LITMIR.BIZ

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… It doesn’t matter.” She pushed herself upright on the couch, waving him off when he made a move to help. “I’m good. I’m fine.” Only she wasn’t fine. This was all wrong, because whatever the hell was going on, the dream—hallucination?—seemed way too real.

      “Fine enough to get moving?”

      “Moving?”

      He nodded. “We have four nights counting tonight, so we should get started as soon as possible.”

      Reda breathed deeply and told herself not to panic. There was some logical explanation for this. There had to be. “I’m not having sex with you.” And oh, holy crap, she didn’t know why that had been the first thing out of her mouth. Or, rather, she did: it was because of the dreams.

      His eyebrows rose. “Of course not. You’re my guide.”

      She flushed, but pushed on. “Seriously. I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.” And she also didn’t know why she was arguing with a figment of her over-stressed mind.

      “Don’t even joke about that.”

      “Who’s joking?” She wasn’t kidding around; she was confused as all hell. “Wait. Am I being punked?” Who would bother?

      Expression suddenly clearing, he said, “Damnation. Vortex sickness.”

      “Vor-what?”

      He rose and started to pace. “Sometimes when travelers come through the vortices from one realm to another, they become confused or even forget pieces of their past.”

      A low burn fisted beneath her heart. “I’m not crazy.”

      “I didn’t say you were,” he said, which she guessed was true as far as it went. But then he continued, “Memory loss and insanity aren’t the same thing. I believe you call it ‘apples and limes,’ yes?”

      “Oranges. Apples and oranges.” His speech pattern was an odd mix of formality and slang, which just added to the weirdness. “Who are you?”

      He stopped pacing and looked slightly shamefaced. “Sorry. I’m Dayn. Well, Prince Dayn, Forestal of Elden. But if anyone here knew that, they’d rip me to shreds.” He said it so matter-of-factly that it took a moment to register. As her jaw dropped, he held out a hand. “So let’s just go with ‘Dayn,’ okay?”

      “I’m Reda.” Head spinning, she took his hand on autopilot, registering the warm strength of his wide palm and long, elegant fingers. But instead of shaking, he lifted her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss over her knuckles. It was an unselfconscious move, as if he’d done it a thousand times before and it meant nothing more than a fist bump on the T platform or a cuff on the arm between buddies at Downtown Pizza. But her gasp brought his eyes to hers and made it far more than casual, as did the sizzle that tightened her skin and reminded her that this was a dream. More, it was her fantasy. He was her fantasy, had been since she was a little girl and dreamed of someone coming to her rescue.

      He dropped her hand and took a big step back. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

      Why not? It’s my fantasy. But he wasn’t playing his part. He should have been whispering sweetly to her, kissing her, stroking—

      The cabin door blew open with a bang, making her jolt as a cold gust of wind puffed ashes into the hearth and swirled smoke into the air. But that wasn’t what had opened the door. Because as Dayn spun toward the commotion, a huge figure darkened the doorway. Reda shot to her feet. Then she froze and a three-headed giant stepped through.

      So tall that it had to duck through the door, the monstrous creature had the body of a man, huge and muscular, but its skin was cement-gray and its broad shoulders supported three ogre-faced heads with protruding lower jaws, curved upthrusting teeth and fierce black eyes framing moist, snubbed noses. The thing was dressed in a leathery loincloth, boots the size of mailboxes and studded wristbands and neck collars, and it carried a huge, blunt-headed club that was ringed with spikes and banded with iron. When it caught sight of her and Dayn, all three faces grinned horribly.

      Dayn lunged for a rack of weapons her mind had initially dismissed as decor, grabbed a crossbow and yelled, “Run!”

      The middle head locked on him while the other two stayed leering at her. Which made it tough to figure out who was the target as the creature bellowed a roar, drew back and swung its enormous club of death.

      “Down!” Dayn plowed into her. They slammed against the back of the sofa, which overbalanced and fell, taking them with it.

      The club screamed over their heads and crashed into the chimney above the hearth, sending chunks of brick spattering around the room. Nearly flattened beneath Dayn—he might be rangy, but he was solid—Reda struggled to breathe through the white-hot grip of panic. This isn’t happening, can’t be happening. It’s just a dream, not real, none of this is real.

      Heavy footsteps thudded as the creature came toward them, growling low in its three-way throat.

       Not real. A dream. I’m waking up now. On the count of three, I’m going to open my eyes and everything will be back to normal.

      “Stay down,” Dayn whispered in her ear, shifting as the monster stumped nearer, shoving furniture and knocking things crashing to the floor.

       One.

      Three heads came into view, six eyes locked on and the creature roared, reared back and swung. Dayn shouted something, lunged to his feet and fired his crossbow from the hip. The bolt buried itself at the top of the giant’s middle throat.

      Shaking, Reda flattened herself. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but count.

       Two.

      The monster screeched, tossed the club, grabbed for its blood-spurting throat and reeled back. The club smashed into a window and hung up on the frame as Dayn fired a second bolt into the same head, turning the creature’s roar into a high-pitched mewl that grated on her soul.

       Please, God. Three.

       Chapter 3

      Reda didn’t wake up.

      Instead, she watched in frozen horror as the three-headed giant staggered and went to its knees, and Dayn methodically fired bolts into the other two heads. As if that had finally hit the kill switch, the creature plummeted to the cabin floor, where it lay for a moment, twitching in its death throes, and then finally going still.

      The sudden silence rang in her ears as she stared at the monstrous corpse, which smelled like chicken breasts gone very bad.

      She yanked her eyes to Dayn, who stood looking down at the creature with an expression of pity, but also excitement, as if the attack had been partly a good thing.

      Who was he? What in God’s name was going on? She wanted to ask him but couldn’t get out the words. She was locked in place. Frozen. Once and always a coward under fire. Was this, then, what her subconscious wanted her to see?

      Maybe. But she’d seen it and the dream wasn’t ending.

      “You can get up now.” He said it without looking at her, but she thought she saw the twitch of a smile. “There’s a bag in the pantry. How about you load up some provisions while I take care of the other stuff?”

      As he turned away, she slowly levered herself to her feet, suddenly wishing that a herd of pink elephants would walk past the broken window, so she could point at them and say, Ha, I told you so. It’s a dream. Hallucination. Whatever. What mattered was that this wasn’t really happening. It was all in her mind.

      Except there weren’t any pink elephants. Which left her with a stinky dead giant with two too many heads, and a really hot guy who thought they were going somewhere.

      MacEvoy, when I get through

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