Page 34 of Dream Lost (The Fae Universe #12)

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B as caught Bridget before she could tumble back into the Liffy. Her eyes were shut, and she was in a dead faint.

“Bridget! Wake up!” Bas said, giving her a shake.

“Bridget isn’t here right now,” replied a cold, dead voice from her lips. She opened her eyes, but it wasn’t Bridget who looked out.

Bas’s blood iced over, and he hung onto her arm, even as he lifted his phone to his ear. “Val. 911. It’s got Bridget.” He hung up. “You are going to want to get out of my mate, creature.”

“Why should I? I like it here. Her mind is delicious and her imagination even more so. Do you know she’s been dreaming of a life with you? Shame that will never come to pass,” the Brollachan mocked.

Bas wouldn’t panic. Couldn’t. He wasn’t going to shift in the middle of the street. His dragon was writhing inside of him in fury.

“You get out of her, maybe I can be convinced not to kill you,” Bas said, trying to keep his voice even.

The Brollachan pouted with Bridget’s lips. “I think you’re a liar. You haven’t even told this girl that she was your mate. She’s going to die, never knowing.”

The roar of a motorbike cut through Bas’s fear, and Valentine pulled up on the footpath beside him.

“Need some help, little brother?” he asked.

“It’s got her, Val. We can’t shoot it.”

The Brollachan laughed. “Shoot me? Do you think a little bit of lead can stop me? All you will do is damage this meat suit I am in.”

Valentine pulled out some cuffs from his jacket pocket. “Whatever we do, we can’t do it here.”

The cuffs were silver and etched in rune marks and sigils. The Brollachan saw them and started to struggle. Bas clung to Bridget’s body as it wriggled and fought. Quick as lightning, Valentine cuffed Bridget’s hands, and the Brollachan screeched.

“It’s okay, everyone. I’m a police officer,” Valentine said to the crowd of onlookers. “Be about your business.”

Bas sent an illusion spell curling about them, making the pedestrians look the other way. A car pulled up, and Cosimo waved at them from the driver’s seat.

“You called Dad?” Bas asked.

Valentine shook his head. “He was with me when I got your call. Getting here on the bike was quicker.”

“Get her in here so we can take her home, boys,” Cosimo called.

The Brollachan hissed and spat, but Bas ignored it. He took Bridget’s arms, and Valentine took her legs, and they secured her into the sedan’s back seat.

“I’ll see you there. But in case you need it.” Valentine took a wooden box from his pocket and placed it on the front passenger seat.

“I’ll see you at home,” Bas grunted. He knew Valentine was being practical, but he didn’t want to look at that damned box, let alone consider using it on his Bridget.

“Talk to me, Basset,” Cosimo said as they wound through Temple Bar and back to the Greatdrakes mansion.

“I don’t know what happened,” Bas replied from his position. He was lying on Bridget to stop the creature from thrashing about. He didn’t want it to hurt Bridget’s body. She was going to be needing it back in one piece. “We were walking on the river, and she said she felt weird. Then she’s running down a set of stairs to a dock, where she freezes, lifts a foot off the ground, and then faints. The fucker jumped her, and she almost went into the river.”

“Ohhh, she’s gone much further than into the water, magician,” the Brollachan mocked before it tried to bite his face.

You’ll get her back. You’ll get her back. You’ll get her back. Bas chanted over and over. There wasn’t anywhere that Bridget went that his dragon wouldn’t be able to find her.

Taranis was waiting in the garage when they pulled in. He helped Bas up.

“You okay, my boy? You are looking a little wild about the edges.”

“It’s got my mate,” Bas said, the words coming out in a horrified sob.

Taranis’s eyes glowed. “Breathe, Basset. There you go. In and out. We can get it out of her. This is a house of magicians, is it not? Possession is child’s play.”

Bas nodded, and then, after a few more breaths, they got the Brollachan out of the car and down into the cells below the garage. They were dusty from misuse, but the magic in them was still strong.

“Burning, burning,” the creature hissed, writhing back from the bars.

Bas was going to be sick, but he still pushed it into one of the chairs in an empty cell and cuffed it down.

“Let her go, and it will stop hurting,” Bas said, his voice cracking.

“And have you kill me after I jump out? No, no, I think not.”

Cosimo put a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, son. We need to talk about this privately.”

