What I did know was how real it had all felt.
How realhehad been.
My shadowed stalker.
Of course, I had no choice but to tell them that it was just a bad dream, when at heart, it had felt like so much more. The rational part of my mind was now at war with the memory of it. Because like I said, it had just felt far too real to be nothing more than something my mind had fabricated. Too real to conjure up…
Him.
Even his voice still lingered in my mind, making me shiver against the brothers as I thought of another who had held me. That dark promise he made leaving me terrified.
“That must have been one hell of a nightmare, baby,” Victor hummed into my hair, where he dipped his head as he still held mine cradled to his chest.
“Yeah,”I breathed out on a sigh, prompting him to pull back so he could look at me.
“You wanna talk about it?” he asked, making me instantly shake my head, telling him no. Because what was I going to say? That it felt like someone was now stalking my dreams, promising me that one day soon he would be the next one to steal me from my life. A life that hadn’t felt like my own since that first night meeting Tal. The uncontrollable motions I had been forced to take each day, all thanks to that fucking witch!
And now what exactly…? There was a new player on the board? Well, that was just bullshit! Because I still had a curse to break and a pair of Vampire brothers to escape. The last thing I needed was another one to have to deal with!
“Hey, come back to us, baby,” Tal hummed from my other side, because it was clear my mind was anywhere but here. In an angry place, at that.
“I’m sorry, I just need a minute,” I told them, trying to shift off the bed…something they wouldn’t allow.I knew this the second an arm banded around my waist like a steel bar, one that belonged to Tal, who had reacted before his brother had a chance to.
“Then you take it here with us, Nessa,”he ordered softly behind me. Which was when I finally realized something, making me blurt out,
“I’m not chained up this time?” Just the fact that I sounded as astonished as I did spoke volumes to how fucked up my life was right now. But then again…when had it not been?
“No chance of you escaping us anymore, so there was no need,” Victor told me, making me turn to face him. It was when I noticed that I was in a huge, dark bed I didn’t recognize, and both men appeared to be naked.
“You seem sure of that,” I said, instead of focusing on the hotness that surrounded me. As for my comment, this made him scoff.
“It was daylight hours when we found you, Nessa, not sure you would have chosen to be choked by that bitch had you the means to get out of it,” Victor replied, making perfect sense.
“One soon to be dead bitch,” Tal growled behind me, making me shiver.
“Agreed. But until then, we have everyone in the city looking for her,” Victor informed me.
“You do?” I asked, admittedly surprised by this. Which meant the only time they could have set these wheels in motion had been when I was talking to Stacey.
“Of course. No one hurts our girl and gets away with it,” Tal answered.
“She didn’t take away the curse,” I told them quietly, making Victor sigh as Tal gritted his teeth.
“That’s because there was no curse to take,” Victor said firmly.
“She fooled you, Nessa, used you because she recognized what you were to us,” Tal added, making me shake my head.
“I don’t believe that.”
Tal frowned before opening his mouth, about to argue this, when Victor stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
“Then we will just have to find a way to prove it to you, but until then, can you try to trust us?”
“Trust you how?” I asked in a timid voice. I felt like I was walking precious ground here. But Victor was only too happy to continue.
“Trust that we won’t hurt you and that we only want to care for our Fated.”
I swallowed hard, trying to hold back the emotions and the deepest of wishes that this was true. How badly I wanted this to be real for them as much as it already was for me.
