Pulling back, I panted. “I need help out of these wet clothes.”
His eyes blazed as his hand came up to help me strip off my top and then unclasp my bra. As my breasts freed, his head dipped down to take my nipple into his mouth, and heat rushed through me, causing me to moan. The world was going to hell, but life was too short not to get laid when you could. As his hands slipped down my pants, I smirked. This was totally something Maxine would do. I could officially check having sex in the Dream War off my bucket list.
After we’d fully enjoyed ourselves, I rifled through my pack and changed into dry clothes. Condoms weren’t exactly plentiful in the Dream War, but I was on birth control and we’d had “the talk” and were both clean from STDs. The pull-out method wasn’t exactly foolproof, but with my birth control I trusted it.
“How does your face feel?” Damien examined my cheeks, pulling out a water bottle and snacks for us both. He was shirtless and I was enjoying the view.
I shrugged. “It hurts, but I’ve had worse.”
He chuckled. “You’re badass, freckles, you know that?”
I scrunched my nose. “Maybe a little.” I winked and we both laughed.
As he pulled his shirt over his head, I heard someone approaching the den.
“Knock-knock,” Ronnie’s voice called out.
I quickly looked for any lingering signs of our sex session and then peeled the curtain aside to greet her.
“Hey, Doc,” I welcomed my bestie, making sure to give a good scowl at the psychotic cat chilling in the sling around her neck.
“You two better learn to love each other,” she scolded me, gesturing to Lucy.
“Whatever. What’s up?”
Ronnie held out a packet of pills. “The special birthing pool took care of the breeder poison, but you could still get an infection, so I want you to take a course of antibiotics.”
I nodded, popping out one of the pills. She cleared her throat. “And I just have to remind you that antibiotics can reduce the effectiveness of birth control.”
Fuck. I’d forgotten that little horrible side effect of antibiotics. Aww, you’re sick? Let’s make you more susceptible to having a baby.
I glanced at Damien, but he didn’t look as horrified as I felt. He just… shrugged, like having a kid in this shithole wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
Before I could process that, it started to rain.
Big, fat, dark blue droplets fell onto Ronnie’s arms and my own.
It never rained in the Dream Wars.
For a second I was too stunned to do anything.
Blue rain?
Then I felt the burning… and all hell broke loose.
Galadrias took to the skies in panicked screeching; younglings were crying out for their mothers.
Ronnie the trauma surgeon was eerily calm when she grabbed both sides of my shoulders.
“Open the biggest god damn portal you’ve ever seen. It’s acid rain.”
Acid rain.
The breeders were trying to take out Skyhome.
Oh hell no.
I spun, Damien throwing the sleeping bag over me as I started to calm my breathing and open a portal. I’d never felt so much pressure in my life. The high pitched sounds of the little younglings screaming in pain was tearing into my soul.
“Do not panic!” Ronnie yelled.
‘Don’t panic…’ I filtered through to Dawn, where she was and knew that with the hive mind they would all get it.
“Kit will open a portal to our world and you will escape there for a short time while we figure this out,” Ronnie called out to everyone running or flying frantically.
Again, I relayed. I wasn’t sure all Galadrias could understand spoken English, but when I used the telepathic link it seemed to be alright, transcending all language.
I wish the Dream Wars never happened, but if there was one bright spot, it was the Galadrias. These gentle beasts didn’t deserve this.
Please open somewhere remote, I prayed as I threw the portal wide open, feeling for the edges of this world and Earth, tossing it forty feet wide in one big burst.
A blur of pink crossed into my field of vision and then Dawn was before me.
‘Kit. Ride.’
Her pink feathers were covered in blisters and singed fur and it broke my heart. I shook my head.
‘I need to hold the portal open. I’ll jump through and you can catch me,’ I promised her, trying to keep my concentration. I’d just opened up a huge portal in the middle of the sky and Galadrias were fleeing into it with my team on their backs. Some of the younglings that were too small to fly were being carried by their neck skin, like a mother cat would a kitten. Damien was huddled underneath the thickly-padded sleeping bag with me, but I knew the acid would bleed through soon, and I was trying not to panic.
“We’ll meet you down!” Maxine cried out as she flew by me on Roger’s back. Was I dropping them over New York City or farmland in Idaho? I had no idea.
Oh my God, the Galadrias were fleeing to Earth! This was crazy. It was a massive evacuation; the ground rumbled as the feathered creatures stomped past me and flew blindly into the blue sky of Earth. Poor Skyhome. The blue acid rain was eating the plants, infecting the water—everything was being destroyed.
“Concentrate,” Master Aki’s voice came from beside me, and I steeled myself. He was right. My fear had caused the opening to shrink.
I glanced sideways. My mentor was standing under a scrap of sheet metal, his arms covered in blisters from the rain.
Those fucking breeders.
Anger flared within me and I felt a tug on my mind. It was the breeders trying to get in.
“Stay calm,” Master Aki echoed.
Keeping this large of a portal open was draining me. My arms burned, my legs quivered, and my mind felt… exposed. It was hard to explain.
“Go, Master! We
