Three nights.
Three marks.
Three visits from someone she still couldn’t name.
Her days were starting to feel louder, sharper. Every sound tugged at her attention. Every shadow seemed to breathe. Like the world was adjusting to fit something new around her — or preparing for something else to slip through.
She told herself she wasn’t scared.
And maybe she wasn’t.
But curiosity burns just as hot as fear, and hers was a wildfire.
That night, she didn’t bother pretending she wasn’t waiting.
She showered.
Lotioned her skin until it glowed.
Slipped into bed with the sheets cool and crisp, like she was preparing for company.
“If he wants round three,” she whispered into the quiet, “he knows where to find me.”
Her heart thumped an answer.
Sleep didn’t gently ease over her this time.
It yanked her under.
The red-lit world appeared instantly, the air warm and pulsing. But this time something was different — the place felt wider, more detailed, almost like it was forming a real landscape around her. A hush of wind stirred her hair. Shadows stretched long, forming shapes that didn’t exist the nights before.
Then she felt him.
Not his touch.
Not his breath.
His arrival.
Like gravity bending.
The air shifted, and he stepped out of the dark. Tall. Solid. Eyes glowing faint gold. More visible than ever, and definitely more dangerous looking now that he wasn’t hiding in the shadows.
“You came back,” she whispered, though she hated how breathless she sounded.
He moved toward her with slow, steady confidence.
“No. You pulled me.”
She frowned. “How?”
His fingers traced the new mark on her skin — the second one — as if he were reading a map only, he understood.
“When you think of me,” he murmured, “you open the door.”
She shivered.
“You’re telling me I can drag you out of your world just by… wanting you?”
His jaw tightened, a grin pulling at one corner like he was half-pleased, half-worried she knew the truth.
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
She swallowed, nerves buzzing with heat and danger.
“So what are you?”
His eyes glowed brighter.
“Something that shouldn’t reach this far. Something that shouldn’t touch you.”
He stepped closer, their bodies brushing, heat radiating between them.
“But you keep letting me.”
Her breath trembled. “Maybe I want to.”
His hand slid up her back, slow, deliberate, burning like a brand.
“And maybe that’s the problem.”
Before she could ask what, he meant, the world shuddered. The dream-space flickered. The shadows rippled violently, like something else had noticed him stepping across boundaries he wasn’t supposed to cross.
His expression changed — sharp, alert.
“You’re not alone here tonight,” he warned.
Her stomach dropped.
“What does that mean?”
He grabbed her hand, fingers locking with hers — warmer than anything she’d ever felt.
“It means I broke a rule the first time I touched you.”
A cracking sound echoed through the red-lit landscape.
A jagged tear appeared in the air behind him, darkness leaking through like smoke.
“And now something is coming to collect the debt.”
Her pulse hammered. “For touching me?”
“For wanting you.”
The wind howled through the dream, cold slicing through the heat. Shadows rose like bodies forming out of smoke.
He pulled her close, gripping her waist with urgency instead of desire.
“You need to wake up, now.”
“I don’t know how!”
His hand cupped her face, glowing with a warmth that bordered on pain.
“Think of your world. Think of your body. Think of anything that belongs to you.”
The darkness behind him cracked wider.
“Hurry.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, focusing, fighting the pull of the dream. She felt his hands, his breath, his heat — then everything ripped away.
She shot upright in bed, gasping, drenched in sweat. The room was spinning, cold, wrong.
Her hip throbbed.
She pushed the blanket back —
and froze.
A third mark.
Not a scratch this time.
A faint shape.
A fingerprint.
His.
Her breath faltered.
He’d touched her again — but in a way that felt like a warning, not a seduction.
Something else had been there with them.
And whatever it was…
He wasn’t done protecting her.
Or claiming her.
And she wasn’t done wanting him.
