Blood of Darkness | Eternal Bonds: Book 1

Chapter Three

*Selena*

Damien.

The man from my dreams was named Damien. He had the exact same shade of hair and the exact same eyes as the man in front of me. What was going on? It was a fact that the faces seen in dreams existed in real life, but we had to have seen them in real life in order to dream about them. I had never seen anyone with Damien's perfectly flawless face. Not his chiseled jaw. Not his pale skin. And certainly not his entrancing, mysterious stormy gray eyes.

So why had my mind brought his face into my dreams? And more important how?

The bottom line was that he was real. My mind hadn't conjured him up from nothing or based him on people I'd met before. He was real.

I was too shocked. I needed to process everything. What was happening to me? So I did the one thing I always did when things became too much for me to take.

I ran.

I ran out of the VIP lounge and outside of the club. The streets were empty and the moonlight shone down on me. I kept running until I reached the forest. I reached my favourite spot. A willow tree that sat next to Lake Cassiopeia. I wasn't sure why but I had always felt at home here by the lake under the light of the moon, surrounded by the smell of roses and being able to feel the evening breeze on my skin.

But tonight...tonight was different. It was like there was something different inside me. Like something was trying to get out. I relaxed by the lake for a while, just trying to get my thoughts together.

I closed my eyes and thought I heard whispering around me.

"Is anyone there?" I called out. But the forest around me was silent.

I sighed and stood. Maybe Ella, Ava, and Leon knew what was going on. Though somehow I doubted it. Regardless, they'd be looking for me, so I knew that I had to get back.

I began to walk back to the club. The trees created a canopy, blocking out most of the moonlight.

I heard footsteps and saw a man emerge from the shadows of the trees. He wore a long hooded black cloak and the hood was up, so I couldn't see his face. But something about him made me stop walking. I could see that he was taller than me. His height didn't scare me, but the knife in his hands did. Suddenly I remembered the warnings I used to hear when I was a teenager about being a female and being alone in the woods at night.

I could feel his eyes watching me and I felt the air around me change. The air grew cold and icy in a matter of moments. So cold that I began to shiver. How was that possible? It was the middle of summer! Was I in danger? Something in my heart told me I was, but I was too terrified to move. I had never been afraid of the dark and things that lurked in the shadows, but in that moment I was scared.

Then I heard him speak, his voice was as cold and icy as the air around us both.

"Regină," he said in an icy voice.

I knew something about this situation was wrong and I tried to call for help, but couldn't find my voice. I looked at the man and he stood still, watching me. After a moment, he approached me. My legs finally decided to work again and I bolted. Running through the forest, desperate to get away from him. To make matters worse, it had begun to rain. The grass became slick and I struggled to run in my heels.

But he was faster than I was. He suddenly appeared in front of me and then sliced both of my upper arms open with his knife. I stomped on his foot, distracting him for a moment before I took off running again. I made it to the edge of the woods, but tripped on a stone, landing on the cold, hard pavement that was the road.