Page 18 of Sweet Nightmares (Wicked Mirrors #2)

Chapter Fourteen

T he walls were bleeding. Spilling down the sides like thick crimson paint. The smell was suffocating, coiling into her nostrils and sticking to her skin.

With one hand, she held her little sister’s mouth shut and squeezed her to keep her from screaming—he couldn’t hear them, he couldn’t find them—and with her other hand, she pressed her fingertips into the marble floor to ground herself and kept herself from screaming.

Glass flew through the air, and Jane screamed in her mind, or maybe she screamed out loud.

It was hard to tell anymore.

She thrashed and cried and fought, and then she was pinned down. He was going to kill her.

“Shhh,” a soft baritone melody sang into her hair and held her like a straitjacket. “Shhh, you’re alright, little doe. You’re alright.”

Jane blinked and then blinked again, a fuzzy world beginning to focus, but her body could not move. Nightmare clutched her chin tightly, staring into her eyes and pinning her torso and legs to the bed.

“Breathe.” It was a command. Magic filled her lungs, and Jane complied. “Breathe,” Nightmare said again, still clutching her jaw hard.

Jane closed her eyes and sank into the feel of him encasing her, and she breathed in one, two, three, four counts and held her breath for another count of four before releasing it to a count of four. She opened her eyes again when she had finished that cycle three times.

“Tell me their names.” His voice wasn’t hard, but it wasn’t soft either.

For the last two years after Jane’s first husband’s death, she had night terrors.

Dreams of his hands around her neck that sometimes felt so real she swore she woke up with white finger indents in her skin.

It didn’t happen every night—at least not anymore—but the dreams were extreme and felt so real when they did.

Sometimes, they included her first husband’s deputies, but often not.

But every time Jane woke up from one of these terrors, it was in Nightmare’s arms.

So it wasn’t surprising that he thought she was dreaming about them again.

“It wasn’t them.” Her voice was hoarse. She must have been screaming. “It was my parents.”

“Your parents?” His eyes darkened.

Jane’s eyebrows scrunched. “Oh, no, they didn’t do anything to me.” Jane gulped. “They died… They were murdered.”

Nightmare’s chest rumbled, and the only remaining black strand of hair fell in front of his liquid silver eyes.

“It happened when I was ten years old.” Jane squeezed his shoulder, almost as if she were the one comforting him. “I am not sure if the dream was a memory or a distortion.”

Jane needed to find out. It wasn’t the first time she’d had a night terror about it. In fact, it was overtaking the ones about her abusers, almost like her subconscious was trying to tell her something. She knew the dreams wouldn’t stop until she addressed them.

She also wanted to look into it for herself. Jane didn’t remember that night. Her brain was locked, and the key had been thrown away a long time ago.

But maybe it was time to revisit it—time to learn the truth about her parents’ murders.

“I want to find out,” she said. “I want to know what happened to them.”

Nightmare only grunted in response and slightly shifted his body.

Jane’s breath hitched as she suddenly became very aware that Nightmare was still pinning her to her bed and still had his hands all over her. But even more disconcerting was that he had a massive hard-on, and it was digging into her pelvis.

Jane wiggled, and she felt the friction against her clit. She bit her lip and closed her eyes, sucking in the moan of pleasure.

Their game of tension had two rules: never let the other see and never ever mention it.

At least those were her rules, because Jane was very uncertain whether he even wanted her. Although his hard cock might suggest he did. But he never acted on it and never mentioned it.

It was infuriating.

Two years of tension pooled in her stomach. Two years waiting for him to fuck her—to touch her sexually.

But he didn’t.

He never did. But his eyes possessed her. In everything they did, his gaze followed her, caressing her, punishing her, holding her, fucking her.

But never—never his hands, or mouth, or penis, and it was beginning to make her mad. In every definition of the word.

“Why don’t you fuck me?” Damnit. She broke the second rule of tension—never mention it. “Are you not attracted to me?” And she broke first—never let him see. That last bit came out far too desperate, and Jane snapped her lips closed. Mortified. Fuck, get control of yourself.

Nightmare ran his thumb along her jaw and then over her lips. His gaze latched onto her soul. “Because you never gave me permission.”

“I—” Her mouth fell open, and his thumb entered, continuing his caressing. “What?”

