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I go feral in his arms, bucking wildly and scratching anything I can.

The Thief easily tosses me to the floor in front of him.

I’m back on my feet in an instant, but that’s all it takes for the ground to split and a cage to literallygrowup from the floor. The black bars rise around me, arching overhead until they meet.

“I think you’ve forgotten that inside a dream, I can do anything.” To emphasize his point, my outfit—a wispy, pale blue dress—begins to vanish inch by inch.

“I can humiliate you,” he says, as the dress’s hem climbs up my legs and the straps slide off my shoulders, revealing my breasts.

I scowl at the Thief, too angry to be embarrassed. Distractedly, I push the straps back in place, covering my chest once more.

His eyes are alight with excitement. “I can hurt you—” The metal bars bow in until they touch my skin. My flesh begins to sizzle and smoke under the press of iron.

“This isn’t even me being creative,” he adds. “I could make the floor grow eyes and a mouth and swallow you whole. I could change your appearance—”

He begins to grin. “—I could even make the dead come back to life.”

“Cherub.”

I start at that voice, my breath catching. I turn so fast that I burn myself against the bars all over again.

Stepping out from the shadows, clad in leather and a faded Guns N’ Roses shirt, is my soulmate.

A small sound escapes my throat. “Des.”

My eyes scour him, taking in his sleeve of tattoos, his broad, sculpted shoulders, the ponytail he wears his hair in.

I know he’s not real, that none of this is real, and yet he looks completely lifelike.

In the Otherworld, dreams are never just dreams. They’re another sort of reality.

Des had told me that once.

With every step he takes towards me his strides get longer, brisker. He stops in front of my cage, his eyes searching my face. His gaze flicks to the Thief, his upper lip ticking. A grim smile grows on his features.

“She’s going to kill you,” he says with certainty.

“No,” the Thief disagrees, “she’s going to do things for me—many perverse things—over the course of her very long life, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

My heart is beginning to hammer in my chest, my pain and rage feeding the siren inside me.

I flash him a malicious smile. “If you want to taste me, Thief, then come closer,” I beckon.

His face is shrewd but his interest is piqued. “I could come to you—or you could come to me.”

My brows knit.

All at once a strong wind tears through the Thief’s palace. The gust blows away the bars of my cage; it blows away the bone-like columns holding up the ceiling, then the pale stone walls along with it. The wind blows away the floor, yanking on my dress.

Then, to my horror, it blows away Desmond, piece by piece. First his feet and his calves, then his chest and arms and pelvis. He stares at me with his fierce, silver eyes, his irises glittering enigmatically. Those too, are lost a second later, scattering like dust in the wind.

I let out a cry, but the wind snatches it away, whipping my hair as it does so. The supernatural gust is sweeping everything up into inky darkness.

The last things to be wiped away are the Thief and his gilded throne.

He smiles down at me, looking like a conqueror. “Come find your mate where oblivion lies. I’ll keep you captive till darkness dies.”

I wake witha gasp.