Cryptic Dreams

Cryptic Dreams PROPHETS OF BLOOD & SUNLIGHT BOOK ONE A. K. GRAVES Cryptic Dreams Copyright © 2023 by A. K. Graves All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This book is a piece of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own individual copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work. Edited by Rochelle J. Simas of Fluffy Fox Editing Cover Art by Stella Nova of Stellar Graphics Published by A. K. Graves, 2022 For my fellow vampire lovers. This broody bastard is for you, and I genuinely hope you love him as much as I do. Even though he’s bossier than anyone else who’s ever taken up space in my head. Contents Content Warning Poetically Prophetic 1. Swiftly Now 2. Itchy 3. Most Peculiar 4. Sunglasses at Night 5. New Hobby 6. I Just May Be the Devil 7. Heartbreaker 8. Heartless Moron 9. Outcast 10. Fate, You Silly Bitch 11. Hot Shit 12. A Most Beautiful Pain 13. Dead and Gone 14. Tectonic Shift 15. Winding Paths 16. Hardcore Swooning 17. Spoiled Rotten 18. Nothing I Won’t Do 19. I Didn’t Know It Could Be Like This 20. You Can’t Outrun Destiny 21. Hoity Toity Bupkiss 22. Shit Show City 23. What in the Bloody Hell? 24. Pleasure Reigns 25. Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing 26. New Kink, Unlocked 27. Divided, We Fall 28. The Things I Have Seen 29. Soul Crushing 101 Cryptic Dreams Playlist Also by A. K. Graves About the Author Content Warning Cryptic Dreams is the first book of the Prophets of Blood & Sunlight series, and it does end on a cliffhanger. Wraith’s story will continue in book two, Haunted Nightmares, currently scheduled to release in late spring of 2023. Cryptic Dreams is a paranormal vampire romance that deals with darker themes including but not limited to bondage, voyeurism, exhibitionism, blood play, primal play, knife/sharp object play, sexual asphyxiation, dub con, physical abuse, threats of sexual violence, graphic violence, and death. If you find any of these or other dark topics disturbing, this book may not be for you. Please contact the author at [email protected] if needed. Poetically Prophetic ZEPHYR My brush strokes are quick, so quick they're almost unsteady, as they sweep the oil paint in thick, raw lines. Jagged, raised, hurried swipes of fine fibers over bare canvas. I can't slow down though, not if I want to capture what I've seen to make the vision in my mind's eye permanent in order to analyze it later. I'll analyze it when the tears stop and the fear subsides. Gods, the fear. A fear so strong it ripped me from sleep and jolted me from my restful state in a way that had me absolutely terrified. A scream tore from my throat, and tears were streaming down my face. My hands were clammy, my body trembling. Terror is really the only word I can use to describe what I felt when I woke from my dream. Terror and devastating heartbreak. Mourning the loss of something—someone—I don’t know or maybe I’ve known my whole life. The dream was crushing; its weight a thousand elephants on my chest smothering me, suffocating me and leaving me gasping for air. Maybe not a dream. A nightmare. An omen. A prophecy. I continue painting, barely able to see through the never-ending tears spilling from my eyes, hardly able to focus as they stain my cheeks, as my hands shake so violently I worry the brush will slip from my fingers completely. But I can’t stop. Just like every other time, whatever I do, however I feel, I can not stop. Ever since I was young I’ve had what my mother referred to as visions from the gods. A gift bestowed upon me in the form of a vibrant imagination, artistic prowess, and the uncanny ability to predict the future while I slept and see the past while I’m awake. My mother was proud, father too, both of them convinced my gift meant I was destined to do great things and not just for myself, but our kind as a whole. I, on the other hand, have always thought it was a curse. Not my ability to paint, to express myself through splashes of color, to get lost in my canvas and create something beautiful in the midst of so much ugly couldn’t be a curse. No, I was damned by the inability to connect with others because of the supposed gifts the Gods of Old bestowed upon me. No one wants to associate with someone who can see where they’ve been or what they’ve done from a simple touch of my hand. No one wants to be around someone who can strip you raw, make you vulnerable and bare and break through carefully crafted barriers without even trying. No one wants all of their secrets revealed, the ones they hide as well as the ones that haven’t even been created yet. No one likes being under the microscope in a way that exposes every detail, insignificant or otherwise, to a perfect stranger let alone someone like me. I’ve learned that the hard way. It’s a lonely existence, one I’ve adjusted and grown accustomed to, but adapting to my so-called gifts and navigating them in the only ways I can still makes living this way so agonizingly lonely.