Chapter 2

Wiping wet hair from my eyes, I stood and looked around. A few feet in front of me stood a charcoal mound—a blackened corpse staked upon it. My knees nearly buckled as I remembered the flames, the heat. This was the second part of the wretched dream I kept having.

Dear heavens. I'm back in my nightmare.

Trying to calm the shivers, I wrapped my arms around myself and closed my eyes, thanking the universe for the frost now coursing through my veins. My gaze drifted back to the scorched mass.

While the body perched on the stake held no resemblance to anything human anymore, I knew the body wasn't mine. I'd lived and died in someone else's body.

But whose?

I studied the remains, trying to decipher the meaning of this vision, but nothing made sense. I did not know who the person was—or had been.

As I walked closer, rain began to pellet the earth in large beads, the water rinsing down the aftermath of the morbid death, staining the muddy ground black as coal. I peered up, letting droplets fall on my face as I gaped at the ebony, starless sky blanketing the empty courtyard.

Nothing had changed since the last time I'd dreamt. It was a snapshot of a time long dead—a time when death by fire was a public spectacle. Yet, no souls remained now, only darkness inhabited the homes erected around me. I stood alone; the soft pats of raindrops bouncing off the thatched roofs were my only company.

A bolt of lightning struck, followed by rolling thunder, the rumble making my bones rattle. As the skies lit the courtyard with an electric bluish hue, a cloaked figure materialized in front of me. My gut twisted as I stared at the kneeling individual, his broad shoulders bunching as he looked up at the charred remains.

The sky continued to flash with light while thunder echoed off the mountains in the distance. An ominous prickle crawled over my skin. Something was off about this place.

I swallowed hard and tightened my back. My eyes scanned the surroundings, expecting the images to dissolve or the ground to open and swallow me whole as it always did in these dreams.

But nothing happened.

Thunder cracked again, and the electrified storm briefly illuminated the man's red cloak. He wept with raw emotion, belting a woeful roar that echoed through the damp and dreary landscape.

The sound of his torment cut through my flesh.

As my lips parted to utter words of condolence, his cries ceased as if he'd sensed my presence. Holding my breath, I stood still and silent.

The shadowed figure slowly rose up from his feet, his height towering above me. The menace of his stance impregnated the air around us with a ghastly weight, frosting my skin. With his back to me, he lowered the wet hood from his head, revealing a shoulder-length mane of midnight-colored hair.

"Have you come to mock my misery?" he asked, the whisper of a foreign accent coating his deep voice.

I sucked in a short gasp. I recognized that voice from other dreams.

"There will be no mercy," he warned. "I will kill every single one of these creatures you've been sworn to protect. Her death will not be in vain." Laced with nails, his voice was a calm fury scraping against me with every syllable.

Was he talking to me? And who was this woman he mourned with such sorrow? And why had I relived her death staked upon that mound, suffering the cruelest of punishments?

And him?

In the last five years since I'd left the Winslow Home, this man cloaked in shadows—his face efficient in finding ways to elude me—had haunted my sleep with his voice. I'd found him once in a dream, chained up against a cold stone wall in a dungeon cell. Naked, dirty, half dead. His long black hair had hung over his face, obscuring his features. He'd tormented me with his pleas for justice, his words full of anger and despair, proclaiming he'd been betrayed and dishonored.

And here he was again.

The memory of his sorrow made my chest tighten. I wanted to place a hand on his shoulder, to tell him I was sorry for his pain. And he was so close, all I had to do was extend my arm, but my trembling fingers couldn't find the courage. Still, as drawn as I was to the mystery of him, I distrusted everything about these dreams.

Fighting my instincts to want to comfort this stranger, I watched as his shoulders expanded with every breath he took, wanting, wishing he'd end this stalemate and turn around instead. I prayed he'd finally let me see his face. But I waited, patiently and with resignation, for the instant he'd dissolve into oblivion, leaving me alone once again.

He didn't leave. And I didn't return to my reality. Rain continued to soak us, and my wintry skin beaded with gooseflesh. Every second ticked down in slow motion as I waited. And waited.

I shut my eyes and shuddered. "I can't do this anymore," I said. "Let me see you. Please."

He said nothing as he continued to exhale deep and heavy.

"Tell me who you are," I begged, my voice merely a whisper. "Why do you keep doing this? Invading my thoughts, my dreams? Making me follow you through the shadows of your pain and anger only to disappear without a single explanation?"

More silence.

A weight settled over my heart, pressing hard like a boulder, making each inhale a labored task. He wouldn't turn around. Wouldn't speak. Choosing to torture me instead with his luring yet distant presence, making me want to know more, needing to know why he'd picked me.

And I was convinced it was him, a man of bone and flesh and not a figment of my imagination. I knew as I knew my blood ran hot through my veins that he existed out there in the ether.

I couldn't explain it, but I didn't need to.

"Your voice. Your scent. Your breath," I said, clenching my fists. "It all haunts me. You haunt me. Do you hear me?"

More silence.

"Answer me, damn you," I gritted, losing patience with these damn visions. I waited for a reaction, but he still didn't answer. "I know you're real. I know you want me to see you, so just show yourself."

His continued silence wrecked me.

I paced, trying to calm my anger, not wanting to shed any more grief for this man, this illusion. This being I had no reason to want—or need—to know.

But I gave up on caution, and turning to face him, I took a step forward. "Show yourself, dammit. End this fucking game!"

