Nineteen

Beyond the reach of Quinn’s dream, back in the church, Zaire crouched beside the pillows his dreamcaster nestled in, still locked in sleep. He brushed a curl from her brow, careful not to wake her. She was so strong. He’d given her his worst, and she broke free, took control. She didn’t need him to survive.

He’d come so close to surrendering, to claiming her. To destroying her.

He fisted his hand, the only way he could stop touching her. No matter how much it burned, he had to leave Quinn. Even if Braden wasn’t part of the equation, even if he took her nightmares as she so sweetly offered, he couldn’t protect her, not as she needed if he stayed. Eventually, a stronger V’alkara or an organized team would hunt them down, requiring him to Change. Ultimately, he’d lose control and slip into darkness, never to return. If he accepted her claim, Quinn would shatter with him.

Before he cast reason aside and stayed anyway, he stood and shrugged into his coat. He’d provided her with all the tools and knowledge she needed. There was nothing else he could do for her. He took the pickup keys lying beside her purse, holding them tightly to silence any jangling. Taking her vehicle wasn’t his first choice, but if he risked Changing for transportation, he’d leave a signal the Crows could follow straight to Quinn. A call to Isaac or Stephanie, and she’d be back to her previous life.

A life without him.

The acknowledgment fisted his aching heart, made him want to destroy the entire world, take it down with him. Zaire clenched his jaw and strode toward the back door on swift, silent feet. He had to be gone before Quinn woke up. Before she persuaded him to alter his plans yet again.

After locking the church door quietly behind him, he trotted down the steps and nearly ran for the pickup parked a few yards away. The itch to turn around stretched tighter with each step away from Quinn, every instinct telling him he was going in the wrong direction. As if he didn’t realize that. Perhaps a greater distance would ease the daggers carving out his chest so he could breathe again.

Zaire lurched to the vehicle and jerked the door open. He gave the church one last look and released a shaky sigh.

Goodbye, dearling.

A blast of fear hit him so hard he remained upright only by clinging fiercely to the doorframe. Quinn’s scream followed on its heels, then raced through his blood with bone-splintering force. Her terror drove an unrelenting drill of agony into his head.

All rational, noble intentions shattered beneath the need of his dreamcaster. In three seconds flat, he was back inside the church. Quinn’s trembling body shielded in his arms, he dove inside her dreams.

He landed on the white sand with a boom that rippled the sky. The silence beneath was complete, still and lifeless. Empty. No Quinn.

Closing his eyes, he tipped up his face up and sent out tendrils of shadows, seeking, tasting, testing for any hint of her. She was in the dream, somewhere. Maybe not in this particular dreamscape pocket, but he’d find her. He’d claw his way through every layer if he had to.

A faint pull at his senses spun him around toward a dune that rose to meet the horizon. Zaire exploded through it and stumbled. The ground beneath his feet gave way, and he fell from the sky, a hundred feet into a raging ocean.

He gulped a breath before he hit the surface with a blast of pain. The waves drove him down, pushing him relentlessly beneath the surface. Confusion surrounded him, the roar of the wind, the crash of the sea, a battle between the elements for dominion. He was a hapless bystander caught in the middle, unimportant. Expendable.

Damnation. He hated the nightmares that preyed upon the quieter emotions rather than the fierce tang of terror. There were no creatures to fight other than the one inside, and that was something a V’alkara did every day. Shutting out the chaos, he drifted deeper in the black, churning water, his senses searching for his dreamcaster. Where are you, Quinn? Her fear had been so powerful outside the dream, and now, nothing.

Cold slivered beneath his skin, and his heart drummed fast, not merely at the lack of oxygen. She’d spoken of her delusions, a hint that madness might be staking its claim. What if the fear had taken her too far, too deep? What if he’d already lost her as he had so many years ago?

There.

The shadows snaked through the water, into the depths, leading him. A shipwreck lay on the bottom, ghostly masts reaching for a surface they would never see again.

His lungs straining, Zaire swam for the skeleton ribs of the decayed hull. He didn’t question his shadows. Quinn’s essence was still faint, still far-off, but it grew stronger as he approached the wreckage. He swam between jagged planks, past strange, glowing fish and something that watched him with dull, black eyes from the concealment of seaweed.

