Chapter 8

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I'll definitely be unpacking this in therapy ten years from now.

I can't remember the last time I dreamed…

At one point, when I was very young, I just stopped.

I don't even really remember why…

I think, one day, I just asked myself not to dream anymore. It was too painful to wake up and find the world I had made lost in vivid memories I couldn't latch onto.

Walking into this dream is a lot like finding home after being gone for much too long.

Flowers spring up behind my footsteps as brushes stroke color into the sky.

I'm atop a rolling hill, looking on into the forever. Crystal lakes scatter across the rainbow valley. Sun dances across every glass surface. Rabbits play among bluebells. Fish leap from pond to pond as though they have wings. I know I'm dreaming. I already know I will regret waking up.

But, still, it's like I've been under water for years and I'm breathing again for the first time.

The sun is warm on my face, nightgown, and night cap.

The air is…sweet.

Coated in aromas of chai.

And…coconut?

A muttered curse whispers behind me as the sounds of nature take on a slightly eerie edge.

Turning, I find a monster peering at his claws.

Black streaks up his sharp fingertips, as though it feeds into his veins. He's towering. At least two feet taller, if not three. The black whites of his eyes pillow his red irises and pour into the corners, cutting across his cheeks in inky streaks similar to the veins that run up his arms.

My lips part, because even though I haven't dreamed since I was a child, I know I have never had a nightmare before.

Never once.

And yet…

This creature, this almost man, marks the point that slices my dream in half. Where he starts, the world I've made behind him turns to ashes and horror. The sky is jet cut through with lightning clouds above his head. The grass rots. The playing rabbits fight and bite and foam at mouths too small to hold all their new needly teeth.

The creature glances at me. Then looks behind him. And swears again.

My brows crash low as this time the swear registers in a familiar tone of voice. "No," I whisper.

You've got to be kidding me.

"Pollux?" I grimace and tap my knuckles together in a steady beat. "What did my brain do to you?" I trail toward him. As I circle him, flowers burst in the wake of my steps to regain what he's stolen. Lifting his hand, I examine the very tasteful talons my insipid subconscious clearly decided he was missing. "At least it suits you."

His eyes widen, ever so slightly. "You…think so?"

"Sure. Now you look like the monster I clearly believe you to be."

He takes a step back, crushing one of my flowers into dust.

I disregard him. "It's been so long since I've dreamed." I lower myself into the grass, feel the warm blades against my hands as petals sprout and overtake my nightgown. "I remember this feeling. Of safety and control." I whip my attention back toward Pollux. "I could stab you, you know? Just like I've wanted to." I splay in the grass, tap my fingers against the ground. "But I'll be nice, as long as you are. After all, dreams exist to help us make sense of our confusing realities. I'm obviously stressed and need to process something concerning you." I curl my hands into fists. "Or…maybe I just need to vent all this frustration."

My brain obliges my thoughts and wraps Pollux up in a giant Whac-A-Mole, complete with sentient floating hammer. Pollux's red and black eyes go massive as he ducks out of the way before the rubber mallet crashes into his head. He swears, and something in my chest pinches as he pulls the machine apart to escape. The pieces of my bright arcade game shrivel, turn abandoned-carnival shades with peeling paint, then wither from his hands.

I pout.

"You…" He stares at me, fumbling for words. "Why?"

"Why what?"

He throws a hand behind him, at the rest of the busted mess he made.

"I'm sure I have no idea what you mean." I direct the still-floating mallet his way.

He lifts his hand above his head, grips the mallet when it comes crashing down, and lets it rot from his fingers into a black goop all around him. He growls, "I cannot fathom why you're attacking me. I came to make sure you were well, Kassandra. If you want a fight, I'm content to oblige, but not until we have spoken."

My heart responds to that. For some reason.

He continues, "You worried me this afternoon, and we never got a chance to talk privately about what was troubling you, if you were ready to." Pollux takes a deep, calming breath and lowers himself to the dirt near me. Lifting a hand, he carefully uses a claw tip to trace the line of my cheek. "I'll leave if you don't want me here. I know this form might be uncomfortable to look at. I'm sorry that, here, I can only make it worse. This is just all part of what it means to be…what I am."

I look up at him and remember how Andromeda says they're both unseelie and their magic is scary. Clearly, my brain is defining the scary well. I wonder what it will come up with to call all of this. "Meda has never mentioned what sort of faerie you both are. She's told me about dryads and moth royals and vampire cats and werewolves—"

"Canines," he corrects. "Werecanines. Werewolves aren't real."

"Right." I do believe Andromeda told me that exact same thing once.

Pollux opens his mouth wide enough for me to see his sharp teeth as he releases a sigh. "She's not told you what we are? At all?"

"She likes to leave it at scary. She's very careful about discussing anything too personal." For reasons I can only shudder to assume.

Pollux shakes his head, hesitating as he spreads his claw-tipped fingers and looks at them. "Scary…huh? We are fear. We were once boogeymen. Now we are dream eaters. We craft nightmares and feed on terror."

