But I imagine Lorien is using some kind of spell to cloak all of this from humans.
“I love her,” Lorien says. “I loved her from the moment I was able to love someone. I trained my life to earn her love. And yes, I’m late. Yes, this is all crazy to a human. But it’d be crazier to leave her in doubt of my love for even a second longer.” Lorien glances up at me. “I swear, it was never a trick.”
Josh reaches behind his back and pulls out… a riding crop. A short, dark stick with a tiny glowing tip that flops back and forth. Then he laughs. “Well, looks like he does love you. My bad.”
Lorien lowers his whip, then seems to decide better of letting Josh get away with all of this. “You made her doubt me!” He cracks the whip, catching Josh around the ankle and jerking him off his feet.
“Wait!” Josh says, putting his arms up as Lorien approaches, keeping his whip wrapped around Josh’s leg as he comes up to plant one foot on Josh’s chest, holding him down.
“I never thought I would have to deal with a nightmare here. I shouldn’t have had to risk all this to prove things to my soul bond. You made up that auction announcement, didn’t you? How did you make it look so real?”
Josh blinks. “It is real.”
“Right,” Lorien says. “So you’re still going to persist in lying. Well, unluckily for you, I’m not just a warrior. I’m a king. And though I’ve never done it before, I can banish someone to the dark realm.”
Josh’s eyes widen. “A king?”
Lorien nods, removing his foot from Josh’s chest and taking a step back. “Begone, foul creature. To the depths of misery you go!” A dark, swirling void appears behind Josh, and Lorien makes a fast move with his whip, which is still attached to Josh’s leg, throwing him inside the void.
It closes, and I run down the stairs to reach Lorien.
I’m still not even sure what just happened.
Or what he just did to Josh.
“Truly, it gives me no pleasure to punish a nightmare,” Lorien says, putting an arm around me as I reach him. I still feel shocked by everything that just happened.
“So he was lying, then? About the auction?”
“Yes,” Lorien says. “Though, he was convincing.” He looks around. “See? No one has come to take me.”
“You were worried, though,” I say.
He rubs the back of his neck. “I do wish I had been able to come sooner for you. It is near the limit of how long a prince or king is allowed to stay on his own.”
“So he was partly right?” I ask, feeling hollow.
Lorien nods, putting a hand up to brush back my hair. “I’m close to the limit, but my family would never put me up for auction. That’s not why I’m here now. I couldn’t find you before that.”
I blink. “But you found me now.”
“Because of my brother,” Lorien says. “Because he came here first with his fae mate. This realm isn’t one we can see from the dream world. I have no idea how you’re even here.”
My chest feels tight as I pull back from his hand. “Lorien, I need more time than this. I need some space to think on it.”
His face falls. “How could you? I’ve done everything…”
“I told you it might not be possible,” I say.
“I proved my love,” Lorien says, looking wounded. “My whip—”
I throw my hands up. “Lorien, that’s the thing! You just expect me to get all of this, and I don’t! I don’t understand how a whip is love or what that guy was talking about. But why didn’t you tell me about auctions from the start? Why didn’t you tell me about that when you have told me so much else about your world?”
His cheeks go pink, and there’s shame in his eyes for the first time. “It didn’t seem relevant. And yes, maybe I thought it would look bad if you knew. But it should never have concerned us, and I was just so glad to find you—”
“But you waited until almost the last minute,” I say. “If I am your dream mate—”
“You weren’t even alive for much of my life! I swear, dream mate, I came as soon as I—”
“Hold on,” I say, putting up a hand. “I need my friends. I need to talk to them. I just, you know, I think I believe you, but—” Images flash through my mind.
How happy we have been. How perfect everything has been.
I haven’t been loved like this… not since before everything went wrong.
And now I see that it’s another person who wants to use me.
He may love me too, but he doesn’t want to go to auction, and he will go to auction if I don’t choose him. He withheld that piece of info for far too long.
