Page 12

Chapter 11

Fallon

"T az, please," Aislinn begged through choked tears at the entrance to our hut. Like always, it made my chest cinch up, the crack in her voice making it hard to breathe. It hurt so fucking much. I didn't know how to handle it, how to get her to stop or understand. "Mama is worried. I'm worried."

I was sitting on the bed I'd woken up in for the past two years. To the same morning greeting and ruthless summer heat. To the waves I'd loved so much in my youth, that were now the siren call of hell. It had been two years of the same conversations and repetitive attempts at getting out of whatever the fuck this was.

No matter what I did, either the day went as planned and ended in a dread-filled sleep that no amount of begging would fix … or everyone died, crumpling into smoldering embers like the remains of their homes.

Aislinn was always last, most of the time dying in my arms with ragged gasps, clutching the wrecked skin of her neck. Other times, she'd stand, mocking, telling me exactly what I already knew … that this was my fault.

She was right. She always was.

A small fire built in my palm, Aislinn's cries growing frantic, picking up in pitch. I held my free hand up to keep her from getting too close. I didn't want to risk her getting burned. The sparks traced my skin, and I shivered, flexing scarred knuckles as the embers hit the dirt floor. The Flame danced in my blood, singing a forgotten tune as it crackled.

My head pounded as I rocked it from side to side, popping my neck. I wasn't proud, as my mind cracked under the weight of unease and tension. I'd done everything else I could to try to break this cycle. To leave this day behind.

I couldn't talk my way out of it. I'd tried that until I was blue in the face. I couldn't fight my way out, either. I would never do that to Aislinn … so this had been my most recent attempt, my new morning every day for the last three weeks .

Killing myself, because at least it was better than watching Aislinn bleed.

I snapped my fingers, and the fire slipped to the paper bark that made up the walls and bedding, igniting it in a burst of violent flames. Their heat stole the oxygen from the air, scorching to the point that I nearly rushed out of them. This place may be hell, but it was consistent, and it was painful, and if there was anything I could handle, it was the pain.

It was easy, letting it swallow me whole. It was physical, not like the bits inside of me that broke every day I woke up here. And it was real , something I could grab onto when things were a little too seamless, a reminder that this was a dream.

That I had to get out, while I could still separate right from wrong, and real from fake.

"Fallon?" my mother started, her voice filling the void from outside the hut. It was scattered, broken bits of what it should have been, like my mind wasn't able to fill in the missing pieces. I could barely hear her over the fire. "Fallon, don't do this!"

I closed my eyes as the flames swallowed me, and I sank into them, letting them rip me away from my mother's voice. Darkness grabbed me, like hands pulling me down, filling my lungs.

Her screams mixed with Aislinn's, growing faint until they faded away entirely. The pain lingered, bad enough that if I had any control, I probably would have puked or passed out.

I waited for the familiar pull of the next day, dreading waking on that same bed, watching as Aislinn walked in with a smile that still haunted me. But for the first time, the dark didn't let me go.

"It's not working," a voice whispered, a break to the monotony, so out of place whoever said it might as well have screamed it. Enough to shoot adrenaline directly into my veins as I stopped breathing, like that might help me hear more. "If we push too hard, he'll break."

Whoever it was, her voice was quiet and gentle. I tried to flip around and find her, as if she might be in this pit, but I couldn't move. Trapped like an animal in a cage with a blanket thrown over the top.

"Good. I want him broken," another said, twisted and vicious, familiar in a way I couldn't place.

"I can't hold broken," she bit back, a gurgle in her voice before a crash filled the air, a wounded yelp following the sound of flesh cracking against flesh.

"You'll find a way. I don't have to remind you what happens if you fail, Hadlie ."

I strained to hear more as a buzz filled the air, but nothing else came. Seconds passed before I opened my eyes again, blinking a few times to adjust to the low light of the moon through a glass window. My lips were numb, like my body was still trying to figure out how to feel.

The haze followed me like a plague, even here, and I almost forgot to breathe when I realized where I was.

In bed. My bed. The sheets were a soft silken comfort I'd spent days picking out. The pictures that surrounded me were lit by the glow of a full moon, familiar ones—Picasso, Michelangelo … Aislinn's . The same one she'd painted for me every day, though now finished. The colors were faded with age and smeared where our fingers had traced.

The grim black room slipped away with the voices that had been in it, my eyes adjusting instantly, the headache that had destroyed me for the past two years fading into a dull ache like the pulse of my fangs in my mouth. I let out a breath, falling back on the sheets as I rubbed my face. I felt like me for the first time since this shit show started.

Home. I was home .

"Fal?" a voice whispered, and I flinched, looking for Aislinn on instinct as the body next to me shuffled.

