The Key (Heartfire) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Braver.
    And he was searching for the one person who would see it.
    His feet carried him inevitably toward her dorm. He didn't even have to think about it. She drew him, almost as if she was a magnet. As if he were an animal on the hunt. But not to kill.
    To join.
    Yes, he wanted to have sex with her but it was more than that. He felt driven to be as close to her as possible. To combine with her. Conjoin.
    To absorb and be absorbed.
    He stared up to a window on the third floor, sensing that she was inside. He blinked and he was inside her room, staring down at her. He wondered briefly if dream sex would be as fun as real sex. Or even more fun.  
    Either way, he was definitely wanting to crawl into that bed with her.
    She slept in the same white nightgown that he remembered from before. She looked delicious, her face softened in sleep, her long legs tangled up in her mismatched sheets. This time it was he who reached out and pressed his hand against her chest.  
    Immediately her eyes opened, looking adorably surprised. She wasn't frightened though. She smiled when she saw who it was.
    "Oh, it's you."
    In an instant he was back in his own bed, covered in sweat. He could remember every detail about the dream, from the warm feeling of her skin underneath his palm, to the lack of decorations on her side of her dorm room, to the feeling of the cool night air on his skin as he travelled across the campus.
    He also understood something new.
    The feeling he had in the dream was still with him, but stronger than before.  
    Touching her had changed him.
    Kaylia had changed him.
    He felt powerful, more alive than ever before. He felt something inside him surging. Heat, vitality, desire.
    At practice that morning, he was unstoppable. He ran circles around his teammates until they started to look at him differently. He saw fear and respect in their eyes. Coach pulled him aside and said that if he kept it up, he'd be starting.
    The first Freshman starting quarterback in the league.
    Ever.
    Old Dylan would have been thrilled. Honored. Humbled.
    But new Dylan wasn't like that. He'd taken it as his due. He knew without a doubt that he deserved it. The new Dylan wasn't just top dog. He was t he top dog.
    He was the Alpha.

Chapter Six
    Kaylia
    ✧

    Kaylia grabbed a new apron and slipped it over her head. She was full of a strange energy today. Her dreams had been extensive and had woken her at dawn. She hadn't been able to fall back asleep, all the images inside her screaming to be let out, recorded, made sense of.
    She'd been up since very early in the morning, working on her sketches. Once Dylan had disappeared from her dream, she'd gone exploring on her own. She'd checked up on her Nan, who always seemed to notice her in the room but she never said a word about it. She'd give a funny smile but that was all. Even if she was asleep, Nan would get restless when Kaylia came to visit.
    Kaylia had left quickly, afraid to disturb the older woman. Nan needed her sleep, which was harder to come by at her age. Instead Kaylia wound up at the beach again, somewhere on the East Coast.  
    As usual, the animals she encountered seemed to see her, even though people did not. Every once in a while she'd encounter someone who could see her but it was usually a young child, and even then it was only for an instant. Never anything like Dylan.  
    And last night, he'd actually come to her .
    It was unusual enough that she remembered thinking ' well, that was new.'
    She sighed, hurrying so she was early for her shift. Something strange was going on between them whether she liked it or not. She wasn't sure what it was yet, but she had little doubt that she'd find out.
    Whether she wanted to or not.
    Hopefully, it was something good because she was pretty sure she was stuck with him.
    She hid a smile. There were worse things than being stuck with someone who looked like Dylan. And he wasn't just handsome. He was intrinsically a good person. Inside and out.
    She