Desmond’s scarred face remained clear while everything else blurred into the background. Blood appeared, first as drops on the floor, then spreading into widening pools. I saw my mother’s face, eyes wide with terror as she ran through darkness, looking back over her shoulder at something I couldn’t see.
“Kasinda,” she called. “Hide it. Hide what you are.”
The scar on Desmond’s face began to glow greenish in color. An unnatural light seeped from the damaged tissue. His eyes fixed directly on me as if he could suddenly see me watching through the veil of my dream. His lips pulled back in a smile that revealed teeth too white, too perfect against his dark skin.
“Daughter of Theia,” he said, his voice surrounded me. “Your blood calls to me.”
Pure darkness closed in on me. Not the darkness of sleep but something evil and hungry. I tried to run away but had no body to move. I tried to scream but had no voice to use. Images flashed faster, and more muddled. There was the glint of a blade, the ring of bone, my mother’s hands weaving magical patterns of light in darkness. I saw Seven’s face contorted in rage, fangs descended and blood around his mouth.
The last thing I saw before the dream shattered completely was Desmond holding something in his palm, a small vial filledwith luminous green liquid that pulsed like a heart and glowed like the moon.
“The blood of the Yumboe.” he chanted. “The key to immortality.”
Then everything went black, and I felt myself rising toward consciousness, propelled by terror and the certainty that what I’d seen wasn’t just a dream. It was a warning. And Gideon was already hunting me.
I woke with a scream. My body launched upright in Seven’s bed. Terror gripped me. My chest was tight, and I couldn’t breathe. Sweat plastered my hair to my forehead and neck. The nightmare, the vision, still played behind my open eyes.
“Kasi.” Seven was beside me. One moment I was alone in my dream panicked and afraid. The next Steven hands were on my shoulders, steadying me as I gasped for air. “I’m here. You’re safe.”
I couldn’t speak, couldn’t form words through the terror. My body shook with aftershocks of fear. Seven gathered me against his chest, his strength enveloping me like a shield. His naked skin comforted me. He stroked my back in slow, soothing circles. His firm touch brought me back to the present.
“Breathe with me,” he murmured, his lips close to my ear. “Slow and deep. That’s it.”
I tried to match his breathing. The steady rise and fall of his chest, something I hadn’t taken into account until now. How was he breathing. He was a vampire, and I always believed they didn’t have a heartbeat.
“I saw him.” I finally managed to get the words out. “The man who was hunting my mother. The one with the scar.” I pressed my face against Seven’s shoulder, as if I could hide from the images still flashing through my mind. “He knows about me.”
Seven’s body tensed against mine. His hands continued their soothing motion along my spine, but there was a new alertness in his posture.
“Tell me what you saw,” he said, his voice gentle but insistent. “Everything you remember, even details that seem unimportant.”
I pulled back slightly, needing to see his face as I recounted the nightmare. His pale blue eyes were intense in the dim light and focused entirely on me. I described the empty Chicago streets, the light-brown skinned man moving through shadows, where he met the scarred man.
“Gideon,” I said, the name coming to me with certainty though I didn’t know how I knew it. “The first man’s name was Gideon. And the one with the scar was Desmond Moreau.”
Seven’s expression hardened at the name. There was fleeting glimpse of anger or maybe even disgust. I couldn’t quite make it out. His thumbs brushed against my cheekbones, wiping away tears I hadn’t realized I’d shed.
“In your dream, what did the men say?” He asked, his voice carefully neutral.
I closed my eyes, trying to recall the exact words through the haze of confusion and fear. “Gideon told him I was a fae descendant of Theia’s. He said I was living in Chicago. And Desmond said to bring her to me.” My voice cracked on my mother’s name. “They’re looking for me and they have been looking for her, my mama. Desmond said something about bringing me to him, and about Yumboe blood.”
Seven’s hands moved to cup my face, tilting it up until I had no choice but to meet his gaze. “What else? Was there anything about why they want fae blood?”
The fragmented images of the dream’s end flooded back to me. “Yes, Desmond said the blood of the Yumboe is the key to immortality or something like that.”
Seven was completely still for a long moment, the kind of immobility only a vampire could achieve. When he finally spoke, his voice was tight with controlled emotion.
“This is why you need to practice controlling your fae abilities,” he said, his thumbs stroking my cheeks. “These visions aren’t just dreams. They’re warnings. And right now, they’re controlling you instead of the other way around.”
