“There was physical fighting and injuries succumbed to on both sides, but we were determined to win. We were there first and we weren’t going to let Venomstone take us down. It was in our nature to fight to win and that’s what we were doing. But that night I dreamed...she was there fighting with us and then she wasn’t.” His voice broke and he looked down at his hands. “I knew the group she was with and what piece of land they were planning to attack next and I tried to get there. I really did, but there were so many of them from Venomstone and I had to fight them off before I could finally get to her, but when I did—”
He couldn’t finish but it was okay, Ravyn knew the rest. She reached for his hand, holding it in hers, because in all the years she’d needed someone to just hold her hand, there’d been no one. No other parts of their bodies touched, just their hands, and when his fingers closed to grip hers tightly, Ravyn let him hold on.
Long moments later he spoke again. “Her name was Opal and she was a lot like you. Stubborn, tenacious, reckless, fearless.”
“Then she was a queen,” Ravyn said, trying to keep her tone light even though she felt a tremendous weight bearing down on her right now.
Steele chuckled. “Yeah, she was.”
More silence hung between them as the sounds of the night echoed around them. The trees here were very tall and provided something like a canopy over them so that she couldn’t see the sky at all. But they weren’t alone here, she could hear the ominous hooting of owls and a creaking of something she suspected might be a little bigger than a cricket.
“Let me see your eyes,” she said, speaking into the night.
His hand went stiff in hers, but she didn’t let go.
“I know they’re different and I know there’s more to that story you just told me. For whatever reason we’ve been thrown together I’ve got to be okay with it, because there’s nothing I can do about it now. But I want the truth. I’ve never lied to you, so I deserve it.”
And she wouldn’t stand for anything less. Her father had been a mean-spirited, high-handed, brute who never told her anything but how worthless she was. Sitting here with this man, who had somehow touched her in places she’d thought long since closed and locked tight, she was demanding more.
When he turned slightly, she did too and he took her hands, bringing them up to his face, before dropping his to his side. Ravyn let her hands remain still for a few seconds, loving the feel of his warm skin beneath her palm, the soft hairs of his goatee. She turned one hand backward so her knuckles could rub lightly over his cheek and then she gasped when he blinked and his eyes went from brown to orange. The startle was momentary and then her fingers were moving to stroke over his thick brows. The orange glowed so bright it almost seemed painful, but as he’d revealed them she’d noticed his body relaxing as if this were the real him.
On instinct she moved her hands back to his hair, released the long locks from the band he always wore them in. They flowed around his shoulders adding more darkness to be centered by that penetrating orange light.
“What are you?” It was a question she never thought she’d ask anyone or anything.
“I am a Drakon,” he said, his voice dripping with pride. “A Dream Reaper Drakon.”
Of all those words only two were familiar—dream and reaper. And just like that energy had started to fill the memories she’d thought she lost, some things started to click into place.
“The Reaper is hunting me, isn’t he? Or was that her back there? Is that why she has Cree, because she really wants me?” It would be an explanation for why he kept saying he was trying to protect her. Not a great explanation, since she couldn’t forget her father’s words about this being a human’s world. But somewhere in her mind she thought what she’d just said made sense.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, before coming to a stand. She followed, standing a few feet away from him now as he’d turned and took some steps away.
“Yes,” he said and then turned back to her. “I saw you in my dream a few months ago. And I knew I had to save you. That I couldn’t let you die the way Opal had.”
“Why me?” It seemed like such a mundane question. How many people who weren’t where they wanted to be in life, or felt unfair things were always happening to them asked that very same question over and over again?
“As a Dream Reaper do you just hang around in dreams saving people? If so your title’s a huge contradiction.”
He cleared his throat. “My job is to lead the Reaper to whoever is on his list. It’s not something I do every night, just when it’s my turn to find a name on his list. I don’t know how the work is divided amongst other Dream Reapers, if that’s what you’re going to ask me next.”
She wasn’t, but she was accepting all details he was providing tonight. Cree was in danger, she was in the woods with a guy she both wanted to hate and lov... She just needed all the answers, that was all.
“The Reaper only collects souls of those with
