was Hadrian, if everything she’d heard about him was true, he certainly had the power. Not only to give her sight, but to transport her to this place.
Away from Tucker.
Oh God, he had to be losing his mind out of worry.
More than anything, she wanted to tell her vampire that she could see. It was physically painful to her that he wasn’t present for this moment in her life so she could share it with him. She wanted him there to identify colors and objects in that Tucker way. The way that never made her feel left out or burdensome. The way that made her feel like she could already see and his descriptions of their surroundings were just for their own personal fun.
“Shall I make more of an effort to impress you, Mary?”
His silky voice shook her from her thoughts. “No, thank you.”
“No?” He leaned back against the table, swirling the contents of his drink. “I know we are not to be partners in the traditional sense and this is more of a…” Air quotes. “Business arrangement. But it behooves a man to woo his intended, does it not?”
Was it getting colder in here?
She wrapped her arms around herself more securely and clamped her back teeth together, trying to make them stop chattering. “Please end this dream. I’ve seen enough.”
Without taking his eyes off her, he set down his drink carefully. “So eager to return to your lover?”
Mary said nothing, though her blood had turned to pure ice. What could she say? If she told Hadrian she wouldn’t be helping him form the alliance after all, he might never release her from this dream. Might not allow her to return to Tucker.
Every fiber of her being demanded she protect Tucker at all costs.
“He’s not my lover.”
Hadrian tipped his head back and laughed. “Now there’s no need for lies. Intimate congress was not a part of our deal. After all, I have no plans to partake of only one female for the rest of my life, because hell, it is a long. Life.” His gaze started at her neck, traveling slowly to her thighs and back up. “Though I might be open to negotiations.”
“I’m not.”
“Now, now.” He smiled, showing off the tips of his fangs, the black of his eyes bleeding out slowly to eclipse the white. “Don’t anger me, Mary.”
Fear pulsed wildly in her neck.
It didn’t help to tell herself this was a dream.
Not when it felt so real.
Were parts of it imagined and others genuine? She could feel the ground beneath her feet, had the ability to register the temperature. What if she’d actually been transported from the Impala to Hadrian’s manor? Was there a way out?
“Where is my mother?” She pushed the question through lips numb from the cold. “Is she with you? Or is she just a part of the dream?”
Hadrian’s mouth spread into a grin. “I can’t give away all my secrets, can I?” He pushed off the table and sauntered in her direction. “Mary, you will arrive here tomorrow and cement this alliance with the fae or I will personally slaughter your lover. I’ll take great pleasure in it and there will be nothing left of him when I’m done. And if you need any more convincing…” Hadrian snapped his fingers and there were no longer in the fire-lit room. They were on a cliff, so close to the edge that she screamed in her throat and fell backwards, scuttling away.
But then she stopped, because she could only gape at the magnificence spread out in front of her. The ocean. Her mind struggled to comprehend something so vast when her world had been whittled down to darkness since birth. The great body of water roiled and pitched, bubbling foam riding on its edges, the whole of it stretching toward the horizon.
“This color must be blue,” she breathed, because she’d read descriptions of the ocean and knew. Knew the creatures that hovered over its beauty were birds. The wealth of the sight sprung tears to her eyes and she lay down sideways, curling her knees to her chest, struggling to breath.
Hadrian laughed and snapped his fingers again.
Chapter 20
Tucker voiced cracked under the strain of shouting Mary’s name.
How long had she been out?
Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.
He shook her still form where he’d laid her in the grass, his hands planted on either side of her head ripping out fistfuls of earth, the blood vessels straining behind his eyes and on the verge of rupturing. She’s so