Dark Dreams.

Winter’s POV

At first, I think I am awake.

Everything feels too real not to be.

The cold beneath my feet. The sound of water moving somewhere nearby. The sharp wind brushing against my skin hard enough to make my arms ache.

But when I look around, nothing makes sense.

The world is dark.

Not nighttime dark.

Wrong dark.

The kind that swallows shape and distance until everything around you feels endless.

I stand still, breathing carefully as icy water curls around my ankles. My white dress drags heavily against my legs, soaked from the tide pulling in and out around me.

Ocean.

I realize it slowly.

I am standing in the ocean.

The water stretches endlessly ahead, black and violent beneath a sky with no stars.

My chest tightens.

I should not be here.

The thought comes instantly.

This place feels familiar in the worst possible way, like something I have seen before in pieces I could never fully remember.

The wind sharpens suddenly.

And then I hear it.

My mother’s voice.

“Winter.”

I spin around immediately.

Nothing.

Only darkness.

Only water.

But the voice comes again, softer this time, almost swallowed by the waves.

“Winter, listen to me.”

Fear crawls slowly up my spine.

“Mother?”

My own voice sounds strange here.

Too small.

The ocean shifts violently around me, waves slamming harder now against my legs. I stumble slightly as freezing water rises higher, pulling at me like hands trying to drag me deeper.

“Do not let him take it,” my mother’s voice says again.

Closer now.

Urgent.

“He cannot have it.”

My heart starts racing.

“What?”

No answer.

Only the sound of the ocean roaring louder.

The wind screams across the water hard enough to whip my hair across my face, and suddenly the darkness ahead begins to move.

Not naturally.

Not like shadows.

Something inside it opens slowly.

An eye.

Massive.

Watching.

My breath catches violently in my throat.

It is the same eye.

The same one from before.

Silver around the edges but dark in the center, like a storm swallowing light whole. It stares directly at me from somewhere beneath the surface of the ocean, impossibly huge and impossibly alive.

The moment I see it, panic crashes through me so hard my knees nearly buckle.

“No,” I whisper.

The water rises instantly.

Up to my thighs now.

Pulling harder.

The eye does not blink.

It only watches.

And suddenly images begin flashing around me so fast I cannot process them properly.

Blood on stone floors.

Keon shouting my name.

Someone turning toward me with something unreadable in their eyes.

A necklace glowing silver in my hands.

Fire.

Water.

Screaming.

The images slam into me one after another until my head hurts.

Then the ocean beneath me disappears.

I fall instantly.

The scream tears from my throat before I can stop it as freezing air rushes past me. Darkness spins violently around me, and below more ocean.

Wild.

Endless.

Waiting.

I hit the water hard enough to lose breath immediately.

Cold crashes around me from every direction as I sink deeper, dragged downward faster than I can fight. Panic explodes through me as I kick violently toward the surface, but something catches around my ankle.

Holding me.

Pulling harder.

I open my mouth to scream again and saltwater floods my throat instantly.

Then I hear her voice again.

Closer.

Desperate.

“Wake up.”

The eye appears beneath me again.

Watching.

Waiting.

And this time—

It speaks.

Not in words.

In feeling.

Ancient.

Hungry.

Possessive.

"Mine"

The force of it crashes through my chest so violently that pain explodes through the mate bond, sharp enough to feel real.

And suddenly another emotion slams into me too.

Not mine.

Keon’s.

Fear.

Pure.

Violent.

The connection snaps so hard it feels like something physically yanks me upward—

And I wake with a gasp.

My body jerks violently against the bed as air rushes back into my lungs. My chest heaves painfully, panic still clawing at my throat as I try to understand where I am.

Dark ceiling.

Warm room.

Not the ocean.

Not the dream.

My breathing comes too fast.

Too sharp.

And immediately—

Hands grab my shoulders.

“Winter.”

Keon.

His voice cuts through the panic instantly.

I look up at him, disoriented and shaking. He is sitting beside me on the bed already, eyes sharp with alarm, his grip firm enough to steady me without hurting.

“You’re here,” I breathe.

The words come out broken.

Confused.

Keon’s brows pull together immediately.

“Of course I’m here.”

The bond is chaotic right now.

I can feel his emotions crashing against mine almost as strongly as my own.

Fear.

Relief.

Tension.

And underneath it—

Pain.

My gaze drops instinctively toward his side.

The exact same place that hurt earlier.

His jaw tightens the moment he notices where I am looking.

“You felt that too,” I whisper.

It is not a question anymore.

Keon does not answer immediately.

Which is answer enough.

My throat tightens again as pieces begin sliding together in my head.

“The dream…” I say softly.

His expression sharpens instantly.

“What dream?”

I swallow hard.

“The eye came back.”