Bring Me A Dream: Reveler Series 5 (15 page)
Read Bring Me A Dream: Reveler Series 5 Online
Authors: Erin Kellison
Any
more
of them? She wasn’t even going to check. The answer was, “No.”
Vincent sucked the rest of the juice out of the box, threw it in the trash bin beside him, and roughly snuggled her to him. She squirmed, but he still managed to kiss her on that spot on her neck he knew she liked. His mouth on her skin sent a warm ripple of pleasure over her. Pure manipulation.
“Stop worrying,” he said to her. His breath smelled like apples. “Everything is going to be fine. If they don’t show, we’ll hunt them down and kick their asses.”
Because his tone had gone deadly serious at that last bit, Mirren fished the cookie wafers out of her bag and handed them over. She’d packed two snack-sized bundles and had more in the car for the road trip.
“Yummy,” he said, grinning and taking them from her.
It was hard to refuse Vincent anything after what had happened in the Scrape. He’d been ill for a few days afterward, a reveler exhaustion relapse, but had bounced back fast enough to be on his feet by the time his friend Paula had returned without warning to her apartment and found the disaster they’d made. She’d threatened to call the police numerous times—apparently, the hen had been a favorite memento of her time with her ex—but in the end, she had arranged for them to stay in her father’s cabin. All this despite the fact that they were wanted for questioning in connection with the death of Agatha Fleight.
Vince isn’t capable of murder
, Paula had said.
He’s one of the good guys.
Mirren had kept her mouth shut. The Vincent from before the Scrape might not have been able to kill anyone, but the one sitting next to her on the park bench munching on cookie wafers could.
“There they are,” he said, brushing crumbs from his jacket.
Mirren stood. She saw them now, too. Striding toward the playground were Rook, who was holding David, Jordan, and Jordan’s pink-haired sister, Maisie. Suddenly, David fought Rook’s hold—Mirren felt herself growing angry—but then Rook put him down and David sped as fast as his small legs could carry him…to the playground’s slide. Parenthood burned sometimes.
“One more minute,” Vincent said into her ear. “Just hold on, and the three of us will be on our way.”
Mirren looked uneasily at Maisie. What was she doing here?
Jordan handed over a shoulder bag. Now Mirren had two. “He’s got a runny nose that just won’t stop. Good luck with that.”
Mirren glanced at David, but she couldn’t see his face as he played. “Thank you for keeping him safe for me. I’ll be forever grateful.”
Maisie huffed a fast, light sigh, as if impatient.
“Kid’s a menace Darkside,” Rook said. “Jumps from dreamscape to dreamscape so fast I can barely keep up. I don’t know how you’ve done it for so long.”
“We have some ideas about how to keep him close,” Vincent said.
Mirren wasn’t sure his company’s tandem dreaming technology would help them keep track of David in the dreamwaters, but the Sandman was down there, and so she was willing to try anything.
Jordan’s expression had softened. “Have you heard about your father?”
Mirren shook her head. “No. Nothing.”
“They found his body. He’s still alive but unconscious.”
Mirren knew he would never wake, not after the Sandman had…disintegrated the reveling part of him like that. Which meant she would never find out why he’d protected her. The easy answer was that he loved her. And yet, he’d done such horrible things, some of them to her. She didn’t understand how a man capable of one extreme could even comprehend the other. The whole thing just hurt.
Vincent put a hand around her shoulder and squeezed.
Not alone.
That’s right. She wasn’t.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Jordan said. That she understood made Mirren like her even more.
“Okay, you done?” Maisie asked, shredding the moment.
Why
was
the little bitch here?
Jordan frowned at her sister, then told Mirren, “We’re just going to say good-bye to David.”
As Rook and Jordan went over to the slide, Maisie stepped in front of Mirren.
“Can I help you?” Mirren asked, impatiently. Because it had been days since she’d seen her son and she really didn’t want to spend even one minute chatting with Maisie Lane.
“Steve’s still not back.” She spoke as if she were accusing Mirren of something.
“I only saw him briefly,” she said, repeating what she had already told them over the phone. “I have no idea what happened to him.” Actually she was shocked that he hadn’t returned after her father had essentially been killed.
Maisie’s eyes welled with tears. “Do you think…?”
Mirren had answered this already, too. “That the Sandman got him, too? No. I really don’t. I would tell you if I did. Steve had been shielded by a crowd of nightmares. He was being very smart about it.”
“This is the
third
day.”
“Steve can survive underwater a long time.” Mirren had heard he’d been put in a private reveler support facility. “He’ll find his way back to you.”
“Right. So here’s the thing…” Mirren shifted her weight. “I know we got off on the wrong foot. And I’m willing to believe that you didn’t know Maze City was mine. So I hold no grudges, and I hope you don’t, either. I’m going to look for Steve, and I was wondering if you’d come with me.”
