Sweet Dreams Page 5

I think I brought a man into being by jacking off.

  Yup, I’ve definitely lost it.

  He glares at me. “So did you just want me to kill that pink thing?”

  “No!” I walk over to him, angry now for my fallen friend. I lean down to pick up the fragments, figuring this is probably outside the scope of warranty. “You should buy me another one, but you probably won’t, given you’re a hallucination.”

  He frowns. “That thing was attacking you. If—”

  “Can you at least look normal if we’re going to talk?”

  He cocks his head. “Normal for what?”

  “For here,” I say, picking up a magazine. “Can’t you just wear normal clothes like one of these guys?”

  He shrugs, then disappears for a moment. When he reappears, he’s wearing a white tee shirt and tight jeans and casual shoes.

  His gorgeous dark hair is tied back, making his sharp cheekbones and large eyes only look more exotic. He folds his arms, flashing incredible biceps.

  Damn, he’s perfect. I wouldn’t have to change anything to put him on a cover.

  “There. Now will you tell me why you want me to replace the thing that was attacking you? You called me here, and—”

  My face goes bright red. “No, I didn’t. Besides, you’re a hallucina—”

  He puts up a hand. “Don’t call me a hallucination again. That’s not what I am.”

  “Oh yeah? Humor me, then. What are you so I can tell the shrink exactly how many pills I need?”

  “Shrink?”

  “What are you?”

  He swallows. “Why don’t you know that?”

  “I don’t know anything about you except that you showed up after I was really drunk and got slipped some weird drug.”

  “I’m… from another world. Your world.” He looks around him. “Or well, it would have been. I guess…” He rubs his head, running a hand over his ponytail before letting it fall back. “Anyway, I’m not human, and that’s all I’ll say for now.”

  “Hm.”

  “Now tell me why you called me here.”

  I deposit the rest of my vibrator in the trash with a sad smile. “I told you I didn’t. And that thing wasn’t attacking me.”

  “Why did you gasp?”

  Oh dear, how am I going to explain that?

  “You clearly were gasping. I heard it as I heard you say my name. You sounded strained. Pained. I heard it even from the dream realm because we’re linked—”

  “Dream realm?”

  He shakes his head. “That’s not important now. What’s important is finding out why you want more of something that hurts.”

  “It doesn’t hurt,” I blurt out. “And if you must know, you freaking hallucination, I was jacking off, and that thing helps me.”

  He stares at me for a moment, jaw going taut. Then he puts a hand up to his cheek, considering it. “Jack off? Is that some kind of self-torture?”

  I let out a breath through gritted teeth. “Masturbating? Pleasuring yourself?”

  A slow grin spreads over his face. “Truly? You called my name for that?”

  I think my face might explode from embarrassment. “You don’t even exist!”

  He paces now, looking smug and very real in these human clothes. I think he might be even more attractive this way.

  When I look at him, I notice his ears look slightly different. Pointed and…

  “What are you?” I ask again.

  He sighs. “I’ve been trying to tell you. I’m your dream mate. We’re meant to… Still, why was that thing…?” His eyes trail to the trash where I put the vibrator.

  “It helps, okay!” I shove a hand through my hair. “It’s hard to get yourself off as a woman, so, you know—”

  He cocks his head again. “No, it’s not. I’ve been trained extensively in giving pleasure. I’m sure it wouldn’t be an issue.” He glares at the trash again.

  I gape at him. “Trained in… what now?”

  He grins at me, seeming to realize he’s gotten my weak spot as he takes a step forward. “Pleasuring you.”

  “What? How would you—”

  He takes a step, then another, backing me up until I fall back onto the bed. He leans over me, hands falling to either side of my head as he props himself up. He smells like sugar cookies and spice, and he feels so real here. I can see the beautiful porelessness of his perfect skin. See little twitches of muscles at the sides of his eyes and lips as he smiles and looks me up and down.

  “If you wanted me to pleasure you, mate, you only had to ask me.”