Groggy violet eyes peeked up from under the blanket, and Ali rubbed them as she crawled over to me. I didn't move as she laid her head on my bare chest. She was so warm, letting out a breath as she snuggled in close, tucked perfectly into my side, exactly where she should have been.

I'd struggled through the memories with Aislinn, but at least with her there'd been a detachment, an understanding that what I was seeing was wrong. Her voice was something I'd forgotten, the quirks to her personality something I could play off as just another trick in the dream.

Aaliyah was a fresh presence, a breath of lavender-filled air that made my chest hurt at the thought of her being here.

She wasn't. I knew she wasn't. But two years of hell had been enough to break me, and even if this wasn't my Ali … I couldn't help but take comfort in her. I reached for my wrist, grazing the mark that showed there again, the purple band pulsing when I touched it.

"Aaliyah," I said, desperately trying to keep myself sane. Even then, I couldn't stop from leaning in, kissing the top of her head when she inched her way up.

She laughed, looking up at me with gentle eyes, crow's feet at the corners, before she leaned in fully. It caught me by surprise, as she kissed me, running her hand up my chest as my own found her bare hip. There was a tremble in my hands I couldn't stop.

Fuck, I'd missed her so much.

I grunted as she moved, straddling my bare waist as I arched into her touch. My eyes shot wide as she rolled her hips, and the sensual motion dragged me out of my thoughts as she grinned mischievously down at me. Her soft, breathy moan was practically a drug.

I was ashamed of how hard I got, guilty at knowing this wasn't really her.

"I'm not going to be able to walk tomorrow at this rate," she said jokingly, leaning down to bite my ear. I damned near came in my nonexistent fucking shorts and had to physically lift her to give myself some room to think.

The shift from the last day to now was whiplash. Ali giggled, and the sound went straight through me.

"We haven't had sex yet," I said through a groan as I tipped my head back, trying to dislodge the trick, no matter how good it felt. Reality crossed with this nightmare.

I would have remembered our first time. There was no fucking way I'd forget it.

Aaliyah laughed again, and the spark of heat that came with her touch turned molten when she trailed a leisurely line across my abdomen, sticking to the divots on my hips while she hummed. "What would you call last night, then?"

I shivered, halting her moves with my hands, grunting as I stopped myself from arching up to meet her again. Control was something I savored, and I held it with every ounce of strength I had as I took steady breaths.

This wasn't Ali.

Not my Ali.

"Osiris, Eirik, Adrian. Where are they?" I asked, taking a deep breath when she stopped moving. She crossed her arms over her chest, blushing brightly as she looked away from me.

"In their rooms, I'd assume," she mumbled, rubbing the back of her neck. "Why?"

"Not here?" I grunted, taken aback by that. There was no way Adrian wouldn't have taken the chance to be here for this, and Eirik was practically her lap dog. "Adrian wouldn't miss the chance to steal the spotlight."

"Fallon."

A voice whispered as Aaliyah curled onto my chest, hiding her face from me. But at least she'd stopped gyrating. The softness of her lavender scent hit me like a wave.

"Why would they be here? I'm yours, Fallon. After the Eternium, you made me choose … I chose you," she said, her voice firm.

Mine? Aaliyah was mine?

Adrian's face flashed through my mind, echoing the hints of a heated conversation that suddenly didn't seem real anymore. The fight in the training room lost its bitter edge.

No, that couldn't be right.

"You have to wake up."

It was almost like Aaliyah had said it, her mouth moving just slightly enough to see the words form. I jolted out of her arms, putting distance between us as the voice ripped me away. A cold sweat started on my forehead, my breathing spiraling as Aaliyah covered her chest with the blanket.

"The Eternium," I said, gasping for breath. "What happened at the Eternium?"

Aaliyah tilted her head to the side.

"You don't remember?" she asked, drawing toward me. The blanket fell, exposing every inch of her smooth skin as she reached for me again. I couldn't even see Aaliyah in the way she moved now, like the softness had been a mask. "What happened at the Eternium, Fallon?"

The voice wasn't hers, instead warped and broken, shifted. There was a sharpness to the words that I couldn't ignore.

"Fallon, wake up!" the Ali in front of me screamed, cracking her soft expression for just a second before she was back to touching my chest. Her hands grabbed my necklace, the one I hadn't realized I was wearing.

The one Osiris had made for us after our wards had been cracked open. The one I'd forgotten about, ignored. That was it.

That was my way out, and somehow, this Aaliyah warned me about it. I reached up, grabbing the necklace, as she was torn away from me. The room melted, cracks appearing in the floor and walls, like the illusion had been shattered.

"I lost him," a voice whispered, straining through the sound of metal and glass crashing to the ground.

"Then get him back, Hadlie!" another snarled.

