Page 105 of Devoured

I clench my fists, grind my teeth—anything to calm the beast inside me—but it’s no use. Beneath the grief, the fear, the tender moments Sin and I have shared, there is no longer a girl. Just a monster.

“Tell me more, Dreamweaver.”

He sighs and moves to one of the only remaining desks. Sitting on the edge of it, he says, “What do you want to know, Truthseer?”

I flinch away from that name—my powers. God, I hope he can’t see my true powers. “What are you rooting through right now? My memories? My thoughts?”

“Nothing so concrete. Dreamweaving is more… cerebral. I’m a painter with a canvas, and your memories and thoughts are like acrylics on a palette. I see what you offer me, and I pick what I like. Of course, I can mix colors.” He waves a hand, and the desk beneath him transforms into a large, gilded throne. “I can wipe the canvas clean.” Another flick of his wrist, and the floor beneath us becomes empty, liminal space like static on a broken television. I stagger away from it, but it climbs up the walls, over the ceiling, until that emptiness suffocates everything. “Sometimes, if you wipe a canvas clean, you’ll find a new shade or two.” The dream explodes in brilliant, iridescent hues. They remind me of rainbow fish and moon crabs and a wooden shack. Sin winces, waving once more and replacing the kaleidoscope with my old English classroom. The throne melts back into a simple desk. “This is what your mind conjured on its own. I didn’t build this dream. I merely walked into it. As the true dreamer, you can imagine anything you want whenever you want. You have all the power here.”

The thought doesn’t bring me the comfort it should, mostly because I don’t know what colors he’s seeing now. I can’t tell which of my memories and thoughts I’ve displayed for him. His expression gives nothing away, hard and cold as stone.

“Do you have to be asleep?”

“When I first used my gift, yes. Sleeping always makes it easier. But now, most of the time, I’m awake. I can be in the same room as the person dreaming or away from it. My range doesn’t stretch as far as my mother’s, but it’s decent.”

“So why didn’t she invade my dream first?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps I just got lucky.”

I roll my eyes. “Are you trying to be humble right now?”

“What do you want me to say, Vanessa? That I’m the second-best Dreamweaver in the entire world? That I excel at painting you lies?”

I should fall silent. I should bite my tongue. But in this dreamscape, I can’t avoid the rush of disdain. “I spent months loving you, and you lied to me every single day.”

The statue splinters. His expression breaks as hurt softens his gaze. “I’m sorry.”

Those two words are molten in my chest. They sear through my ribs, through the hollows of my heart, until they consume me. He isn’t lying; he’s just delusional. As if an apology could repair any of the harm he’s caused. As if an apology could mend my broken fucking heart.

Without thinking, simply reacting, I move to punch him. He catches my fist in midair, his grip firm, almost gentle, and I hate it. I hate him. How can he be gentle now? He’s inside my mind. He’s been inside my mind several times before. He lied to me. He lied to me about everything, and he murdered everyone, and he broke me.

“Fight me,” I snarl. My heart races, my veins thrumming with venom.

He doesn’t so much as blink. “No.”

I throw an elbow toward his ribs, but he catches my forearm too. I struggle against his hold. “Fight. Me.”

He shakes his head with a sad sort of sigh. “Come on, Vanessa. I’m not him.”

His grasp remains firm, unyielding, even as I still. “What are you talking about?”

Silence wedges between us. He doesn’t speak. I don’t move. We only stare at each other in the dimming light. For seconds. For minutes. Because once he speaks, he’ll damn us both, and there will be no coming back from it.

Our pulses fill the quiet first, then our rasping breaths, and then Sin ruins everything. Just as he always does.

“Calix might be fine living as your punching bag, but I’m not.”

“Calix isn’t—he’s not—”

Sin’s eyes darken. “I didn’t need to see the bite on your shoulder to know the truth. You smell like him, Vanessa. You’ve smelled like him since the day you arrived. When we”—his throat tightens; he corrects himself—“when I fell in love with you, I tried to ignore it. I tried to pretend it didn’t matter because I love Calix, and I love you. Why shouldn’t you like each other? Why shouldn’t you be friends?” His thumb drags up the inside of my wrist, over my scars, in a slow, deliberate motion. “But you’re not friends. Are you?”

“It’s not like that.”

“You’re using him,” Sin says. “Before it was with sparring and fighting, and now it’s with sex.”

“No.” My stomach twists. We’re pressed so close I can feel his breath on my lips. “No, Sin. You and I are going to be mated in one month. I’m not having sex with your cousin.”

He glances down at my shoulder, at the faintest outline of a bite mark on my skin. “It’s hard to lie in a dream, Vanessa.”