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Chapter 327
Chapter 327
Chapter 327
I’m dreaming, on some level I know that.
But it doesn’t stop my body shaking with fear.
I’m running through the dark halls of the mansion.
Except it doesn’t look like home, it’s all sinister and wrong.
I can’t see Axel, but I know he’s chasing me.
And this time it’s not some game.
It’s not a simple battle of wills.
It’s life or death.
And I know when he catches me, he’ll show no mercy.
He’ll kill me, and I won’t be able to stop him.
I keep running and running, but I’m not getting anywhere.
I can’t find a way out, and I can’t find anywhere to hide.
“Emily!” Axel shouts from somewhere deeper in the house, and I shudder at the hatred and malice in
his tone. “I know what you are, Emily! You thought you could hide it. You thought you could fool me. But
you were wrong. I am the slayer, and I’m coming for you.”
Tears start streaming down my face.
I don’t want to die.
I don’t want Axel to kill me.
I want him to accept who and what I am.
I want him to love me.
He’s my mate, he’s supposed to be mine.
He’s supposed to be my happy ending.
I need to get outside.
If I can make it out of the mansion, if I can shift and run, then I know I’ll be safe.
But the corridor is endless and most of the doors are locked.
And when I do find one that’s open, it just leads to another hallway.
Until I come to a dead end.
There’s a mirror on the wall and I find myself frozen, staring into the reflection.
It’s me, but I’m all wrong.
I’m monstrous. Grotesque.
The outside now shows what’s really inside.
And then, over my shoulder, I see a dark shape looming up.
I spin, and come face to face with Axel.
He wraps a hand around my neck and lifts me off my feet, and then smashes my back into the mirror,
sending a cascade of glass showering down around me.
“This was always going to be our fate, Emily,” Axel tells me, his voice burning with loathing. “How could
I ever love you? How could you ever be my mate? I despise your very existence.”
Axel tightens his hold on my neck until I can’t breathe.
His eyes glitter coldly as he squeezes tighter and tighter and I know this is it.
I’m going to die—
I wake up gasping, shivering, my body drenched in sweat, but I’m ice cold.
I glance wildly around, expecting to see shadowed, sinister corridors, but instead I’m in the library on
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The book I was reading has fallen aside, and the fire has burned down low in the hearth.
I look over to see Axel asleep in the armchair in front of the French doors.
I shudder and rip my gaze away, unable to shake the fear I’d felt in the dream when he’d been chasing
me.
And worse, when I’d been sure I was about to die by his hand.
I feel sick and shaky as I untangle myself from the blanket.
I need a drink of water, and then I’m not sure what I’m going to do.
I don’t want to go into my bedroom in case Axel wakes up and comes to lock me in again.
And after that dream, I sure as hell don’t want to go back to sleep.
I walk through the darkened mansion, trying to tell myself it doesn’t look like how it did in the dream,
and this time I’m definitely awake.
I walk faster, resisting the urge to run.
In the kitchen, I turn on all the lights before I pour myself a glass of cold water.
As I start drinking it down, I realize how thirsty I am.
When I’m done, I decide to pour myself a second helping, but as I turn around, I find myself face to
face with Axel.
I gasp and jerk back.
The glass slips from my hand to fall and shatter on the kitchen tiles at my feet.
“What are you doing in here, Emily?” he asks, and I almost shrink back at how his voice nearly sounds
the same as it did in my dream.
“I— I was just getting a glass of water,” I stammer, moving back from him.
However, he matches my movement, his boots crunching on the glass as he tracks me across the
kitchen.
“Were you?” he demands, gaze narrowing. “Or were you about to slip out of the back entrance to shift
and go running again?”
“What? No!”
He saw me holding the glass. He stepped on the remains of it moments ago.
Why would I bother getting out a glass if I was just going to run off outside?
However, I don’t say any of that, I’m still caught up in the nightmare and scared of what he’ll do to me.
Part of me wants to run, but if I do that, he’ll chase me and it’ll be like plunging straight back into the
nightmare I just woke from.
But I don’t want to be around him right now.
I need to get away.
Before I can make a decision, however, he lunges forward and catches my arm in a bruising grip.
He pulls me in, his features hardening like granite.
“I told you what would happen if you disobeyed me.”