43 - Nightmare - Rating: PG

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Running, in the dark, unseeing and blind. The night was cloying, reaching out with ghostly dark fingers, clutching at clothes and hair and skin. It seemed the dark could both grab him and reach through him, sending a stab of cold fear through his body, icy blast around his heart.

It kept happening, over and over and each time Connor would run, but never fast enough to escape the dark. And every time it caught him, it’d freeze him in place, hold him steady, while it hunted its target. And Connor never realized it till it was too late.

This time though, this time was different. This time he knew, he remembered. And when it came again, this time he called out for Shar, voice broken and full of fear. But it was loud enough and Shar heard, turning angry violet eyes on the thing that dared frighten or hurt Connor.

The wild elf with angry green eyes ignored the drow entirely, malice and hatred for the Connor half-breed elf the only thing clear and certain in the darkness.

Connor jerked out of reverie as the stranger and Shar clashed, finding himself clinging to the drow with fierce need. The dark elf calmed him with soothing words and comforting touches, and the horrid nightmare was pushed aside, momentarily forgotten.

Connor would never remember until it was too late that behind the wild elf stood a female drow, as much hatred in her eyes for Shar as the wild elf had held for him.

It wouldn’t occur that the nightmare might be real. And that the hunt was on for them both.