“After tomorrow, things are going to look up, I’m sure of it,” he said and rubbed his hand up and down my arm.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Nadia
“Theresheis.Gether out from under there.”
I tried to push away, but it was futile. They were going to pull me out and torture me like my parents.
My mother was tied to the chair, my father to the table. They were about to rip out his insides, and instead of watching from afar. I was going to be dragged into the middle of it.
This terrifying nightmare felt incredibly lifelike. The nightmare demon’s presence was palpable as I sensed his hot breath on my neck, his razor-sharp teeth lingering just above my shoulder. I could even hear him sniffing me, his repugnant breath invading my nostrils, making me instinctively hold my breath, desperately hoping to avoid retching in disgust.
I wrestled with the two guards that held me. They were bringing me to the table where my father lay strapped down. He eyed me with concern. I could see the deep, creased wrinkles around his eyes, his mouth set into a firm line. He nodded at me, a signal he had given to my mother tied to the chair many times before.
She screamed from across the room, begging for them to stop the madness.
It’s not real, it’s not real.
“I guess you know this girl. This is the most emotion I’ve seen from you.” Master Shane cackled and pulled a knife from his pocket. He rounded the table where my father lay and let the knife dip into the skin of my father’s forearm.
My father winced, but he didn’t cry out. He always had a high threshold for pain. Even as a child, I knew this. Once he slammed a hammer on his thumb and didn’t even flinch.
I closed my eyes not to watch, but one guard grabbed my jaw while the other pulled my eyelids open. I cried out, trying to shake my head, but again, it was all worthless because they opened, and I found them gutting my father like a fish.
His insides spilled onto the table. I tried to wake myself up, searching within myself for the light that I could hold onto when I found myself in these situations since being mated to Bear. I could wake up, I could, I knew it.
“Where are you?” I whispered.
Where were Tajah and Bram?
They were supposed to end this, make it go away before it got this bad. This was worse, far worse than the times before.
Now, my parents were screaming, and my ears couldn’t handle the high pitches of noise. A roar left my lips, trying to counter the pain in my ears. I slumped when my father’s heart no longer beat in his chest.
“See, that wasn’t so bad.” I raised my gaze to Shane. His eyes weren’t the same. They were pitch black, his teeth long, sharp black points.
The nightmare demon.
I let out a breath and hung my head. This was worse, so much worse than I expected.
I was dragged to my mother. My knees took every brunt of the cement on the floor. On top of all this, I didn’t know if I was even wearing any clothes. One rarely paid attention to that in a dream, but I felt so utterly naked.
Or was it my vulnerability?
My mother sneered and spat at Shane. He backhanded her, and blood dribbled from her lip. She wasn’t as feisty or talking back to him like the other dreams I’d had of her.
This was wrong. It was different. The nightmare had taken control of this dream completely.
With the wave of his hand, the demon replaced my mother with me. I was tied to the chair, and I wiggled against the restraints binding me.
“Where is she?” I nearly sobbed.
I knew exactly where she was. She was dead. She was no longer with the living, but I couldn’t help myself but ask where she was. In this dream, my parents looked more real to me now since the last time I saw them.
“Gone now,” Shane said with a tilt of his head.
His deep voice echoed in the room, filling me with fear and dread. I looked around, desperately trying to find a way out, but the room was dark, and the only light came from a few flickering candles that now surrounded us in a circle. I could feel the sweat on my forehead and my heart pounding in my chest as I tried to calm myself down.
