Carefully, I searched for the Devil’s name. He was rarely mentioned, but when he was, he was always doing something important.
Like establishing the city, for one. Apparently, he’d been on the original council hundreds of years ago and had helped draft the city designs, basing them on his hometown of Sighi?oara in Romania.
Did he miss it?
As the pages turned and the years passed, the Devil appeared more infrequently, as if he’d stepped out of the limelight and become the loner I knew him to be. For someone with so much power and influence—and so many employees—he spent most of his time alone, as far as I could tell.
Not a single friend, unless you counted Miranda. And you couldn’t. She was a great right hand, but she wasn’t his pal.
The mystery of the Devil—of Grey—ran through my mind as my eyelids grew heavy, and the book slipped from my grasp.
When the dream came, I didn’t even realize it was a dream. The line between wakefulness and sleep was so fine that it didn’t exist.
Instead, I was immediately in the future, wrapped around Grey as he bent over me, his fangs brushing against my skin. A shiver raced through me, fear and desire in equal parts.
I moaned, tilting my head, wanting more of him. He groaned low in his throat. The noise made the heat inside me burn ever brighter. When his fangs pierced my skin, pleasure flared.
I clutched him to me, clinging. Waves of pleasure crashed over me as he drew on my neck. Every pull felt better than the last, until my head began to spin. My heart stuttered, and my skin grew cold.
Dimly, I realized that this was bad. This wasn’t normal.
“Grey.” I tried to speak, but the word was barely a whisper. He didn’t stop. Panic flared.
I tried to struggle, but it was too late. He’d taken too much. There wasn’t enough blood left to deliver oxygen to my muscles, and I was fading away. Dying.
My last thought was one that had haunted me since I’d heard it.
Cursed Mates.
7
Carrow
Hey! Wake up!
Cold water splashed on my face, and I jerked upright, gasping.
Cordelia sat next to me on the bed, my water cup clutched
in both of her little paws. She grinned toothily at me. You weren’t waking up.
I scowled. “You hardly tried.”
She held up the cup. I tried very hard.
“Dumping water on my face isn’t trying hard.” I pushed my wet hair off my forehead and tried to still my racing heart.
That dream…
I shuddered.
It couldn’t be a vision of the future, could it?
But it was. It was exactly what I’d seen when I’d touched Grey last week. A vision of our future—of what “Cursed Mates” meant to us. Except we didn’t know why or how, exactly.
Cordelia shifted, staring at me with solemn eyes. The Devil is here.
“What?” Surprise flashed through me. “Already? Why didn't you lead with that information?”