CHAPTER 57: CHAPTER 57: THE SEED

"SHOULD."

The word tasted like ash in his mouth. "You gambled with her life on ’should.’"

But even as fury threatened to consume him, Grayson felt something else stirring in his chest—that connection he’d maintained with Mailah suddenly blazing to life with desperate intensity.

She was calling to him. Fighting to return.

Without hesitation, he moved toward the silver circle, intent on crossing the barrier between worlds to reach her.

"Stop!" Vivienne’s voice cracked like a whip, supernatural authority ringing in the single word. "You cannot enter the dream realm in your current state. Going in while you’re in human form makes you vulnerable to a Dream walker’s influence. They’ll use your feelings against you, turn your protective instincts into weapons that could destroy you both."

Grayson whirled on her, his eyes blazing with inhuman light. "If you hadn’t sent her there in the first place, none of this would be happening!" The accusation tore from his throat with enough force to make the silver circle pulse and flicker. "You gambled with her life because you thought you knew better. You pushed her toward a creature that feeds on transformation and desperation, and now you want to lecture me about vulnerability?"

The words felt like a slap to Vivienne, and for the first time in years, Grayson saw something crack in her impenetrable composure.

Guilt—raw and devastating—flickered across her features before she could hide it.

He became suspicious, his eyes . "Or did you purposefully lead her to her death?"

That seemed to strike a cord.

"I thought..." she began, then stopped, her voice smaller than he’d ever heard it. "I thought it was the only way to give her a chance. Your brothers are circling, Grayson. Mason’s threat was just the beginning. They’ll never stop coming for her, and she needs to be strong enough to survive what’s ahead."

"That wasn’t your choice to make." The words came out quiet now, but somehow more devastating than his earlier fury. "She trusted you. I trusted you."

Vivienne flinched as if struck, and when she spoke again, her voice was barely a whisper. "What do you need me to do?"

The admission of failure, of desperate regret, deflated some of his rage. But not his determination.

"Just pray to whatever gods you still believe in that I can bring her back intact," he said, turning back to the silver circle where Mailah’s body lay suspended between worlds.

Vivienne felt as though the ground should open and swallow her whole.

"The connection between you will serve as an anchor," she said, her voice regaining some of its steadiness. "But Grayson, as you already know—in the dream realm, everything is magnified. Your hunger for her, your need to protect her, even whatever feelings you have for her could become weapons the Dream walker uses against you both."

"Then I’ll have to be stronger than my own nature," he replied, settling beside Mailah’s motionless form and taking her cold hand in his.

The moment their skin connected, the world exploded into sensation.

He felt himself falling—not through space, but through layers of consciousness.

The landscape materialized around him in a rush of impossible colors and singing light.

But unlike the wonder Mailah had experienced, Grayson saw the realm for what it truly was—a hunting ground where predators wore the faces of dreams and fed on the desires of mortals.

He found them in a garden that existed in reverse.

Mailah stood frozen in the center of it all, her hand extended toward a figure that wore her own face but moved with the fluid grace of something ancient and hungry.

The Dream walker had been in the middle of some seductive argument when Grayson’s presence shattered the careful atmosphere she’d been building.

She spun toward him, and he saw her features shift and flow like water, settling into a form designed to be everything he’d ever desired.

She wore Mailah’s face but perfected it—skin that glowed with inner light, eyes that held the wisdom of ages, a mouth that promised pleasures beyond mortal comprehension.

Even knowing what she was, Grayson felt the pull of her supernatural allure.

"The demon lover arrives," the Dream walker purred. "Come to claim his pet? But tell me, creature of hunger—what makes you think you can offer her more than I can? I offer transformation, evolution, power beyond her wildest dreams. You offer only consumption."

"I offer choice," Grayson said simply, his eyes never leaving Mailah’s face.

She looked dazed, caught between the Dream walker’s influence and her own desperate desire to return to him. "Something you’ve been trying to take away from her since she arrived."

The Dream walker’s laugh was like crystal breaking. "Choice? She chose to come here. She chose to become something worthy of your devotion rather than remain the fragile human you have to protect."

"Mailah," Grayson called, ignoring the Dream walker entirely. "Look at me."

Her eyes snapped to his, and he saw the moment recognition blazed to life in their depths.

The dazed confusion cleared, replaced by relief.

"You came," she whispered, her voice barely audible across the distance between them.

"I’ll always come for you," he replied, taking a step forward. The Dream walker hissed, her beautiful facade cracking to reveal something terrible beneath.

"She’s mine now," the creature snarled. "She asked for power, begged for transformation. I can give her everything she wanted!"

"No," Mailah said. "You offered me everything I thought I wanted. But what I actually want is to face whatever’s coming as myself, not as some enhanced version you’ve designed."

