The clothing might have been modern, but the setting was ancient. The landscape was bleak and empty, and the air smel ed of sulfur and dampness.
I felt the footsteps before I heard them, the ground rumbling just slightly beneath my feet.
And then he appeared.
Like a warrior returning from battle, Ethan emerged through the mist in garb out of time and place for twenty-first century Chicago. Knee-high leather boots, rough-hewn pants, and a long leather tunic belted at the waist. There was a rust-red gash in the middle of his chest. His hair was long and wavy and golden-blond, and his eyes were vibrantly green.
I walked toward him, fear circling my heart, making a vise around it, squeezing my lungs until I was barely able to sip at air. I was glad to see him alive—but I knew he was a harbinger of death.
When I reached him, he put his hands on my arms, leaned forward and pressed his lips to my forehead. Such a simple act, but so intimate. A precious affection that made my chest ache wn with sentiment. I closed my eyes and savored the moment as thunder rumbled across the plateau, shaking the ground again.
Suddenly, Ethan raised his head and glanced warily around. When he looked at me again, he began to speak, the words flowing in a lilting language that sounded like it came from a time and place far away.
I shook my head. "I can't understand you."
His expression tightened, a line of worry furrowing his forehead, the words coming more quickly as he tried to get his point across. But the speed didn't help.
"Ethan, I don't know what you're saying. Can you speak English?"
Panic in his eyes, he glanced back over his shoulder, then grabbed my arm and pointed behind him. A low, thick storm front was rol ing toward us, the wind beginning to pick up as the temperature dropped.
"I see the storm," I told him over the rising wind. "But I can't stop it."
Ethan yel ed something out, but the words were lost in the howling wind. He started walking toward the thundercloud, pul ing my arm in an attempt to drag me with him.
But I resisted, pul ing back. "That's the wrong way. We can't walk into the storm!"
He was insistent, but so was I. Positive we'd be swept off the plateau and into the sea if we didn't seek shelter, I began running away from the wal of clouds . . . and him. But began running away from the wal of clouds . . . and him. But I couldn't resist a final glance back. He stood frozen on the plain, his hair whipping in the gale.
Before I could reach out to him, the storm reached us and broke, the wind knocking me off my feet, the pressure sucking the air from my lungs. The rain came as I hit my knees, blowing sideways and turning the landscape gray, the wind howling in my ears. Ethan disappeared in the onslaught, leaving only the echo of his voice on the wind.
"Merit! "
I jolted awake, bathed in sweat, gasping for breath, the sound of his voice in my ears.
Tears slipped from my eyes as I pushed drenched bangs from my forehead, and scrubbed my hands across my face, trying to slow the feverish race of my heart.
My first dream of Ethan had been miraculous; we'd bathed in the sun—a taboo to vampires. I'd savored that last memory of him.
But this was the sixth nightmare in the two months since he'd been gone. Each was louder and more vivid than the last, and waking up was like emerging from a tunnel of panic, my chest squeezed into a knot. In each nightmare we were pushed to some crisis, but the end was always the same—he was always torn away from me. Each time I woke with his voice in my ears, screaming out my name in panic.
I dropped my forehead to my knees, grief pounding at my heart like a kettledrum. The helplessness of loss overwhelmed me. Not just from the loss of Ethan, but from the frustration—the exhaustion—of being visited again by a ghost who wouldn't let me go. Tears fel , and I let them, wishing the sting of salt would wash away the hurt.
I missed his voice. The sight of him. The smel of him.
And probably because of that, I was stuck in a cycle that kept me dreaming about Ethan—watching him die over and over again. My grief had become a hol ow I couldn't climb out of.
When my heart slowed, I sat up again and wiped the tears from my face with a shirtsleey t a shirve. I grabbed the phone from the nightstand and dialed up the one person who could calm me down.
"Crap on toast," Mal ory answered over the resounding bass of a man's voice. "I'm on a study break—Catcher's naked and Barry White's on the stereo. Do you know how rarely I get study breaks?"
Mal ory was a belatedly identified sorceress in training.
She had just finished her apprenticeship with a cute boy-next-door type named Simon and had been prepping for her "finals" for weeks. Simon had seemed okay in the five minutes I'd been in the same room with him, but Catcher was definitely not a fan. That probably had something to do with the fact that Simon was a member of the Union of Amalgamated Sorcerers and Spel casters (euphemistical y cal ed "the Order"), an organization that had kicked Catcher off its rol s.
Her voice was testy, and I knew she was super stressed this week, but I needed her, so I pushed on. "I had another dream."
There was a moment of silence before she yel ed out,