Nightmares and Daydreams (The Blood Falls Book 4)

Dray was getting a crash course on humanity through my dreams. I grew up as a human so yeah, I dreamt about a lot of human worries. One night my car wouldn’t start. It was really funny because Dray kept telling me to ditch the car and shift instead, but in my dream I didn’t know how. He was super perplexed by the whole car thing.

Then the next night I went to class naked. He had never heard about the human phenomenon of dreaming about going to school naked or why it was embarrassing and symbolic of a whole bunch of stuff.

Then last night I dreamt about getting mugged in a dark alley. The helpless feeling. The worry about being shot or raped. The power dynamic of the mugger over me.

Dray woke up pissed as hell. It took hours to explain all the details and about the human society that allows things like that to happen.

It went both ways though. I was learning a lot more about samhain culture too. I could never wrap my head around the extended childhood, but it was getting easier because Dray dreamt about it a lot. I also got a good look at the coming-of-age process and how very different it was in the samhain world than the human world.

I mean, I heard the stories and facts, but since I was Awakened after I was a fully grown adult, I never went through the decade-long process of transforming from the end of puberty to being fully mature. Humans could really benefit from reconceiving growing up as a process that included a step between puberty and adulthood. Instead it’s just “Congratulations! You’re eighteen. Good luck!”

In the samhain world they spend years transitioning into adulthood, including sexually. They literally spend almost ten years learning how their bodies work, how they react to different sexual experiences, and how to do it all well.

No wonder everyone was so good at sex!

So yeah, dream sharing had its benefits. Sexy ones too. Wet dreams were now not just dreams. They were kind of real. And it was hot.

I woke up this morning dreaming of Dray on top of me. Inside me. Slow and deep. When we both woke up we were acting it out, right on the edge. I always found wet dreams satisfying, but waking up to a wet dream being real? Amazing.

“I feel like I should apologize,” he panted.

“Why? We both want this.”

He thrust hard and fast, all while holding my hands beside my head. “Fuck, how I want this.”

Consent was sacred to the samhain, but how did that work when you shared sexy dreams? To me it seemed that we did consent, we just happened to be sharing a dream when it happened.

“Take your time. I’m having fun.” I could spend my whole morning held down by Dray while he fucked me into oblivion.

“Normally you’re the one coming all over the place, but I think it’s my turn,” he grunted as his orgasm hit. His hips jerked several times, then he buried his cock deep with a sigh.

I wiggled my wrists until he granted me freedom. “You catch your breath while I get us ready for round two.” I played with my nipples and clit, touching lightly at first, then, as the blood flowed into them, began to pinch and tug.

“Fuck, it’s hot when you play with yourself.”

“You’re not on the sidelines, big man.” I lifted my hips, riding his cock from below. “You’ve got me all filled up.” I loved that samhain males stayed hard and that if they came quickly, they could go again immediately.

“I think I want a little something different this time.” He took my hips in his hands and withdrew, adjusted, and pressed inside my ass instead.

I arched and gasped in his grasp. The new invasion was just different enough. “Damn, Dray.” My empty core ached to be filled even as my pleasure washed over me from his new invasion.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got you.” He held me up against him with one hand, fingering me with the other. “Like my own buffet. Pluck those nipples for me. I’m out of hands.”

I complied immediately.

“Oh yes. Love feeling your reactions, Rhysa. Every time you tug on those nipples, your pussy clenches around me.”

So I kept tugging and rolling until my orgasm hit, taking Dray right along with me.

Dray whistled as he made breakfast and we started our days with a spring in our steps on the way down to the House of Wren.

“Well hello there!” Bo grinned as I walked into the kitchen. He stood over the sink scrubbing a pan. The house smelled of bacon and syrup. “Haven’t seen you in a few days.”

My hours frequently didn’t align with Bo’s. He was more a night owl than I was and we weren’t working on any of the same things. “Anything new under the sun?”

“I have no idea if swords will be useful in this war, but training is coming along nicely.” Bo was in charge of training and planning.

“They must. Otherwise why would the Houses have all put so much emphasis on keeping the family swords and armor? Why name them? Why does the Head of House have the most power with them? I have to believe the swords will matter.”

He grunted, rinsed the pan, and set it on the drying rack. “Well then we’ll be ready in that department.” He turned and leaned against the counter, dish towel thrown over his shoulder. “I’m going to be honest, Rhysa. I can feel the fear. Not everyone, but almost everyone. They’re putting on a brave front, but underneath it all, they’re scared.”

“Is that surprising to you?” It wasn’t to me. I just assumed everyone was shitting themselves in fear. It’s the only sane and logical approach to a war with unknown beings for unknown reasons. We could be an even match or we could ants thinking we stood a chance next to a lion.

“It is,” Bo sighed. “Everything changed after the battle with Rhine. Before that everyone still had that blind samhain confidence. We have all these gifts and abilities, we train from very young ages, and yet we have never faced a real battle in our lifetimes. That all changed at Rhine’s. We were evenly matched. Outmatched, really. But it was the banshees that woke everyone up.”

Ah yes. Our friendly neighborhood banshees. Rhine found a way to weaponize the House of Gatlin’s gifts. No one was prepared for it and we barely survived it. It was the kind of thing we should expect in the war, only much, much more of it.