I strained against whatever bindings held me down, and for a second they quivered. My finger twitched, and I sucked in a gasping breath I could taste. Then the cold touch of what felt like metal, under me and wrapped around my wrists. It was the first real impact I'd seen on this dream world, the shock waves like a ripple that broke open the dark.

An instant of bright lights blinded me, and the feeling of sweat-slicked steel under my back made me grunt.

The woman gasped, choking on a pained cry as my arm shot up, the thick chain at my wrist snapping at the connection joint, clattering as more voices filled the air. The light wobbled, knocked away as blurred faces surrounded me, and hands fought to hold me down.

I lashed out, catching one of the many bodies, sending them to the floor. I was close, so close. My other arm tingled, feeling slamming back into it as I clenched my hand into a tight fist.

Freedom was a breath away. One fight, one struggle. I had to get out. I wouldn't have another chance. I snarled, screaming until I went hoarse, using brute force against the magic that held me down. I opened my eyes long enough to see two faces. The girl, an Unseelie Fae from the ashen gray of her skin and the scattering of stars across her face, stretched her hands out in front of her, fingers splayed wide as she set them on my chest. The other belonged to him. Archon. The one we'd come to find. The coward who'd hid behind his own guards and used them like cannon fodder.

The one we'd lost to.

"I'm trying. He's—" Hadlie grunted, eyes closed in concentration, whatever spell she had me under flexing as I fought. The necklace Osiris had given me strained, heating against my chest until it burned, helping to force the magic open. She gasped as I ripped my arm away from the guards keeping me steady, sweat sliding down her face as she paled. "Something else got in, broke him out."

Archon's hand came to my wrist, forcing me back down to the table as the sickening sweetness of gold filled the air. I snarled, unable to get any words out, my body still only partially mine. I gritted my teeth until I felt one snap. The mark on my wrist glowed, Aaliyah's lavender giving me enough energy to move.

I had to get to her.

Hadlie made a distressed sound, and I felt another crack in whatever held me. A scream ripped through the halls, flexing like the bonds in my chest as I arched off the steel again. At first, I thought it was mine.

But it was softer, higher pitched, and doused in a voice I knew well. The rippling bond in my chest strained like cooking wire strung too tightly. It shocked me to my core, enough to let Hadlie's magic sink in and freeze me. My arms fell to the table, the guards no longer having to struggle to keep me down.

Adrian, that was Adrian's scream .

I ripped my head to the side, just barely catching a glimpse of him. He was a mess of blood, his skin flayed open, the man above him toying with his organs. His voice went hoarse as his scream ripped at the walls.

"Let him go," I croaked, grunting as I strained against my chains.

I'd never in my entire life felt weaker than when Archon's magic cradled the room. It hit my skin like a blow, and I was too drained to fight it. For one brutal second, I feared him.

" Now , Hadlie," Archon snarled, all ice in his voice as his eyes hit mine.

I gritted my teeth, blood filling my mouth as my fangs fell.

"Let him go!" I managed, as another blade sank into him.

He choked, gurgling as blood pooled in his mouth. Vacant eyes stared back at me, going blank as the bond in my chest tightened. It was like an electric shock hit every nerve, and I jolted off the table, screaming with him.

Archon's hand found my necklace, the one that still sat against my chest. I smelled burning flesh as he grabbed it, his hiss pure joy to my ears. Osiris's magic fought him, and there was a war in his eyes that bordered between pain and fear.

Until he ripped the charm away.

The loss of it ravaged me, tore me apart from the inside out, and for a second, I swore I could taste torched lavender. Blood flooded my nose, and the unspeakable sounds of Adrian being ripped to shreds were all I could hear as I seized, and my brain turned to mush in my skull. Delicate hands touched the sides of my face.

Any fight I had died, any will in my muscles fading away as my eyes slid closed. One second dragged into two, and Adrian's screams followed me back to the fucking dream, haunting me. My skin trembled, viciously cold … before the dark swallowed me, and I was sitting up with a grunt.

The haze followed, the brightly lit room fading back until there were only silken sheets and lavender. I sucked in a hard breath as I brushed my hair back. I reached for my chest, for my wrist, and felt nothing.

Aaliyah stirred next to me, looking at me with groggy eyes as I panicked, flipping the sheets off me.

"Fal?" she asked, touching my chest softly, her brows cinching together as she laid her head over my heart. "What's wrong?"

Everything, everything was wrong. Tears came to my eyes, the sound of Adrian's scream destroying me.

"Nothing," I whispered, looking at the wall, trying to sort through what to do. Osiris's magic wasn't here to help me anymore, and I was on my own. Adrian was being ripped apart, and I was here … next to Ali.

I looked back at her, taking comfort in her eyes, even if it wasn't real. Even if this was my hell.

"Just a nightmare."