The Book of Dreams Forgotten: (A Broken Creatures Novel, Book 2) Read online

  The Maker’s words, they echoed through my mind louder than the music. ‘No more than a fragile five summers and you burned them all, dear one. Because that is what creatures like you do.’

  “I want to know you.”

  “You don’t.”

  “I do. And I promise, there is nothing you can say or do that will change that.”

  That was when the infamously obnoxious, haughty, sarcastic Jera’s eyes began to water. “You don’t understand.” A bird-bone whisper.

  I stood as one song came to an end and another began. Hand extended, I smiled. “Dance with me?”

  Her lips parted as she looked at my hand. Did she see the Maker’s?

  “The sweets will still be there later,” I said lightly.

  Her mouth twitched, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. She placed her hand in mine nonetheless, and together we swayed.

  Outside, the snow fell with a perfection I couldn’t fathom, millions of flakes cascading in blizzard swirls—yet I’d never been warmer.

  I didn’t care what he’d said; Graves was wrong. It didn’t matter what we did in our past, what misdeed we inflicted on another so long as there was a genuine desire for change. Some people chose to view some horrors as irredeemable. Some chose to sink wrongdoers into a sea of their sin and allow them to drown in it.

  But Jera had it right all along: I was naive, because when it came to her, I believed in forgiveness.

  ‘Isn’t she lovely?’ Stevie Wonder asked through the speakers, and I hugged the demon closer to me.

  Yes, she was.

  Her head lifted and without a word, she rose to the tips of her toes and pressed her lips to mine. Instantly, I felt our bond shift, brighten. Her dark energy was a firestorm as it flowed into me, but her tongue against mine was hotter.

  And if this woman was bad, then bad had never tasted so good.

  Ch. 24

  December 31st

  New Years Eve

  “You should have called ahead of time,” Graves growled, pacing the foyer floors.

  Inoli stared at the cell phone in her hand. This was the third time Peter’s phone had gone to voicemail and they were running out of time.

  New Years Eve, the moon was at its fullest, the dark elf’s magic maximized.

  And regardless of all this, Jai couldn’t calm her nerves. Her heart fluttered rapidly in her chest, drowning out their current dilemma. It was one thing to think about entering another world teeming with deadly immortals that stretched the imagination, but it was another thing to be seconds away from that reality.

  Her and Graves’ getup definitely didn’t help.

  Hours prior, the man before her had all but barged into her room, strapped with innumerable weapons, and demanded she throw away any of notion safety to come. He’d had her stripped from the plain flannel clothes of before. Now she wore black camo pants with knives holstered to her calves, thighs, waist, canisters of black liquids she couldn’t begin to guess what for. A weighty but sleek security vest was fastened beneath the long sleeved black top. At her back was her soulbound shala, the magic thrumming at her spine warmly, lovingly, as if its very existence wasn’t a nascent poison to her mind. To top it off, two handguns had been draped on either side of her waist, their shells made of the same chrome material as the headgear she donned just then.

  You’d think she was heading directly onto an active battle scene. Which wasn’t too far-fetched.

  Inoli had explained the concept of their passage. While the elf could open the gateway with relative ease on a full moon, she wasn’t in control of where the two of them ended up when journeying to the otherside. They could be thrust into a depthless chasm of lava just as easily as they could appear suspended thousands of feet above the nearest landscape.

  Graves growled again, raising the hairs at her nape. “Why did you even bother recruiting them for this.”

  Inoli crossed her arms and peered up at the night sky where the moon shined down in filmy silver sheets. “They were as essential to this mission as the two of you are.”

  “And did your little visions tell you they would stand us up?” he demanded, his kindling anger like a black pool spreading in that cool space in the back of her head.

  “My visions showed me what was necessary for me to see,” she sneered in turn. “But I cannot force the pieces into place when they’ve a mind of their own.”

  “You should have kept them here!”

  “And what—chained them in the basement?”

  “If necessary!”

