Page 5 of Demon of Dreams

But I didn’t.

Shame flooded every inch of my body. I’d spent my life telling my dad I wasn’t gay, swearing I wasn’t, begging him to believe me. And here I was, desperate for this…thing…to enter me.

“Who are you?” I asked. I’d meant to demand it, but my words came out as a whisper. “Whatare you?”

I could hear the naked desire in my voice.

Again, that low laugh. And then a word, growled in a tone that made my cock twitch. “Vesperwood.”

Before I could ask what that meant, before I could say anything else, I felt it. Something wet and firm, pushing into my hole, breaching the tight outer ring, and then—

I came with a rush, and the monster laughed, a honeyed rumble in my ear. It knew how badly I’d wanted that.Neededthat. I rode a wave of pure pleasure, sparks shooting through the darkness, and closed my eyes in relief.

Slowly, the blackness around me began to lighten, and I could sense that the thing was leaving.

“No, no, wait,” I said, desperate to stop it. I didn’t even know what I wanted to say. Beg it not to go? Beg it never to return?

But when my eyes snapped open, I was staring out at the motel lobby once more. The fluorescent light flickered overhead. The coffee burbled happily in its pot. Nothing else moved.

It was just a dream. Justthedream, except it had gone further this time than it ever had before. And I hadn’t screamed at all this time. I’d fuckingmoaned. I flushed, grateful no one was there to see how scarlet my cheeks must be.

But it was just a dream. Not real. Not something I had to worry about.

Except there wasonething I had to worry about. I glanced down. I was fully clothed, thank God, but the end of that dream hadn’t been quite as dream-like as I’d thought. I’d actually come—I could feel it in my boxers.

What the hell was wrong with me?

Shame roiled across me like a waterfall. Gay dreams. Gay dreams in public. Gay dreams in public leading to very gayorgasmsin public. My dad would be disgusted if he knew.

I bit my lip against the sudden rush of panic in my chest. My breath came hot and fast, just shallow little swallows as the edges of my vision started to go blurry. I felt like I was going to faint.

I pushed my chair back and stumbled out from behind the desk. The front door. I just needed to get outside, to get some fresh air.

I moved across the lobby drunkenly and hurled myself at the sliding doors. They pulled back with a rattle and I pitched forward, catching myself on hands and knees out on the cement sidewalk. I drew in gulp after gulp of freezing air.

I was going to be okay. I was going to be okay. I might be having a crisis of sexual orientation and breakdowns in public and fucked up nightmares, and I might quite possibly be losing my mind, but I was going to be okay. I was.

Until I heard it again—that soft hush of wings.

I looked up to see the raven glide out of the air and land in front of me. It folded its wings gently as it settled onto the asphalt parking lot.

“What do youwant?” I asked, feeling utterly broken.

It cocked its head to one side and croaked.

“Vesperwood.”

2

CORY

Iwas going crazy.

That was the only possible answer.

First of all, birds don’t talk. Or at least, I didn’t think any non-parrot birds talked. And even if they did, there was no way my particular non-parrot stalker-bird had talked, just to say a word from my weird sex dream, a wordIdidn’t even understand.

I mean, there was crazy, and there wascrazycrazy, and then there was me, swimming out in the middle of the fucking Pacific Ocean of crazy, as far as possible from land, starting to sink.

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