Chapter 1

1

T he dream that is not a dream drags me under like a cold, black sea.

Cautiously, I creep down an obsidian tunnel. Broken glass crunches beneath my bare feet, making each step painful. No matter how gingerly I ease my toes forward, ground glass and broken shards cut into my soles.

The smell of my own blood torments me, filling my mouth with saliva. My stomach cramps with hunger, a gnawing fist of emptiness. Here, in this place, it's not unnatural or surprising that I want blood. So much blood. Enough to bathe in it. Choke on it. Drink it down until I can't hold any more.

The more I bleed, the more maddening my hunger becomes. A raging fire that will never be satisfied. Even by him .

I've been here before. I know he waits in the depths of darkness. It's the only reason I keep inching forward despite the pain in my sliced feet. I have to reach him. I burn to feel his flesh against mine. His blood filling my mouth, spreading a killing frost through my body that will slake this brutal thirst for a short while. A day. A week. I'm not sure.

Time no longer has any meaning. Not in the hellscape my life has become.

His voice rumbles in my head, a whispered menace spreading like spilled ink through my mind.

I wake. For you.

I live. For you.

I breathe again. For you.

Yet you're not here. You're not with me.

You wake me to unending torment, and you're not here! Where the fuck are you?

His voice rises to a bone-shattering roar. My temples throb and my knees buckle, making me stagger. Automatically, I reach out to catch myself against the tunnel wall.

Agony tears across my palm. Obsidian razors slicing to the bone.

Breathing shakily, I cradle my injured hand to my chest. Blood drips down my breasts and stomach but the only pain I feel is in my face. My head is hollowed out, ringing with his fury. My mouth, throbbing in beat with my heart. This thirst. It drives me forward. Crying. Dripping blood. Limping. I can't stop.

Not until I reach him. Not until he?—

The tunnel quivers beneath my feet. Shards of glass tinkle like jagged rain all around me, nicking my tender skin. His rage rocks the very foundations of the world. A wall of icy blackness bars him from me. A boundary he can't cross into the world beyond. Not without me. He beats bloody fists against the impenetrable glassy stone, unable to escape. Even as he destroys my only path to him.

Fissures spread in the obsidian floor. The tunnel trembles and shifts as if it's loosening from its anchors. Heedless of the shards slicing my feet, I throw myself forward. Leaping over deepening cracks. Scrambling and clawing through piles of shattered glass. I don't think an inch of my body remains unscathed, but I'm so close now. I can almost taste the crystalline darkness of his blood. In this dream, that doesn't seem strange or terrible.

With one last leap, I stand before a towering black mirror on a thin, narrow ledge. Darkness ripples across the surface, hints of the formidable creature on the other side. I'm not sure of his form. Yes, he can be a man—but I sense that's not his natural shape, merely a courtesy. Something my fragile mind can comprehend.

I press my injured palm against the black rock, smearing it with my blood. The glassy mirror that even he can't break melts like a candle tossed in a bonfire. Giant hands lock on me, his fingers denting my skin, grinding tendons against my bones. Pulling me through… something. A great distance even though it only takes seconds. My ears roar with the sound of moaning winds across a barren, ghostly plain. For a moment, everything is gray. The sky. The ground. Even my skin. My outstretched arms look like gnarled, withered bones.

Finally, I'm in his arms, pressed to his chest. His heart thunders against my ear, his arms squeezing me fiercely as if he intends to pull me inside his body and keep me curled up around the now-beating organ for all time.

His heart beats for me.

So he's… dead. Unless I'm here?

My senses are assailed on all sides. All-consuming darkness, thick and black. I can't see anything. Silky velvet curls around me, almost like fur. A dreamy scent fills my nose, decadent flowers, beautiful but deadly. Belladonna. Opium. Earthy. The only way I can describe it is sex on black silk sheets covered in soft, delicate flowers that might kill you.

Underneath the floral scent, I catch a trace of something raw and feral. The hair on my nape prickles with alarm. But I feel heated skin beneath my palms, slabs of muscle moving against me, not some kind of animal.

Blindly, I reach up, sliding my hands along the curve of his chest, trying to find his throat. His mouth. A high-pitched sound shrills in my skull, an annoying, insistent buzz. Even though I'm touching him, I can't hear his voice.

His heart pounds louder, a steady timpani drum. But my heart stutters, shaking and fluttering like a trapped, dying bird.

My senses fade. My arms fall limply, my head sagging.

He lives.

So I die.

My skull feels like an empty eggshell, dented and cracked. Barely held together. I can't get my thoughts to come together, as if my brain is completely disconnected from my body.

His fingers grip my face. My jaw feels like it'll pop off in his hand. Something fills my mouth and drips down my chin. Molten ice, thick and slushy and bracingly cold. My teeth throb so hard that nerves ripple all the way down my spine.

He wraps his palm around my throat. Squeezing. I can't breathe, but it doesn't matter. I'm already dying. Long strokes of his fingers, his thumb pressing against where my pulse should be. His mouth at my ear. His breath so hot compared to the icy slush in my mouth. He must be whispering to me, but I can't hear him.

Cold spreads through me. My body feels paper thin, light and insubstantial. A dried-up flower blowing away with the first gust of winter. Everything spirals downward. Inward. Dwindling to a pinprick. A single grain of sand against the expanse of the universe. Cold and empty and dark, devoid of a single star.

The last star is inside me. Slowly blinking out. Flickering. Dimming.

My heart stills.

Straining, I focus all my will. The last of my strength. All I must do…

One last spasm. I can do it.

My throat convulses in his hand.

The cold slush in my mouth flash freezes through my body. My veins crackle and snap beneath the brutal cold. Pulverizing my organs. Grinding my bones. Quaking and spasming, I'm unable to control my muscles. Everything hurts—but at least I can feel.

I can hear.

"Feed, my love. Drink until the Elysium Fields bloom once more."