  Jai clutched the headgear when a sliver of pain sliced through her head.

  Graves’ eyes flickered to her once before he took a step away from Inoli, the rise and fall of his chest slowing as he attempted to collect himself.

  The pain in her head ebbed.

  “Perhaps we should wait an hour longer, Graves,” Inoli reasoned. “You know what waits on the other side of the gateway. You want to have as much backup as you can.”

  The scathing, cold glare he gave was backup enough, if you asked her.

  Which neither of them seemed to be doing.

  “We don’t have time, and it’s obvious that human likely succumbed to his own cowardice. Now open the portal, Inoli.”

  The elf stiffened, gaze radiating a silver as bright as the moon. “Graves, you know the dangers—”

  The long blade was out and at the elf’s throat so fast Jai had to blink a few times to confirm the sight. Raw strings of muscle flexed beneath his long-sleeved shirt, fingers strangling the hilt of a sword with arcane scrawls twisting along the steel. “Open the portal, Inoli.”

  Not one flinch, hurt refracted in the elf’s gaze. “You would try to harm me?”

  “I’ve followed the path you paved up until this point, but for one who’s all-seeing, there are times you are blind to the truth: this is the only way and always has been. Now open the portal. I won’t ask again.”

  A black, misty residue had begun to cumulate at the hilt of the blade, coiling and twisting up its neck towards Inoli’s.

  She extended an arm to the side, palm out. “You will regret this, Graves.”

  “So be it.”

  Her voice softened to a plea. “The next full moon, same time, I will open the portal again. Find it.”

  “I plan to.”

  “And if you run into my young—”

  “Keep them as far away from Tombstone as possible, I know.”

  Graves sheathed the sword and as if he’d never threatened her livelihood, Inoli stepped up to him. With her free hand she guided his forehead down to hers, and some silent promises seemed to pass between them.

  When they separated, Graves did the unexpected, holding an arm out towards Jai. “Come.”

  But for some reason her feet didn’t want to move. With the pieces of their plan falling apart and the dreary cloak of pessimism dangled above them, none of this sounded as appealing as it had just days ago.

  “You know,” she began. “The dark elf does have a point. Maybe we should wait—”

  “Come,” he ground and the cold space in her head grew warmer. Her legs weren’t her own as they stalked forward, right into the grasp. He crushed her to his chest the moment they made contact, like she was precious cargo, but cargo nonetheless.

  Regret: 1.

  Without taking her eyes off of Graves, Inoli said, “Please, if anything, remember all that I’ve told you—both of you. Calibrate the headgear every 36 hours strictly according to the timer I’ve installed to avoid the intracranial pressure. Use the shala only in times of life or death. Do not associate with any of the demon factions. There is an unrest between them that can prove problematic without Jera and Peter there to act as their ruler. Should you miraculously find a way to open the gateway on your own, do not cross the passage without one another or the price will take effect tenfold—and the Shatters will not take kind to our attempt to bypass its laws. And lastly . . . should ever the skies turn red, under any circumstances, you are t
o immediately get as far below ground as physically possible.”

  What exactly had she gotten herself into?

  Graves’ grip tightened around her and it was no different than having an iron crow bar jamming her against a metal wall.

  “Still human—need to breathe,” she gasped, but when his hold eased only enough for her to take shallow breaths, she found herself urging the dark elf to get on with it.

  Her wish was answered as the space around them electrified, the temperature plummeting to the point she and the creature’s proximity suddenly didn’t seem so bad.

  She heard rather than saw the portal opening. Sound perished with the stark clarity of a penny falling, her ears popping despite the headgear. Her head tucked into the creature’s chest, she felt the ominous gap of the rift behind her like a fathomless black hole, waiting to devour them into a world untouched by human minds.

  This was what she wanted, she reminded herself as the first spike of true fear gripped her lungs. Protecting the human race was what those of HB did, and if this world was in danger and she was a key component to saving it, was it not her job to see this through?