“You mean into the Scrape?”
Maisie rolled her eyes. “Could he be anywhere else?”
Mirren looked down at her feet to find the words to tell her there was no way to search for Steve in a vast, endless desert. But her gaze fell on a stuffed animal stuck inside a pocket of the bag Jordan had handed over. It was a well-loved elephant named Buzzy. It seemed Jordan and Rook
had
taken the trouble and risk to go back for it, after all. Either David had been impossible, or they had known how hard it would be for him away from his
maman
.
Mirren looked over at him playing happily on the slide with Rook. Jordan dived in to wipe David’s nose.
“Yes,” Mirren said.
Maisie spoke over her. “I’m going regardless. He’d come after me.”
“I said, yes. I’ll help you find Steve. Whatever you need.”
Maisie’s face lit up. “Yes?”
“That’s what she said,” Vincent put in.
“Oh, thank you!” Maisie threw her arms around her. When she pulled back, she wiped away tears. “My bag is in the car. Lemme go grab it really quick, and I’ll be right back.”
As she ran toward the parking lot, Jordan walked back over to Mirren and Vincent. “I take it she’s going with you?”
Mirren blinked a couple of times, trying to figure out what had happened. “I thought I was going to help her Darkside.”
Jordan laughed. “With Steve in a reveler support facility, she has nowhere to go. And since we don’t know who else besides Agatha Fleight your father may have told about Maze City, Maisie really shouldn’t live openly.”
“She didn’t explain that,” Vincent said dryly.
Maisie would be with them in the waking world
and
Darkside.
Wow.
“Does it change your mind?” Jordan asked.
“Yes,” Vincent said at the same time Mirren said, “No.”
Jordan smiled. “I’m so glad that’s settled.
***
“You can’t be serious,” Vince murmured to her after Jordan and Rook had started walking back to their car. They stopped to chat with Maisie, who had a duffel swung over her shoulder.
Good God.
His life, business, and family had crumbled, and his panacea for his worries was the promise of time with Mirren. The rest, they hoped, would work itself out. Someone within Chimera was building a case against Agatha Fleight, which hopefully would point to suicide rather than murder.
“I’m very serious. I owe it to Jordan,” Mirren said, wrapping her arm around his waist and giving him a consoling hug. “It’ll be fine.”
Fine?
Vince heaved a huge sigh. Yeah, okay, he could agree with that. He was alive and Didier Lambert’s body was slowly expiring, never to wake up again. Vince knew Mirren was upset over what had happened in the Scrape, and he’d told her to think of her father’s sacrifice as an act of love. Why not? The old man was gone, never to return. If ever there’d been a time for her father to show Mirren he’d cared about her, that moment facing down the Sandman had been it.
“The two of you arguing is going to drive me crazy,” Vince said.
“You’re already crazy,” Mirren observed.
“About you, maybe,” he said and he kissed her hard on her mouth. “Go get David. I want to make it to Maryland by nightfall.”
Mirren nearly skipped over to the playground to grab David and swing him around. He laughed so loud and sweet that Vince looked at his watch to see if they had time for him to play a little longer. The giggles went on with Mirren blowing raspberries on her son’s tummy, and Vince felt a smile on his face. He was happy. It’d been a while, but there it was, peaceful and easy in his chest.
He glanced over at Maisie to see if she was done saying good-bye to Jordan and Rook, and he found her staring beyond the playground at a field. A kids’ football team was just getting ready for practice.
Vince had no problem figuring out what Maisie was looking at. In a trick of shadow, a nightmare was creeping up on a mom who was just setting up a cooler with drinks. The sight made Vince go cold and predatory.
Seemed the nightmares were still going to be a problem.
Maisie set off toward the mom, and Vince started forward, too, just in case.
Suddenly it occurred to him how wrong he’d been to want Didier Lambert dead. That Chimera woman, Allison Bright, had counseled against killing him. For the first time, he wished Didier Lambert were still fully alive.
Because then they’d be able to ask him how to stop the nightmares. They could force him to tell them what the Sandman wanted. Or they could ask if it was too late for the waking world already.
THE END
Book Six in the Reveler Series will be released on September 15, 2014
THANK YOU!
Thank you for reading BRING ME A DREAM. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.
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OTHER BOOKS BY ERIN KELLISON
The Reveler Series
The Shadow Series
The Shadow Kissed Series
Night Kissed (book three - coming soon)
The Shadow Touch Novella Series
Shadow Burn (part four - coming soon)
Hotter On The Edge Anthologies
Anthologies of science fiction romance novellas
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Erin Kellison is the
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author of the Reveler series, as well as the Shadow series and Shadow Kissed series, which share the same world, where dark fantasy meets modern fairy tale. RT calls
Soul Kissed
, “a dark fairy tale with a twist, perfect for readers who love passion with their fantasy.”