34. Wade

34

WADE

1 4 Days After the Ritual

"Fucking finally." I exhaled in relief when I saw Max.

She was asleep, her brows pinched slightly and her skin, paler than usual, was covered in a soft sheen. Every few minutes, her muscles would spasm, limbs contorting awkwardly, like she was battling something—or someone—in sleep. While her expression in the physical realm was one of peace, here she seemed almost pained, like she was fighting off some sort of psychic pain. A final boss that only she could see.

For some reason, I couldn't seem to do anything. I hovered over her, unable to move, unable to wield my usual dream-walking powers.

It was fucking tormenting. To do nothing but watch her.

I reached towards her, desperate to ease the furrow in her brow or press her hair, slicked with sweat across her forehead, back behind her ear. But I was limbless here. I might as well not have a body at all. I just observed, awkwardly, uselessly.

As annoying as it was, I was just glad to actually reach her, however limited that reach was.

After the ritual, we'd all been knocked out—all of us who'd linked to her, anyway, which was almost everyone nearby. Some of us were out longer than others.

The rest of Six and I woke up after about a week, from what we were able to gather. And we'd been slowly recovering since.

My body ached in a way I'd never felt before, and none of us had been able to access or use Max's powers. We couldn't even feel the bond, an absence that fucking terrified me every time I tried to reach for the familiar warmth—a terror that could only be quelled by pressing my fingers to her pulse, feeling the slow beat.

She was alive, but it was like she'd been locked off from us all, a protective cocoon around her as her body healed.

Because she would heal.

She'd wake up.

Eventually.

She had to.

It took me several days just to work up enough strength to dream-walk, which was strange, because dream-walking was how I often regenerated my power. But even then, I couldn't reach her right away. I wasn't sure why. Reaching for her was like trying to reach across the ocean, with only my arms to stretch. Instead, I'd focused on dream-walking to Dec, then Eli, but I could only hold the dreamscape for a few minutes at a time, like trying to hold water in the palm of my hand, the tenuous threads slipping through the cracks of my fingers.

Until today.

She was here.

And while I'd never experienced a dreamscape quite like this one, unable to control a damn thing—including my own body—it was a start.

17 Days After the Ritual

I pushed the disappointment away at being stuck to the ceiling again, a frozen blob that just had to float here and watch the girl I loved contort in pain, unable to rescue her from it.

She was never one to be rescued though, always the one to do the rescuing.

My last dream-walk to her had cost me. I'd woken up drained, more tired than I'd been before, and unable to reach for her again immediately. I was determined to get stronger, to stay longer, to bring her back or lend her my energy—whatever it took to have her awake and with us again.

She whimpered, and my stomach flipped at the noise.

I fought again to reach for her, but I didn't achieve anything. It was like she was in a glass case—a mental version of The Guild's cells—and I didn't have the necessary skills or tools to break through.

Yet.

"It worked," I said, my pulse thrumming against my skin when she twitched at the sound of my voice. It was slight, maybe even a figment of my imagination, but I clung to that small response with everything I had. "We think it worked anyway, we aren't really sure."

There wasn't any way to really verify if we'd dissolved the realms or stabilized them or what. Surviving the apocalypse hadn't come with an instruction manual, unfortunately. And when the ritual was completed, we'd all been unconscious. There weren't any buzzing neon signs hovering above The Lodge declaring the world saved, the final boss defeated .

"Your uncle," I said, excitement flooding me at the prospect of delivering good news for once, on the off chance she could hear and understand me, "he woke up. He was actually the first one. I think something you did unlocked whatever hold the anchor magic had on him." Saif didn't look exactly refreshed. He was weak, and seemed to have aged during his slumber, like the power had drained some of his youth. But he was alive, and seemed unbothered by the cost his body had paid. "He's actually the one who helped get us all inside—after, well, whatever happened, happened. Everyone else is awake now?—"

I let the rest of the sentence drift off.

Everyone else except for her.

The edges of the dream blurred, and as hard as I fought to stay here with her, the world dissolved around me.