  No matter what it entailed.

  “Breathe.”

  Graves’ whisper caught her with off guard—as did his sudden charge into the portal’s gaping mouth.

  Her last thought? She’d forgotten to tell Inoli to send someone to get Charlie Number 9.

  Regret: 2.

  Ch. 25

  One week ago . . .

  December 25th

  Christmas Day

  I could have lounged in the round booth all day, Jera curled up against my chest, fast asleep, but the moment the sun rose, all hope of peace vanished. In hindsight, I should have known that would be the case given Danny was eleven.

  Still, when he and Tathri came bounding down the stairs and dashing straight for the gifts beneath the tree by the fireplace, I jumped up in surprise, all but dumping Jera on the seat beside me. As if we’d been doing something we shouldn’t have.

  For a second, she looked around disoriented—no, not disoriented, but searching for something.

  “You ate them all,” I reminded her before she could rediscover the empty platter that’d once been the donut Christmas tree.

  Dismayed, she slumped forward onto the table, watching Danny silently as he and Tathri went through the gifts (almost all of them his) with the most life I’d seen in him all week. Predictably, he started with the big one.

  Luckily, I’d already given Jera her gifts last night: a golden bracelet because I sucked at giving gifts and a gift card to the donut shop across the street, which she made clear she valued far more than gold. Though she wore the jewelry just then, fingers playing at the charms absently.

  “A remote control helicopter?!” Danny exclaimed just as Lia came down the stairs, still dressed in night clothes like the others.

  She looked tired and I didn’t blame her. I hadn’t been pulling my weight for three weeks and no doubt she’d been picking up my slack. With the shop closed due to the endless fall of snow and Christmas itself, this must have been her first off day since . . . I couldn’t keep track—no more than I could keep track of what happened next.

  Jera jerked upright, eyes alert, boring into Lia with an intensity that left me speechless. “Lia, what’s wrong?” she demanded.

  Her sister’s eyes roamed over her once, then with the faintest shake of her head, she muttered, “Nothing, just tired.”

  But I sensed it too. A change in her. Subtle, but there.

  Her dark energy, the ribbons inside her, once pink and vibrant—they were now completely black.

  I was the only one who could see it, but Jera’s sense of something being off was enough for the female to watch her every movement as Lia walked over to the Christmas tree beside Danny.

  Danny.

  I remembered the warning the man on the phone gave. He’d wanted me to keep Danny away from Lia, but I’d pushed the warning to the back of my mind, writing it off as nothing given this was Lia we were talking about.

  But just then, as something in the air shifted with unease, so too did I.

  And apparently Danny’s dog. The thing barked incessantly at Lia and were it not for Danny yanking him up, I was sure Tathri would have bitten her.

  “Danny,” I said as calmly as I could. “Why don’t you go put Tathri up, yeah?”

  Even if Danny missed the change in my voice, Jera shot a quick glance at me and tensed, temperature rising.

  She stood with nonchalance, joining her sister at the Christmas tree. “Can you imagine the fortune Peter spent on gifts?”

  Lia set aside all of Danny’s gift as she searched for her own in a way that was vaguely robotic, face unchanging or showing any sign of thrill that would have otherwise been on the Lia I knew. “Humans, they do that,” was all she said.

  What twilight zone had I woken up in?

  I got up from the booth then. “Lia, don’t you think it’s time we talked about what happened at the compound?”

  Tathri was still barking, having managed to drag Danny down to the floor in his attempts to get at Lia.

  The succubus turned and looked at the dog for a long moment. When the barks died down to a growl, she said, “Oh, I see. You, too, were in hiding. In that case,” That was the moment my one day of relative peace became a pipe dream. Forever. In a blur, Lia lifted her hand—

  Black lightning streaked down her arm, a charged volt of energy curling into a ball at the palm of her hand. She threw it before I could comprehend it.

  Before Danny could leap out the way.