“Tess, I didn’t want to rush you,” he says, taking a step forward. “I simply wanted you to be mine as soon as possible. This world isn’t safe…”
But I’m triggered now, and my heart is pounding, and all I can see is my stepdad’s face.
How kind it was before things went ugly.
Other men who used me.
I don’t want to see Lorien like that, but right now, the past is covering the future with an overlay of ugliness, and I can’t think straight.
“Tess…” Lorien trails off, looking lost, and we simply stare at each other for a moment.
Then I hear a dreadful sucking, whooshing sound, and a dark portal appears a few feet from Lorien, about ten feet in the air.
After a few seconds, something large and gray shoots out of it, landing on the ground in a heap of familiar but dingy robe.
Both Lorien and I stare in shock as Josh rises to his feet, looking slightly dizzy. Then he points a finger at Lorien in pure rage.
“You tried to banish me!” Josh yells at him. “I was just trying to—”
“The dark realm is here?” Lorien has gone stark white, staring at Josh as though he can’t be there. “How…?”
But then we’re interrupted again by a flash of light that is so bright it blinds me for a second, and when I open my eyes, two men in shining armor, one with black, one with white, are on either side of Lorien.
They each take him by the arm, and he looks at me desperately. “Wait! No! That’s my dream mate! I swear!” He looks up at me. “Right there!”
Josh’s eyes go wide. “Wait, guys—”
“Silence, nightmare!” The one in white armor says. “This doesn’t concern you! King Lorien, you have hereby been charged with inappropriate punishment amounting to murder. You are sentenced to immediate return to the dream realm and will be auctioned to whomever is most willing to take on such an unruly warrior.”
“No,” Lorien says, trying to fight them as he looks up at me. “I won’t leave her. I can’t.”
The fae in black armor looks up at me. “Are you his dream mate?”
I stare blankly. I can’t move.
The fae sighs impatiently. “Are you willing to claim him and mate him right now?”
I swallow, my heart pounding. I don’t know what to do for Lorien. I do care, but tonight complicated everything.
And it has only been a few days. All of this is crazy.
But the fae only give me a second to answer, just long enough for me to see the sadness on Lorien’s face.
“I see,” Lorien says. “Don’t feel bad, dream mate. If I couldn’t make you love me, just know that I still believe you are worthy of love. I love you—”
“Stop that,” the one in white says. “If that were truly your dream mate, she’d claim you on the spot.” He looks up at me. “Do you love him? Would you stay with him the rest of your life?”
A part of me wants to say yes, but I don’t want to be stupid. I thought I would have weeks or months to figure this out.
I freeze, though I hate myself for it. And before I can unlock my tight jaw and try to at least convince them to leave Lorien with me, the three of them are gone.
They just disappear. No flash, no poof.
Just gone.
I let out a howl of disappointment, only realizing as Lorien disappears how much it hurts to see him
gone.
“Well, that was unfortunate,” Josh says, brushing off the knees of his robe. He sends me a smile. “I was right about the wanted part, right? And hey, now he’ll go to auction like he was always meant to.” He shakes his head. “Dream mate in the dark realm. Sure.”
I stare at him, then run down the stairs and grab him by the collar of his robe, shaking him and then throwing him back so he lands on his ass.
“What have you done?” I ask. “Why did you do that? You made me think the worst of him. You—”
“He did lie to you, though,” Josh says.
“He didn’t tell me everything,” I say. “I didn’t tell him everything. We were taking things at our own pace. That doesn’t mean we weren’t in love.”
Josh raises an eyebrow. “Do you love him, then? Because you didn’t claim him.”
I crouch down on my heels, slumping. “I do. I’m just a messed-up person. I’m not like Lorien. I don’t just know instantly when I’m in love.”
Josh reaches down a hand to me. “Come on. Let’s go in my apartment and talk.”
I shake my head.
