“This is a dream,” I said out loud, feeling slightly relieved.
The maiden I first met shrugged. “That doesn’t mean it isn’t real.”
Her sing-song voice echoed in my ears as I jerked awake and jumped to my feet. Whipping this way and that, I looked for the maidens.
They were gone.
The air smelled damp and musty, and a soft breeze howled through the mouth of the cave I was in.
It was still dark, but I wasn’t lost in the darkness anymore. I was awake and I was in the real world again.
Sighing, I leaned against the nearest wall and bowed my head in my hands.
‘That was a horrible dream.’
And yet, the maiden’s final words rang in my head. ‘That doesn’t mean it isn’t real.’
Was what she told me true? Did she really give me the information to break the curse and spare Eliza and the baby?
“Alpha Jared!” I heard my name echo into the cave.
I recognized the voice of one of my men who was arrested with me.