“Take as long as you like,” the Brollachan hollered. “The longer I’m in this meat prison, the more I can eat away at it. And she is so very delicious.”

Taranis’s hand went to his other shoulder, and Bas was marched out of the cell and upstairs. He made it to the hallway bathroom in time to lose his lunch. He vomited until he was empty and shaking. He had known that the creature had wanted Bridget. Known that it had been hunting her. And he had still taken her with him.

“Hurry up in there, Basset. We need to make a plan and not fall apart,” Taranis said, banging on the door.

“Not helping,” Bas snarled back.

Taranis only kicked in the door. “You can’t help her if you’re hiding.”

Bas washed his face and rinsed out his mouth. Cosimo held out a glass of scotch for him, and Bas downed it.

They ended up in the kitchen, Bas seated at the counter with another scotch beside him. He filled in Taran about their adventures by the river. He knew Valentine would update the others before they all descended on the Greatdrakes mansion.

“And you believe this creature when it says that she’s gone?” his uncle asked. “Did you try and touch her mind?”

“I didn’t get that far. I was trying to keep it from running away with her body. She feels different, though. I can’t explain it, but I don’t think she’s in there at all,” Bas replied.

Cosimo rubbed at his stubble. “The creature didn’t say that it had eaten her. It said that it was eating her. If its food is consciousness, then there has to be some of her left to eat.”

“You’re right. I was too panicked to see, but you’re right. She has to be somewhere in there. Tethered somehow. Bridget is smart. She would’ve known what was happening and would’ve tried to protect herself,” Bas said, thinking out loud.

“You found her in the astral plane. She hid from you in there for weeks after Midsummer. Would she have gone there again to try and hide?” his father replied.

Bas thought it through. “I could go and check, but the astral plane is vast. She could be anywhere. We saw the creature there before, which means it’s also its playing ground. It could be a trap.”

Quinn came into the kitchen and sat down on Taranis’s lap. It made Bas’s whole chest ache to watch them. He missed his mate and wanted her in his arms.

“Forgive me for eavesdropping, but it seems like the more brains on this, the better.” Quinn tried to smile at Bas, and then her expression went thoughtful. “When you were a dragon, you came back to her. Your consciousness was lost in the dragon just like hers is lost now. If you can’t go into the astral plane to search for her, why don’t you act as a beacon for her to follow?”

Taranis patted her on the thigh. “I don’t know if Pussy Power is going to work this time around my love.”

“Depends on the pussy.”

Cosimo interrupted their argument. “No, she’s right. You need to be a lighthouse for her consciousness to return to you. If this creature has pushed her out of her body, maybe your connection to her will be enough to draw her back, and then she will push the Brollachan out on her own.”

Bas had his doubts that it would work, but the alternative was to let Valentine try and trap it in his spirit box. The biggest problem with that was that there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t trap Bridget in the box with it for all eternity.

Bas headed back down to the basement, Cosimo a quiet presence beside him. The Brollachan had been trying to pull itself free, and Bas almost threw up again at the sight of the bruising on Bridget’s wrists.

“You are going to kill her faster like this,” the Brollachan mocked.

“Silence,” Cosimo commanded. A spell sizzled through the air, robbing the creature of its voice. “I have only silenced the creature. If Bridget comes back through, she will be able to speak with you fine.”

Bas pulled up another chair. “Thanks, Dad.”

Cosimo hugged him. “I never had a chance to save my mate when she was dying, Bas. It’s one of the greatest pains in my life. Don’t let her go. Hold tight with both hands and fight like hell. Understand?”

“I will. I can’t handle the thought of losing her. It’s not an option. She doesn’t even know what she is to me. I should have told her,” Bas said, tears choking him.

Cosimo let him go. “Tell her now, Basset. Tell her everything.”

“She’s going to be so mad,” Bas sniffed.

Cosimo grinned. “It might help her come back faster just so she can yell at you.”

“Or try and kick me in the balls.” Bas sat down on the chair. “I’m going to need some privacy.”

“We will be close if you need us,” Cosimo said before leaving him alone in the cells. Just him and the monster wearing his beloved’s face.

Bas took a deep breath and let the dragon come forward to give him some extra strength. “I want to start by telling you how much I love you, Bridget. I think I was in love with you from the moment you threw that book at me in the astral plane…”

Bas talked. And talked. And talked.