He halted close to her, reaching to cup her face in his large palm. Rose touched her own cheek as if she might feel the tingle of his touch. Then he bowed his head toward hers and whispered across her lips, “I’m so sorry, mo chroí.”
So distracted by the fact that Fionn was dreaming of her like this, Rose noticed An Breitheamh too late. The dagger was fixed in his other hand, a dagger that he plunged into her dream self’s heart.
Confused, horrified, Rose stumbled to her knees along with her dream self, watching miraculous tears roll down Fionn’s cheeks as he held her dying in his arms.
“What have I done?” he rocked her, murmuring the question over and over.
What the fuck? Rose choked on silent screams as the air behind the dying Dream Rose shimmered and peeled open, like water receding from shore, revealing another world beneath.
Faerie.
The gate to Faerie.
Fionn laid Dream Rose on the ground and gently removed An Breitheamh from her heart. As soon as it was out, covered in her blood, he threw his head back and roared the most terrifying, anguished sound she’d ever heard.
Then he slumped over Dream Rose’s dead body, the very image of defeat.
“Fionn.”
His head jerked up to the right. The redhead was back.
“Aoibhinn?” he gaped, confused, his cheeks still wet with tears. He did not look like the Fionn Rose knew at all.
Aoibhinn gestured to Dream Rose’s body. “This is worse than what I did to you. You shared the bond. How could you?”
“I can’t take it back, can I?” he asked hoarsely.
She shook her head. “Do you want to? After all, it was the only way to open the gate.”
Understanding and terror flooded Rose. She had to wake up, she had to wake up. She had to get away from him!
That bastard!
That lying, vicious, psychotic bastard!
Fionn’s head snapped toward her, and he looked right at her.
Horror darkened his face. “Rose. No.”
22
Her eyes flew open, blood whooshing in her ears from her pounding heart, and without even thinking about it, her body traveled.
One second Rose was lying in bed next to Fionn, the treacherous bastard, and the next on her feet by the bed, facing him.
He was awake. Already up on his feet by the opposite side.
His rugged features hard, his eyes glinted with determination and … accusation?
“You can dream-walk,” he growled. Accusatory.
Oh no. Rose was going to kill the motherfucker.
She flew at him, a blur across the bed, but he was fast, too fast, traveling from one side of the room to the other before she could thrust a fist through his chest. It wasn’t something she’d ever done before but Rose reckoned he was the best son of a bitch to practice on!
“Don’t.” Fionn held up a hand against her, his expression implacable. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
The last few hours came flooding back, weakening her at the knees.
The fight.
His battling the vampires to protect her. Him being weird, her refusing to back down until he shared what was going on with him.
Him kissing her. Taking her to the bed, his hands on her body. The rightness of it. The desperate need for him.
And then … she’d no longer been conscious, which was how she found herself in his dreamworld.
“What did you do to me? We were …” she whispered, gesturing to the bed.
Fionn shrugged. “You fell asleep.”
Oh, yeah, sure, she’d fallen asleep when the guy she wanted most in the world finally broke his damn control and put his mouth and hands on her.
“You put me to sleep.”
The dream poked and prodded her, painfully reminding her of the truth. “You put me to sleep because …” Misery unlike anything she’d ever felt clawed at her. The agony of his betrayal. Tears threatened, but she refused to give them to him. “You’ve been planning to kill me all along. That’s why you’d look at me like you wanted me but then push me away. You’re a sick bastard but not sick enough to fuck the woman you’re planning to betray. To murder.”
Her instincts were screaming for her to get out. To flee. Yet the naive woman who had begun to fall in love with a stranger needed answers. “Do you deny it?”
“It was just a dream,” Fionn replied gruffly.
“Don’t lie to me!” she shrieked.
Fionn looked away, running a hand through his hair. A slight tremble in the movement gave him away. If it hadn’t, the wave of emotion hitting Rose—foreign, panicked,