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Back Reverie
Chapters (53)
  1. Front Cover
  2. Letter from the Author
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Contents
  6. • One •
  7. • Two •
  8. • Three •
  9. • Four •
  10. • Five •
  11. • Six •
  12. • Seven •
  13. • Eight •
  14. • Nine •
  15. • Ten •
  16. • Eleven •
  17. • Twelve •
  18. • Thirteen •
  19. • Fourteen •
  20. • Fifteen •
  21. • Sixteen •
  22. • Seventeen •
  23. • Eighteen •
  24. • Nineteen •
  25. • Twenty •
  26. • Twenty-One •
  27. • Twenty-Two •
  28. • Twenty-Three •
  29. • Twenty-Four •
  30. • Twenty-Five •
  31. • Twenty-Six •
  32. • Twenty-Seven •
  33. • Twenty-Eight •
  34. • Twenty-Nine •
  35. • Thirty •
  36. • Thirty-One •
  37. • Thirty-Two •
  38. • Thirty-Three •
  39. • Thirty-Four •
  40. • Thirty-Five •
  41. • Thirty-Six •
  42. • Thirty-Seven •
  43. • Thirty-Eight •
  44. • ∞ •
  45. • Thirty-Nine •
  46. • Forty •
  47. Epilogue
  48. Acknowledgments
  49. Excerpt from Be Dazzled
  50. One
  51. Two
  52. About the Author
  53. Back Cover

Adeline was breathing hard. “Any day now. Just take your freaking time.”

Kane shook off his stupor, ready to attempt another snap.

“Not you.” Adeline pushed his hand down, drawing them into a retreat as her eyes searched the crowd. “Save your energy. We’ll need you fresh.”

“For what?”

A chorus of cries broke out from the crowd, and Kane saw entire bodies tossed upward in the distance. Adeline grabbed Kane’s wrist. “Get ready to run.”

Whatever it was, it was getting closer with amazing speed. Something burrowed through the crowd, and it was heading right for the altar. Just before it reached the rim, Adeline dragged him into a protective huddle, but he couldn’t look away.

The crowd split open and admitted, by force, a dashing bolt of magenta, a girl swathed in pink. She hurtled into the air, her rosy dress splashing around her hips as she contorted into a flying kick.

Kane heard himself laughing. It was Ursula!

Her heels were the first things to land, and they struck the throat of one warrior. He went down without resistance, and Ursula leapt off without hesitation. If it wasn’t for the sparkling leather of her shoes it would have been impossible to see her leg sweep out and slam sidelong into the next warrior’s ribs, forcing him down. A blink later, Ursula was on him, his neck caught in a two-arm choke hold while his legs kicked wildly. Then there was a crunching noise and the man dropped. Lifeless. Ursula’s punches just kept coming, each hit sending a shock wave of magenta light crackling into the super-heated air of the arena.

“We should back up.” Adeline said, pulling Kane toward the hearth. He watched, transfixed by her speed. Her power. The fact she was zipped into a housewife costume and the further fact that it didn’t stop her in the slightest. If anything, the costume helped. Now Ursula was atop a pile of bloodied, wriggling men, beating them in turn with one of her shiny pumps. And through all this, her hair didn’t move. Not even a little. Kane thought that whatever hairspray she used deserved as much credit as Ursula herself.

Adeline’s hand wrenched Kane’s face away from the action. “The reverie is collapsing, which means it’s about to get even worse. I don’t know how you got in here, Kane, but since you’re here, you’re going to have to do your job.”

“My job?”

“Yes. You need to unravel the reverie.”

Adeline might as well have told Kane he needed to drink the Caspian Sea. There was no sense to that phrase. No action Kane could even conceive of taking.