“The day that happens means I’ve lost your heart,” Rune murmured, his touch lingering on me before he took a step back. His bright eyes reflected different shades of blue from the light and the lightning outside that became more frequent.
I stared at him with parted lips and bunched eyebrows. “You’ll never lose it.”
He gave me a gentle smile and a nod. “Just as you’ll never lose mine.”
My cheeks heated, and I turned away from him to glance at Harper before we explored the small house.
“Did I miss half a conversation?” Harper asked softly.
I glanced at her, my cheeks still warm.
Oh. I didn’t mean to leave her out.
Side by side, with Rune trailing behind, we caught up, and I told her about what was happening. I didn’t unload on her when I wanted to. A lot was happening, and a lot happened to her since being thrown over Hluti’s shoulder and brought into a new realm. She didn’t need to listen to my sad story because she deserved better.
When we settled into a separate room from the others, we talked about different things. From her filling me in on what I missed the last year when I didn’t see her to what else was out there in the universe now that we knew realms were real. Rune brought us the food we grabbed back in my realm. He didn’t linger in the room. Instead, he sat outside in the small hall across from the open door so he could keep his eyes on me as he sharpened a dagger on a whetstone.
He didn’t lie when he said he would stay by my side no matter what so he could keep his eyes on me.
My chest tightened, and my stomach filled with butterflies.
His devotion to me was...
It was shocking, yet also overwhelmingly wonderful.
Nothing would happen to me, I hoped. Not with my protective soulmate around.
“What’s so weird about all of this is that I’ve dreamt it,” Harper said, changing the subject from her recent watch of TV shows back to our current situation. She set aside the empty cup of ramen noodles.
I blinked and glanced at her with my eyebrows bunched. It took a moment for me to follow what she said. My lips parted, and I leaned toward her with curiosity.
“What do you mean?”
She had premonitions, then?
I’d always been interested in dreams since I couldn’t remember mine for the longest time. But now that I did with some recent ones, I’d been dreaming about my past. So if she was dreaming about the future, it couldn’t be a coincidence... right?
She shot me an embarrassed smile before she looked away. Running a few fingers through her shadowed wavy brown hair, she pursed her lips and rubbed her tongue over her top teeth under her lips. She only ever did that while she was thinking something over and didn’t want to come off strong on a subject. When she peered at me again, her hazel eyes held shadows.
I didn’t like that.
What the hell was she dreaming?
“Remember when I jokingly told you about some of the wild dreams I had when I finally got some sleep after I couldn’t for a week?” I nodded, barely remembering what they were about. “Well, Imighthave been so tired and loopy that my dreams were just as loopy and lucid. In them—and I barely remember much—I remember some brief things I saw. Five men. Your...” She gave me a weird look but smiled as she said, “Husband. And you. We were all in different places. Almost like a different time, and there was so much fighting and blood. But what stood out the most was you.”
My shoulders tensed. She had my full attention now. It’d been hard to focus on anything lately. But when she said I stood out the most, it made my heart jump and pins and needles spread through my body. It was so odd to feel like I was in trouble with the way my body reacted.
But I held my breath. Rune’s undivided attention was on Harper too as he lingered in my mind through our link to eavesdrop.
She met my eyes, and it was... eerie. Like she could see another part of me. And like—just as Rune did all the time— she could see through me and right into my soul.
It was the oddest thing coming from her.
“You weren’tyou. I mean, there were moments where you were. But a lot of what I remember from it, you were... how do I put this without offending you?” She rolled her lips and glanced away for a moment, then back at me when she sighed. “You were tougher. Cold toward people. And the only detail I remember happening with all of us was a shit ton of lightning in the sky and even around us. Like I’m talking about fucking lightning bolts surrounding us as we’re in some field.”
It took me a moment to let it all sink in. A small memory from earlier played before my eyes that fit the details she said. But that couldn’t be...
I released a shaky breath, goosebumps raising over my arms and legs as I kept seeing the image she painted. Rune was there with me as I imagined it all. He held back his thoughts, but I caught his brewing feelings until he cut that off too.
