Page 3 of The Filled Vessel (Cambric Creek After Darkverse #4)

Chapter four

Tara

T ara sat up, gasping. Her head swam and the room spun. She felt bruised and achy, as if she had been kicked down a flight of stairs, and she struggled to suck in a lungful of air.

It was just a bad dream. Just a terrible, horrible dream . Her apartment had caught fire from that fucking candle, that part she remembered. There had been a giant bird, and it had pecked out her eyes, pushing her into an ink-black sea where she had bobbed like a cork, until she’d been scooped up by a huge hand, bone white with black, lacquered claws, remembered screaming as she was put under glass, beating her fists against the dome. She remembered Holt being there, but she couldn't quite slot the jumbled puzzle pieces together in any semblance of sense.

It was just a dream. All a dream except for that last part . She had been frozen in place as she struggled to wake, conscious but unable to react, and that had not been a dream.

She had known she was in her bed, knew she was safe in her apartment, that it was not on fire, and all she needed to do was open her eyes . . . but she was unable to do so. She was unable to blink, unable to cry out, unable to move her arms or legs. And worse still—there had been someone in the room with her, she could tell. A heavy presence, weighing her down, she could hear it breathing hard; heard it groan in agony, as if it were in excruciating pain. She'd struggled against whatever froze her, fought to open her lids, beating back against the cloudiness of her mind until she had sat up. The room was empty. It was just a dream.

Tara let out a shuddering breath, willing the room to stop spinning, wincing at the stinging ache in her chest. She felt as if she had been running with a stitch in her side, gasping at the tenderness of her skin as she prodded herself carefully. Did you fall out of bed and not realize it? It felt as though she would have a bruise, and every expansion of her lungs as she inhaled poked at it. As she gathered her bearings a bit more fully, Tara realized that wasn't the only thing amiss.

Her period must've started, she realized with a groan. There was moisture smearing her inner thighs, and she could feel the uncomfortable yet familiar thickness of it between her legs. Launching herself from the mattress to her feet in one movement, she attempted to minimize the damage, staggering in unexpected pain as she did so, feeling a pull through her pelvic floor straight up to her navel, as if she had been fucked senseless. Cramps. It’s probably just cramps, because why the fuck not? How else could this week get any worse?

When she turned, though, the bright red stain she expected to find on her sheets was nothing but a giant spot of moisture, embarrassingly large. Did you pee the fucking bed?!

Slipping a cautious hand between her legs, she startled at her findings. She was slick with arousal, as wet as if she'd had an orgasm, far wetter than she'd ever been before. Thick and viscous, coating her fingers as she held them up to the light. It's almost like someone came inside you. Tara snorted at the thought, closing her eyes. That would be typical, she thought. Couldn't get lucky enough for her ritual to work, and now she was only getting lucky in her dreams.

That would've been a much better ending to this day , she thought, staggering down the hall, using the restroom before retrieving a glass of water from her dripping kitchen faucet. At the very least, she could've ended this entire disappointing, embarrassment of an evening with some good sex, but not even that had been forthcoming.

Stupid Holt. Stupid candle, stupid ritual . Tara shook away the thoughts, gulping down the water and pushing aside her aggravation. It was over and done, and she'd only had a bad dream. Deciding she was too exhausted to strip her bedding, she shook out the comforter and burritoed herself within it, wincing at the tenderness on her chest as she did so.

Don’t think about Holt, don’t think about the stupid ritual. It’s done. Tomorrow, you can focus on what to do next, but for now, you need to sleep. Tomorrow was a new day, she thought, forcing her eyes closed, settling into her pillow. A new day, and she could put all of this ugliness behind her.