Chapter 26 NOT DANTE
Chapter 26:
Sera's POV
I climbed onto the bed carefully, positioning myself next to Dante. He was cold. Too cold. Like he was already half-gone.
"Once I begin the incantation, you'll start to feel drowsy," Marcus continued. "Don't fight it. Let yourself sink into the meditation. The spell will handle the rest."
"And when I'm in?"
"You'll know. The dream realm has a distinct feel....wrong, somehow. Off-balance. Trust your instincts."
"What if I get lost?"
"The mate bond should guide you to him. It'll feel like a pull, a thread connecting you." He paused. "But Sera, the nightmare will try to sever that connection. It'll show you things designed to make you doubt him, doubt yourself, doubt the bond. Don't listen."
"I won't."
"And if you encounter something that seems like Dante-" His expression turned grave. "Verify it's actually him before you trust it. The nightmare can create duplicates. False versions designed to trap you."
"How do I verify?"
"The mate bond. The real Dante will have the bond connection. Duplicates won't." He handed me a small crystal. "This will glow warm when you're near his true consciousness. Cold when you're near a fake."
I pocketed the crystal. "Anything else?"
"Yes." Marcus gripped my shoulder. "Remember who you are. The nightmare will try to break you by showing you your failures, your fears, your deepest regrets. It'll make you want to give up. Don't. You're Sera. You're the Twilight Sovereign. You don't break."
"I don't break," I repeated. Trying to believe it.
Marcus moved to the head of the bed, placing his hands on both our foreheads. "Ready?"
"No. But do it anyway."
He began to chant. Old words, in a language I didn't recognize. The candles flared. The crystals began to glow.
Drowsiness hit like a wave. My eyelids grew heavy. The room started to fade.
"Find him," Marcus's voice seemed to come from very far away. "Bring him home."
Darkness swallowed me completely.
\---
I woke....if waking was the right word, in fog.
Thick, gray, impenetrable fog that pressed in from all sides. No sky. No ground. Just endless mist and the sensation of standing on nothing.
"Dante?" My voice sounded strange. Muffled. Like speaking underwater.
No response. Just fog and silence.
I took a step forward. The mist parted slightly, revealing a path. Narrow. Uncertain. But there.
I followed it. What choice did I have?
The fog gradually thinned. Shapes emerged...trees, maybe? Twisted and wrong, their branches reaching like claws. The path wound between them, sometimes solid, sometimes fading to nothing.
This was the nightmare realm. Dante's subconscious made manifest.
I touched the crystal Marcus had given me. Cold. Ice cold.
Dante wasn't close. I'd have to search.
The path split ahead. Two directions, both equally ominous. Left led toward darker fog and distant sounds of snarling. Right led toward a flickering light that might have been fire.
"Choose wisely," I muttered. "Wrong choice means death."
I went right. Toward the light. Fire usually meant life, warmth, safety.
The path twisted. The light grew brighter. Too bright. Uncomfortably hot.
I emerged into a clearing. The fire wasn't a campfire or hearth...it was a building. Burning. Collapsing. And inside...
Screaming. People screaming.
I moved closer. Recognized the structure. The Crimson Fang pack house. Burning. Just like it had during the Council loyalist attack.
But this was worse. Much worse. The screams were familiar. Wolves I knew. Children.
"Help!" A voice from inside. Young. Terrified. "Please, someone help!"
I ran toward the building. Had to save them. Had to...
The door slammed shut before I reached it. Locked. The screams intensified.
"No!" I threw my shoulder against the door. Solid. Immovable. "Hold on! I'm coming!"
But I couldn't get in. The building burned, the screams faded one by one, and I stood there useless while wolves died.
When the screaming finally stopped, the building collapsed. Ash and silence.
"First fear," I said aloud, understanding. "Helplessness. Failing to protect."
This was Dante's nightmare. His fear of being unable to save his pack made manifest.
I turned away from the ruins. The path continued. I followed.
Next came a battlefield. Bodies everywhere. Wolves torn apart. Blood soaking the ground.
I picked my way through carefully. Recognized faces. Warriors from both Aurora and Crimson Fang. Dead. All dead.
And standing in the center of the carnage...me.
Or a version of me. Silver eyes glowing. Hands dripping blood. Smiling.
"You," the false-Sera said. "This is your fault. You brought war. You destroyed everything."
"You're not real." I tried to walk past.
False-Sera moved to block me. "All these deaths. Because you couldn't let go. Couldn't forgive. Couldn't move past your own hurt."
"You're just a fear manifestation."
"Am I?" She gestured at the bodies. "Or am I the truth you won't acknowledge? That your vendetta got innocent people killed?"
"Get out of my way."
"Make me." Her smile widened. "Or are you afraid I'm right?"
I was afraid. But I was also done playing games.
Silver light exploded from my hands. The false-Sera disintegrated. The battlefield faded.
"Second fear," I said. "Being blamed. Being the villain."
The path continued. I followed, more cautious now.
The landscape shifted constantly. One moment forest, next moment desert, then mountains, then nothing. The nightmare couldn't decide what to be.
I checked the crystal periodically. Still cold. Dante was somewhere in this mess, but I wasn't getting closer.
Hours passed. Or minutes. Time felt wrong here. Elastic and unreliable.
I faced more manifestations. Some I recognized as Dante's fears....failure, rejection, losing pack. Others were stranger. More abstract. Shadows that whispered doubts. Mirrors that showed terrible futures.
I pushed through all of it. Determined. Focused.
Then the path split again. Three directions this time.
Left, toward howling wind and ice.
Center, toward what looked like a maze of mirrors.
Right, toward a dim light. Steady. Warm. Almost like...
I checked the crystal. Still cold, but less so. Warming gradually.
Right, then. Toward the light.
The path narrowed. Became more defined. Real ground under my feet instead of mist.
I emerged into a clearing. Small. Almost peaceful compared to everything else.
And there, standing with his back to me....
Dante.
My heart leapt. I'd found him. Finally.
"Dante!" I ran forward. "Dante, it's me! It's Sera!"
He turned slowly. Storm-gray eyes. Familiar face. That expression I knew so well.
"Sera?" His voice sounded right. Looked right. "How....how are you here?"
"I came for you." I closed the distance, threw my arms around him. "I came to bring you home."
He held me. Strong arms, familiar embrace. Everything right.
Except...
Something was wrong.
I couldn't feel it. The mate bond. It should have been blazing between us, recognition and relief and connection.
Instead....nothing.
I started to pull back. Check the crystal. Verify.
His arms tightened. Not comforting. Restraining.
"Going somewhere?" His voice changed. Still Dante's voice, but colder. Wrong.
I grabbed for the crystal with shaking hands. Pulled it out.
Ice cold.
This wasn't him.
"Let me go." I tried to break free. His grip was iron.
"But you came all this way." The not-Dante smiled. Wrong smile. Too many teeth. "Ran straight into my arms. How touching."
"What are you?"
"I'm what this place creates to trap fools like you." His form began to shift. Still Dante's face, but distorting. Elongating. "I'm the trap. The bait. The thing that looks like salvation but delivers only death."
"No-"
"Yes." He pulled me closer, and I could feel it now. The wrongness radiating from him. Dark magic. Hungry. Consuming. "You thought you found him. Thought you'd succeeded. Instead, you just handed yourself to me."
His smile widened impossibly. Behind him, the peaceful clearing dissolved into something else. Something dark. Something hungry.
I'd made a mistake. A terrible, potentially fatal mistake.
And now I was trapped in the arms of something that wore Dante's face but was designed to kill.