  “Mate?”

  He strokes my hair back, and God, does his touch feel good.

  “Soul bond. Dream mate. Mine. Whatever you want to call it is fine with me.”

  I sit up abruptly, shoving him off. “Sorry, what?” I almost got caught up in this craziness.

  He sits back. “I said whatever is fine with me. I love you, and—”

  I shove him back then, hard. “Don’t say that. You can’t say that. You don’t know me. You aren’t even real!” My voice drops. “Get out of here. And don’t come back until you buy me a new vibe.”

  His eyes narrow slightly. “I’m real, and I’m not giving up on this. I’ve traveled a very long way to find you. I’m tired of you constantly sending me away, but I don’t know what to do if you truly don’t want me.” He looks to the side forlornly, and for a moment, I feel regret. “You truly don’t believe I love you?”

  “I told you before,” I say. “I don’t believe in love. It’s just men using bonding chemicals against us.”

  He sighs, looking grieved. “If you’re okay now, then I suppose I will leave.” He tightens his jaw. Then with a flick of his hand, my vibrator appears, intact, in his palm, and he hands it over. “Sorry for destroying your item. But just so you know, pleasuring you is my job, and when you let me, you’ll see how good I am at it.”

  “Get out!” I yell, finally exasperated. “Just… go away and find someone else, you sexy hallucination.”

  With a look more stubborn than any he has given me before, he disappears, leaving me in an empty room, wondering if he was even here.

  I look down at the vibe in my hand. That was no hallucination. It felt so very real.

  Am I just under stress or something? I don’t understand why this is happening. I thump my hand on my door as I shut it and lock it tight.

  Then I fall back on the bed, looking at the clock.

  Time to sleep soon. Time to dream again.

  But as I head to the bathroom to get ready, I can’t help but wonder if he’ll show up again as soon as I close my eyes.

  5

  Lorien

  As I walk around the sparse, burned skeletons of trees in the dark, empty landscape around me, I wonder what happened to make my mate’s dream realm so bleak.

  I haven’t been here in a while. It was painful to come here when I thought I’d never find her.

  I can’t be there in person if she won’t let me. I can’t take her to a dreamscape if she won’t let me.

  But her dream world is completely undefended, so I can stay here if I like.

  I walk into the ruins of a broken courtyard. Jagged walls of rotting stone rise up, suggesting a castle that might have been there once.

  This place used to be beautiful.

  My heart aches just being here, just like it aches to not be with my mate.

  I walk to the burned-off stump of an abandoned tree and lean against it, resting my head back.

  I don’t want to go back to the dream camp yet, though I know there’s little chance that Tess will show up here.

  It’s clear by the dead, bleak, gray environment sapped of all light and love that she hasn’t been here in a long time.

  Then again, she might not even be able to maintain her realm.

  When I get back to the dream fae realm, I’ll need to explain to them that for some reason, there are dream fae in the human world, and we need to help them.

  They don�
�t even know they have dream mates or soul bonds.

  She thinks she’s a human. But how?

  I turn my head to the side, huffing as I look at a white streak on the horizon of dark clouds that cover the whole setting. I feel as if I walked into a secret garden but found a graveyard instead.

  “You’re here.”

  I jump as I see her in front of me, standing in the courtyard like she’s been there all the time.

  “What?” I push myself to standing. Has she remembered? Is she ready? I did save her… sort of. Maybe she realized—

  She puts her hands on her hips. Her blond hair whips behind her in a sudden wind that blows dead, crunchy leaves through the ruins. “I haven’t dreamed of this place in a long time.” She sits on the remains of a broken pillar. “I should have known you’d be here.”

  I perk up. “Why?”

  She lets out a sigh, less guarded here in this dream than I’ve seen her so far. “Because all of this is so weird. And when my life is weird, it seems to be weird in this place too.” She shakes her head, and wary, moss-green eyes meet mine. “It probably sounds crazy.”