19 Days After the Ritual

"Some more good news. I think Seamus is better. We're trying not to get ahead of ourselves and call it a cure just yet, but the blood that Darius collected—not sure if you remember, you were kind of—" possessed by a boiling rage that I'd never seen the likes of before, "out of it that day, but he had an idea. A good one. He collected some of Jarrod's blood on a hunch, after?—"

I held my breath, waiting with desperation for some kind of reaction, for the flutter behind her eyelids to grow strong enough to part them. Each day that passed when she didn't wake up was like living through a never-ending nightmare.

It wasn't fair that she wasn't there to celebrate with us. And we couldn't bring ourselves to enjoy the win without her.

All I could do in the meantime was talk to her as if she were awake, will it strong enough into reality that one day soon, it would be.

"Well, I guess we never filled you in on all the details of that meeting," I winced, remembering the flare of anger that seemed to pulse from her every pore, amplified by her fear about what might happen to Dec and Rowan in Jarrod's custody. "Sorry about that again, by the way. We shouldn't have gone behind your back, we shouldn't have met with The Guild. If we hadn't, maybe Dec, your home—" I shook my head, my mouth going dry at the thought of all those people, that entire town, dead, because of Jarrod's power complex. "But then, at the same time, that's the whole reason we knew where to find Dec, where to find Jarrod, and the stone."

I sighed, then pinched the bridge of my nose. "Sorry, I'm really shit at this one-sided conversation thing. I miss talking to you." I missed closing my eyes each night and creating entire worlds in our dreams together. It was our place, our thing. It was lonely now, confusing without her here with me. Really here.

"Anyway, where was I?" I lingered in silence for a moment, trying to collect my thoughts. I didn't have full control of them, it was like this dream was only partially lucid, the world not entirely my own. I was simply a traveler here, stopping by.

"Right, the blood. Nika—do you remember Nika?" I shook my head, grunting. "Of course you do, she's maybe the first vampire we've met who's even more unhinged than Darius."

I pictured Max rolling her eyes at that, a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth in reluctant amusement.

Fuck, I missed her.

"Well, I guess not anymore. That day, she attacked Xavier, drained him. And she's been better. More like herself. According to Nash and Claude, I mean. I obviously had nothing to compare it to. Anyway, Darius had a hunch and it paid off, for once. "

I grunted at the memory of his smug face when he realized it.

Nash was too shocked, too excited to have his sister back—well, mostly back—that he didn't even give Darius shit for his arrogance.

The animosity between them had been slowly dissolving since, not entirely gone, but I was no longer concerned that Nash would try and covertly kill our vampire in the middle of the night.

Dec still locked the door as an added caution, just in case. Not that a locked door would keep a vampire out if he wanted inside. Love made people irrational though.

"Darius collected Jarrod's blood," I continued, "and now Seamus is…not entirely back to his old self, but he's close. He's better. He doesn't even need to be chained up anymore."

I laughed, but it sounded flat, even to me. "Darius even has a board that he's keeping track of his progress on. Right now it says something like ‘18 days since Seamus has tried to eat someone.' So, yeah, your vampire is still as ridiculous as always. He misses you too. We all do."

In truth, I was fairly certain that Darius would start killing everyone around the site, just because they had the audacity to wake up before Max, if she didn't come to soon.

He wasn't exactly well known for his restraint.

Max's head tilted slightly, a loose strand of hair sliding off her cheek.

Was there more color there than I'd remembered? Her skin was still tacky with sweat, but her body didn't seem quite as tense as it had on that first day.

Was I imagining it? Was I so desperate to see improvement that my brain had started fabricating its own reality altogether?

Eager that this was working, I pushed on. "Seamus and Darius have taken an antagonistic liking to each other. I think Darius is just milking the fact that someone other than him has experienced blood lust in the family."

22 Days After the Ritual

"Max, you have to wake up. Please."

She looked more at peace now, like she did in the real world. Like this sleep was nothing but a typical rest, even though it had been almost a month.

There'd been no improvements, no changes in her awareness. But physically, she seemed fine.

Izzy, Ro, and the others in the med ward couldn't figure out why she wasn't waking up.