He spun around in a flash, the shriek of scraping metal as he unsheathed his sword from his scabbard sliced through my core, causing me to lurch back. He pointed the tip of his weapon right at my bare throat as he pierced me with the heated stare of his sapphire-colored eyes.

Heavens above. Those eyes.

There was a sharp blade less than a centimeter from my jugular vein, yet the blood there pulsed with excitement rather than fear.

Tears of blood spilled at the corners of those enchanting eyes, staining his prominent cheeks red with the painful affirmation of his sorrow. I was afraid to breathe, to move. He looked inhuman. Beautiful, brutally stunning in the most frightening way. As if I was standing before a divine being, an angel. He did not wipe the blood as it streaked down his face.

He lowered his weapon, cautiously, as if gauging my intentions. But as I took a step forward again, he snarled in calculated warning, baring his teeth.

No, not teeth. Something far deadlier. A warning that his sword was not his only weapon. My mind told me what they were, what he was, but I refused to accept it even though deep down I'd always known. And yet, against my survival instinct, against every fiber in my body screaming at me to run away, I wanted to run to him.

Heart racing, I stepped forward again, but the anger swimming from his body washed over me in a torrent of emotion, rooting me in place. The fury in his eyes reminded me of a predator protecting its kill.

The man seethed, eyes transforming in front of me, red veins branching out over his sclera until both eyes flooded entirely with the crimson stain of his blood, completely blotting out the sapphire blue.

I'd not been ready, not for the wicked fear spurred by the sight of his transformed face—that unblemished pale white skin as if carved from the finest alabaster morphed from one belonging to a divine being to one made for the devil himself.

With eyes locked on me, he growled, "Stand back, brother. You will not deny me the proper burial of my mate."

I blinked.

Brother? Mate?

"I've come in peace, Azrael," a man replied behind me.

I turned to look at the other man, and a wall of armor almost knocked me over. He stood inches behind me, his shaggy, golden hair stained dark with rainwater clung to his face, dripping wet. Towering over six feet tall, his presence felt like an impending force.

There was no mistaking who he was. I'd seen him in my visions countless times.

Kane.

A snarl drew my attention, and I turned to look back at my dark angel.

"Azrael…" I repeated the word, his name, in a whisper, tasting it, savoring the sweetness it left on my tongue. I couldn't believe it. Seeing his face—knowing his name—felt euphoric. I wanted to touch him, to feel the heat of his skin. He snarled again, those sharp and elongated fangs making my heart squeeze and my limbs tremble.

"Alas, I cannot let you take her," Kane continued, his deep voice resonating in my chest, snapping me out of my daze. Repressed emotion was evident in the even-keel-tone of his voice. "She belongs with her coven. Her people will see to it she is given proper rites and is buried amongst her ancestors."

Azrael's eyes darkened. "Her coven will see to it she is desecrated. I will never allow it. You owe me this much, brother. For letting them butcher her like this."

"I cannot stand between the witches and their doctrines. You know I cannot break the covenant."

"But you can assist them in their crimes," Azrael quipped.

She'd been a witch? A knot twisted in my core. What did all this mean? Why these damn dreams and visions? I walked between the two men, walked around them. They continued to stare each other down, oblivious to my presence. I stepped to the side, my head swiveling back and forth between them, tracking their conversation.

Kane pointed a steel-plated, gauntleted finger in the direction of the pile of blackened flesh. "That woman…" he uttered, his voice choked with grief, "committed crimes against her people and against ours. She paid with her life. The sentence for treason."

Azrael curled a lip and huffed an unamused chuckle. "Treason against your heart, you mean."

"Enough, brother. I did not come here to hash over our grievances," the blond knight said, gazing into the distance. The rain had finally stopped, and the purples and reds of the morning rays branched above the horizon. "Take her now. The witches will be here at sunrise to collect her body. If they find you, they will seize you. Without the protection of the night, you will be vulnerable to their craft."

Azrael's eyes narrowed as his stance widened, one foot slightly further back, his shoulders bunched, seeming to posture for an attack. "Why do you grant me this mercy?"

Kane faced his brother, a hand reaching for the sword at his side, fingers slowly wrapping around the elaborate hilt. His gaze hardened, voice harsh as he addressed his brother's threat, "Careful, Az. Do not mistake my leniency for weakness. You will be brought to justice, but I will be the one to bring you to heel."

Azrael sneered. "Because of your brotherly love, eh?"

Kane stiffened before he said the next words, eyes shuttering, gaze lifting to the burned witch. "No, brother. Because I lovedher."

There was no explanation for the tightness that built around my heart at the mention of his love for the burned witch. In every vision where I'd seen him, there had been only one time I'd seen him with a woman, but I never saw her face. Could that have been the witch burned at the stake?

As the dawn awakened, my attention shot to the sky where the heavens fractured like cracked glass. Shards fell in slow motion to the earth, and a strong wind began to blow, swirling, howling.

Swallowed by the churning sea of air, I held my breath until there was nothing left of this world, and I was back in my black-and-white checkered bathroom. Standing. Staring at my mirror. Face dripping wet. Everything as I'd left it. Nothing had changed.

Except everything had.

Transported to that other world, I'd finally set my eyes on the man whose mystery had tormented me for years. And he was the most otherworldly, dazzling, hair-raising monster I'd seen in my whole existence.