There was no way this was real. Everest was still in Avolire. Everest hadn’t held me like this since I left Avolire—because those nights in Tampa didn’t count. I hadn’t remembered him and he knew it. That gave us both freedom. He held me now though and nothing had ever felt better. Actually, he’d never held me like this. His arms were warm and strong as they held me flush against his chest. The feel of his fingers fisting my shirt made me squirm in all the best ways. It meant he was as messed up over all this as I was. That he needed to hold me as much as I needed him to.

Even if this wasn’t real at all.

This had to be a figment of my own imagination giving me what I desperately wanted and needed from my soulmate. And if it couldn’t be real, I was thankful, for once, for my ability to lucid dream because it made this feel real.

I wasn’t going to miss my chance, real or not, so I slipped my arms under his and held him tight. My face nuzzled into his neck. I pressed my lips to his throat, right where I felt his pulse beating. One of his hands lifted off my back to run through the strands of my hair.

I sighed and fisted his white shirt in my hands, then whispered against his throat, “I wish you were really here.”

“Francelina—”

“I miss you,” I heard myself whisper as I kissed his jaw.

He let out a ragged breath and squeezed me tight. “My days and nights are a cold, empty void without you, and I am drowning in my need for you.”

Tears spilled over my eyelashes. A hot lump formed in my throat. I dug my fingers into his clothes, needing to be closer. “Everest⁠—”

“Sleep, Francelina,” he whispered back. “I shall not let them harm you, and by dawn their magic will be a memory.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

FRANKIE

My days and nights are a cold, empty void without you, and I am drowning in my need for you.

Everest’s words haunted my dreams. Even now, awake and lying in my bed, I heard them whisper in the wind outside my window.