  “No.” I shake my head. Not any crazier than not remembering her dream mate. “It’s not weird.” I don’t explain more, though. That hasn’t gone well in the past. I just wait.

  She puts her hands on her hips as she stands and begins to walk around the clearing. “Wow, this place is a dump, huh? This used to be my favorite dream, and it fell apart.” She sighs. “Probably represents something, doesn’t it? Like how I’m wrecking my way through life instead of playing with unicorns now.”

  “Unicorns?”

  She shakes her head. “Don’t worry about it.” Then she looks over at me and smiles. “I used to have one. Imaginary, you know.”

  I grin at her, unable to hold back. “There are real ones back in my world.”

  She sends me a sharp glance. “If you have a world, why do you keep showing up in mine? And why all of a sudden? You keep saying I’m your love, but where have you even been?”

  I let out my breath, and the cold air turns it to steam that floats off in the mist. If I told her, again, what would it do? She doesn’t believe me.

  It’s humiliating. The king of the eighth realm rejected by his own dream mate.

  But I still don’t know so many things. I know she called me when pleasuring herself, and it’s tortured my mind to no end. But she thinks I’m a figment of her imagination, and every time I show up, she isn’t willing to stick around and find out.

  “This unicorn, tell me about it,” I say.

  She raises an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

  “You have anything else to do in this dream?” I send her an impatient look, and she finally nods.

  She walks around a skeletal tree, holding the trunk of it and feeling along the tattered bark. “Just a childhood pet. Just a friend I could visit here.”

  “What was it like here before?”

  She closes her eyes. “I mean, my memory is foggy, but it was beautiful.” She opens her eyes and looks around. “There were verdant green hills there, a castle with glittering stained-glass windows. A unicorn in the stables.”

  I nod. “It sounds gorgeous.”

  “It was.” She puts her hands on her hips in frustration, and she’s so gorgeous, so curvy, so perfect, so close… it’s so hard to hold back when I just want to love her.

  When I just want her to see what we are.

  Coming here and seeing this wasteland, seeing a mate who has no idea who or what she is, really blew apart all my conceptions about finding my dream mate.

  I didn’t think it would be easy. I had to fight for years just to go look for her past the outer limits of the fae world.

  I never thought I would find her amongst humans.

  But it makes sense that in staying among them, her dreamscape now looks like this.

  From what I’ve seen, the human world is totally lawless. Warriors running everywhere unpoliced and unbonded. Our history books speak of what happened in such scenarios.

  I will not leave my dream mate alone in her uncertain and dangerous world.

  She sighs. “I don’t know what to do with you. You keep showing up, and I just need to get back to my life.” Her beautiful eyes are hesitant. “For some reason, you keep interrupting me.”

  I cock my head. “Hm?”

  “Showing up everywhere.” She flushes. “Being… sexy.”

  I lean back, grinning, and lazily extend one long leg out in front. “Can’t help that. I was made for the sexiest of mates.”

  “Mate?” She sighs, folding her arms and cocking a hip. “All right, let’s get this all out in the open. I’m asleep right now anyway, so I guess I’m not wasting time even if you aren’t real.”

  I frown. “So you think whatever I say will be lying? Why should I tell you about my world?”

  I should be taking this calmly. Telling her more. But I know she’s just going to start yelling for me to leave if I try to help.

  I can’t take her rejecting me again.

  “My world is real, but you aren’t going to believe that, are you? Just like you can’t believe I’m real.”

  She just stares at me, stubborn even now, though her hands are trembling slightly. “How am I supposed to believe something so ridiculous? You coming from some other world. You saying you’re my love. You having wings and… that body.” She flushes, and I can’t help a stab of pride that my soul bond wants me. “But look, I stopped living outside reality a long time ago. Dreams are pretty and something to hope for, but they always hurt you in the end.” She gives me a timid smile. “Yeah, I guess in the craziest corner of my mind, I do kind of wish you were real.”

