Pain?
He pulled his lips away. “I need to know where you are, Ava. You need me to find you.”
The pain distracted her from the pleasure of his kiss. “I don’t understand.”
“Where are you?”
For a moment, the voice came from outside. From another place that chilled her. An echo of his voice, then another, layered on top of it. She stilled, pulling away from him.
“What is this?”
“Dream…” He clenched his eyes shut, shaking his head. “It’s a dream… but not a dream. It’s… it’s more, Ava. I can’t… I don’t know how to tell you.”
For the first time since he’d found her, dread touched her heart. “No.”
“Don’t pull away.” He reached for her, but she was already across the meadow. “Ava!”
Fear and confusion filled the space between.
“I don’t understand.” Tears slid down her cheeks. Hot. Painful. Cold wind bit her ankles.
“I’m trying to come back to you!”
“Why am I afraid?”
“Because I am! I need to find you, Ava.”
She blinked as the memory came crashing down. His face, dissolving into gold dust. She looked down, and muddy water swirled around her feet.
“You left me,” she whispered into the darkness. “And you can’t come back.”
“No,” he said, running toward her. But no matter how fast he ran, he could not come any closer. “I came back! You brought me back, Ava!”
She shook her head, pulling the darkness around her like a cloak. “No.”
His eyes turned desperate. “Ava, come to me.”
“You’re gone.”
“You must come to me.”
She sank to her knees on the cold ground. “It hurts now.”
“Please!”
“It hurts.”
A hedge sprang up between them, circling her, guarding her. Keeping him away.
“Ava, no!”
The pain that had pierced her heart faded, and his panicked voice grew dim. Faint whispers came from the trees.
“Safe.”
“Careful.”
“Safe, safe, safe.”
“Shhhhhh.”
She closed her eyes and sat on the cold ground, pressing her forehead to her knees and ignoring the small hands that tugged at her shoulders.
“Go back,” the small voices said. “You need to go back.”
No. It wasn’t safe. Something… something was different. And wrong. Something had hurt her outside the hedge.
“We need you to find your way back.”
When Ava opened her eyes, it was dark. She curled to her side and tried to stem the flood of silent tears that washed down her face. For the first time in weeks, there had been no comfort in dreams.
“Not real,” she whispered. “They aren’t real.”
Malachi died again in her heart.
Ava let the darkness take her. She closed her eyes, and she did not dream.
The next day, she walked through the flat like a zombie. Sari and Damien were gone. Orsala was in the apartment with her, but the old woman was studying a book and paid her no attention. She sat near the window, scrolling through the news on Renata’s computer. She recognized a familiar name that brought the hint of a smile to her lips.
“Huh.”
“What is huh?” Orsala asked.
“My dad. He just started a European tour for the New Year. Might try to see him if it works out.”
“Hmm.” She was distracted, flipping through the pages of the book with a frown on her face. “You’ll have to speak to Damien and Sari. See if one of them can go with you to meet him.”
The thought of having to ask permission to see her own father grated on her nerves. “If I want to see Jasper, I’ll see him.”
Orsala’s only answer was a raised eyebrow.
The more Ava thought, the more it seemed like a great idea. Jasper might have been a mess, but he did have lots of security. In fact, she liked his security a lot better than most of the nameless bodyguards her stepfather had hired over the years. Jasper’s guards were big and mean-looking, but they usually had a sense of humor. They’d have to, to work with her father. So what if they were mostly for show? It wasn’t as if Grigori were going to break into a suite at the Four Seasons and kidnap her. No one got kidnapped at a Four Seasons.
She sighed and contemplated calling her mother. She’d have to if she wanted Jasper’s number. Her phone had been left in Cappadocia, and she didn’t know anyone’s number from memory except for her mom’s. If she wanted to see Jasper, she had to call ahead. Most of his people didn’t know that Ava existed. Only his manager and head of security knew her by name.
She had time. Looking at Jasper’s website, it seemed like he’d be in Europe through the beginning of summer. Then she noticed movement out the window. It was Sari and Damien, arguing again.
“Cranky and Crankier headed back,” she told Orsala. “Estimated time of arrival, four minutes, unless they start arguing on the stairs.”
Orsala sighed. “They were always like this. For the life of me, I do not understand why.”
“They like it.”
“You’re not wrong.”
A few minutes later, Damien walked through the door with no Sari in sight. But the color was high on his cheeks and his lower lip looked distinctly… bitten.