Something about her peaceful expression here scared me though. Before, it seemed like she was fighting something.

Had she just given up?

What would happen to her if she had?

Would she be resigned to this sleeping world forever, until her body withered away?

"We miss you. I miss you—" my voice hitched, my eyes blurring her slightly out of focus as I fought the wave of grief back. "Things are different. We don't have much access to information out here to confirm anything, but electricity has been out for the most part, phone service is fucked, and the world just feels…strange. Claude, and some of the others left a few days ago. They wanted to get back home, to check on things. See if this is happening everywhere or just—here. There've been a few earthquakes, some weird weather. Charlie is pushing for us to head somewhere else, to find another location and set up a space there, in case the ritual upset some tenuous balance here. We need to get a better grasp of what's going on. "

But we didn't want to leave. Didn't want to move her. Taking her from this place felt wrong somehow, like she was tied to it in some fundamental way. Like the power in the atmosphere might help push her back to us.

I swallowed, unsure how much to reveal. I didn't know much, had no clue what the world would look like when she opened her eyes again. Maybe it was better to focus on the positives, in case she could understand me?

"Izzy and Ro are doing well. Ralph too." I knew she'd want to know about the others, about Samael and Lucifer. But when we awoke, they were gone. We had no idea if they were dead or alive.

Same with Levi. No one had seen him.

Eli swore that he wasn't worried about his brother, insisted that he'd probably woken up and left to get a fresh start, away from this mess. But I knew him well enough to know that it was bullshit. He just couldn't split his concern right now, his sanity wouldn't allow him.

Right now, Max was the only thing we could collectively focus on.

"I'm going to try dream-walking with one of the others next time, see if I can bring them here. I'm getting stronger, slowly. I think I might be able to. Darius and Atlas seem to have a secret battle going on between them. It's called ‘who can be the biggest prick.'"

Honestly, they were pretty evenly matched.

"They lash out at anyone who goes near your door." I grinned. "You should've heard Izzy cuss them out though. Pretty sure she would've attacked them both, but Ro grabbed her and held her back in time. They eventually let her in to see you. Ralph too. The hellhound hasn't left the floor next to your bed. Dec tried to coax him into a game of fetch a few days ago, but he wouldn't even acknowledge that red ball of his that he's always carrying around. "

We were getting kind of worried about him, truth be told. I had no idea what hellhounds required to survive, but he hadn't been eating or drinking or showing much interest in anything.

"And Dec and Eli," I sighed, "they haven't left the cabin for more than a few minutes at a time either. We've just been taking turns, lying next to you. Darius and Rowan dragged in some extra mattresses so that none of us have to sleep anywhere else.

"We're all here with you. I hope that you can feel us. That you don't feel alone, wherever you are." I closed my eyes, wanting so desperately to hold her, to see the familiar spark in her eyes when she looked at me. "Please, Max. Please wake up."

Two Months After the Ritual

My head was on a familiar pillow. Max's chest rose in slow breaths before descending again.

I pressed my hand against her skin, basking in the warmth.

Usually, in dream-walks, I pulled energy from Max. We always had a balanced relationship of give and take in these dreams, but now I fought desperately to drain my power, for her to pull as much as she needed.

Even if it killed me.

Sometimes, I swore I felt her draw from me, especially when I held her hand, her fingers curling around mine once or twice, but it was always too subtle for me to know whether it really happened or if I just wanted it so badly that I simply thought it did. While I woke up exhausted every day, I had no way of knowing if that had more to do with the fact that I hadn't used my incubus powers to feed in months or if she really was pulling some of my energy .

The bed she was on now was large, comfortable; the room bright and warm, but small, a near copy of her bedroom from the cabin. I figured if she could choose any place in the world to sleep, it would be there. Bouquets of impossibly large flowers were arranged in every nook and corner, her favorite books in haphazard stacks, just like she preferred them, all of them just waiting to be read. The walls were covered with posters and messages the others had begged me to transcribe and surround her with.

I had no idea if she could sense the warmth and love encasing her while she slept, but it made them feel a little better at least when I described it each morning, took their input, and made the dreamscape better the next night. It gave them a sense of purpose, maybe, when they spent most of their days feeling useless.

