Page 69 of Promise of Darkness
No kiss.
I don’t know why that bothers me.
Every night, I’ve brushed the most perfunctory of kisses against his lips, and every night he’s merely watched me with those knowing, knowing eyes.
But she’s left me with much to think about.
“Hopefully,” I say.
“Until tomorrow then,” she calls, closing the door behind her and leaving me with the pressing silence of my suspicions.
And my lonely, lonely bed.
* * *
I dreamof being hunted through a vast, shadowy forest by enormous black hounds. Howls echo to my right, but when I bolt down a narrow trail, there’s a shadow snapping at my heels.
There’s no escape.
The Grimm and his hounds are on my trail, and I know I can’t outrun them. Breath panting, lungs heaving, I shove at the thorns that slash at my arms and clothes.
“Rest, Vi,” comes a whisper, and I swear I feel a hand brush against my cheek.
Another howl cuts in from the right.
They’re everywhere. The entire pack must be following me.
“No.You’re safe here. The hounds won’t dare follow you.” There’s a kiss to my forehead, and then the world starts to dissolve around me.
The forest starts to open up, and I can hear the hounds baying in the distance. They seem to be falling behind, and as I stumble into a sunny clearing, I fall to my knees and pant.
The Grimm only rides at night.
And he’s locked away in his prison world, trapped for all eternity. It’s just a dream. It has to be a dream. Except that one of the hounds looked like Baylor, and I don’t know how to tell him the truth.
“The truth?” This time the whisper sounds startled.
I sit bolt upright in bed, covered in a cold sweat. My heart is racing, and judging from the tangle of my sheets, I’ve been thrashing.
I could also swear I wasn’t alone.
There’s an indentation on the sheets beside me, and when I reach out to touch it, it’s still warm.
“Thiago?” I whisper.
Nothing moves. The breeze blows through the gauzy curtains by the window, but I’d be able to see something in the hazy moonlight, wouldn’t I?
Tossing aside the sheets, I search the room. It’s empty, but when I return to the bed, I can still feel the ghostly press of lips to my forehead.
He was in here, I’ll swear it.
And worse, he was in my dreams.
And now he knows.
18
The Alliance is planning to meet via astral projection.
