Chapter 61: Chapter 62: Just like my dream
And why had it felt so achingly, disturbingly real?
The question echoed endlessly in my mind as I sat frozen on the edge of my bed, sheets still twisted around my legs like restraints from some invisible force. My pulse thrummed unevenly beneath my skin, a frantic rhythm that refused to settle no matter how many slow breaths I attempted.
The sensations lingered, phantom hands sliding over heated skin, the press of strong bodies surrounding me, the overwhelming fullness and friction that had dragged moan after moan from my throat. The voices, low and rough with desire, whispering my name like a sacred invocation. The intensity of it all... it pulsed through my veins like a forbidden elixir, warm and treacherous, making my core clench with residual heat even now.
I pressed both palms hard against my burning face, fingers trembling slightly, and drew in a shaky, desperate breath. The cool night air slipping through the cracked dormitory window carried the faint scent of dew-kissed stone and night-blooming jasmine, but it did almost nothing to extinguish the wildfire raging inside my chest. My skin still tingled everywhere, as though the dream had left invisible traces across every inch of me.
This wasn’t a normal embarrassing dream. This felt wrong in the same bone-deep, unnatural way Morvalis had felt wrong, too vivid, too sharp, too saturated with color and sensation. Like a vision rather than a fantasy. Like something my subconscious hadn’t simply invented, but received.
Whatever it was, one thing had become painfully, inescapably clear: sleep would not be returning to me tonight. Not with those scorching images seared behind my eyelids, replaying on an endless loop every time I so much as blinked.
Quietly, so as not to disturb the others’ hard-earned rest, I pushed myself off the bed and slipped into a light robe. My bare feet made almost no sound as I eased the heavy wooden door open and stepped into the dimly lit hallway before putting on my boot. Flickering lanternlight danced across the ancient stone walls, casting long, wavering shadows that seemed to watch me as I moved.
I walked farther and farther from the Red Dorm building, hoping the crisp night air and solitude would scrub my mind clean. It didn’t. If anything, the profound silence only amplified the chaos inside my head, turning every thought into a deafening roar.
I couldn’t stop replaying the dream. The way Ashriel had gripped my hips with such commanding possession. The fluid power of Elion moving beneath me. Mr. Asher’s surprisingly hungry mouth on my breasts. Thorne’s rare, unrestrained intensity. Every detail was branded into my memory with merciless clarity.
How was I supposed to look any of them in the eye tomorrow... today.... without my face igniting with mortification?
"Oh Goddess," I muttered under my breath, dragging a hand down my flushed face. "Why those men? Of all the possible nightmares my brain could have tortured me with... why them?"
Ashriel didn’t even like me. That much was obvious to anyone with working eyes and half a brain. The man looked perpetually annoyed by my mere existence, his sharp gaze often laced with irritation or outright disdain. Seventy percent of our interactions consisted of him sighing heavily or pinching the bridge of his nose like I was a headache he couldn’t escape.
Mr. Asher? Completely, laughably impossible. He was an Arbiter, calm, authoritative, responsible, and significantly older. A pillar of the academy. The very idea of him seeing a student in any romantic or physical light was absurd. He probably viewed me as nothing more than a reckless, troublesome child who kept stumbling into disasters.
That left Elion and Thorne.
I grimaced so hard my jaw ached.
Thorne was my mate by technicality, yes, but he had already made his choice. Lysera. The elegant, poised, perfect Lysera. At this point, we were both simply waiting for the proper time and paperwork to formally reject the bond and go our separate ways. There was nothing between us but awkward tension and fading obligation.
And Elion...
Fine. I could admit it, he was painfully, dangerously attractive. The kind of beauty that made people stupid if they stared too long. But he was also an unapologetic flirt who treated every girl with a pulse like a delightful new game. Charming, playful, and completely unreliable. There was no universe in which I could ever take him seriously, let alone imagine myself in the center of something so raw and intimate with him.
Which meant the entire dream was exactly what it appeared to be: an impossible, mortifying fabrication born from exhaustion, trauma, and a subconscious that clearly needed better supervision.
Nothing more.
Nothing real.
Just a very, very inappropriate nightmare.
By the time awareness returned, I had wandered much farther than intended. The academy’s grand buildings had shrunk into distant silhouettes behind me, their lights faint twinkling stars against the dark horizon. Tall, ancient trees now crowded the winding path, their thick branches swaying gently overhead like living guardians in the silver moonlight. The air smelled richer here, damp earth, pine resin, and wild herbs crushed underfoot.
My stomach tightened into a cold knot.
This place looked painfully similar to the forest from my dream. The same quality of moonlight. The same density of shadows. The same eerie quiet.
"Nope," I whispered immediately, stopping dead in my tracks. "Absolutely not. Turn around Nyx. Go back. Now Vaeloria."
I spun on my heel, fully committed to retreating to the safety of my bed before my overactive imagination could do any more damage to my remaining sanity.
Then it came.
A low, throaty moan drifted through the trees.... deep, breathless, and saturated with pleasure.
My entire body locked rigid. Ice and fire shot down my spine at once.
No.... No way, that’s happening
My heart exploded into a violent, erratic rhythm, slamming against my ribs so hard I felt dizzy. The sound echoed softly through the forest, hauntingly familiar. It was exactly like the voice from my dream. The same timbre. The same cadence.
For one terrifying, disorienting second, I genuinely questioned whether I had ever actually woken up. What if this was still the dream? What if I was trapped in some endless loop of my own mind’s creation?
Chills erupted across my arms and neck.
But then, creeping in like poison, came the curiosity. Dangerous, reckless, insatiable curiosity. A reckless part of me, the same part that always got me into trouble, burned with the need to know.
To see if the impossible scene my brain had tormented me with was somehow, against all logic, unfolding in reality.
It was insane.
Completely, utterly insane.
Yet my feet were already moving, carrying me silently, helplessly deeper between the trees.
I moved slowly, carefully, heart thundering louder with every cautious step. Twigs snapped softly beneath my weight. Leaves whispered against my robe. The sounds grew clearer, more vivid: ragged breathing, low masculine groans, feminine gasps of pleasure, the unmistakable rhythmic slap of bodies moving together in heated desperation.
My mouth went dry. My palms grew slick with nervous sweat.
And then I stopped dead.
Shock slammed into me with the force of a physical blow, stealing the air from my lungs and freezing me in place.
Because there they were.
Just like my dream.
Four men.
And a woman.