  I suck in a breath. “I am.” I take a step forward. “I am your dream mate. I’m here to—”

  She puts up a hand. “Then you should know something, even if it’s just in a dream. If you’re truly real and my one true love, then we’re both in for trouble.” Her eyes meet mine, oddly solemn. “Because it’s far too late for my life to be a fairy tale.”

  My heart pounds, my fists clench, and I want nothing more than to ask her what she means.

  To start asking everything about her.

  Perhaps I could have done this a different way. Met her in disguise as a human, slowly worked her into what I am.

  But that’s not my job, to lie to her until the truth is more comfortable. And lies are the height of evil, after all.

  “I am real, and it hurts me when you say these things,” I say.

  “Then leave!” She waves a hand. “I’ve been fine this long, and I really don’t want to go on psychiatric meds. So leave so I can finally be sane.”

  I stare at her. “So if you never see me again, you’ll be fine with that?” My heart is hanging over a thousand-mile precipice, but I have to ask her.

  She opens her mouth to answer, then hesitates. She shuts her mouth. “I know this probably sounds weird, but no. I wouldn’t be fine.” She turns around, rubbing her head with her hand. “Damn, what is happening to me lately?”

  “It’s me,” I say, coming up behind her. “My fault for being too late, my—”

  She whirls to look at me, her expression cold. “You’re giving me weird hope for things I don’t need to hope for. I grew up. I’m not waiting for a prince any longer.” Her cold, sad words echo endlessly in the gray air around us.

  I suck in a breath and stare at her bravely. “But what if he’s finally here?”

  She shakes her head, giving a little laugh. “Yeah. Sure.” She looks at me one more time as if memorizing me with her eyes like she wants to take the image of me with her even as she tells me to leave her alone. “Now get out of here.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want you in my dreams, in my life, anywhere. You seem to listen to some extent, which is odd for a hallucination, but I’m telling you now. Don’t show up unexpectedly. If I want you, I’ll call you.” She laughs, throwing her head back. “I’m crazy, aren’t
I?” She wipes her eyes, clearing them of tears of mirth. “I won’t call you. You don’t exist.”

  I stand, pushing myself up, weary of this entire situation. “I’ll go, dream mate. But only because I’m incapable of refusing your requests.”

  “What, some kind of rule?”

  I turn to glare at her. “The only rule in my heart is that I must love you.” My jaw firms. “And no matter how much you don’t believe in me, that will never change.”

  Then I close my eyes and let my heart guide me back to the dream camp and my friends.

  Right now, I need them.

  6

  Tess

  “Hold her down.”

  I struggle violently, but it’s pointless because there are too many men holding parts of me down.

  One man has one leg, one has another, and the others are holding my hands. I’m spread eagle on the ground in an alley, and I have to say I definitely miscalculated tonight.

  My target, Dane, was a typical playboy who broke a heart, but I guess someone warned him about me, and he had friends waiting for him when we left the restaurant.

  “Shh,” Dane says, clamping a sweaty hand over my mouth. I struggle, but it’s quickly subdued as I hear him pull back the hammer of the gun he used to threaten me into the alley where I was ambushed.

  “You cunt,” he says, leaning in, face close to mine, still keeping his stinky hand over my mouth. Even with this many of them, I’d probably chance a fight if there wasn’t a gun. I’m still considering my options. If I have any.

  “You think you can punish men, but I heard about you. Getting out of line just because a few guys wanted to get some action.”

  I send him an angry glare, and he laughs.

  “Well, some wanted action. Some wanted other things, but that’s what women are there for. To get fucked and stay in the kitchen.” He looks at one of his friends who laughs. “Damn, the message boards are gonna love us for taking down this bitch. ‘Vigilante of love’ my ass.”

  I cringe at my own online nickname, but nothing anyone calls me will stop me from continuing on my mission to make things right.

  Punish the evil. Fight on the side of those too weak to fight for themselves.