Free Sergius: #4 (Luna Lodge: Hunters of Atlas) by Madison Stevens Page B

panties and bra from her bag and slipped them on. She went to grab her pants and shirt from the last night, and found they were folded neatly in the chair next to her bag again.
    Jade smiled. Although Sergius had no problem ripping her clothes off, he was kind enough to fold them the next day. There was nothing quite as sexy as a thoughtful man.
    She thought about the two of them and the nature of their relationship as she dressed.
    Sergius had called them bonded. She didn’t understand all the intricacies of hybrid culture, and she wasn’t sure exactly where they went from there, but for the moment, she wasn’t interested in running away, and that was more than she’d ever said before.
    She felt something unfamiliar; she felt like she belonged.
    She walked to the kitchen and discovered Sergius had already made a pot of coffee. A cup sat on the counter.
    Jade poured the hot brew into a clean cup. When she looked in the fridge, there was a little jug of cream. The sugar stood in a container on the counter. She smiled, not knowing if he liked sugar and cream in his coffee or if he had assumed she might. Either way the thought made her happy.
    She slipped on her shoes and opened the back door. She breathed in the cool morning air and smiled at the fresh fall day.
    Sergius looked up from the wood he had been chopping and grinned at her. She hadn’t really seen him smile, and the sight of it made her heart thump wildly in her chest. Everything about him seemed to excite her.
    Perfect. Everything was just perfect.
    Jade stepped out onto the porch and froze. A now familiar sensation settled over her: floating. Her body felt no longer tethered to the world around her as she floated freely through the flashes of a vision.
    The sensation was familiar, but the experience was different. Before when she’d had the vision, she felt her body float and then saw herself standing exactly in the same spot.
    Instead, flashes of scenes skipped along in front of her. It was like she was blinking in and out of different spots.
    Most disappeared too quickly for her to even see what was going on, but the vision paused for a moment, and she found herself on a snowy hill, the ground completely coated in a layer of fresh snow. The chill in the air bit her to the bone.
    She shivered and stared around her. The place looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. A bit of concentration didn’t help her remember it.
    It didn’t help that the bleak landscape didn’t leave much for her to go on. She glanced over to the right and was shocked to find several pairs of glowing red eyes off into the distance.
    Then, she was floating again, no longer on the snowy hill with the scary red eyes but floating back to her own body.
    Jade landed in her own body again and struggled to regain some control. She could hear the coffee mug shatter as it hit the ground and felt her body falling forward, unable to keep herself up any longer. The world closed in around her, and darkness consumed her.
     
    * * *
     
    Sergius heard the mug hit the ground. Before he even knew what was happening, he sprinted to her. He caught her just before she hit the ground and called out to her, but she didn’t respond.
    He checked her pulse and breathing, and both were fine. Fainting. Another vision perhaps. He couldn’t be sure.
    He carried her inside and laid her on the couch. Sergius grabbed a washcloth from the bathroom to lay on her forehead.
    He pulled out his phone to call Rem, and then all he could do was wait. For her to wake up. For Rem to come. For something.
    Even though he’d accepted that his Vestal had this strange power concerning dreams and visions, he had no clue what to do about it or how to help her, other than make her feel comfortable when she awoke.
    Sergius paced the floor, and a few moments later, there was a knock from Rem.
    He opened the door and let his friend and leader inside.
    “How long?” Rem said.
    Sergius shook his head. “Not long, but it