Page 25 of Synodic

At the time, the ensemble seemed cozy and warm, but here it just felt vastly inadequate. Thankfully, the ground was soft beneath my socked feet, blanketed in shrubby layers of moss.

Once we made it a far enough distance away and the trees resumed their natural emerald color, Rowen stopped us by a flowing creek. “We should be safe here. This water is safe to drink from as well,” he said, motioning to the stream.

I emphatically shook my head no and took a step back. “I’m not drinking anything else. Not afterthat.”

“I promise this water is safe. It would be good for you to rinse your mouth in case the blight still lingers on your tongue.” He scooped some water into his hand and gulped it down, the strong column of his throat contracting as he swallowed. “See?”

He looked at me expectantly.

He had a point; my mouth did taste curdled and chalky. If he just drank the water, it had to be safe. I trusted Rowen. Didn’t I?

I knelt beside him and gargled the crisp water. “What happened back there?” I finally asked after I was sure I had sufficiently washed out my mouth and cooled my fevered skin.

“You drank from Weir Falls.” Rowen’s jaw clenched through his shaded stubble. “Its purpose is to lure in prey under the guise of a false paradise. Unable to help themselves, the victims drink the poisonous water believing it to be some sort of delicacy to quench their thirst. The more they drink, the more they want, lessening any control they have over their senses. The blighted liquid lowers their inhibitions until they have almost none. Nothing to warn them that danger is coming for them. Stalking them. Hunting them.”

A sickening dread flooded my limbs. I drank a poisonous substance that stripped me of my sensibilities, robbed me of logical thinking, and drew my deepest desires to the surface. That would explain my actions, why I’d had absolutely no self-control. Why one moment I was happy to die, the next lusting after a man I barely knew.

I tried not to cringe when I thought of what I had done back there; my hints hadn’t been subtle. I’d made it painfully obvious that I wanted Rowen’s body, but if he felt uncomfortable, he wasn’t letting it show.

“Rowen, we should talk about what happened—”

“You weren’t yourself, Copeland” he said, saving me from having to elaborate. “And do you really want to discuss all the things I could have done to you in that state?”

Looking at him sitting beside me, in all his grand-muscle glory, I realized he could have easily taken advantage of me. To be honest, many a man would have, and I shuddered at the memory of Prism.

Steering the topic away from my body, I asked, “What were those…creatures?”

“They are the forest laiths of the Weir, and they live on the blood of their game. One scratch from them is poisonous, inciting hallucinations until your heart gives out. Sight isn’t their strongest sense during the day, so you were lucky. They mainly rely on their sense of smell. I—I tried to mask you with my body. They picked up your scent. If I hadn’t been there…” He stopped himself from continuing, but his hardened gaze held the stories I most likely never wanted to hear.

“Even though this is just a dream, or more likely a nightmare, I’m glad you were there. So thank you for what you did. You always seem to appear out of nowhere, literally crashing into me and disrupting my life.” I hadn’t meant to say that last part, it just sort of rushed out before I could stop it.

Oh well, he should know the havoc he was wreaking on my life. Nothing out of the ordinary ever happened to me until he started showing up, and I viewed him as the common denominator. Maybe if I held the mirror of truth up to his face, he would disappear back into the mist from where he came.

But my slip-up only seemed to amuse him, and a wry smile played at his mouth. “What if I told you it was you appearing to me, disrupting my life?”

I couldn’t help myself. I threw my head back in waves of laughter. A hallucination was actually trying to convince me thatIwas complicatinghislife!

Rowen watched me with a sparkling expression as if I were the entertaining one.

My belly ached as my laughter finally subsided, and I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye. I hadn’t laughed that hard in ages.

“I hate to break it to you, but it’s definitely you. I’m too much of a delight,” I said, batting my eyelashes at him over my bare shoulder.

His carefully adorned mask of rigidity slipped just a little, and the slight laugh that escaped his lips twisted my belly. Yes, he was most assuredly the problem here. Not me. Feeling such emotions in a dream was one thing, but having the thoughts linger with me long after waking was another entirely. It wasn’t natural.

“Your right hook to my jaw would say otherwise,” he said with a crooked smile that exposed one of his peaked canines. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and the deep cut of his linen shirt billowed forward, allowing me to see even more of his etched chest lightly dappled with dark hair.

I noticed he wore two necklaces, one beaded with crystal dowels, the other worn and silver, with a medallion hanging like a flattened stone against the hollow of his sternum.

His gaze shot up to mine, serious again. The mask firmly back in place.

“Do you know how you came to be in Weir Falls?” he asked for the second time.

“No idea. I was just there. Which seems to be happening more frequently—me winding up in places, having no memory of how I got there.” I had yet to speak these words aloud, and it was cathartic in a way, letting loose the secret I clutched so close to my chest, especially to someone who already felt like such a part of me. “It takes me a while to figure out whether it’s only in my mind, whether it’s real or not, but it’s…it’s getting harder to tell the difference.”

He seemed to consider how to respond, choosing his next words carefully. “Even if it were all only taking place in your mind, that doesn’t make it any less real.”

I let his statement settle in my reasoning. Could it really be that simple?

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