Dream World - Kendric's POV

Dream World - Kendric's POV
As I lay in the dark, against the stone floor, my mind refuses to rest. It’s like someone left every door and window in my head open and the wind is howling through, carrying fragments of memories, feelings, fears. None of it is cohesive.

One minute I’m reliving the battlefield. The next, I see Valeria’s face twisted in anguish, her hand reaching for something, or someone, just out of reach. Then I see her with him. With Ramsey.

I squeeze my eyes shut tighter, trying to will it all away, but nothing works. Even once I finally drift into sleep, it’s restless. Shallow. I’m tossed from one nightmare to another, waking up with my heart racing and my throat raw from screaming. Every time I open my eyes, I swear I see her silhouette, just there on the edge of my vision.

But she disappears every time I blink.

Finally, I fall deeper into unconsciousness, but nothing about this sleep feels peaceful.

The world around me is off. It’s all wrong. Everything is tinted a little too blue, like a memory underwater. The horizon bends where it shouldn’t, and the trees sway as if moved by a breeze I can’t feel.

“Where… where am I?” My voice echoes, but it doesn’t sound like it came from me. It’s thinner. Younger.

Up ahead, something shifts. I see a figure. No, two.

Valeria is standing at the center of the distorted dreamscape, her figure solid and unmistakable. Her light brown hair lifts in an unseen wind, and she clutches someone desperately. Her body is pressed tightly to his, her hands gripping the sides of his face as if grounding him is the only thing keeping him human.

I recognize her desperation before I even realize who she’s holding.

It’s me, a former version of myself. Wild-eyed, bleeding, trembling on the brink of something monstrous. And standing beside them, like a shadow given flesh, is Ramsey.

The smirk on his face is unmistakable. His eyes glint with cruel satisfaction as he crosses his arms and watches the scene unfold like he’s enjoying a private play written for his amusement.

I take a cautious step forward, the dreamworld squishing beneath my feet like soaked earth. The closer I get, the clearer everything becomes.

Valeria is pleading with my past self. Her voice cracks with the weight of her emotion. “Please. Please don’t lose yourself. I know you can fight it. You’re stronger than this. You have to be.”

I watch as my past self winces, his mouth twitching like he’s holding back a growl or a scream. His irises flash red, then gold, then red again. A war behind his eyes.

Ramsey’s laughter slices through the tension like a blade. Deep. Mocking.

“It’s too late, Valeria,” he says, glancing sideways at me. His gaze lingers, because now he knows I’m here, the present me. “He’s going to fall. You knew it then, and you know it now. This is what he becomes. This is who he is.”

I want to yell, to punch him, to shake Valeria free from this memory. But I’m paralyzed, trapped in my own dream. My fists are clenched at my sides, nails digging into my palms, yet I can’t move an inch.

“You might as well accept your fate,” Ramsey adds, voice like venom dripping into an open wound. “You always end up watching him fall, if you don’t make it to old age. Most of the time, though neither of you make it to be that old.”

My past self roars in anguish, and Valeria throws her arms around him, pressing her face into his chest. “I chose him,” she whispers, her voice shattering on the last word. “I always choose him.”

The white glow around her flickers for a moment.

Ramsey steps closer, speaking to me now, not the memory. “That’s your curse, Kendric. She chooses you, even when she knows how it ends. And you? You destroy her every time.”

My heart stutters. I see the madness in my former self’s eyes. I see Valeria breaking for me. And I see Ramsey feeding off every second of it.

This dream isn’t just haunting me. It’s a memory.

It’s warning me.

“There has to be another way. You said a witch’s curse can be broken, right? Then there must be a way to break it so he doesn’t become feral permanently.” She glares over her shoulder at him, her icy blue stare burning a hole straight through him as her long blonde hair whips around her face. “I’m not giving up.”

“You should. There is only one way this is going to go, but you have a way to escape.”

The past me disappears in front of her and Valeria falls to her knees with a wail. “Not again.”

Not again? What does she mean by this?

Ramsey laughs in response. “I’m going to replay that scene repeatedly until you get it through that thick skull of yours. There is no saving Kendric, only yourself. His curse can’t be broken, but you can live. All you have to do is agree to become mine once more.”

“Never,” she spats.

Suddenly, Ramsey freezes as the wind changes direction. His nose is in the air, inhaling, while his eyes slide closed. “Ah, you came to visit her dreams. How sweet. Looks like you can reach this side of her just as I can.”