A door, still intact, still shut, beckoned him. He jerked on it. The rusted knob didn’t budge. Dark spots blinking behind his eyes, his lungs failing, he flung his shadows at the stubborn door. Splinters of wood and glass exploded, and he dove inside.

He dropped to solid ground and rolled onto his back, gasping. The air smelled of sulfur, a sharp bite to his tongue, and the sky roiled above in an endless, boiling black. He blinked water from his eyes and swallowed hard. The sea. The sky was the raging sea where he’d been moments before. Layers beneath dreamscape layers, the perfect hiding spot for a dreamcaster. No wonder Zaire, the boy, had never found her again. He hadn’t possessed the strength or the skill. He hadn’t met her in person, felt the unyielding strength of her claim on him.

The delicate hum of his dreamcaster chimed in his bones. She was close.

He pushed up to his knees. Emptiness stretched ahead, nothing but dry, cracked ground that had never seen rain. He pivoted in the opposite direction, and all his organs seized. A wall of what looked to be clear obsidian rose to the clouds, and around it, hordes of demons scratched and clawed, trying to get in.

Quinn.

Snarling, he sprinted for the wall, his boots kicking up dust, his clothes clanging a metallic melody. The lesser demons scattered at his approach, some taking flight, others scurrying into cracks or behind rocks, watching him with glowing eyes. The more powerful creatures gave him space, glaring hatred from a distance.

Zaire stopped at the wall, careful not to make contact. The opaque black circled a water well made of gray stones, covered in moss. Old. Abandoned. Quinn had to be inside.

Carefully, he touched the obsidian with one finger. Smooth, cool, and hard, it appeared no thicker than window glass, easily breakable. He punched it, and pain exploded in his hand.

Not a single crack marred the wall.

A roll of fear, hard as a thunderclap, knocked him to his knees. The demons chittered, excited, feeding on Quinn’s terror, but she was beyond their reach, segregated. Lightning flickered white-hot across the sky, leaving shocks of electricity and a scorched bite to the air. The following peal cracked through the earth and nearly took him down again.

What was happening in that well?

He studied the wall. It rose higher than he could see, plunging into the raging ocean above. That wasn’t the way in. More than a few demons were digging, searching for a way beneath it. If going under was the key, one of them would’ve breached the wall by now. He flattened his palms on the smooth rock, and his shadows unfurled, tasting, seeking. The only way to Quinn was through.

Force wasn’t the answer. His hand still throbbed from that initial effort. Quinn had created this wall, a protective barrier to keep out the demons. He swallowed thickly. Because he hadn’t been there, she discovered ways to defend herself, ways that also kept him out. Yet something horrifying remained inside. With her.

He’d failed her before, left her to face her nightmares alone.

Never again.

Anger and frustration boiled inside, and he roared his rage to the heavens. The sound thundered through the dead ground, rattled the wall, and sent the last demons into hiding. The obsidian remained smooth and pristine, stronger than his will.

His shoulder blades tingled, and his fingertips ached, wings ready to erupt, claws waiting to rip free. He forced his breaths to be even, pushed the fury back into its cage. Changing now would serve no purpose. Think.

He paced the wall, his gaze on the well, Quinn’s fear a twisting, living whip on his skin. She was his dreamcaster, his to protect, and while he might have shirked his duties in the past, he was still hers. She was still his, would always belong to him.

His.

He jerked to a halt and lifted the chain around his neck. The deadly cross dangled before him, once hers, now his…

His pulse drumming fast and deep, he relocated the chain and twisted it around his hand. He gave the cross an experimental twirl. It was worth a try. Flicking his wrist, he flung it at the obsidian wall.

Zaire wasn’t sure what to expect, maybe a mighty shattering of glass or at least a hairline fracture, a weak point he could use. Instead, the cross lodged in the wall, in a keyhole that had not been there before. At his touch, the lock clicked. A doorway appeared, and he gingerly pushed it open.

Quinn’s emotions pierced him, savage and rampant, her sobs sharp as knives to his gut.

After sealing the door behind him to keep other demons out, he launched into the remaining boards around the well’s mouth, ripping apart the rotten wood, uncaring of cuts and splinters. His dreamcaster was in there, terrified, and that was all that mattered. Once the opening was wide enough for him, he dove into the darkness.