Thus the freaking out and pants-shitting.

“It’s easy to be brave when you believe you have the advantage. It’s much harder when you know you don’t.” Maybe that was the human upbringing in me talking.

Bo frowned. “We’ve lived in our little pocket of paradise too long. Knowing we are more powerful than humans gave us peace. No one can touch us but ourselves.”

“Except now that’s not true.” I grabbed a coffee cup and filled it up with the beautiful dark liquid. “Maybe this is another perk of my human upbringing. I’m more used to this feeling of inferiority and uncertainty.”

Bo’s eyes tracked me as I poured in a little cream and stirred. “Dray mentioned your propensity for preparedness.”

Growing up on my own, always with a target on my back, taught me to always have an escape plan. A way to defend myself. I was still that way, but not as diligent as I once was. I didn’t need to be here. I was safe from everything but the coming war. Out of habit I always had a knife in my pocket and at least one other weapon on my person. Plus, I had escape routes mapped out in my head for every building I entered. Bonus if I could identify at least one excellent hiding place.

And hiding wasn’t always just for hiding. It was also an excellent way to surprise an enemy.

But I digress…

“And?” I took a sip of hot, wonderful coffee, arching an eyebrow at Bo.

“You have a skill set none of us have ever needed before. We should talk, Rhysa.”

“About escape routes and hiding places?”

“Yes,” he said quickly. “And hiding weapons in places we don’t think we need them because we don’t actually know a damn thing about what we’re facing. I want to think like a human.”

“Like prey,” I said quietly.

He nodded once.

“All right then. We’ll start today at lunch.”

Bo grinned. It was such a boyish, sexy, devastating grin I wondered why he was still so very single. “It’s a deal.”

“I’m planning a party!” Gigi burst into the house laden down with fabrics and books. Her cheeks were flushed pink and her eyes brighter than I’d seen them in weeks. Maybe months.

“A party?” Bo asked, folding his long arms over his chest.

“For Aunt Bethany and Sun. They are officially getting married this weekend and I’m planning the biggest party this house has ever seen!”

“Married?” Marriage was different in the samhain world. There were many different kinds of official partnerships and marriage was only one of them.

Gigi nodded. “They conducted the promising ceremony on Saturday. That means they will have to wed this coming Saturday night.” She stopped when she saw my confusion. “There is a week between Promising and Wedding. To make sure the couple are really ready. Marriage is a permanent bond.”

Which is why there were so many other types of partnerships. Mates, Bonded Mates, Bonded Families, and Marriage were just the ones I understood so far. I was still trying to work out what a Soul Promise was or how that was different from Blood Partners.

My brain hurt.

But I understood Bethany loved Sun and that was permanent, so marriage sounded right. “How can I help?”

She waved her hand at me. “You have lots to do. I’ve got this.”

I shot a look at Bo who was glaring at Gigi. He thought she was distracting herself as much as I did, if I read that look right. I turned back to Gigi. “So do you. We need answers on how the swords work, like yesterday.”

She dumped everything onto the table and sighed. “I need this. I need to focus on something that isn’t life or death for a few days. I need to get Ryddyck out of my head.”

I wanted to tell her to get her butt back to the lab and talk to Ryddyck but instead I told her what she wanted to hear. “Okay. But we’re all here to help. Just ask.”

She visibly relaxed. I saw Bo tense out of the corner of my eye. He stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing. “Do I need to kick his ass? I’ll kick his ass.”

“Please don’t. He’s important. And knowing him, you’ll just jumble up his brain even more.” She shot him a weak smile.

Suddenly I felt pulled out of my body. I saw Kris in the yard pulling his sword from the sheath he wore across his back. A sword in my own hand. Voices echoing. And then I was back.

I used the table for balance and shook my head feeling woozy. I would have said I was pulled into Dray’s mind, but I could feel him moving in his office. Grabbing that same sword. It was time for training.

“Shouldn’t you be headed out to the yard?”

Bo locked his gaze with mine and nodded slowly, like he could feel that I was off or that something was wonky anyway. “You all right?”

I swallowed hard in a miserable attempt at resetting my body. These sudden, close visions of the immediate future were coming on more frequently now. “I’m fine.”

“What happened?” Gigi asked.

Bo’s frown deepened. “You’re pale. Something definitely happened.”

They were like a dog with a bone. All the Wrens were. At least I knew it came from a place of intense caring. “Dray and I…our connection keeps getting stronger. The more time we spend…”

The world spun a little and I put my hand back on the table for balance.

“As the dragon,” Gigi finished softly.

“Yeah. Brain stuff keeps happening. I just got a flash of Dray and Kris in the yard training.” But training hadn’t started yet.

Bo’s eyebrows shot up. “The future? How often is this happening? It could be useful.”

I decided to stop trying to stand and grabbed a chair instead. Gigi put a cool glass of water in my hands. “It’s new. I didn’t know what it was the first few times it happened. I thought they were memories or dreams. But…a little time and experience and now I know the difference. Future-sight always makes me dizzy.”

And he was right, if I could figure it out—why it happens when it happens—then yeah, it could be damn useful.

“You talk to Rain about this yet?” Bo pressed.

“I will today.”

“Good.” He grabbed his sword from where it was propped in the corner. “We need every weapon at our disposal. And don’t forget lunch.”