I step out of my hiding place and move right past him to help Valeria to her feet. “Stand, mate.”

She stands reluctantly, but then pulls away from me. “Not again. I can’t take this. I’ve watched you disappear at least ten times.”

“What is she talking about, Ramsey?”

He chuckles to himself, sounding amused. “Oh, nothing. I’ve just made her watch the conversation that is bound to come soon. When you finally tell her about your past and how you remember it all, but won’t tell her. Come on, Kendric. Now that you are here, tell her about how you became feral.”

Then it all comes flooding back to me. “Those nightmares. Those were you playing with my mind while I was sleeping.”

A smile of amusement spreads across his face, revealing two pearly white sets of teeth with his fangs poking out of the top of his bottom lip. “You know me too well, Kendric. We’ve been friends for so long.”

“We’re not friends.”

He chuckles to himself. “Ah, enemies. My mistake. Now tell her again how you will become permanently feral. She needs to hear about it from you again, so she can make the right choice.”

“If she has already been told, then there is no sense in rehashing it. It is what it is.”

"So, it's true? Is that what you're telling me? You're not something he crafted out of thin air. Kendric, this can't be our reality. We've fought too hard to get this far."

I swallow back the bile shooting up my throat. Though we have claimed each other as mates, there isn't really anything else tying us. Most of the time, she acts like she hates it and our past. Tears burn behind my eyes, but I hold them back. "You should take Ramsey up on his offer."

"What?" Her face falls. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that he is offering you a way out. Take it. There is not a way to break the curse I'm under and I will end up feral."

Ramsey cackles in delight, clapping his hands. "See, I told you."

A few stray tears fall from her eyes. "You're lying. There has to be a way."

"If there is, I wasn’t told when they placed it on me upon my request. So, as far as I know, my fate is to become feral and out of my mind. You deserve to live happily ever after."

She reaches for me, but then pulls back. "This can't be reality. I'm unwilling to accept it for what you both are telling me. I won’t and I refuse."

Valeria closes the gap between us and leans up on her toss to plant a soft kiss on my lips. When she pulls back, she's breathless. "You and I belong together. There has never been a doubt in my mind. Nothing is tearing us apart now."

I hear Ramsey's cries of outrage, but the world swirls around us, taking us somewhere far from him.

She kisses me again, this time a little more urgently. 

I stopped her. "Wait, what are you doing?"

A smile spreads across her face. "Our fate has always been to be together and end the war. Ramsey may say there isn't a way to stop you from becoming feral, but I think there is. All curses can be broken. It's just a matter of finding a way to do it. We have to hurry before he finds us."

"Where are we?" 

She looks around, uncertainty flashing in her gaze. "I don't know, but I know we only have a few minutes before he finds us. Maybe an hour."

"What are you suggesting?"

"Make me yours in all ways, Kendric. We have to claim each other fully and embrace our destiny or we'll never find a way out." She pauses. "Ramsey was my love from our first life. He was a shapeshifter before he ever became a vampire. Apparently, he went to the witches and asked for a way to live. Anyway, the details don't matter. We are all tied together, the three of us. He did it to get me away from you, but in each life, I've become yours."

"But we're at a point where I'm going to succumb to the curse, Valeria. It doesn't matter that we are all three tied. It's over and you should save yourself."

A fierce light flares behind her eyes, something ancient and unwavering. “I’m not giving up. Claim me again.”

“What?” I breathe, stunned. “You’re insane.”

Her voice is softer this time, but there’s steel in it. “Claim me again, Kendric.”

I glance at her throat. My mark is already there, etched into her skin like a vow. And yet, she stands before me, demanding more. Demanding me. Completely. Recklessly.

“You already bear my mark,” I murmur, trying to resist the surge rising inside me.

She nods slowly, breath trembling. “Then mark me again. Make it now. Make it matter.”

I don’t hesitate this time.

My body moves before thought can stop it. I lean in, and my canines extend, aching with a hunger that goes beyond blood. As my teeth sink into the scarred flesh over my old mark, she gasps. It’s a sharp, broken sound that’s part pain and part something else entirely. Something deeper. Something intimate.

Her hands clench into the fabric of my shirt, and a low moan escapes her throat. “Thank you,” she whispers, voice thick and shaking.

Then she does something unexpected.