He fell for what seemed like days, and at last hit the water. Agony exploded in a rippling wave through his body as he plummeted into depths and continued sinking. Quinn might have set the boundaries of this nightmare, but she had lost control of its core, stumbled beneath the fear. He didn’t care if he violated Quinn’s dreamcaster house law by taking control. He was her V’alkara, and any nightmare she relinquished, he’d rule.

With no more than a thought, his descent stopped. He shot to the surface and broke free of the water. The only light was a torch affixed to the brick wall of the well. Quinn clung to the ragged edge of one crumbling brick with her fingertips, wet, pale, and trembling, struggling not to lose her grip and sink into the depths. Bobbing beside her was a mangled corpse, half the head blown apart.

Each of her gasping breaths drove nails into his skin. Quinn, the strongest optimist and idealist he knew, surrendered hope.

A growl rumbled in his chest, not at all human. He pushed it back and forced his voice to be gentle as he drifted near. “Dearling.”

She pressed her face into the brick and sobbed, a small, choked sound. The water lapped at her chin, close, so close to taking her down.

“Quinn.” He latched on to the brick, his hand near hers. “I’m here.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice,” she murmured in a shaking voice, her eyes squeezed shut.

He caressed her back, her skin frighteningly chilled, and she flinched away. “Look at me.”

She shook her head, a weak movement that hardly counted.

“Look at me,” he said again, adding a thread of command to his tone.

“Be a good corpse and stop talking.” If she hadn’t wheezed the words, if her fear didn’t infuse the air, suffocating, he might have been fooled into believing she was calm. The water slipped up to her mouth, and she tilted her face to keep her head above the surface.

Zaire considered hauling her into his arms and forcing her to acknowledge him, but pushing her here, in the nethermost pit of her emotions, might cause irreparable damage and drive her deeper into her mind, beyond his reach. He’d never do that to her. Never lose her. Not again.

“I let you face your nightmares alone for years.” He kept his words soothing and brought his mouth beside her ear. “No more.”

Her forehead creased.

“You’re mine, Quinn, and I’ll rip your nightmares apart if I must to prove that I’ll keep you safe.” He exhaled on her neck, warming it. “Tell me what you want. Do you want me to keep to the shadows, to protect you from afar as I did before? Or do you want me beside you, killing whatever dares to draw near?” A snarl entered his voice, unstoppable with the truth, with the emotions he unleashed. “I’ll be whatever you want me to be, whatever it takes to be entirely, unreservedly, irrevocably yours for whatever days are left to me.”

Quinn finally opened her eyes and looked at him. She smiled faintly. “My delusions get better and better.”

“I’m here,” he said softly, holding her gaze. “You no longer need to fear your nightmares.”

Her eyebrow twitched. “You haven’t met my mother yet.”

He planted his other hand opposite of hers on the brick, loosely caging her, not so she’d feel trapped, but so she’d understand he was her bulwark against the fear. “Put your arms around my neck.”

“That would require letting go.” Tipping her head, the water danced against her bottom lip. She sank another inch, up to her ears.

“You said you trusted me, that you weren’t afraid.” He leaned in her face so she wouldn’t miss his scowl. “Were you lying?”

Her fingertips slipped, and the water covered her mouth, her nose, rising. Only her wide, dark eyes remained above.

“Trust me enough to help you,” he hissed.

Her eyes dipped beneath the surface.

He clung to the bricks, breathing hard as her dark head gradually submerged. “Don’t give up, damn you. Don’t give up on me.” He swallowed thickly. “Like I did to you.”

She slipped soundlessly under, as if she’d never been there at all.

“Don’t do this to me, Quinn!” His bellow shook the stones and sent the water into sloshing waves. Every ounce of loneliness and despair he’d endured without her gathered in his chest, a strangling weight he couldn’t dislodge. He gasped, fighting for air. “I need you.”

Flailing hands suddenly clutched at his boots. Zaire reached into the water and grasped a thin wrist. With one mighty pull, he dragged Quinn up and held her tightly against his heart. He drew a long, full breath.

She shook against him, her shoulders heaving, cold as death. Looping her arms around his neck in a weak hold, she pressed her face into his shoulder. “Don’t leave me.” Her whisper skated across his throat, hot with the memory of hopeless tears and deep-rooted fear. “Don’t go away.”

“Never again,” he promised, stroking her wet hair. Somehow, someway he’d determine how to keep that promise.