I knew that in this realm I wasn’t human, I knew I was different. I wished though it transcended to the reality realm. However, not the blood-needing part.
Things moved in the forest, banshees wailed, unfamiliar creatures gathered in the bushes and along the ground.
It made no sense, not for one of my kind.
What kind?
The night should have welcomed me-soothed me. Enfolded me in its rich blanket of peace.
The night had always belonged to me-to my kind. Information should have flooded me with each breath I took into my body, but instead my mind played tricks, saw things that couldn’t be there.
I could hear a dark symphony of voices calling to me, the sounds swelling in volume until my head pounded with moans and pitiful cries.
The spider legs are next.
I passed to myself, right before I felt it.
Bony fingers brushed at my skin, spider legs crawled over me so that I twisted left and right, flailing my arms, slapping at my chest and back, brushing vigorously in an effort to dislodge the invisible webs that seemed to stick to my skin.
Yet this is better than the incoming women.
I shuddered again and forced air through my lungs. The women that had tried to seduce me to drink blood.
I held my head as pain went through it. I bit back a scream. Didn’t want the women coming earlier before they did.
The pain must have come from trying to merge both my current thoughts and the one of the old me. Best I kept quiet and let the old rule, whilst I observe.
Easier said than done.
I had to be hallucinating, caught in the trap of a master sorcerer. If that was the case, she couldn’t call on Adam for aid until I knew if I was bait to draw them into the web as well.
I gripped my head hard and forced my mind to calm. I would remember.
Once again I risked a look at my surroundings. My stomach lurched as the brilliant colors dazzled me, hurting my head and making me sick.
The surrounding jungle held violent color, hues of vivid greens, a riot of colored flowers spilling down tree trunks along with creeper vines. My head pounded and my eyes burned.
Drops of blood leaked like tears, trailing down my face to my surprise as I squinted to try to control the sensation of pitching and rolling as I viewed the rainforest.
Emotions poured in. I tasted fear, something I hadn’t known since I met Diana and her family .
Pain aced through my heart. I screamed this time around, retreating mentally.
Stop interfering with your old self. Let the Dream play out!
What was going on? I fought to get on top of the strange tumbling of jumbled thoughts in my mind.
I pushed hard to clear away the debris and focus on what I knew of my past. Fire burned through my insides, spreading rapidly as something like poison worked its way through my system.
Blood ran in rivers and light faded quickly. I heard voices calling, chanting, and felt someone reaching for me to try to hold me to earth.
I found myself in a shadowy realm, banshees wailing, shadows flickering and reaching. Skeletons. Dark spiked teeth. Talons. Spiders and cockroaches. Snakes hissing. The skeletons are drawing closer and closer until…
I closed my mind to my surroundings, to all shared pathways, so there was no chance anyone could be feeding my own fears. It had to be a hallucination brought on by a mage.
No matter that I had stopped anything from entering my brain-something malicious was already present.
Fire ringed me, crackling flames reaching greedily toward the sky and stretching like obscene tongues toward me. Out of the conflagration, handsome men and beautiful women emerged, species reserved for the front pages of porn magazines, and they were naked.
They began to crowd around me, arms reaching, mouths open wide as they bent toward me, showing their wares. They smiled and beckoned, eyes wide, blood running down the sides of their necks-tempting-tempting.
Hunger burned. Raged. Grew into a monster. I couldn’t believe that I thirsted for blood.
As I watched, the women called to me seductively, moaning and writhing as if in sexual ecstasy, their hands touching themselves suggestively.
“Take me, Maya,” one cried. “I’m yours,” another called and reached out to me.
Hunger forced me to her feet. I could already taste the rich, hot blood, and was desperate to regain my equilibrium. I needed, and they would provide.
I smiled at them, my slow, seductive smile that always foreshadowed the taking of prey.
As I took a step forward, I stumbled, the knots in my stomach hardening into painful lumps. I caught myself with one hand on the ground before I fell.
The ground shifted, and I could see the women’s faces in the dirt and rotting leaves. The soil, black and lush, shifted until I was surrounded by the faces, the eyes staring accusingly.
“You killed me. Killed me.” The accusation was soft, but powerful, the mouths yawning wide as if in horror.
“You took my love, all that I had to offer, and you left me,” another cried.
“You owe me your soul,” a third demanded.
I drew back with a soft hiss of denial.
“I never touched you, other than to feed.”
I straightened my shoulders and faced the women squarely.
“I live by blood and I took what you offered. I did not kill. I did not pretend to love you. I have nothing to be ashamed of. Go away and take your accusations with you. I did not betray my honor, my family, my people or my mate.”
I had many sins to answer for, but not this. Not what these sensual women with their greedy mouths were accusing me of.
“Sleeping in class on your first day? That’s rich.”
I heard the sharp old voice, and swiveled, abandoning the beckoning hands of the wraiths.
No one.
“Get up now, or you will be spending the rest of today in detention.”
A tap on my arm.
I scrunched my face. This hasn’t been part of the old dream.