“What are you talking about?” Fenrir huffed. “This isn't a dream. There's your son, playing with mine; right there. They're as real as can be.”
“Ethan is your son?” I asked with surprise.
“Of course, he's my son,” Fenrir growled. “What are you playing at?”
“Dad, I'm sorry, this is going to be shocking, but I don't have time to coax you into this.”
I took control of Fenrir's dream and wiped out everything. Suddenly, we stood in an empty room. Fenrir jolted and turned in a circle; searching for his home and family.
“What have you done?!” He roared.
“Dad, it's a dream!” I shouted at him.
Fenrir's chest was rising and falling rapidly and his eyes were glazed with fury.
“Bring back my wife and child now!”
I focused on his dream and everything returned. The little wolf pups were back to playing, and Emma was standing to the side, waiting patiently.
“It's a dream,” I tried again. “You know what? Never mind. Just listen to what I have to say and try to remember it. You'll realize I'm speaking the truth when you wake up. I need you to go to my husbands and tell them that the Mirror has turned on us. It's been pulling humans into it and feeding on their energy. It's very powerful! We're being manipulated and hunted in here. They need to find Nemesis as fast as possible.”
“Nemesis,” Fenrir whispered; completely astounded.
“Just remember what I said, Dad,” I said urgently. “We—”
Mid-sentence, everything puffed away. My soul flew backwards through the veil of Fenrir's mind and into mine. I came gasping awake in the Wolf's arms; my body jostled about. He was running with Kirill close beside us, Kirill's hand on his shoulder.
“What's going on?” I asked as the adrenaline of my fear shoved away sleep sharply.
“The Mirror is moving us,” the Wolf growled.
I looked over Kirill's shoulder and saw one of those metal plates pushing us down the corridor.
“I can run,” I said. “Put me down.”
“I'm not stopping until we're safe,” the Wolf refused. “Just hold on, Mate.”
I grabbed his shoulders and held on; keeping a close eye on the rapidly moving plate behind us. The Mirror was getting more aggressive. I guess it didn't like us trying to sit out the game. Either that, or it had decided to kill us after all. But wouldn't it have just slaughtered us in that room, if it had? There were several ways it could manage it. I blinked and thought about it. Perhaps it wasn't Qaus' warning or even the fact that it couldn't take energy from us if it killed us. Perhaps the Mirror couldn't affect us with its illusions. They seemed real and felt real but so had the food, and Narcissus said the food, although filling, didn't have any real nutrition to it. So, maybe the illusions didn't have any real power to them.
I considered how the Mirror had tried to get Kirill to burn himself on that pyre and Trevor to cast himself in that pit. Why would it work if the men had done it? Perhaps it was the belief—Kirill's and Trevor's belief that they were dying—that would have killed them. I remember hearing once that if you die in a dream, you die in real life because your mind will believe you to be dead. Belief is a very powerful magic, especially when used by Gods. But did it really matter how or why the Mirror was doing all of this? All I needed to remember was to not believe its illusions. Hopefully, Nemesis would save us before things got too horrible in this realm of reflections.
Suddenly, light and laughter surrounded me. I turned to look forward just as I was jerked away from the Wolf. I clung to him, but the arms that took me were too strong for either of us. I was torn away from my husband and flung back into a boisterous crowd of beautiful people, all dressed in vibrant costumes. Colorful feathers, silk, velvet, damask, leather, and jewels adorned the dancing throng in styles of dress that spanned history.
The men who held me spun me in a circle as they laughed, and when I tried to keep my eyes on the Wolf and Kirill, they blocked my line of sight. I was dipped and lifted; held tightly to one man and yanked around the dance floor until another swept me away. My vision swam with viciously smiling faces and my ears rang with strident, stringed music.
“Wolf!” I shouted. “Kirill!”
I could feel them there but I couldn't hear them or see them. The only faces in the room belonged to strangers. Everything sparkled and gleamed, doubly bright after the dull blandness of the metal hallway. Gold adorned the walls and mirrors lined the floor. I looked down into infinity and realized there were mirrors above us as well.
I laid my head back and screamed at myself.
Chapter Twenty
Exhaustion shivered through my body, but they wouldn't let me sleep. They wouldn't even let me stop dancing. Man after man shuffled me around the floor, beneath the glittering lights of massive, crystal chandeliers. Body heat pressed in on me from all sides; stifling me and stunting my breath. I didn't want to breathe in anyway; heady perfumes bloated the air with their choking odor. Boots and high heels struck the floor mercilessly with every dance step—the clacks striking my eardrums until my head pounded—but I knew the mirrored-floor wouldn't break. I had a feeling that I would break first.
Even my rapid goddess healing couldn't keep up with the constant motion and incessant assault on my senses. I finally gave up and just hung limply in their arms; tossed around like a bag full of jelly. I had tried to reach my husbands by following their links inside me, but my dance partners would only swing me in the opposite direction every time I tried to flee. It went on and on until Kirill's and the