The rejection hit the Dream walker.

The garden around them began to waver, flowers withering and reforming in endless cycles.

"Foolish mortal," she spat. "You reject transcendence for what? The fleeting affection of a demon who will eventually consume you anyway? At least with my power, you would survive. Without it, you’re nothing but prey."

"She’s not prey," Grayson said, his voice carrying the weight of absolute conviction. "She doesn’t need your power."

"He’s right," she said, turning to face the Dream walker with newfound determination.

The Dream walker’s expression shifted from rage to something far more calculated and cruel. "How touching. Such trust, such devotion. Tell me, dear Grayson, have you mentioned to your beloved exactly how long you’ve known she was an impostor?"

Grayson went rigid, his supernatural senses screaming warnings as the Dream walker’s smile turned predatory.

"No?" The creature’s voice dripped with false sympathy as she turned to Mailah. "He’s known since that first breakfast, sweet girl. The moment you walked into his dining room, he knew you weren’t his wife. Every kiss, every tender moment, every promise he’s whispered—all while knowing you were living a lie."

Grayson watched the color drain from her face. "That’s not—" he started, but the Dream walker cut him off with a laugh like breaking glass.

"Oh, but it is. A demon of his age, his power? Did you really think you could fool supernatural senses with a bit of playacting? He’s been watching you, studying you, perhaps even enjoying the novelty of your deception."

The Dream walker circled them both now, her voice a poisonous whisper. "The question is: what was he planning to do when he grew bored of the game?"

"Mailah," Grayson said, reaching toward her, but she stepped back, her eyes wide with hurt and betrayal.

"Is it true?" she whispered. "Did you know from the beginning?"

The silence that followed was answer enough. Grayson’s failure to immediately deny it spoke volumes, and the Dream walker’s triumphant smile grew wider.

"There," the creature purred. "Now you see the truth of what he offers. Not partnership, but manipulation. Not his affection, but convenience. I offer you genuine power, genuine choice. He offers you nothing but prettier lies than the ones you’ve been telling yourself."

The realm around them began to shift and change again, but this time it wasn’t from the Dream walker’s rage—it was from the crack that had just opened in the foundation of trust between Grayson and Mailah.

"You knew," Mailah said, her voice hollow. "All this time, you knew I wasn’t her."

"It doesn’t change anything," Grayson said urgently.

"It changes everything!" The words tore from her throat with devastating force. "Every moment of doubt I had, every time I worried I wasn’t good enough to be your wife, you could have ended it. You could have told me the truth. Instead, you let me torture myself with the fear of discovery while you watched like it was some kind of entertainment."

The Dream walker clapped her hands together in delight. "Perfect. Do you see how easily trust crumbles? How quickly emotions turn to poison when built on deception? Even if you return to your world now, this doubt will grow. It will consume you both from the inside, destroying whatever bond you think you’ve forged."

"The realm is destabilizing," Grayson said, his voice rough with emotion. "We can’t discuss this here. We need to leave now before the Dream walker traps us here permanently."

Mailah looked between him and the creature wearing her face, and for a moment, Grayson thought she might choose to stay, might decide that transformation was preferable to returning to a world where the man she cared for had been lying to her from the very beginning.

Then she nodded once, sharp and decisive. "Fine. But this conversation is far from over."

The Dream walker’s laughter followed them as the realm began to collapse around them. "You cannot build love on a foundation of lies, demon. She will never truly trust you again."

The realm seemed to melt around them as the Dream walker’s power turned inward, fed by her own satisfaction at the chaos she’d sown.

But instead of trying to escape separately, Grayson reached across the disintegrating space and caught Mailah’s hand.

She didn’t pull away, but her grip was different now—not the desperate clinging of lovers reuniting, but the practical connection of two people who needed each other to survive, regardless of what lay between them.

Reality reasserted itself with violent force.

Grayson’s last coherent thought before the transition completed was a prayer of gratitude that she had chosen to return to him not as something enhanced or perfected, but as exactly who she had always been.

They crashed back into their bodies simultaneously.

Mailah’s eyes snapped open, wild and unfocused until they found his face.

But instead of the relief and affection he’d expected to see there, her gaze held something far more complex—hurt, confusion, and a wariness that made his chest tight with dread.

Mailah pushed herself to her feet without accepting his offered hand.

When she finally looked at him, her eyes held a question.

"We need to talk," she said quietly, her voice steady but carrying an undertone that suggested the conversation would be anything but simple.

Grayson knew that whatever had been building between them—trust, partnership—now hung in the balance.

One more day until the feeding.

And now, instead of spending it preparing for the challenge ahead, they would be fighting for the very foundation of everything they’d built together.