To me, it mostly felt like I was visiting the inside of a shrine every time I went to sleep.

Despite trying almost every night, I couldn't bring any of them with me in the dream-walk. All it did was drain me too much to reach her at all. Traveling with others was something that always worked best when I was with Max anyway, with her power, her strength amplifying my own.

Two weeks ago, I woke up next to her, no longer hovering above like an observer of the dream. I could shape the room into whatever I wanted, like I was usually able to do. And so I'd shaped it into this.

But she was still always asleep and, save for the few times when I could have sworn she'd sensed my presence, my voice, she remained largely unresponsive.

At first, I'd taken my new agency in the dream as a sign of improvement, that she was getting stronger, but as time went on, I worried it was more so a sign of my own strength returning than hers .

We'd moved out of The Lodge a month ago in an attempt to avoid the chaos and uncertainty around the grounds. Things had grown more dire, more unpredictable. What had once been a place of comfort was now drained of all the things that made it home.

Instead, we hoped that finding Max somewhere quiet and safe to rest would help speed along the process.

None of us would lend voice to the fear that we all felt.

That Max would be lost in her dream world forever.

That what she'd been through was too much to recover from, just as Lucifer thought it would be.

That we'd collectively lent her just enough power to keep her alive, but not enough to live.

That by interfering with the ritual, we'd unintentionally trapped her inside of herself, a fate worse, maybe, than even death.

Aside from me, no one else really slept much these days. The only reason I did was because I knew I could see her in my dreams, that each time I closed my eyes, there'd be a chance she'd be awake on the other side, waiting for me.

Exhaustion was destroying us though. Instead of sleeping, the team oscillated between finding random projects to keep them busy and bickering with each other, picking fights whenever one of us sank too far into grief or began to lose hope. Usually, it worked well enough to distract us back from that cliff, but not always.

Ro and Izzy helped when they could, neither interested in letting us leave their sights until Max was awake.

I'd merely suggested once that they go meet up with Arnell and the others, promising that we'd find them when she woke up.

They nearly took my head off before the suggestion fully left my lips .

I hadn't mentioned abandoning our weird little purgatory again after that.

A few weeks ago, Ro and Dec came up with a plan for a new project, one that breathed new life into the group, kept us busy most of the time, all of us trading between watching over our girl and helping out.

Honestly, having somewhere to filter all of this fear and anxious energy had been a fucking godsend.

It required that we move again, but we didn't have to go too far this time, and we didn't run into too many other people in the process.

The ritual seemed to have worked, we were growing more certain of it every day.

But the world was transforming around us as a result, uncertainty at every corner.

We weren't willing to risk exploring things properly until Max was safe and herself again.

Darius created a new sign with "X amount of days since Atlas has threatened to murder someone," a few weeks ago, and we'd finally made it to a record we were all proud of—two.

But like most temporary reprieves, that burst of hope and possibility slowly began to sizzle out.

Most nights now, I didn't say too much when I dream-walked here. There wasn't exactly a surplus of good news to share. There wasn't much news at all, really, and I didn't want to fill her unconscious thoughts with our concerns for her, with the depths of our grief.

Instead, I just held her, savoring the feel of her skin against mine, the gentle thrum of her pulse, my lips pressed to the side of her head, whispering over and over again how much I loved her.

How much we all loved her .

3 Months After the Ritual

We abandoned the project. We'd finished it first, but it grew too painful to think about not getting to share it with her.

And without Max there to enjoy the final product, it was pointless.

About a week ago, we collectively decided that the best thing we could do was go find the others. That when Max woke up, she'd want to be surrounded by the community she'd sacrificed so much for—the community that sacrificed so much for her in return.

We still couldn't teleport, and I was beginning to wonder if we'd ever have access to Max's powers again, even when she did wake up.

When I let myself think about why we couldn't reach them, what that might mean, I'd lose myself to a dark place I devoted most of my waking hours to staying out of.

Phone service was spotty these days, but luckily, Arnell knew where we'd been living and came by to check on Ro.

