Read Online Dark Side of Dawn: The Nightmare Chronicles by Kathryn Smith - Free Book Online Page B

concern or patronization I detected? Like everyone else in the chamber I turned toward that sweet voice, but not before I saw a sour expression touch the Warden’s features. It disappeared as quick as it came as she too, moved to face this new speaker.
    Coming toward me was the tallest woman I’d ever seen. Easily seven feet tall, she was super-model thin, with long silvery hair and skin as pale and shimmeryas opals. She wore a long indigo robe that flowed languidly around her feet like moon-touched waves. At the base of her long neck was a tattoo. Small and stylized, it was a beautifully drawn spider, head pointed up, legs out to the sides, reaching for her sleek collarbones.
    She stopped directly in front of me. I had to raise my chin to look at her. I’m not used to looking up at women.
    “Hello, Dawn,” she said, her voice a little richer than it had been.
    I tilted my head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know who you are.”
    There were a few murmurs following this statement, as though people couldn’t believe I actually said that.
    The woman only smiled. “I am Hadria, priestess of Ama.”
    I didn’t even know the Great Spider, weaver of dreams, had priestesses, although I suppose it made sense. “I’d say it was nice to meet you, but I’d hate to do that and then be proven wrong.”
    More murmurs, but Hadria only laughed, revealing strong teeth just as white and shimmery as the rest of her. She glanced over the top of my head. “She has your bravado, Morpheus.”
    I glanced over my shoulder at my father, who smiled at this giant of a woman. “Are you surprised?” He stepped forward. “Why are you here, old friend?”
    Friend. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t so scary after all.Hadria’s dark purple eyes—pupilless and swirled with silver—fell on me once more, and while her smile faded just a little, I wasn’t anxious. “I’m here to deem what your child is capable of doing.”
    “Verek already does that,” I spoke up. “He’s my trainer.” I didn’t want to lose Verek. He was the one person other than my father that I knew I could trust. Don’t ask me how I knew it, I just did.
    Hadria angled her head—all the better to look down at me, I suppose. “I’ve no wish to deny you of your training, Princess. I’m here not to train you, but to gauge your power.”
    My spine stiffened. “Because I’m a threat?”
    Her smile was patient. “Is that what you are?”
    Man, I was in no mood for mind games right now, but I was still a little too intimidated to mouth off. Energy rolled off this woman, wrapping around me like a giant hand. She was strong—powerful. And I knew her bad side was not one I wanted to be on.
    “The Warden seems to think so,” I murmured. “A lot of people seem to think I’m out to destroy this world.” Maybe that was a little melodramatic, but it was the truth, right?
    The priestess bowed her shoulders, lowering her upper body until we were eye to eye. Within the indigo depths of her gaze, I could see swirls of silver and blue. She had no pupils that I could detect. Weird.
    “I hope destroying our world is not your plan, Daughter of Morpheus, because there are some of us who are depending on you to save it.”
     
    “Unmade?” Noah set a bottle of beer on the table in front of me—the same table we’d had sex on earlier. It didn’t seem so sexy now. And yes, it was clean. “What the hell does that mean?”
    I wasn’t much of a beer fan, but I took a drink of the cold, bitter liquid anyway. “It means that I will cease to exist in the Dream Realm. I’ll be dead.”
    He paled. “I thought that was impossible.” He sat down across from me with his own beer. He was in a baggy black T-shirt and the Iron Man pajama bottoms that I had found for him at Target. His hair was mussed up, but his dark eyes were alert—and worried. “You’re immortal there, right?”
    “Technically.” I took another drink. “It’s tricky. I can be unmade in that realm, which will be a