-HER-

I don't remember the last time when I had a dream or a nightmare.

It must have been a long time ago but tonight I had a dream... or shall I call it a nightmare? I wasn't sure.

It was a myth I'd earned from my mother that the way you slept often dictated if you were going to have a dream or a nightmare or if you were going to have one of them in the first place.

Tonight I might have been sleeping in an odd way to have seen such a terrible and weird dream. It was a dream about the war going on between Ezekiel and his brother. No one won in the war for some reason and that reason was unknown.

It was a very confusing dreaming. I had no words to describe it because slowly and gradually it was fading away into oblivion.

Then I started to feel cold and something patting my cheek. It was annoying but a familiar growl made me snap open my eyes to find myself in an odd tent and in an even odder situation.

I was laying on a table and my head was partly hanging from the table with my hair touching the ground. Something cold was being poured on my head again and again. It was so cold that it made my teeth chatter and on top of that someone was constantly patting my cheek in an annoying manner.

It was Ezekiel.

No, wait.

I blinked several times to make sure that I was seeing the right thing but just before I could confirm anything, that man was gone. Maybe it was just a fragment of my imagination but something told me that it wasn't most probably.

"Celeste," Ezekiel growled in my face, "Are you hurting anywhere?" He asked me. I stared at him for a long moment before I asked him, "Did you win?"

"No,"

"So your brother won?"

"No one won. The war was called off because it was a tie but it's not over yet. We're currently on our way back to Thastonia," Ezekiel informed me. It took a moment for his words to settle in my head before I nodded.

For a moment his words gave me relief but it didn't last long because soon I realized that going back to Thastonia meant that I would have to return to Zaeris from there and that would mean that I wouldn't get to see Ezekiel anymore.

I should have been even more relieved to realize that I wouldn't have to deal with Ezekiel anymore but instead of relief, I felt this gaping hole in my chest already. It was painful. While this was going on I wanted to leave more than ever and when this had ended, I found myself saddened to leave.

What was happening to me?

"Oh," Was all I managed to breathe after realizing this. I was simply at a loss for words and when I looked at his face, a familiar look hung from it. "What happened to me?" I asked him next because I was afraid I would end up doing something stupid if I let the silence last longer.

In repose, he sighed and told me everything— how I was caught by Levavine and how Inanna intervened in the war. I had a fever while they brought me back and that's why he was pouring cold water on my head again and again.

"How far are we from the valley?" I asked Ezekiel. I saw something stir in his eyes while he watched me with this longing look on his face. It tugged at my heart unexpectedly.

WHAT WAS HAPPENING?!!

"We should be back in Thastonia in two days," Ezekiel told me with a grim look on his face. I nodded but said nothing. He kept staring at me for a long moment before he asked, "Would you return to Zaeris when we reach here?"

"Most probably," I told him. He didn't look pleased with my answer.

"You could stay," He offered me, "You know," he muttered, running the back of his knuckles over my cheekbones while he looked at me so fervently, I was on the verge of melting.

"Do you want me to go?" I asked in a whisper.

"No," He grumbled before his lips were on mine. I kissed him instantly. Everything was a blur of stronger sparks and these strange emotions bubbling inside me that I'd never felt before. His lips were odd. In a good way.

They were somehow strong enough to wreak havoc inside me and at the same time gentle like a lullaby to put me to sleep. Even high I tried countless times to deny it but I was getting addicted to his lips. I was craving for more and more of them whenever he was away.

I shouldn't feel this way but nonetheless, here I was kissing him like this was our last time.

All of a sudden, I didn't feel like leaving him. Living without him seemed like a fish living without water. This was a very odd feeling for me but this time I swear it wasn't the mate bond. It was something else that I didn't know existed inside me.

As I kissed him I ran my hands through his dreadlocks before my hands tightened around him to pull him even closer because I just couldn't seem to have enough of him and... that's when I felt that something was in fact wrong.

I felt something sticking out from his back. I wanted to push him back to see what it really was but the way his lips held mine captive, it seemed like they weren't letting me go anytime soon but still, I wanted to find out what it was.

I tried to feel it and it felt like an arrow for a moment and there wasn't only one but several of them. I was bewildered. When Ezekiel finally let me go, I managed to pull one of those arrows out and hold them behind him.

As soon as my eyes fell on it, I froze under him. My eyes widened. I heard my heart shatter in a million pieces when the realization finally dawned upon me.

"What happened?" Ezekiel asked me, baffled.

"Nothing," I growled as I pushed him off and left the tent, hoping to see him never again. Ever.

_

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