That night, we decided to go back with him, since we were no longer hopeful about the idea of staying in a current spot. We found a couple of vans that were working reliably enough nearby and made the trip to a small campsite they'd been living in, only an hour drive or so from The Lodge.

They'd built it out quite a bit during their time here, and while it didn't have the same charm or inspire the same feeling of home that the original Lodge always had, it was nice enough. Impressive, really, considering everything.

Seeing everyone infused my team with a renewed sense of purpose, of hope, too, which was a nice bonus.

Our friends were alive and, all things considered, thriving as best as could be expected.

While Saif and Seamus weren't happy about the fact that we'd taken off in the middle of the night, instead of following everyone here in the first place or bringing them with us, they were so glad to have us back that any lingering anger dissolved into relief almost instantly.

They'd also developed a strange friendship, equal parts bickering and stubborn silence, and I rarely found one without the other.

I wanted so desperately for Max to see this new location they'd carved out in our absence.

It was different from The Lodge, sure, but with everyone here, together, it was almost as good as before.

Almost.

3 Months, Five Days After the Ritual

When I woke up in the now-nightly dream-walk, I pressed my face into the curve of her neck, breathing her in.

It was silly, maybe, since she didn't feel or smell any different in this world than she did in the waking one, but here, Max was just mine, and any lingering anxieties I had during the daylight hours quieted, at least partially.

I took a deep breath, hugging her to me, then exhaled slowly, like each breath out risked pushing her further away from me.

She shifted in my arms and I froze.

I was too afraid to break the moment, convinced suddenly that this wasn't our usual dream-walk but just a general, run-of-the-mill dream—one that existed in my head and nowhere else.

This time when I exhaled, she squirmed, as if my breath tickled her, the movement too obvious now to be only in my imagination .

Hesitantly, reluctantly, I pulled my face away from her.

This was the exact room of our dream-walk. I'd carefully arranged all of the usual things on the walls. No regular, run-of-the-mill dream, then. I had agency here.

Max shifted slightly, then turned her face towards mine.

Her lips parted into a soft smile as she stretched, her arms shifting until they wrapped around my neck.

I didn't move, didn't breathe, terrified I'd break the spell.

Slowly, as if she thought the room might be brighter than she was ready for, she fluttered her eyelids open, her smile widening as her eyes found mine. "Wade."

My name was raspy and warm on her tongue.

I stared at her, lost for words.

Her brows pinched and she laughed. The sound, soft and cracking with sleep, stole the breath from my lungs. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

My fingers tightened around her, pulling her closer to me, like they too needed confirmation that I hadn't.

Still, I couldn't say anything.

Her hand slid to my cheek, where I knew there was more stubble than she was used to seeing on me, her thumb stroking in soft, slow circles that skimmed the corner of my lips.

Her touch was featherlight and I groaned at the sensation, like my body had forgotten how good it felt to be under her touch, how desperately perfect she was.

"New look?" she asked, brow arching as she studied me for a long, drawn moment. "I like it. Suits you." She pressed her thumb into the furrow of my brows, gently rubbing it out. "Though a bit serious."

She closed her eyes for a moment, and a flare of panic flooded me—that I'd imagined it all, that she was asleep again, that the last few seconds had been nothing but the ruminations of a desperate man clawing onto the last vestiges of his sanity.

But then she opened them again, and when she did, the comfortable cotton pajama set she'd been wearing was replaced with my favorite black silk shorts and bra.

"Better?" She asked, eyes sparkling with a teasing glow. As if this were just a simple game, one of our usual dream-walks.

We'd often spend the first few minutes of these dreams crafting new scenes, new clothes, each trying to outlast the other in the budding tension that became impossible to resist whenever we were together here.

I opened my mouth, fighting to find words, but none came.

Unconcerned, she pressed her lips to mine and kissed me, her leg sliding between mine until we were tangled and close.

My heart beat ragged and hopeful against my chest, desperately trying to get to hers.

Her power flared against me, a hunger and need I hadn't experienced in months pumping through my veins, hot and impatient.

