Read Online The Last Dream Keeper by Amber Benson - Free Book Online Page B

out the pet name she’d used when Arrabelle was a small child. After that, no one had ever called her Bella. The truncated version of her given name had been buried along with her mother’s bones, never to be resurrected.
    Until now.
    â€œMaman?”
Arrabelle called out—the urge to connect to the voice so strong she couldn’t control her response.
    Tiny pinpricks began to cover her body, starting at her feet and then, in a wave of nerve-tingling sensation, traveling up the length of her firmly muscled body until she was consumed. Her eyeballs burned like coals and she scratched at the searing hot flesh with her nails, trying to rip away the skin as if this action would stop the pain. She flailed around the room, slamming against the edge of the couch and falling forward, her head cracking into the wooden coffee table.
    â€œMaman!”
Arrabelle cried, acid tears scalding her cheeks as they streamed down her face.
    . . . Bella baby, beware . . .
    â€œMaman?!”
she screamed, every inch of her body in pain.
    The foul stench of charred human flesh filled her nostrils and Arrabelle choked back a scream, terror overloading her brain. She prayed she wasn’t smelling her own body cooking, but, of course, she knew that was exactly what was happening. She cracked open a gelatinous eyelid and saw her terror realized: She was roasting like a pig on a spit. Flames leapt from her body and traveled along the couch, engulfing the room and threatening to destroy all the masks and artifacts her father had bequeathed to her upon his death . . .
    The burbling of the espresso maker and the smell of percolating coffee replaced the stink of her own fiery death. She shuddered, tension pouring off her in undulating waves, until she felt limp and wrung out.
    She was standing in front of the stove, one gas eye lit up iniridescent blues and oranges, the flames licking along the angular aluminum bulb at the bottom of the espresso pot. She reached out to pluck the pot from the gas burner but thought better of it and pulled her fingers back before she burned them.
    No more burning today,
Arrabelle thought, shivering as she remembered how real the lucid dream had been.
What else could it be
but
a lucid dream? Her mother wasn’t a ghostly voice in her head, and she wasn’t burning to death. Shit like that only happened in dreams.
    Arrabelle’s Cornish Rex kitten, Curiosity, brushed past her ankles, and Arrabelle could feel the thrum of the kitten’s purr against her skin.
    â€œHey, little one,” she said as she picked up the skinny beast and pulled her close.
    Ordinarily, Curiosity didn’t care to be held. But she must’ve sensed Arrabelle needed the closeness and so the kitten allowed it.
    â€œNothing bad will ever happen to you, baby girl,” Arrabelle said as she gave the kitten one more cuddle, then let her go. “I won’t let it.”
    But who will protect me?
Arrabelle thought.
Who will protect us all when the end comes?
    She shook her head, not liking the words that had just come unbidden into her head. She was not a woman who kowtowed to hysteria, but the strange intensity of the lucid dream had freaked her out. As much as she enjoyed the privacy that came with living alone, at that moment she would’ve given anything to have someone there to hold her like she’d held the kitten.
    Dev is the luckiest. She has those little girls at her feet and that flirtatious scamp of a man in her bed. She’s never alone.
    She turned the eye of the stove off and poured the sludgy brown liquid into a small ceramic espresso cup. She took an orange from the refrigerator and sliced it into four sections, then cut off a wedge of rind from one of the quarters andplaced it on the saucer next to her cup. She took her coffee and orange sections to the scarred wooden table and sat down at one of the long benches, wishing it were cold enough to set a fire in the