Finding Fire

Chapter 7

Anna had been afraid that with the eventful night, she would never get to sleep, but exhaustion soon took her over. That was when the dreams started.

Nicolas was in every one of them. Some were recurring nightmares that she'd had over the past fifteen years.

She would look over her shoulder and see Charles standing over her, getting ready to strike the first blow to her back. As he did in every dream, he would lift his arm to strike. In this dream, his face would morph into Nicolas's staring down at her. The dream would end with Anna opening her mouth to scream and nothing coming out.

Then there were the other dreams that came to her that night. Types of dreams she'd never had before. Some she could've sworn were real.

She was in her bed, but when she opened her eyes, he was there. He stood over her, giving her the same intense look he'd given her back in his apartment. She continued to stare at him as he took off his shirt. As his hands went to the button of his pants, Anna tried to study his chest, but she couldn't seem to focus.

As she tried to narrow her eyes on the fuzzy abs, he suddenly leaned on the bed and crawled over her. As he crawled further up the bed, she realized that at some point, her clothes had disappeared. She gasped at the surprise, and his mouth was on hers.

He took possession of her. Filled her with his tongue while his hands roamed all over her body. Too soon he pulled her thighs apart and wrapped her legs high around his waist.

She wrenched her face away, her hands going up to push him off her. Before she could, he surged inside her and his mouth struck at her neck.

This time she did scream. She found herself screaming in an empty bed. Her long t-shirt and panties were exactly where they were supposed to be. Her bedcovers, on the other hand, were in a horrible mess around her bed.

Anna could only imagine how much twisting she'd been doing to cause them to become that rumpled. She quickly showered, scrubbing all of the remnants of the disturbing dreams off her skin, but the uneasy feelings lingered.

Any man who gave her nightmares like that was one she should be avoiding, but she couldn't seem to think of anything else. Nicolas was so far out of her league. She had no idea how old he was. He wanted to use her to help him kill some old enemy of his, who she had only seen once fifteen years ago.

Who was also a vampire king. Because killing a normal vampire wasn't hard enough. It had to be vampire royalty.

Anna didn't want to get involved in vampire politics. She wanted to find out what had happened to Evie and Charles. She wanted to find Evie holed up in some small town with five kids and find out Charles had died slowly and painfully.

She told a therapist once that she wished Charles was dead. The therapist advised her about the dangers of filling her life with the negativity and hatred involved in that sentiment.

But Anna didn't hate Charles. She hated what he could do to her. She hadn't seen him in years, yet she still had nightmares about him. Sometimes she thought he followed her on the streets or watched her in class. She lived in fear he would waltz into her classroom one day. Or that she would come home and find him lying in wait for her.

No, Anna didn't hate him. She hated that he made her this terrified. He scared her much more than any vampire king ever could.

She'd seen those void black eyes and she'd faced Charles on the same night. If she had the choice, she would have run straight back to Aleksander drinking the last of Evie's father and beg him to do whatever he wished to her as long as he would keep her away from Charles.