The Creation (Book III)

(9) Present: 2024

(9) Present: 2024

While I slept I had a dream that a boa constrictor wrapped its body around my stomach, making me choke and cry out for air I shouldn’t have needed. Something was burning nearby me, but I couldn’t see it. I felt the heat bite at my flesh, and smelled the choking smoke, but I didn’t see the fire. That’s when I noticed a casket across the room, nestled in the corner. The snake had disappeared, and the fire had burned out long ago. I had made my way towards the dusty casket, my feet bleeding from the broken glass I walked across the room.

When I reached the casket, I knelt down to it and gripped the lid as tears dripped down my white, burnt up dress. Carefully, I had lifted the lid and held my breath. Inside the casket, with eyes wide open and lips parted as if to scream, was me.

The dream had taken a sudden shift and then I truly was in the casket, and the lid closed over me and I couldn’t breathe. I smelled dirt and ashes and blood. No matter how hard I screamed and clawed at the lid, no one heard me. I was being moved, descending into the ground. I cried out for Xavier the entire time. He’s always there to save me, after all. He wouldn’t let me die.

But I did die. That’s how I woke up.

Gasping, I clenched the sheets and sat up, my fangs extended from the emotions pulsing through me. I realized my chest was sticky from tears dripping down my chin. I placed my hands on either side of my head and let out a small groan as if I had a massive hangover.

If only.

Fingers brushed my spine, breaking my thoughts of the nightmare I had been having. I didn’t look behind me. I didn’t have to. Lips pressed into my shoulder as I quickly wiped the tears away to hide any evidence of the nightmare.

“Hello,” Liam murmured into my ear as he pulled me closer to him.

I turned and looked into those deep blue eyes of his. His dark hair was messy, sticking up in every direction. His lips, always full and red, were especially full and red right now from being slightly swollen. When he turned to look at the clock, I noticed the scratches down his back, deep and red.

“Sorry about your back,” I muttered, highly embarrassed.

He gave me one of his sloppy smiles. “No apologies needed. I had a lovely time.”

My stomach gave a twist as I looked away from him and at the hotel room. The place was pretty nice, with a large flat screen TV on the wall across from us. The flooring was a luxuriously soft carpet I got to feel up close last night. The bed was king sized and perfectly comfortable, with a thick red comforter that I could just get lost in. Beside the black leather couch to my right was a mini fridge Liam currently had a few blood bags stored in.

“This is rather wonderful,” Liam commented as he laid against his pillows and stroked my bare back roughly.

I nodded, not meeting his gaze. “I actually should probably head back to the apartment…Joanna, I’m sure, is freaking out that I’m not home yet.” I scooted towards the edge of the bed and grabbed a blanket off the bed and wrapped it around me.

“You told Joanna you were going on a date with me, right?”

When I spotted my dress draped against the cherry wood coffee table I practically tackled it. “Oh, yeah. I doubt she thought it’d be an overnight sort of thing…Or over day, I don’t know. Shoes?”

Liam got out of bed and pulled on some flannel pajama bottoms. “I think they’re by the door. You can stay for some tea, can’t you? Maybe coffee?”