Page 66 of Infernal

But what if there was no way to get him out?

What if Trace was really gone?

I shook away the petrifying thought.

Therewouldbe a way.

There had to be.

This life wouldn’t be that punishing—not after everything I’d already lost. I had to believe there was a happy ending waiting for me at the end of all this grief. I had to believe this would all work out.

Turning on my side, I tried to find a comfortable position to fall asleep in. I needed to talk to Trace. I needed to clue him in to the plan for tomorrow, and there was only one way I knew how to do that.

Dreamwalking.

I’d managed to do a little digging since the last time he visited, and it turned out thatdreamwalkingreally was a thing. AReaperthing. From what I understood, he had the ability to astral project himself into my dreams, secretively meeting me in my subconscious. I didn’t fully understand the mechanics, nor did I really care to—just as long as it worked.

And it would work, because while I couldn’t enter his subconscious, I could force him to enter mine.

Dreaming about Dominic was always effortless. Those dreams came to me even when I didn’t want them to. Even back when I wanted nothing more than to force him out of my existence. So, of course, when I’d fallen asleep thinking about him, the subsequent dream that followed was no surprise. It never was, and yet, this dream was different.

It felt too real to be just a dream, yet too hazy and disjointed to be anything but.

For one, there was no sign of the red sky. Just the same old tired rain battering down against the windows as Dominic and I stood in his bedroom at Huntington Manor. There was a deep and penetrating agony that touched every part of my body. A pain so unforgiving that it made it hard for me to take in air. Even in this dream state, I knew something had gone terribly wrong and there was nothing I could do to fix it.

He cupped the sides of my face, forcing me out of the thralls of pain and back to the present moment. I leaned my body into him, pushing myself all the way against him in a way I’d never done before. It was brazened and suggestive, and suddenly, he was kissing me, walking me backwards until my legs hit the foot of his bed.

He pulled his mouth from mine and said something to me, though the words were drowned out by the thunderous sound of my pounding heart. His mouth stopped moving, his eyes probing me as he waited for a response. For some kind of sign that I’d gotten his message.

I kissed him hard on the mouth.

Gripping my waist, he spun us around and then sat down on the bed, pulling me onto his lap. My soaking hair hung in ropes along my face, and my clothing clung to my body like a second skin. Transparent and exposing. But I didn’t care. I wanted him to see me. To seeallof me.

His eyes drank me in, flirting over my body like butterflies as he pushed my hair over my shoulders.

His mouth found mine again as his hands drifted down to the edge of my shirt. I sucked in a breath as he lifted it up over my head and tossed it onto the floor behind us. There was a very real and conscious part of me that knew where this was going, that knew I’d come here for exactly this reason, so when he slid us backwards on the bed and pulled me down on top of him, I went easily.

I wasn’t the Slayer who brought on the apocalypse, and he wasn’t the Revenant I was bloodbonded to. We were just two people riding our attraction for each other in the only place it was allowed to happen.

He touched his lips to mine tenderly as I slid my hands between our bodies and unbuttoned his shirt. I wanted to feel his bare skin against mine, to know if he felt as good as he looked.

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he gazed up at me and mouthed something. I still couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I knew that he was telling me that he loved me. I could see it on his face, feel it in my heart.

And in that moment, right there and then, I loved him too.

The sound of someone clearing their throat snapped me out of my lust-filled haze. With my palms still flattened against dream-Dominic’s bare chest, I looked over my shoulder and found Trace standing at the foot of the bed, watching us.

Guilt sucker-punched me in the stomach as I took in the pained look in his eyes.

Mortified, I quickly tried to climb off Dominic, though my stupid foot caught under the sheet and tangled me up. In my clumsy rush to dismount him, I stumbled off the bed and landed butt first on the hard, wooden floor.

This dream was quickly becoming a nightmare.

“I know what this looks like,” I said to Trace as I scrambled back to my feet. I tried not to look back at Dominic, who was still lying half-naked on the bed where I’d left him. He hadn’t moved nor made a sound. Probably because this was my dream and I didn’t want him to.

Trace flexed the muscles in his jaw, his eyes fixed on Dominic.

“I needed to talk to you, and this was the only way I knew to get you here.” A clap of thunder exploded outside the windows as I closed the distance between us. “I’m sorry you had to see that. It didn’t mean anything.”

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