  But not before Jera shielded both the boy and the dog, a tunnel of fire charging from her palm and colliding with the mass of Lia’s dark energy. A purple wave exploded outward, the floors of the shop quaking.

  “What is wrong with you?!” I heard myself yell. My own palms had begun to sting, but when I tried to will a weapon to form, I felt nothing but emptiness in my stomach. No dark energy to convert.

  Had I not been tracking Lia’s every move, I’d have missed it. The moment where she leapt with eerie grace onto the bar counter—and the moment where Lia perished. Shifted, changed. From the soft-spoken, gentle woman no more than 5’3, into . . .

  I blinked twice.

  A-a cat?

  My offensive stance faltered for a moment as I observed the orange tabby in front of me. At least, I thought it was a tabby. There were no streaks, only sandy fur. And rather than one tail, there were three, one silver, the other black, and the third one half grey, half white.

  Light blue eyes stared back at me.

  Mouth hanging open, eyes locked on some mutated cat, I felt myself threatening to become overwhelmed just as I had when I’d first seen my wings, but Jera’s voice tethered me.

  “What did you do to her?!” she bellowed.

  “Me?”

  The world shook just as bit—or was that my head as I tried to grasp what I’d just seen, heard.

  The cat. It. Talked.

  Those eyes like innocent blue skies turned back to me and I’d swear the feline mouth curled into a smile. “Nice to see you again, Peter.”

  Again?

  Then the words slammed into me.

  I am Death.

  We are Damnation.

  This is Torment.

  This . . . no, it couldn’t be right. This was the presence I’d sensed inside of Lia?

  “Bring. Her. Back.” Jera’s eyes were on fire and her hands were literally ablaze.

  “Kill me, you kill the one you deem precious, and what a bother that would be, yes? Yes.” The cat proceeded to recline on the bar counter, folding one paw over the other before it began to lick them. “Now here I was, trying to allow you all the chance to enjoy your holiday before I commenced the whole “eternal havoc” thing, but the pesky dog and succubus here had to go and ruin all our jolly good fun. You know, you have my dear father to thank for this predicament. Were it not for his traitorous, foolhardy devotion
to the one called Ophelia, we would not be here today.”

  “What are you going on about?” Jera grinded with fraying patience.

  “Why, don’t you recall? The vial Father brought to your room all those centuries ago, the blood which he used to sustain Ophelia’s pitiful new heart?”

  I almost staggered as it dawned on me. “You’re one of them. One of the Imperial Beasts.”

  The smile it gave was wrong, unnatural. “Bravo.”

  “I don’t care who you are, bring her back to me.” Jera stalked closer.

  The cat shot up and pounced back a pace, tsking. “Now, now, do not interfere with business that is not yours. Besides, I got this body fair and square—and by fair and square, I mean the Maker created me only to slaughter me and entrap me in that female for centuries too long. Have I not earned a head scratch at least?”

  A flaming ball hurdled at the creature and hit it point blank.

  The air around the cat rippled a filmy blue, before all at once, the flames dissipated.

  “My, my, such a temper,” it said playfully. “Is it my turn now?” Its mouth opened wide. A violet light began grow from its depth. All the hairs on my body rose and a sort of knowing came over me. That light, whatever it was, it would wipe us all out with ease.

  “Jinxy, stop this.”

  I froze. That voice, I’d heard it before. After killing the pixie. The stranger from the shadows.

  “Oi, Tathri, was wondering when you’d come out to play!” the cat preened.

  I turned around just in time to lose all last standing pieces of my sanity as I watched Danny’s dog step forward—Danny having recoiled in horror—and shift, his body growing, bones elongating, the puli’s dreaded locks disappearing, but not completely.

  The man standing in the dog’s place was fully clothes in material I’d never seen before, the style otherworldly. Just like those eyes of mismatched colors.

  I felt lightheaded as I remembered each time I glanced into that dog’s eyes, how they’d never been the same color they were before. And only now did the pieces click.

  Tathri was the man in the shadows.