Chapter 4

I brushed my fingers over his face, stroking his cheeks. "Bram, baby boy, please wake up." My tears burned hot streaks down my face, my skin feeling as if it were on fire.

But he was gone, his life taken when he was just beginning to live and grow.

Around me, the world seemed to shift, the ground rumbling under my knees, a steady thrum that coursed through my body.

I lifted my hand, feeling the earth's power running through me, giving me the strength and understanding I needed. The trees bent backward as if reeling away from us. All I saw were those who'd done this. Other elementals, ones who didn't belong in the forest. Who should never have dared to come into our home?

And then the trees loosed. Snapping forward, they slammed into the remaining two air elementals, flattening them into the ground. They didn't have time to scream, to cry for help.

The queen spun. "Well, well. Perhaps I won't kill you, after all, Jasmin. Your father told me you were weak, so weak. But I see he was wrong. Or maybe he was just trying to hide you from me." She tapped a fingernail against her teeth, and her eyes grew thoughtful. "Yes, that is something he would do."

Words that were not my own with a voice I didn't recognize, spilled out of my mouth. "Cassava, you will pay for these deaths." The queen stumbled back, her eyes hard, and lips harder. She lifted her right hand to me, her glittering pink diamond ring catching my eye, mesmerizing me.

"This is just a dream, Jasmin. You know that. Your mother, she died from the lung burrowers, as did your brother. Pity as it was. And you will no longer be able to reach your power—doing so will feel as if your soul is being ripped from your body. You are weak, too weak to be of use to anyone."

My mouth opened to deny her, but then I . . . remembered. "They died from the lung burrowers. I am weak. I am useless."

"That's a good girl," she cooed, coming closer to me, taking something from my arms, something I didn't want to give up. I whimpered, "No, that's mine."

"No." Cassava leaned in close, her breath against my cheek. "It's not yours. Go to sleep, Jasmin, and when you wake, remember none of this."

I lifted my eyes streaming with tears to hers, knowing only that she'd done something horrible. Something I could never forgive, something that couldn't be undone. "I hate you. I'll always hate you."

She grinned down at me, her beauty stark and cold. "The feeling's mutual, little bastard."

-Waking up-

I jerked awake, sweat rolling from my hairline and down my neck to pool against the cotton sheets. Beside me, Coal stirred, the lines of his lean body visible through the thin sheet. Thank the goddess he'd stayed over.

The dreams were never quite as bad when I had a warm body beside me. I laid a hand against his back, the heat and ripple of his muscles an anchor against the fog of the dream. "This is real, this isn't a dream," I whispered to myself, and lay back, the sheets sticky against my bare skin. Flipping an arm over my eyes, I struggled to get my heart rate under control.

How many times was it this week? Five nights in a row, the dream had rolled me under its spell and held me there, drowning me with the sheer solidity of it.

Like it was a memory instead of a reoccurring nightmare.

No, I knew it was just a bad dream, a way for my mind to make sense of my family's senseless deaths. Yet still, it felt so real.

I peered over my arm. By the little light coming through the window, it wasn't even dawn yet, budidn't even dawnst experience there would be no going back to sleep, not with my heart rate through the roof and the sweat slicking my body. A sigh slipped out of me and I sat up, the sheet dropping in fits and starts as it stuck to my bare skin, finally settling around my waist.

"Lay down and shut your eyes, Jas," Coal mumbled. "You'll go back to sleep if you try, but you won't if you get up." Leaning forward, I stretched my back, choosing to ignore Coal. He didn't understand, and I'd stopped trying to make him see my point of view.

That the dreams were real to me, even though I knew they weren't real. My muscles were tight and cramped from tension, and the stretch helped to get the blood flowing through them. Coal rolled over, his hair, black as a raven's wing and just as smooth, rumpled from sleep and lovemaking. I leaned over and ran my fingers over his head. "Go back to sleep, I'm going to—"

"Go find a clue that tells you this isn't a dream and our queen really is a terrifying killer?" I pulled my hand from him as if he'd scalded me. "Don't mock me, Coal."

"I'm not, but this is stupid. It's a dream, Jas, not reality. You need to get that through your head. It's just something you made up as a little girl to deal with the death of your mom and brother. Get over it."

Get over it. Like losing a loved one so dear to me could be 'gotten over'. There were times he really was an ass. Times I questioned our relationship.

He kept talking as I strode toward the armoire. I buried my toes into the golden shag rug in front of it. The fluffy material was all the rage in the human world for the current year according to my half-sisters. I yanked the armoire door open and pulled out my favorite clothes, which also happened to be the ones Coal hated.

My human digs I'd bought off an Ender coming back from a Hunt. Blue jean cut-off shorts that sat low on my hips and a neon pink tube top with the word electric zigzagged across the front. I couldn't even answer Coal. I was so angry and afraid if I did answer him, it wouldn't be very nice.

Actually, I was sure it wouldn't be nice. Tying my waist length hair into a knot at the base of my neck, I paused and looked over my shoulder. "I'm going to work."