“All right, if you don’t care if he goes up for auction,” he says. “I mean, they’re going to display him in a public place in a loincloth, but if you’re cool with that—”
My eyes fly open. “What?”
“Ha-ha, just kidding.” He starts heading for the stairs. “But seriously, come talk to me about why you wouldn’t claim him if he’s your soul bond. Because we’ll have to act fast if you want him back.”
24
Tess
Lorien’s gone. He’s gone.
I feel almost frozen as I think of it, sitting on Josh’s couch and watching him pace.
“So he banished you, but you came here?” I ask.
Josh looks at me, pausing in biting his nail, and then nods. “This is the dark realm they talk about so much. Ridiculous, isn’t it?”
I frown. “Not so much. I spend most of my time beating the crap out of men here.”
Josh raises an eyebrow. “Really? I like it here. I think humans are brave and interesting.”
I sigh. “I don’t really want to hear about it. I just want to go see Lorien.”
Josh cocks his head. “We have some time. They have to prep and clean him for auction.”
“Clean him?”
“Groom him,” Josh says. “They have different expectations of male grooming there.”
I eye Josh’s ratty bathrobe. “I can see that.”
Josh smirks. “You think I want female attention? That’s the last thing I want.” He walks to one of his worn couches and slumps on it. “But anyway, what I’m saying is important because zealots like Lorien could learn from fae like me. Fae who see the gray areas of existence.”
“What do you mean?”
Josh crosses one leg over the other. “It’s true that men here act somewhat like fae women in the other realm. Perhaps that’s just natural when there is power.”
“So women rape there?” My heart surges and I start standing, but a look from Josh has me sitting back down.
“It’s not like that,” Josh says. “There are more regulations there, so men aren’t like being raped in the street every day as women sometimes are here.”
“I don’t see how people can sit by and do nothing,” I say.
“There is a lot of bad in this world,” Josh says. “It would be easy to focus on it. But there are good people too. Like you. Or those who run domestic violence shelters or lawyers who fight to put bad men or women behind bars.”
I just eye him hesitantly. “I don’t get the point of this. The world is complicated. Fine. Now I need to go get Lorien.”
“Well, I just think it’s hard to forgive ourselves when we’re so busy being unforgiving to others. We tend to judge everything with one lens. Even if we aren’t consciously judging ourselves harshly, if we outwardly hate everyone, we usually hate ourselves.”
“Hm.” I still don’t see how this applies to me.
“To get to Lorien, we will have to travel across your dream realm,” Josh says. “I’m guessing it’s not a great place right now given how much you hesitated over claiming Lorien.”
I jab a finger in his direction. “That’s your fault. You made me doubt him.”
Josh raises an ash-blond eyebrow. “You did that yourself. You trusted a stranger instead of him. It fit the narrative in your mind, didn’t it? I don’t know him, so it makes sense for me to doubt him. It doesn’t make so much sense for you.”
I think hard on that for a moment, an uncomfortable feeling burning me softly around the edges. “You’re right.” I think back over my life, over the people who have hurt me. “You’re right. I did overlay him with other things.”
“This world is beautiful and complicated,” Josh says. “I like to read about human events. Do you know there’s a man who, when a ship capsized in a storm, swam back fourteen times to save others from drowning? He swam so hard that he drowned all because of his love even for people he didn’t know. A fae would never do that. And they aren’t even mortal the way humans are.”
I blink. “That’s true.”
“Human news is so interesting. It only follows the worst of humankind. Heroes don’t sell as well as murderers.”
I blink. “It’s true. Plus, we don’t need to do anything about heroes.”
“We don’t need to do anything about murderers either,” Josh says. “The world just works how it works. Save who you want. Help who you want. Or just walk your own path. But take the judgment away unless you’re judging someone with a direct impact on you.”
I shake my head. “No. I’m still going to help women. Or anyone who needs help from someone stronger.”