"Spooky scary skeletons," I sing.

Pollux exhales a laugh. "I suppose."

"You don't seem very scary to me."

His thumb traces my cheek again. "Have you ever been afraid, dearest? Is it an emotion you even know? Or…do you always go straight to worry and anger?"

My eyes roll, and I fall onto my back. Inexplicably, my knuckles meet atop my stomach and run up and down one another. Over and over. "I'm a redhead. What do you think?"

He murmurs a curse. "I think you are the most beautiful thing I have ever laid eyes on. I think your mind is the most ethereal place I have ever been." He lets his gaze drift out across the distance while I watch him. "I think…you have enchanted my mind and my soul. My body seeks to do your will, if only I might discover what it is."

Well, holy heck…

He seems different here.

And not just because he looks different.

For some reason, my head seems to have made him softer. Safer. One hundred percent Pollux parenting two kids in an apron.

With fangs and claws, but peace and calm to match. Also, rizz. For some reason I have given him what I can only describe using the slang my kids bring into my presence against my will. That last line he whispered while looking dreamily out across the world my brain has made felt so scandalous I can hardly contain myself.

My hand lifts before I realize, and his attention falls squarely when my touch glides across his cheek, over a dark line in his skin. My touch finds its way to his ears. They're pointed, spearing alongside his hair like pale knives.

His touch drops around my throat. His thumb skims my pulse, adding just enough pressure to the tempo of my heart. I feel it beat against the pad.

A swear rumbles from his lips.

His face lowers, and I swallow.

Somewhere, deep in the back of my skull, I do not know what I'm doing.

I'm not a wild person. I'm not attracted to oddities, evil, or danger.

I've been too angry in the waking world to bother finding him handsome beyond a vague mention of how his conventional attractiveness may be something he uses to manipulate others. In this moment, I have never been more attracted to anyone. It's like the reality of the situation has been stripped away.

He's not a monster now that he looks like one.

He's just…beautiful. And I want him in ways I shouldn't.

This will haunt me when I wake up.

Perhaps I'll never recover from the guilt.

His nose skims mine.

His fingers flex around my neck as my eyes fall closed.

In the darkness, I expect I'll wake up to Chai sitting on my throat again, but I don't. I continue to feel him, his lips, his breath. His scent in my lungs.

"Dearest…" he whispers against me, and maybe that's what prompted this whole mess in the first place. That little insane thing he called me this afternoon got stuck in my head and rewrote some deprived part of my brain. Dearest. No one has ever called me anything half so enchanting.

The few boyfriends I've had stopped marvelously at babe.

This is absolutely a product of the dumpster mind of a young woman who has not been on a date in years. I'm already disappointed in myself. Bad people shouldn't be pretty enough that I still think they're pretty when they look like dark faeries.

I laugh.

"What's so funny?" His words tickle my cheek as he dots his kisses along the curve of my bones.

"Meda's faerie stories really seem to have gotten stuck in my head."

He pulls away slightly. "You…think they're stories?"

I open my eyes. "Don't tell me you're the sliver of me that thinks they might not be? I told Pollux directly I was worried she's living in a dark fantasy because she only ever talks in storybook terms. I don't know what she's covering up with fairy tales." My smile falls. "I don't know what you're making her do that is so terrible she needs to rewrite her entire life into fantasy in order to cope with it."

Horror crashes across his expression so violently I'm impressed.

He moves his hand off me, tucks his claws against his palm. "Oh." Thunder crashes above as storm clouds fill my blue sky. A hollow swear exits his lips.

"Mm, yep. That's what you'd look like if I believed you capable of remorse. My brain's being real funny tonight." I sigh. "Maybe I've inhaled too much cat litter."

"Kassandra, our first conversation passed in a blur of broken pieces and anxiety. I didn't realize until this exact moment that you didn't believe Meda. When you asked about my job, I panicked. I didn't want to tell you that I scare people for a living, do what my best friend asks of me, and—for some—" He curses as he plunges his claws through his hair. "—reason—manage talk therapy sessions." He takes a breath, levels out his emotions, and looks at me, pleading. "I am a faerie. You are my soulmate. Andromeda is precious to me, and I would never do anything to hurt her."

An even more deranged laugh explodes out of me as I sit up, lift my hand, and throw the darkness out of my sky. A rainbow replaces it, and the eerie soundtrack that was building returns to appropriate peace. Now we're introducing a soulmate concept to this debacle? Wow. Alrighty then. Let's just ignore that. "I know I want to believe you wouldn't ever hurt her, Pollux. But this is real life. Not this, specifically, of course. This is a lovely little dream where I can make bad choices and only have to worry about questioning my sanity come morning." Leaning closer, I find his clenched hand and unravel his fingers. Dark blood streaks from where his claws pierced flesh, and the drops sizzle when they pollute my grass. "You're a very pretty nightmare, dreamboy." I kiss his cheek. "But I think I need to grow up again."

With that, my mind clicks off like a light bulb, and I wake with Chai sleeping on my stomach.