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I let out a jagged breath, unable to disguise what he did to me.
“Verybad,” I repeated.
A squeeze on the hip. Mischief shining in ebony eyes.
“Goodnight, Genevieve.”
Then he sifted and was gone.
18
Though I most definitely needed a cold shower, I scalded myself with steaming water for twenty minutes, running through the events of the night.
My powers had responded at will, except when Fabio had grabbed me. What had he meant by his Master giving him something extra?
After defeating the demons, watching Jude being held within a circle of flaming light and sinister darkness, then hauling my wasted best friend home, and finally ending with a toe-curling kiss, I’d forgotten all about Fabio’s final threat. Until now.
Utterly exhausted, I toweled off and slipped into sweatpants and a tank top. After blow-drying my hair and walking back into my bedroom, I realized how chilly the apartment was. Apparently, the cool front the meteorologists had been promising us had finally arrived.
I padded down the hall and switched on the thermostat to the heater for the first time this season. I brought Mindy a glass of water and two Advil, setting them on her nightstand, but she was out cold. Blonde waves pooled on her pillow and lips pursed like an infant, making a soft wheezing sound as she always did in deep sleep.
I unfolded the quilt at the foot of the bed, draped it over her, then quickly shuffled back to my room and crawled into my own bed.
“Brrrrr.”
The heater had kicked on, stirring the cool air. I tucked into my goose-down comforter up to the chin and rubbed my cold feet back and forth to get the circulation flowing. Again, I drifted through the night’s trials, landing on the man whose lips made me melt and arms made me feel safe as the edge of sleep took me to another place.
Or so I thought.
At first, I thought I was in a dream. Shrouded in darkness, I stood in the middle of a lifeless forest. No insects chirping, no small rodents scrambling to nests, no night birds echoing calls.
Leafless trees with craggy branches and trunks of gray encircled me. I stepped with bare feet to the nearest one, touching the tip of one finger to the trunk. The sooty form instantly crumbled, evaporating into an unseen wind, whisking away the ashes. The brush of wind felt like a whisper, an echo, not the strong gust I’ve felt before a storm.
A curling gray mist wreathed my ankles. A silken black nightgown with thin straps clung to my body and fell just above the knee. I watched in tranquilized fascination as tendrils of thick mist crawled upward along my pale skin.
Cool fingers of vapor caressed the lean muscle of my calf, dipped behind bare knees, smoothed over my thighs, hips, waist, whispered over my ribcage, cupped my breasts, lingered there and finally curved over my shoulders. The intimate sensation made me gasp in surprised pleasure, despite a gnawing feeling that I shouldn’t be here, that I didn’t want to be here. The conflicting emotions frightened me.
Mist wrapped around my wrists, tugging me along a path out of the dead woodland. From the line of ghostly trees, my bare feet touched black sand. This was no dream. My soul had sifted to this place.
Whereas my senses were slightly dulled without my physical body, my emotions were heightened, feeling everything pass through me, leaving a mark within. I’d felt this sensation before. Fear flooded my veins.
Before I even saw the black fortress, I knew it was there. Danté had beckoned, and my soul had obeyed—my own blood betraying me through his will. The mist had vanished, but there was no need for a guide. I knew where to go.
A slow-burning dread whispered through me as I stepped to the gate, spikes of iron jutting sharply upward. I didn’t look up, knowing there was nothing but a murky void hovering above the castle.
The guardian crouched in the cliff face near the gate—a skeletal creature with white-watching orbs and decayed flesh pocked with gaping wounds where red spiders crept to and fro. He motioned to the gate. I knew what to do.
My mind struggled against the pull, yet the compulsion to move forward was too strong. I touched the cold black iron. It obeyed and swung open.
I walked across smooth black stones toward the Gothic arch framing the door. Yellow-eyed shapes watched from the battlements. Who were these creatures? I wondered for only an instant before some force pulled me onward.
Crossing under the archway of stone demons carved in every niche and shadow, I placed my palm upon the gargantuan black door. It creaked open at my touch.
The familiar golden interior beamed before me. Crackling fire in a large fireplace cast golden light on the black velvet sofa and chaise lounge. Crystal chandeliers sparkled among the grand room, filling the chamber with a pleasant glow. A whisper in the air or in my head called me forward.
My name echoed from deeper in the castle. The cold prince called me. A skitter of raw fear ran down my spine.
“Genevieve.”
