Page 4 of Dreaming of Darkness

My car was still covered with highway dust from my trip in from Seattle, but I made extra sure not to bump my nice white shirt into the sides of it as I climbed in. Pressing the ignition, I let theradio fill the silence around me as I leaned forward, letting my forehead bump against the steering wheel.

I had lied to Elena. I guess I was lying to everybody, including myself. I had been in a bad relationship, and yes, that’s part of the reason I was here. But it wasn’t the entire reason.

It was just easier to explain it away as a broken heart, rather than go into the fact that I had spent my life searching for something. All the places I’d tried out. The places I’d been before here. I was always looking for something to fill this void inside of me. Like I had never had a whole heart to begin with. Time after time I had felt drawn here, this strange faraway place on the outskirts of Kansas City. So, after years of misplaced affections and dead-end jobs, I found myself taking the leap once again.

Leaning back in my seat, I buckled my seatbelt. No sense in staying here in this dingy old parking garage, it was time to go home.

Once home, I ditched my bra, skirt and heels in my mostly unpacked room before going looking for a glass of wine and a reality TV show to melt my brain away. This was my kind of night, I thought I curled up into a ball on one side of my sofa, doom scrolling as I half-watched the TV show in front of me.

My eyes were heavy, and I found my head lolling against the edge of the gray sofa, my chin even falling to my chest until I woke up with a start. I had the strangest, fuzzy pull in the back of my mind as I struggled to stay awake. It felt as if the dream kept pulling at me, asking me to come back.

I didn’t want to go to bed yet because I still needed to get to those boxes tonight, so instead I set an alarm on my phone for 30 minutes. Grabbing the throw blanket, I curl up with a sigh.

“I’ll just do a super quick nap. Then I’ll show those boxes who is boss.” Immediately warm and comfortable, I began to drift off. A spicy warm scent invaded my nose as I dozed, and I swear, I felt the pull just below my heart before I fell straight into my dreams.

My eyes opened with a jerk. I was still in my new house, but I knew that it wasn’t real. It didn’t feel quite right. I knew I was dreaming, and I almost laughed to myself that at this point, I was still dreaming about packing boxes. But there was something different, the house was warmer. The lights were lower. The TV noise was a mumble in the back of my mind as I looked around.

I threw the blanket off my legs and stood; the dream version of me suddenly convinced, that I needed to walk to the kitchen to find something. I didn’t get very far at all before I stumbled over the edge of my coffee table. I leaped around, my foot held high, cringing at the pain that was still shooting up my leg, the feeling remarkably real.

When I finally was able to put my foot down without cringing, I heard the lowest, softest rumble of noise. Wasn’t quite a purr. It was deeper than that, darker too, and it stole its way up my spine making goosebumps break out all over my body. Slowly I turned to the door jamb between my living room, and the stairs to my bedroom, finding a backlit figure leaning there. He was tall, broad, and unless I was mistaken, rocking a long-pointed tip tail that swished backand-forth in the air behind him as he watched me.

“Are you okay, love?” His voice sent shivers down my spine.

Staring at him, I could only nod. There was something off about the shape of him, the shadow of his head, different. And when he turned his face, obviously waiting for my answer, I saw why. There was smooth, curving horns, blooming from the edges of his hairline, curling backwards over thick, dark hair. And unless I was wrong, his skin tone was deep, ruby-colored with chin and cheekbones that were sharp slashes of structure across a face that was far too pretty to be human.

“Who are you?” I asked, “Why are you in my house?”

“I’m just a dream,” he said quietly, his expression hidden inshadow.

My heart thudded in my chest, my mind fuzzy as I stared at him, the soft scent of him, something smoky and warm filling my senses until I could think of nothing else.

“Are you sure?”

He humped, and with that he stepped forward into my living room, moving all the way across it until he was close enough that I could see that his eyes were glowing a soft red. He was several inches taller than me, and now he gazed down at me with more than little curiosity.

Slowly, one long black tipped finger rose. The edges of those nails, sharp as a blade, traced the air between us. With a soft grunt, his hand curled into a fist, only the back of his index finger extended as his knuckle slowly grazed the side of my cheek all the way from my cheekbone to my bottom lip.

Heat burned everywhere he touched. And his face, that beautiful face–it looked tortured.

Ignoring my instincts, I stepped backwards out of his hands.” What?” I asked him, “What’s wrong?”

I could see him swallow from, hear the soft noise in his chest get louder and louder as he ducked his chin, closing over those magical looking eyes as he breathed me in. Finally, after what seemed like an hour he spoke again.

“It can’t be.”

Chapter Two

Traum

My grandmother used to tell us of a time when the demons from the underworld were allowed to not only find their human mates but seek them out whenever the bond called to them.The underworld had been thriving, the Lords of the Underworld were young and powerful, and the queens stood by Lucifer’s side.

The incubus and succubus tribes fared the same, celebrating generations of powerful families from our home adjacent to the dream realm. We were creatures born and made for passion. And while we carried on living without our fated mates, it was something most of my kind craved. While we harvested power from the dreams we moved through, real intimacy, like that which was built between mates, was considered sacred.

And when the Lords were in danger, their souls ripped out, it changed everything for us. The boundaries between worlds grew harsh and unyielding. We were no longer able to sense our mates outside of the Underworld, which was partially a gift since we could not have been able to seek them out anyway. It left generations of incubus and succubus with human matches, or maybe even were linked to the seraphim, damned to a lonely existence. A very long one.

When my siblings had told me that Lord Arafel had demolished the laws forbidding incubus and succubus from seeking out their human mates, I had no idea that I would be the first in the tribe to be affected by it. And now, there was more than a little fear running through my veins as I stared at this woman.

The air in her cottage was sickly warm now, or maybe that was just the flush of heat that seemed to throb from every part of my body as my eyes took in every detail.

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