“I will fuck you in all ways. Gentle, rough, possessive, demanding, lovingly. I will own and destroy you, but first, you must be ready.”

“I am—” but she couldn’t finish the sentence and say the word ready . Because was she?

“You’ve only ever been raped, Jane.” He took his thumb out of her mouth and tipped her chin up. “You have nightmares almost every night of how those men touched and abused you. You are not ready.”

No. The nightly nightmares were about her parents, but she didn’t feel like correcting him.

Then he leaned in and gently pressed his lips to hers, kissing her like he’d done it a million times, before quickly pulling away and standing up off the bed.

Confusion licked at her core. He was only soft to her, and only her, and it rattled her.

“Go get ready for work. You have a gangster to turn in for stealing, and possibly to get murdered.” Nightmare winked and disappeared into the midst.

Jane had long since given up asking how he knew everything .

Thirty minutes later, Jane was dressed and at the Russet casino, waiting outside her new boss’s bedroom.

He was currently fucking someone—a girl this time, from the sounds of it.

Francois didn’t have a gender preference.

Not that he took many people to bed. He was a playboy, but not quite like the prince.

Emrys was a king among playboys. He had a new girl in his bed weekly, if not nightly, which was precisely why he’d never touch Jane’s sister. She wouldn’t allow it. She’d castrate him first. Which Emrys seemed to understand because Quinn was still a naive, innocent girl.

Probably not for long, but Jane would protect her for as long as possible.

Especially from the men she worked with. All of them were playboys—every single one—although none were married or committed to anyone. So, in comparison, Francois was a saint because he barely partook in carnal pleasures. Maybe three times a year.

Still, it wasn’t fun to wait and listen to the sexual activities, particularly because she was so starved for touch and pleasure.

Fucking Nightmare.

Jane considered fucking a random patron of the club, but she couldn’t. Nightmare would kill them, and while Jane had become fairly okay with murder, she didn’t want to be responsible for an innocent man’s death.

Not in any area of her life. Because all of her bosses were dangerous and deadly and killed without hesitation.

Jane technically had three bosses: Francois, Emrys, and Nightmare.

Everyone pretended Emrys wasn’t the boss of all Mirror Mafias, but he was.

In small ways, Emrys was the boss of everyone in the city, and it was the Mirror Mafias, specifically the Fant?mes, who enforced his rule—because technically, the man couldn’t murder anyone himself as a result of the Blood Accords that bound vampires seven hundred years ago.

Jane adjusted the lapels of her pinstriped suit dress as she tried not to hear the moans coming from inside Francois’s room.

She leaned against the wall, her hair tight, and pulled back.

At the Russet, Jane was all business. She was in charge of all of the finances of their many businesses, and Jane took the job very seriously.

She needed to bring three reports to Francois’s attention as soon as possible: unusual losses at the tables, an employee embezzling money, and a large offer for the gang to bargain for a Black Market mirror object.

The Fant?mes ran an infamous Black Market, and if someone couldn’t find what they wanted there, they often asked the gang to make a deal with a mirror for them to receive it.

The Fant?mes had many members whose sole job was to mirror bargain, but the most infamous of them all was Harlowe Merriwether—New Swansea’s Monster Girl.

She had made over ninety mirror bargains in her life and had at least three visible mirror consequences.

Her irises were sculpted from diamonds, one pink and one periwinkle blue. Her hair was enchanted and dangerous, causing severe frostbite to anyone who touched it. Her skin shimmered in pure darkness, like a night-light.

Harlowe mostly hated Jane, but she wasn’t entirely sure why. Probably because Jane had so quickly gained the trust and favor of both Emrys and Francois —mostly due to Nightmare’s threats, but also because Jane was good at almost everything she found interesting.

Sounds of flesh slapping and moans finally stopped—thank God—but Jane still didn’t want to enter. Emrys Avalon seemed to have no qualms, though, because he nodded at Jane as he walked to the door.

“He’s fuckin—” Jane wasn’t able to finish the sentence before Emrys shrugged and opened the door anyway.

“Then it shall be a show.”

The girl shrieked, and Jane rested her head against the wall again, closing her eyes with a frustrated huff. But if she were forced to wait even longer because of Emrys’s schemes, then at least she could practice her magic.

So she did, focusing all of her energy and spirit into becoming one with the wind. Into seducing her magic to make herself invisible. All the while, Jane listened in.