hand came up to find one of the curved points of his horns where it protruded from his hair just above his ears. He’d seemed to enjoy it when I touched those. I curled my fingers around it, his tongue twined with mine, and for a few seconds, nothing else in the world existed.
Only a few seconds, though. Without warning, Ruse’s shoulders tensed. He drew back, his breath momentarily ragged while he gathered himself.
“Not the best place for this,” he said, a twinkle dancing in his eyes. “And I really shouldn’t be keeping you from your sleep anymore. Darkness knows Omen will be whipping us off on some new quest first thing in the morning.”
I sat up, my giddiness fading. As we climbed down from the fake mountain and headed back toward the camper van, I couldn’t shake the impression that those excuses hadn’t been the whole truth, or maybe even most of it.
Ruse had told me more than he’d admitted to any of the shadowkind tonight, but there was something else going on with our incubus—something he didn’t want to say to anyone at all.
16
Sorsha
Occasionally, my dreams were pretty damn delicious. A three-foot-high stack of waffles layered with custard and blueberries and drizzled with enough syrup to give Snap a spontaneous orgasm? Who cared if it was obviously unreal?
I searched the table for a fork, and suddenly in that way dreams had, it wasn’t waffles but all three of my trio stretched out before me. Mouth-wateringly naked. Eyes come-hither. Still being drizzled with syrup.
Um, yes please, I’d take a bite out of all that. I leaned in to lick a trickle of sweetness off Thorn’s massively muscled chest—and fuck all that was just and juicy if some asshole didn’t yank me awake before I got even a taste.
A harsh voice was rasping by my ear. “Sorsha!” My pulse stuttered, and I thrashed aside the blanket I’d curled up under on one of the camper van’s padded benches.
Omen loomed over me in the thin dawn light, his brimstone scent sharp around us. He hauled at my arm again. “Get up, they’re on us—get out of here unless you want to be barbeque.”
A crash and a metallic crunching reverberated through the air from somewhere beyond the van walls. My blearily sleep—and syrup—deprived mind couldn’t quite process what was going on other than it was something very bad and apparently staying here would make it even worse. I lurched off the bench and dashed out the back of the van with the shadowkind boss.
He leapt up the funhouse’s steps, tugging me with him, and propelled me through the entrance into the darkness. “Go, go, go!”
Go where? I sprinted through the shadowy halls, his urgency spurring me on even though I had no idea why it made any sense to be running away in here. Was this another dream? If so, I really needed to have a chat with my subconscious about appropriate transition points.
A figure sprang out of the darkness, hurtling right toward me. I flung myself to the side—and slammed into the cool glass of a mirror. The figure in front of me heaved sideways and winced too.
Oh, that was my reflection. Not looking so hot on three hours of sleep.
I whirled around in the hall of mirrors, barely able to make out more than blurred impressions of movement in the darkness. Were those shapes all me?
No—that one darted at me with a slash of some glinting blade. I threw myself past it, smacked my hand against a nearby mirror to push myself around a corner, and nearly pinged off another reflective panel.
An explosive sounding boom echoed through the walls, rattling the glass. My heart thudded faster.
As my breath stung in my raw throat, I dashed on. Something thwacked my shoulder. A searing hiss wound through the air from somewhere overhead.
I veered around another corner and pelted at full speed into a room full of hanging punching bags painted with smirking clowns. Welcome to heart-attack land! I pummeled my way through the dangling obstacles, the bags battering me this way and that as they swung back into me.
A metallic screech from behind me made my nerves jump. I bashed my way past the last of the freakish clowns and bolted into the next room, only to find myself swaying back and forth as if I’d careened onto a raft on stormy water.
The floor—the floor itself was warped into weird undulations, bending this way and that under my feet. I teetered to