Return to the Darkness - Ripley Proserpina Page 0,50

act as if he felt what was in my hand at all. So that’s good. It was the last positive thought I had because he leaned down, closer and closer until his fetid breath washed over my face. “Lacey.”

I was really going to do this. He smelled like sulfur. Had I known that before and just forgotten? I tilted my head to the side and closed my eyes. Part of me wanted to look at the guys, but I knew they’d have horror in their eyes, and I didn’t need their pain to add to my own. Sometimes I could only handle my own stress and not handle anyone else’s.

He licked my neck. It was really… awful.

And then the world shifted. I lost consciousness. The only reason I knew this happened was because I was suddenly in the dream world, and not the kind that I went to when I fell asleep. No, this was more like what the hag had done to me.

That was when I saw him. Erdirg. Fuck my life. I was in his dreamscape.

He stared at me, and I stared right back at him. We were together in the desert, only it was the desert as I’d never seen it before. I told people in Alaska when they asked me about it that the desert wasn’t exactly as they’d pictured it from movies or television. There were a ton of colors in the desert. Pinks. Greens. Yellows. But now, I was seeing even more than I ever had before. Swirling purples and blues. I quickly stared up at the sky.

This was his dream so that didn’t mean that what I was seeing was true. As I stared up at the stars, I found they were different than I’d ever seen them. Also, weird that I could see the stars when it was so clearly daytime where we stood. That was the thing about dreams.

“You don’t want me because you want me. You want me because I smell good to you. Like another time, like some past that you miss, maybe. My blood calls to you. You should have left me alone when you could have. And part of me, I guess, should feel sorry for you.”

He looked around. “What is this place?”

“The last thing you’ll see.”

“Lacey?” Colton’s voice called to me, and I turned around. I hadn’t focused on it, but I should have known they’d never leave me alone here to handle this on my own. Aaron, Oliver, and Thorn appeared.

Erdirg jerked me toward him, but in a dream, our power was equal. He wasn’t Mara, who controlled not only her dreams, but everyone else’s. And I had practice with this, so when I made the decision not to move, I didn’t. My feet were blocks of cement, tethered with iron to the ground, and I was unmovable. To him.

Aaron and Oliver held dried herbs in their hands. As I watched, they lit them and blew the smoke toward Erdirg. Here I was, inches away from the demon who had ruined my existence until the time I met these guys, and I knew—with every cell in my body—that I was safe. Because they were here, and we would do this together.

I glanced over my shoulder at Erdirg. “Sleep.”

He collapsed. Eyes rolled back in his head, knees folding, four hundred pounds of dead weight hit the ground so hard it shook. Thorn grabbed my hand, and I allowed him to pull me away, but he didn’t look at me, instead his gaze stayed on Erdirg.

“Do we leave him here?” I asked. Trapped in a dream? Sleeping again?

Colton shook his head. Aaron and Oliver began to chant, low and rhythmic under their breath. Colton exhaled, shut his eyes, and began to mouth the words. Next to me, Thorn did the same thing.

I didn’t understand what they were saying—it was in no language I’d ever heard—but it had a power that washed over me and raised chills along my arms. Thorn held onto me, the words coming faster as the power built. Aaron, Oliver, and Colton lifted their voices, stepping closer to the sleeping form until the five of us stood around him.

The herbs were almost all ash. Oliver took his, smudging them onto his hand. I winced, expecting to hear the sizzle and smell of skin, but nothing happened.

“I said once that I loved you.” Oliver crumbled the herbs that were left, scattering them onto Erdirg. “Nothing will take you from me.”

“From us,” Aaron added. “We’re stronger