Page 101 of Shadows of Nightshade
“It’s like mine,” I repeated. “Why—” My voice, which hadbeen weak already, was silenced as Damen pulled me into a fierce hug.
This time, I didn’t move. I didn’t even react much at all. Instead, a slow-moving exhaustion began to cover me like a thick syrup. There was a tingling in my fingers, a low vibration that caused my hands to shake. It grew more intense as a slowly pounding headache began to form at the base of my skull.
Damen said he didn’t understand what’d happened tonight, but honestly, neither did I. It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. How I’d even gotten here and all the events that’d taken place since were beginning to take on a dreamlike quality.
I should be sleeping right now, safe in Damen’s bed. So why wasn’t I?
“Bianca?” Damen’s voice sounded startled as my tired muscles surrendered, and I slumped against him. It was exhausting to be worried all the time. Not to mention the copious amounts of ghostwork I’d encountered tonight.
And now it was safe. I could relax.
Or I could have if the quiet scene hadn’t shifted.
“Bianca, what’s wrong?” his voice was growing even more alarmed, and my attention drifted from his blurry lips as I rested my cheek against his chest. The comforting thumping of his heart was in tune with the warmth radiating from his mark, and it lulled me further. In any other situation, I’d be mortified, but this was an emergency.
Damen’s skin was hot, almost too hot, and I wrinkled my nose in discomfort before a cooling, gentle presence entered the scene.
“Let me have her,” Julian’s voice was close to my ear, and I felt his hand move behind the small of my back. I was too tired to fight the switch between the two men.
Julian was practically a doctor—this should be fine.
But that would only work in a non-dream scenario. In my dreams, he’s more.
“It’s not a dream,” Julian told me. “You’re with us now.”
That sounded like something dream Julian would say. His cool hand pushed back the hair from my face as he pressed gently over my forehead.
“She’s drained,” Julian said.
“That’s unlikely,” Damen argued. “That’s hardly the extent of what she can do.”
“I don’t know,” Julian said, moving me in his arms until my face was buried in the crook of his neck. “I’m just telling you how it feels.”
“But you’ll help her?” another voice said, further away and barely discernible. Miles, maybe?
I wasn’t even sure I was following the conversation anymore. Nothing made sense. It was hard to focus with the shapes, sounds, and colors swirling together beneath my closing eyelids.
“As if there were any other option,” was Julian’s rolling reply. The hold around my shoulders tightened as he stood. The move surprised me, and I whimpered as the steady ground fell further away.
“It’ll be fine, darling,” he said, or at least I thought so. A roaring blackness was beginning to take root in the back of my mind. “You can rest now.”
And it was then that my memories went blank.
23
The ticklingtouch of a spice-scented blanket brushed under my nose. It was something that bothered me more than the annoying, indistinguishable murmuring in the air surrounding me. The cologne was, to put it nicely, a lot, and I suspected it was strategically placed near me to ensure consciousness.
“Oh no,” Miles’s exclamation cut through the other voices. He was sitting to my left. “She’s waking up. It’s too early yet.”
So, perhaps, this was not a deliberate attempt to sabotage my sleep.
“She’s going to be grumpy,” he continued, this time further away. “Julian, you deal with it.”
“Don’t be such a baby.” Julian was at my right. The bed bounced as they moved, oblivious to my attempts to ignore them in my quest to return to my much-desired slumber. I didn’t recall why I was so tired, but I was enjoying my nap.
Having very intrusive friends, sometimes, was the worst.
“It’s not all that bad,” Julian continued, and a lamp was turned on. “You just need to know how to do it properly.”
