Darkness is everywhere and smoke circles around me.

Not the usual sort that tightens your lungs and causes a pressure in your chest; but a more beautiful, ethereal kind of smoke. With the way it moves, I think I could almost hold it in my palms. I try to grasp the flick that twists nearest me, but it disappears before I can reach it.

Aura, you’re surrounded in smoke. Why the hell are you not freaking out?

I spin in a circle and look down at my own body.

I’m naked. Well, mostly naked.

The blue smoke wraps around me like a thin, silk sheath. Unexpected desire hits me and causes a rush of exhilaration and wild yearning, to course through my veins. In seconds, a hot wetness forms between my thighs. The smoke slowly recedes. When the tendrils reappear and snake around me again, I grasp it. Suddenly, I’m transported to a different room.

I remain naked, but I’m no longer alone. Someone is there in the smoke beside me.

Carver.

The smoke covers over his naked form, leaving only the outline of his perfect body visible. He climbs atop me and his smoky lips touch mine. I moan as his skilled, warm tongue caresses my own. Gods it feels like ages since I last touched him.

“Carver.” I sigh into his mouth

“Ma, belle.” he whispers back.

I spread my legs and asks him to come in but he yanks me off.

“Carver?” I call out but he gets up from our bed of ash and makes for the door. I approach him and hold his hand; it becomes ash and the scene changes. It is dark again.

“You’re wasting your time waiting for this one, dear young.”

I don’t need anyone to tell me who it is.

I know whose voice that it.

Anger flows through my veins and I can sense her presence just as I can hear her voice; the vampire queen. Morana.

“That’s all you’ve got, young one? Oh, such a shame. How did Carver ever fall for an innocent like you?” she says.

I open my mouth to talk but nothing comes out; only smoke. The room dissolves in smoke and I find myself in front of a cage.

Fuck! I can’t see shit. Calm down, Aura. Calm down, I tell myself.

I close my eyes and open them again. The cage is still there. I look closely and see my Carver sitting naked there too, hugging himself, covered in chains.

He looks terrible. He is terrible. His mouth is covered in blood and his hands are bleeding. His blonde hair is of a different color; a mixture of blood and dirt. I look into his eyes and see that they are no longer the glassy orbs I used to like. In his sockets stands two grim eyes, looking more like stones than anything else.

This is not my Carver.

“Carver!” I scream but I can’t even hear my own voice. “Carver!”I cry again but there is no response.

My heart bursts and emotions flow in. I can feel the excruciating pain he is going through. I can feel fire flowing through my veins. Carver is in agony. My head is about to burst when the smoke fills everywhere again and I am in another hall.

Carver’s sister, Jolie, is kneeling before the vampire queen naked. Carver is crawling towards them, trying to rescue his sister. The queen is heaping coals of fire over her head and I can see her heart burning-literally. I run towards them and I’m thrown back by an invisible force.

“You can’t help him here, fool.”

“I’ll be back, Aura.” Those where Carver’s words to me before he left. That’s all I hear before the smoke fills my eyes and take me away.

I wake.

“Carver!” I scream as I open my eyes to reality. Lucian jumps up too.

I can still feel Carver’s emotions in my veins. I can hear his voice in my head. The threats of the vampire queen echoing over and over.

I’m back in my room with Lucian, but still I feel the other atmosphere.

“This is not meant to be. This is not meant to be…”

“Calm down,” Lucian says, trying soothe me with his hands rubbing down my arms.

“This is not supposed to be. I can’t be in two places at the same time and –” Pain beyond measure possesses me on the bed and I can feel her fire again. I can feel sharp knife slitting my throat. I see the snakes coming for me.

“No! No, Carver!”

I climb off the bed and bolt for the door. I’m almost out when I feel Lucian’s warm hands holding me back.

“Aura, stop!”

“No!”

“Aura, it was a dream. Listen to me.”

“Don’t even try it, Lucian!” I don’t know how I do it, but I manage to throw him off.

He tumbles back lands on the bed. I turn the knob and make to open the door but I can’t. Lucian is behind me again, holding me down.

“Think!” Lucian yells but all I can hear is Carver’s voice miles away crying.

“Please.” I shove Lucian but he returns in a flash and pulls me away from the door. He throws me to the bed and holds me down with the pillows but my supernatural strength won’t let me stay. I struggle free and raise the bed up, throwing it at him. I miss. The whole room turns to a mess with wood all over the ground.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, asshole?!” I scream as I throw a plank at him. He dodges it and makes for me. He holds me down to the ground and pins my hands to my back like a cop arresting someone.

The voices in my mind reach the peak and I can hear Carver’s cries. I rise up again only to fall to the ground like a lifeless being as silence fills my head.

“Are you okay? Aura?” Lucian is saying.

I can feel his breath, warm against my cheeks. “Aura?”

I open my eyes and light floods them. Reality is so silent.

I’m with Lucian and our once quaint room is more like a carpenter’s workshop with wood scattered all over the place.

Holy fuck.

I sit up and Lucian pulls me to his chest. Tears burn in my eyes until they fall like rain down my cheeks and a sob escapes me. I can no longer feel anything from the other side and though the pain is gone, desolation replaces it.

I can no longer hear Carver’s voice or feel his emotions and I break inside. Lucian’s lips kiss my face and the tears off my neck.

I hate how weak I am compared to Morana. I really fucking hate it. Hate her.

“I can’t save him, can I?”

“Not yet, baby. Not yet,” His voice is tight and underneath it, pain lingers. He’s not angry with him for the stunts I pulled, for the little fight I gave , but still, I say “Sorry.”

“It’s nothing,” he says gently against my forehead.

I look out the window and think of the light and the way Carver explained everything to me.

“The sun is not brighter, Aura,” he said, holding my hand. Your senses got better. They accelerated to one hundred percent. Right now, your sight is one hundred percent perfect. Your skin is one hundred percent smooth and is highly sensitive and responsive. This is why the sun looks brighter and the raindrops feel heavy on your skin. It’s a matter of time; you’ll get used to it.”

“He can’t survive the queen’s torture much longer, Lucian.” I say as he strokes my hair lightly.

“I know, Aura. I know.”

“But what if it’s too late?” I ask warily.

For a while, Lucian says nothing and I’m afraid he is keeping something from me. And then he sighs and kisses me on the neck, holding me tight.

“Carver is strong, Aura. He won’t give in.”

“But--”

“No buts, love. We have a plan. We need to stick to it. Rushing and going against it could screw that up. So we keep moving. At the right time, we strike.”

I look up at Lucian’s handsome brown eyes and smile; he sounds so much like Carver. They have so much more in common then they want to admit. The calmness that he’s displaying now, is the same thing Carver would have done if he was here.

But he isn’t. I swallow against the tightness in my chest.

“I miss him,” I say.

“Me too.” Lucian sounds surprised by his own admission.

“You do?”

He sighs, “Yes.” He opens his mouth, then snaps it shut again. A few seconds tick by before he finishes his thought. “Before you, I wouldn’t have cared. But destiny brought us together You brought us together and now, I care...” He plants another kiss on my cheek and as I close my eyes to sleep, he says “He is now my brother after all and I’ll die trying to return him to you. To us.”