“Fine,” he says. “As long as you can do it without closing up your heart. Because nothing is as black and white as you want to make it, and the only person you can truly have an impact on is you.”
I suck in a breath and hold it, trying to let his point sink in. “So what does this have to do with Lorien?”
“You have to be like that man swimming back into the wreckage. Like the men on the Titanic who gave up their lives—”
“A lot of women were devastated by that,” I say. “They wanted to stay and were forced to leave their husbands.”
“Be that as it may, there was a lot of love on that ship as everything went down. And throughout human history, humans have loved more fiercely than anyone else simply because their mortality makes everything so intense. You’ll need that love to get you into the fae dream realm. And you’ll need it once you’re there. Because hate won’t do it. It’s not strong enough, and it’s often more about ourselves than everyone else.”
I blink, staring down at my hands in my lap. “I have had hatred. But I do have reasons.”
Josh pins me with a matter-of-fact glare. “Then you just have to decide if those reasons are worth losing Lorien.”
“Hell no,” I say. “I’m going to get him back no matter what it takes.” I lower my voice to a mumble. “Even if I don’t know exactly what I feel about him.”
“That’s bull,” Josh says fiercely. “You know. I saw your face when he was taken. You just don’t want to admit it. Love is the most powerful force in the world, and it doesn’t always end prettily. Sometimes it ends in death and drowning. Sometimes it ends in war. But it’s still worth having.” He looks to the side. “Or so I think.”
“Josh, why are you here? Were you really banished?”
He stiffens slightly. “This isn’t about me. I’m not here to chat.”
“Then what are we here for?” I ask.
“I’m just preparing you for the dream realm. Because you’re going to need your whip, but it’s unlike any human weapon.”
“Why do I need my whip?”
“Well, you have to make it through the badlands between your dream realm and the fae realm for one thing.”
“Oh.”
“But to be strong enough to take o
n scarlaths, you’ll need the power of love.” He grins. “Strongest power in the universe. That warrior of yours has a most impressive whip.”
I smile. “There are a lot of impressive things about him.”
“Then you’re going to have a fight on your hands at the auction because fae don’t play with money. They play with power. And love.”
“Ah.”
“So you can keep being angry and distrustful and hating yourself while pretending you are protecting yourself, or you can forgive yourself for not being able to protect yourself and decide to move on.”
I hadn’t ever thought of it like that. Like I needed to forgive myself. Surely, I was never at fault for being hurt.
But if I’m honest, that’s not how I felt inside my heart.
And I felt unworthy of Lorien.
I nod. “Tell me what I need to do.”
Josh grins. “Great.” He stands up and stretches, cracking his joints. “Close your eyes and focus, and I’ll take us to your dream realm.”
* * *
Tess
“Damn, you weren’t kidding. This place is a mess,” Josh says, looking around the burned landscape that surrounds the ruins of my once beautiful castle.
“I didn’t say it was a mess,” I say. “You did.”
He grins. “I wasn’t kidding, then.” He puts his hands on his hips and walks up to a gnarled tree. “A lot of damage. More than one scarlath.”
“Scarlath?”
“A creature produced when a nightmare leaves a mark on your heart. This realm is a manifestation of your dream world. Your hopes. Your life and dreams.” He walks to another tree, touching the bark. “And where is your unicorn?”
I blink. “What do you mean?”
“All queens usually have one,” he says. “Hm.”
“They do?” I blink, vaguely able to remember one. “I think I did.”
He plants his hands on his hips again. “I wonder if it died. That would be bad because it’s a symbol of your power.”
“A unicorn?”
He nods. “Beautiful and strong with the ability to pierce anything in your path. Something that carries you to where you need to go. Pure, unbridled passion. We’ll have to do without it for now.” He waves a hand for me to follow as he continues walking. “Come on. We must head out to where it’s darker. That’s the way to the dream fae realm.”
Sweet Dreams Page 19
