Page 16 of Realm of Dreams & Shadows

In other words, I’m a walking, babbling idiot machine.

But at least I’m a walking, babbling idiot machine who didn’t follow the mysterious hot guy into the dark.

Not yet, anyway.

By the time I’ve finally escaped the party and raced up the three flights to my room, I’m breathless. And not because of the stairs.

“You, Cora Ann Lyte, are a socially inept weirdo.” I announce that basic factoid to myself as soon as the door closes behind me. Because it’s true. I’ve never dated, and I have zero experience dealing with guys, unless fantasies count. Or dreams.

The fantasies definitely don’t count.

The dreams…well, I’m not sure about the dreams. But the truth is, the details fade away within a few hours of my waking. And I haven’t ever journaled my dreams or my nightmares. That would make them real. And so the finer points are lost to me.

All that ever lingers is the fear, a vague memory of monsters, the dragon-riding warrior who has saved me time and time again, and a darker, silver-eyed man with a coat of shadows who both intrigues and terrifies me.

I’m pretty sure that Shadow Coat Man popped into my head because of the drawing in Mom’s journal, and I’m absolutely certain that the dragon-riding warrior is my mind’s way of elevating Chase—the man who’d protected me four years ago—to near superhero status. Because, honestly, the alternative is too weird to think about.

But even though I get where those denizens of my dreams came from, I don’t know enough to wipe my hands and say done.

On the contrary, I’m far from done. I watched as my mother’s dreams stole her life, after all. And even though it’s scary as shit, I need to understand this strange familial dream curse. More than that, I need to break it.

Too bad for me that I don’t know how. But I think maybe Chase is the place to start.

Chapter

Seven

Considering the way Tia and Riley were talking when they left, I don’t expect her back anytime soon. Still, I hurry through the familiar steps of my nighttime routine—wash face, brush teeth, sleep shorts, tank top, pillows, headphones, sleep app. It’s not a perfect solution—as this afternoon’s visit to the dream-beach proved—but it’s the best I’ve got, and I close my eyes as I count each inhale and exhale, focusing on the rhythm rather than the shadows gathering at the edges of my consciousness.

In. Out. In. Out.

A gentle heaviness spreads through my limbs. My thoughts slow, drift. The boundary between wakefulness and sleep grows thin, permeable.

Too much. I need to wake up.

In. Out. In…

Deeper.

No. No, no, no. I need to claw myself back to wakefulness.

Floating. Drifting…

I need⁠—

Without warning, my exhaustion betrays me, and I plummet down, down, down into warm sand. The same beach.

The ball, the little boy with his too-wide smile full of needle teeth.

All so terrifyingly familiar.

I start to take a step, and the sand hardens around my ankles, trapping me as a shadow falls over me, and I look up to see a woman astride a dragon as dark as midnight against the pale blue sky. Her long black hair whips in the wind, and her silver lasso snaps around my chest before I can even scream, yanking me skyward so fast the breath leaves my lungs.

“Who—” I begin, but my question dissolves into a startled cry as I’m lifted hundreds of feet above the ground.

Wake up! I strain, trying to push myself out of sleep. Dammit, wake up!

But I can’t. I’m trapped in this nightmare, all my attempts to break free accomplishing nothing.