She slid her tongue between my lips, and I was hard the moment it touched mine, deepening the kiss.

I pressed her to me, a satisfied groan building in my chest when she gasped, her hips rolling so that she could feel the already-rigid outline of my dick.

Heat flooded me as she dug her nails into my back, riding against me.

Her energy flared against mine, and mine responded in kind—ravenous, desperate.

It took everything I had to keep from pulling energy from her, to resist as it plowed against me, demanding entrance and our usual play, our usual exchange.

I froze, fought as hard as I could not to kiss her, not to take this any further. She'd been gone for months, I didn't want to steal whatever strength she'd managed to conjure in that time.

Sensing something was off, she pulled back, her expression hurt, like she'd taken my reticence as rejection. "What's wrong? "

My throat ached at the sight of her.

Here. Awake. Alive.

"You've been asleep."

"Well," the corner of her mouth twitched into a grin, "yeah. That is the nature of a dream-walk. The one requirement, some might say."

"No," I held her face in my palms, my eyes devouring the sight of her. "You've been asleep since the ritual. It's been months."

Confusion painted across her face. "Months?"

I nodded, the pad of my thumb pressing against her full bottom lip of its own accord, until her mouth parted for me.

I couldn't resist her here. I never could.

As if pulled by the same thread, she sucked the tip of my thumb between her lips, tasting me, her eyes closed in ecstasy.

Her power grew stronger, and I felt it lick against my skin, my body half-convinced it was my dick she had in her mouth, not my finger.

"Everyone's okay?" she asked, her tongue sweeping over my finger, drawing it fully into her mouth again.

A strangled sound pulled from my throat, as I nodded. "Yes. Mostly."

"Good. In that case," her breathing was ragged now as she kissed the palm of my hand, nipped the pulse point at my wrist, her thigh rubbing seductively against my dick, "let's discuss the details later, if that works for you? I feel like I'm going to explode if I resist you for another second."

Resist? This was what she called resisting? I was on the edge of coming just from the feel of her leg against me.

That desperate, strangled sound again was the only response I had for her.

She understood though, and pressed her mouth to mine, teeth and tongues tangling as she slid her hand down my pants. Her thumb pressed over the bead of pre-cum as she rubbed it into the ridge of my dick.

"Fuck," she whimpered, into my mouth, her breath hot and addictive, "I'm drenched. Now, Wade. I need you now."

Her words nearly undid me, and I used all of my strength to keep from busting in my pants.

With hurried hands, far less graceful than I was used to in these dreams, I shoved my sweatpants and boxers down. But I didn't have the restraint necessary to do the same for her.

Instead, sliding the loose, flimsy silk of her absurdly short shorts to the side, I shoved inside of her, choking on a gasp as her warmth enveloped me.

She moaned into my mouth, her kiss growing more urgent and fired as her hips met mine, thrust for thrust.

"Gods, I love you," she whispered, letting me swallow the words whole as she climbed towards her edge and I fought desperately not to fall over it first.

Delicious tension lined every muscle of my body as she pulled from me, my power clumsy and straining in its desperation to feed her own.

"Love isn't a strong enough word for how I feel about you." I pressed my tongue, my teeth, to the spots I'd memorized along her neck, knowing exactly where, and how, to pull those intoxicating sounds from her throat.

She clenched around me, her teeth and nails digging into my flesh, piercing my skin in a way that only amplified my pleasure.

"I'm close," I warned, as I pumped into her, fighting to hold back.

"Good," she said, the word more gasp than anything as she rode me. "Come for me, Wade."

I rutted into her, one more thrust, and exploded, relishing the sound of her own orgasm as her body tightened around mine, the evidence of our lust wet along her thighs .

My breathing was erratic, my heart pumping frantically, as I held her to me, feeling whole for the first time in months.

Unable to form words, I pressed a kiss to her forehead, my head buzzing and vision blurring from the force of my orgasm.

She smiled against me before playfully biting my chest. The jolt of ecstasy had me vowing right then and there to tattoo the imprints of her teeth there the moment I woke up. "Don't go sleepy on me now, Wade, that was only round one."