Page 61 of Solstice

“Get some sleep,” he barked.

As much as I wanted to lay my hands on his skin again and make him show me, he’d had enough for the night. Hell, I’d had enough, too. My body was tired from the fight with the king, so when I finally closed my eyes to give in to unconsciousness, I fell in like an anvil.

My dreams took me back to the woods on Midsummer. The humid air choked me, and the sun radiated as warm and heavy on my skin as it had four years ago. Voices echoed on the wind, and I glanced to my left to see four bodies dance and twirl their way into the ruins.Us.Versions of us from four years ago. Those were hallowed grounds, the walls full of magic we barely understood.

From this perspective, it was like I was looking through the eyes of a bystander. Off in the distance, Siobhan peered from behind a tree, smiling to herself as she watched us. But if I wasn’t in my own head and I wasn’t in Siobhan’s, then whose dream was this? Whose memory was I in?

The answer chafed at me, but I couldn’t quite grab it.

The memories flipped forward and backward, reorganizing in my brain before coming to a stop in front of the queen.

Samhain.

I recognized the platform with the enormous tent on top of it. The king had long since chased us out of the realm, and now he leered over Diana with red cheeks and furious eyes. Except…Iwasthe king, and I looked down his long, narrow nose at the fairy he’d loved for centuries.

“Give her to me,” the king snarled, but the queen only smiled.

“How weak you look”—she shook her head—“storming in here the day after Samhain. All these years, and you’re still so desperate for my attention.”

That set him off. He whispered something in a language I didn’t understand, but I vibrated with his intentions.

Suffer in silence, suffer in solitude. Then you will know the pain you have caused.

He opened his palm and blew a ruby-colored powder in her face. She coughed and rubbed her palm over her nose, sneezing as she scrambled away from him.

It shocked me, and I gasped, a red-hot fury sizzling down my chest, even in sleep. The emotion got Alberich’s attention.

“Ivette? Is that you?”

He closed his eyes, relegating both of us to the darkness of his mind.

“I can hear your human heart racing, Ivette.”

I didn’t know what to do or how to wake up. Certainly, this was a dream. I slept soundly next to Lex and Carter; he shouldn’t have been able to get inside my head. But…he wasn’t. I was in his head. At least, I thought I was.

“You’re smarter than this, Ivette. Give me the child, and all of this goes away.”The dark tendrils of his magic circled the part of me that connected us, caging me in, trapping my arms to my sides.“Give her to me! Give her to me!”

The pressure squeezed. All the air pushed out of my body.

I tried to call for Lex or Carter, tried to reach out for Miri, anyone who could help me. But no one came. No one could. It was just him and me and this strange tether that had formed when he touched me. Now I was dying and there was nothing I could do and this was it, the end of the story, nothing more for Ivy Washington.

Wait,a voice said. My own voice. My own consciousness.Stop panicking…This is a dream,an illusion, nothing more. I am smarter than this.

I reached out for Lex’s presence. Even this deep in sleep, he hummed through my veins as cool as ice. He always had, no matter how many times I’d tried to get rid of him. I latched on to that energy, that manifestation of him inside my soul, and I yanked.

The more I tugged, the more he pulled back. I had no idea if he even knew he was doing it, but it brought me back to reality. My eyes snapped open, and I inhaled a deep lungful of air, running a hand over my face to make sure I was back in my own body.

Calm down. It’s okay.

Soft snores on either side of me confirmed Carter and Lex were still asleep, and that neither of them had been inside my head when that happened. My secret was still safe…for now.

Except when I sat up, Donnelly leaned against the doorjamb with his arms crossed. His bright blue eyes focused on me like a predatory cat’s, glowing with their strangeness and intensity. He pushed upright and nodded toward the hallway as he turned to leave.

Not sure that I would go back to sleep anyway, I extracted myself from Carter’s hold and grabbed my robe from my closet. After shrugging it over my shoulders, I tied it closed and walked down the hallway to my office.

Finn slept on the couch, his wound somehow looking worse than it had several hours ago. Siobhan sat on the other sofa, a blanket over her lap, her hair undone and hanging in soft waves down her shoulders. Big puffy bags hung under her eyes, accenting the grim set to her mouth and making her appear as exhausted as she must have felt on the inside.

Donnelly pointed to the spot next to Siobhan and took his place next to Finn, gently lifting the commander’s head so he could put it on his thighs again. “Sit. Hang out for a while.”

---