<span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#cc99ff"><i>It had been this way her entire life.</i><br/>
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The lucid dreaming. The astral walking. That out of body experience that few people could brag about, that some even wrote books about, but it could never really be scientifically proven. Usually she could wake up from these instances – the things that were too real. Though there were some things she couldn’t run away from, like the creature that had crawled across her walls and ceiling on a nightly basis as a small child. Or the creatures that stalked around, lumbering demons when the Veil was most thin, stalking men and women who didn’t have a clue. Living in the world, she had to bit her tongue when she saw things that weren’t <i>normal. </i>Though more often than not she was caught gawking at a person who had a pair of stickly arms wrapped around their throat and a lesser demon clinging to their skull, waiting for later when they were strong enough to really sink into the poor soul’s mind. <br/>
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They made movies about the things that she saw. And yet to the mundane world this was all fiction. And Mia Omicidio had always belonged to two different worlds. <i>Dreamwalking </i>was something that she did on accident, but always for brief spurts of time and never drawn to a particular place like she was now like she was a magnet being pulled there.<br/>
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She definitely didn’t expect to find herself pinned against the doorway she had stepped through by the masculine presence that felt too real pressed up against. She felt the heat radiating from his body, warming the chill that had seeped into her own skin. She could even smell the scent of wood smoke and the bare hint of masculine spice on him. Plus the uncertainty that crept up to her throat like his hand that lanced around her tightened the pit of her stomach in a very real way. The eerie violet stare narrowed on him as she eased up on the balls of her feet and slunk back against the door that felt solid behind her back. Her upper lip curled into a wry twist.<br/>
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“You don’t get too many visitors here, do you? If you greet anyone else who stumbles on this place and greet them like this, I’m not really surprised. The better question is – what are <i>you </i>doing here locked up in some room in my <b>dream </b>like a damsel in distress?”<br/>
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She wasn’t scared of him yet, even with the hand gripping her. Nor was she phased by the fact that he was snarling in her face. Her hands finally lifted from where they rested at her sides to press firmly against his chest to give him a push. Or tried to. As soon as her fingertips met their mark, she jerked back like she had just been shocked from the power that emanated from this man. The coy purse of her lips flattened out on her face as both shock and curiosity replaced it. Instead of reaching out to push him again, this time her hands moved up to grip his around her throat.<br/>
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“OK, buddy. You made your point being big and scary. Let me go before a vein ruptures in your temper from all that strain,” she retorted, brows lifting. “But to answer your question – I walked down the creepy ass road leading up to this mansion that looks like it was straight out of a Silent Hill game and played duck, duck, goose until I found – the goose. But now that you say <i>prison</i>, I think it’s about time to say my hellos and goodbyes and just be on my happy little way, yea?”<br/>
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There was something not right about this scenario. Other than the death threats, Mia felt a different kind of unease being around this man. Eyes slipped away from his glaring gold stare to get a good look around at her surroundings as she pulled in a breath to see if he dropped his grip around her throat.</span></span>