Something had occurred in the moment following my kiss the previous evening with Iry. I could not move in the minutes after. I was stunned and felt as if I wasn’t in control. Immediately when I got my senses, I sent for Samantha. She was the only one I knew to talk to. I told her about the kiss. Then I told her about feeling under Iry’s spell.
“No, Vala, you weren’t put under any spell. Iry isn’t like that,” she said. “He’s a kind person with a fondness for humans. He favors us, and his favoritism at times must be kept secret.”
“Why did I feel so out of control? Why did I like it so much?”
She smiled. “Because you like Iry. Perhaps your projected disdain of him is a ruse for the truth, that you are attracted to him.”
“No. That can’t be. I came here to protect the one for whom I have feelings.”
“Maybe they weren’t genuine. You’ve known Iry longer,” Samantha said. “I believe that after this wedding, you’ll discover where your true feelings lie.”
“Then why do I feel so dismal about this wedding?”
“It’s just nerves.” Samantha insisted a glass of wine would help me sleep and relax me. I needed the wine and rest because the next day Sophie would start coming out of it.
I finished the beverage and it did make me tired. In fact, it made me very woozy and I fell asleep on the bed with an extreme heaviness.
I didn’t even have time to change into my bedclothes. No sooner did my head hit the pillow than I was out like a light. My dreams were normal dreams and not in my control. They lacked the lucidity that I usually had.
I dreamt I was back in Angeles City and was running with Tanner in the vineyards behind Marie’s house. We were laughing, giggling, and being carefree. Tanner told me he liked me and then he kissed me.
Never had I dreamt of being kissed. It had to be the kiss from Iry that caused it. It wasn’t Iry I kissed in my dream, it was Tanner, and I held on to him. That kiss and embrace lacked the urgency I had with Iry, though it was more pure.
“I have to go,” Tanner said.
“No, don’t leave me. Please. Stay.”
“I can’t. Are you okay?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine. Why?”
“Because you’re being weird. Not that you’re not weird as it is,” he said in the dream. “But I do have to go.”
I held tight to his hand.
“I’ll see you soon.” Tanner kissed me on the cheek. “I’m on my way.”
He backed up and turned and I reached for him. He pulled away abruptly and I felt his trimmed nails scrape against my wrist.
In my dream he faded and I looked down to my arm. Blood flowed from my wrist.
“Tanner,” I called to him, watching him fade across the field. “Tanner wait, I’m bleeding!” I looked down to my arm and lost my breath when I saw Iry kneeling before me in the dream, his mouth lapping up the dripping blood of my arm.
He raised his eyes, hovered his mouth, and he brought in his bottom lip, tasting my blood.
“No!” I jolted awake. I sat up on my bed in the same position I had been the night before.
My head felt weird, it was light. I needed food, and it had been since early the day before that I last ate.
After swinging my legs from the bed, I stood and everything spun. What was wrong with me? Was I getting ill?
Figuring I’d get cleaned up and changed before checking on Sophie, I walked over to my dressing bin to gather clothes. My choices were slim, since I hadn’t brought anything with me. I grabbed the first thing that I saw and stopped short. Slowly, I withdrew my hand from the door of the bin and my retrieved clothes dropped to the floor.
There on my wrist were two tiny wounds, still fresh with flood. They were small, about an inch apart, no bigger than a bug bite. It looked as if I had scratched two insect bites.
How had it happened?
I looked at the window; it was slightly open, and it was quite possible that a bug had come in. I was in such a dead sleep last night that I more than likely had scratched myself. That was my best explanation.
Trying to forget about it, because it really didn’t hurt, I gathered my clothes from the floor and headed to the shower.
My day was going to be complicated. I had my sister to contend with and a wedding to thwart.