AVAILABLE ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE
Eva has a world inside her head--the land of Astraela, where Darkness and Corrupted beasts threaten eternal doom. Vivid dreams have given her four books as an up-and-coming author, but when undead fiends appear...
DREAMS WERE FINICKY. Some nights, they came easily, invading Eva's subconscious when she would've rather been lost to sleep's silent abyss—and on others, they had to be pried from the depths of her mind with grand offerings.
Tonight, she had everything she needed to dream. Or, at least, she hoped.
Her wooden desk was littered with all the items she knew would invoke something in her sleep: warm apple cider, a vanilla spice candle, the soft sounds of a campfire crackling from her laptop speakers... even the rain pattering against her bedroom window added to the perfect inspirational ambiance.
For the past few hours, Eva had made every attempt to distract herself. Bobbi had left in a rush, assuring there would be updates as she spoke with the police about the break-in, but her text messages were few and far between. Eventually, she had promised to call in the morning.
Finally, Eva resorted to poring over the rough draft of her novel, saturating her mind with all the story had to offer. Its characters would surely be waiting in the void when she drifted off to sleep, ready to pick up where she'd last left them.
The last scene before her dreams stopped.
It was a sweet moment between Thana and Emrys, sure to become a fan-favorite once the book was ready for consumption. Despite her annoyance that morning, Jensen and Jade had a valid point: the characters had been dropping hints about their feelings for too long.
Even if the rest of the novel hadn't lived up to her expectation, she was certain that moment would bring her readers satisfaction. They had waited forever for their heroes to confess attraction for one another... almost as long as herself.
It had been years since she first met them, but the dream stuck vividly in her memory.
She had dreamt of traversing the cobblestone streets of an old trade town, weaving through clusters of townsfolk in desperate attempts to not come into contact with any close bodies. An old tavern stood at the end of the street, with crowds filing inside to escape the nippy evening air.
That was when she noticed a man waving at her from the wooden patio out front. He called a name that was unfamiliar, yet strangely fitting to her dreamwalking brain.
Thana.
He was certainly directing the name at her, which became more apparent when she responded with a sarcastic remark about him running off ahead again. She joined the man—whom she learned was named Emrys—in the tavern for dinner, cozied up in a corner booth to watch the blitzed patrons around them. Humans and creatures from all walks of life laughed together, enjoying drinks and enchanted herbal rolls that filled the bar with a smoky haze.
It wasn't an out-of-the-ordinary dream. Not after one of her first gaming sessions with the girls.
Until Thana bumped into a drunken gnome from the next table over.
It happened in a flash. She stood too quickly, and the gnome stumbled too klutzily, ending in a collision that anyone else would have brushed off with a laugh. But the second her fingers grazed his dirt-encrusted arm, his eyes faded to a steely gray. He clutched his chest, gasping for air he couldn't retrieve.
Hardly a moment passed before he fell to the floor, dead.
It was Eva's first introduction to the Reaper's Touch: a profound curse bound to Thana's skin.
Eva had woken the next morning, staring at her ceiling and wishing the dream hadn't ended. The entire night, she had followed the two misfits as they dashed from the bar, raced into the woods, and spent the rest of their night walking along the river while Emrys calmed Thana down from a safe distance.
Thankfully, the dreams continued night after night, displaying escapades in new towns or battling Dark forces in the thickest forests. Other nights, her characters kept to themselves, talking about life as they dangled their legs in a luminescent pond, or went for a quiet walk through the woods.
Over time, Thana and Emrys had become her best friends. Her companions.
Even when she woke, she thought up new adventures for them, or caught herself fading into a daydream during shifts. She was certain Mrs. Prescott was sick of waving a hand in her face to bring her back to reality.
How could anyone blame her, though? It was easy to become completely wrapped up in them.
Thana was so strong, so devastatingly beautiful—the perfect symbol of everything Eva longed to be. The stoic woman had never thought much of herself and kept her necromantic background quiet, rarely performing rituals or using magical affinities outside battle. But even through the façade, raw power radiated from her very essence.
And then there was Emrys.
No doubt, he had invaded her dreams due to a lifetime of longing for a handsome man to swoop in and sweep her off her feet.
Emrys wasn't the stereotypical man of everyone else's dreams, but he was the one of hers: a Phoenix feared by man and beast, whose control over hellfire was unmatched. His power exceeded his friend's, though instead of flaunting his abilities, Eva often found him wandering the Astraelan fields and watching wildlife during a leisurely stroll. He loved the little things. Despite his immortality, he held a certain innocence, like a child in a man's body.
It didn't take Eva long to pick up her laptop and begin writing about her two new friends. When the scribbles morphed into four self-published novels, it felt like nothing would keep her from enjoying their adventures forever.
Until the dreams stopped.
Not just her precious Astraelan dream, but all of them. Ever since Thana and Emrys' fireside talk, her sleep had been as void of life as the sky above them. After being so close to finishing her series, so close to what she was sure would be their final happily ever after, her creativity had dwindled to embers.
She set her cider down with a huff. "You can do this. You have to stop overthinking it."
Sleep weighed her mind as she stood, pulling her closer to the realm of unconsciousness. She made her way across the small room to her bed, peeled back the rust-orange covers, and let out a determined sigh.
"You're going to dream."
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