Page 368 of Hunters and Prey

Helgi had slipped into sleep a long time ago. It seemed that everyone except me had slipped into slumber. For some reason, my body remained alert and ready for action. It was an unsettling sensation, like the itch you got in the back of your nose when you needed to sneeze and the impotent frustration when the sneeze wouldn’t come. Yeah, this was just like that, and if I’d been at home in the Outlands, I’d have slipped out of the shack and gone running through the night. The fact that wasn’t a possibility made the itch in my brain even stronger.

There was movement to my left, and my already wound body tightened further. Someone was awake. So, why was I holding my breath? Why not just speak and say hey, can’t sleep either, eh? No. My gut instinct had my lips clamped shut and the breath trapped in my lungs set to a slow burn. I didn’t turn my head, but instead slid my gaze to the left and tracked Dante as he rose up off his mattress and walked to the bars.

And then he stepped through.

He stepped right through the fucking bars!

The air exploded from my lungs, and he turned his head sharply, his amber eyes glinting eerily as they locked on to me. I rolled silently off my mattress and faced him.

“How did you do that?” My words were a hiss of demand.

Dante’s jaw tensed and he glanced about. “Come closer,” he whispered.

Without thinking, I did as he asked. His hand shot out and his fingers stabbed at my forehead.

“Sleep.”

I jerked back and blinked at him. “What the fuck?”

He exhaled sharply through his nose. “You’re still awake.”

“Damn straight I am.” I rubbed my forehead. “And you just stepped through the bars. How the heck did you do that?”

Behind me Helgi moaned softly.

Dante closed his eyes, inhaled, and then exhaled slow and long. His breath seemed to fill the room, to ruffle the fine hairs at my crown and push a sweet lethargy into my limbs. The urge to just curl up and drift into the arms of the sandman was a tug in my solar plexus. And then shocking realization had adrenaline spiking through me.

Hewas doing this.

He was making me sleepy.

Around me the room echoed with sighs and moans.

“What did you do?”

“I can’t hold the glamour around us for much longer. Take my hand, and I promise I will tell you everything.” He slipped his hand through the gap in the bars.

Magic. He was using magic. That was the only explanation. But this level of magic could only be wielded by Dreki. My heart thudded painfully in my chest, part fear and part exultation. I met his gaze, hard and defiant in the gloom.

“Do you want to know the truth, Anya? Are you ready to step out from under the false veil created by the Bloods?”

Hell yeah. I took his hand.

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