Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
Daniel stared at the ceiling of his bedroom, counting his breaths like that therapist on YouTube had taught him. In, two, three, four. Hold. Out, two, three, four. The technique usually helped calm his racing thoughts, but tonight his mind refused to settle.
From the other room came the soft rustle of Jamie shifting in his sleep. The familiar sound should have been comforting. Instead, it reminded Daniel of all the things he hadn't told his brother.
Like how he could literally not get Caelen out of his head. Right now, though, everything was silent, and it had been for a while. Sometimes Caelen left him alone for hours. He probably did have things to do.
But eventually, he always came back to torment Daniel.
The worst part was how much Daniel was growing used to it, like it wasn't a big deal that he had an evil half-fae from another world chatting with him in his head.
He rolled onto his side, pulling his blanket tighter. His phone screen glowed on the nightstand - 2:47 AM. He'd been lying here for hours.
Idly, he wondered if it was nighttime in Veridia too. If Caelen was sleeping.
Daniel sighed. He should be enjoying the silence, but there were too many things to think about.
He grabbed his phone, opened his messages. Started typing to Adrian, then deleted it. What could he even say? Hey, I met the magical border control and they want to deport your boyfriend.
Yeah, that would go over well.
While Daniel was thinking, the apartment creaked and settled, old wood groaning in the night air. Or was it something else? Those Barrier Keepers had done something to stabilize reality in the park. What if reality was thin here too? What if?—
Daniel pressed his face into his pillow. No. He wasn't going to spiral into paranoia.
What he needed was sleep.
But when he drifted off, he felt as if phantom fingers closed around him and carried him away.
What…
When he opened his eyes, Daniel found himself transported back in time. The room wasn't quite right: the walls and shelves blurred at the edges like an unfinished watercolor. But the bed... the bed was exactly as he remembered it. This was where the Shadow King had held him captive.
And now the Shadow King sat beside him, close enough that Daniel felt the otherworldly chill radiating from his skin.
Daniel often dreamed of Caelen, but this felt different. For one, because he was aware that he was dreaming. And Caelen had this knowing smile on his face, as if he'd done something.
"Really?" Daniel asked, glaring at the half-fae. "It wasn't enough for you to mess with my head, you have to mess with my dreams too?"
Caelen's smile didn't falter. "Messing with your head is amusing, but it would never be enough for me. It's been too long since I was able to see you properly." His eyes slid over Daniel's body and a shiver ran down Daniel's spine. He could feel the mattress under him, solid and real. Could smell that distinctive mix of frost and darkness surrounding Caelen. This was way more intimate than just talking to the man in his head.
Caelen shifted closer, and Daniel felt that familiar pull—like gravity gone wrong, like falling sideways. "Be honest. You wanted to see me too." He reached out to Daniel. "Because you know I can help you."
Daniel scooted back until he hit the headboard, putting precious inches between them. His heart slammed against his ribs, and he forced himself to look anywhere but at Caelen's perfect lips, spouting perfect lies.
"Why would you want to help me? You're a villain. I wish you would leave me alone."
"Now who's lying?" Caelen smirked. "Our connection is too strong for me to abandon you."
Daniel narrowed his eyes at the half-fae. "A connection that formed when I glimpsed inside your mind." He should never have done that. And yet… "I remember what I saw there." A tortured figure inside of Caelen's soul. Screaming.
Caelen regarded him silently. Whatever he felt about that incident, he'd locked those feelings away. Probably the same way he locked all of his other feelings away, aside from his cruelty and thirst for revenge.
Daniel, to him, must be a tool that could be used to enact this revenge.
Nothing more than that. Daniel couldn't let himself forget it. He dug his nails into his palms. He didn't want to be here with Caelen. Talking to the Shadow King was dangerous for so many reasons.
Daniel didn't trust himself around Caelen.
The man was a villain, a monster.
But he was also the sexiest man Daniel had ever laid eyes on.
He looked at the half-fae and wanted to go down on his knees before him, wanted to open his pants and get his lips around what was no doubt a perfectly shaped, nice long cock.
Many paintings had been painted imagining just how perfect and Daniel had downloaded all of them.
Bad Daniel, he told himself. Straight to horny jail with you.
"I still don't know how you did it," Caelen admitted, for once oblivious to Daniel's thoughts. "You stared straight into my soul the way I myself can't even do."
Daniel forced a laugh, though it came out more breathless than he'd intended. "Maybe you should've read the package leaflet before trying to eat my soul. Side effects may include unexpected psychic connections and awkward midnight visits."
He couldn't help the bad joke. Rambling was his default defense mechanism when uncomfortable. And boy, was he uncomfortable. The way Caelen's eyes tracked his movement made him feel like prey, yet something deeper tugged at him. That same magnetic draw he'd felt during his captivity, the one he'd been trying so hard not to lean into.
"I did not try to eat your soul," Caelen said, his voice carrying that aristocratic offense that made Daniel want to roll his eyes. "I merely attempted to… share in your energy."
"Oh, well, when you put it that way." Daniel snorted. "That makes it so much better. Just a little nibble of my life force, totally different."
The corner of Caelen's mouth twitched. "You joke when you're afraid," he observed. "Are you afraid of me, Daniel?"
"Afraid? Of the guy who kidnapped me and tried to feed on my life force?" Daniel's fingers twisted in the bedsheets. "Nah, that'd be weird."
God, he needed to stop talking. Every word that came out of his mouth made him sound more unhinged. But it was better than letting Caelen see how fast his heart was racing, how the proximity between them made his skin buzz with awareness.
Better to be the annoying hostage than the horny one.
Scratch that thought. He was not a hostage now.
He took a steadying breath. What he needed was a change of topic.
"What do you know about the Barrier Keepers?"
Something dark flickered across Caelen's features. "Those self-righteous zealots should mind their own affairs. You can't believe anything they promise you."
Daniel's fingers twisted deeper into the sheets. "So they're like you?"
"No. I don't hide the fact that I'm a villain. They do."
"You tried to hide it," Daniel pointed out.
Caelen shrugged, unbothered. "It was serving my purposes at the time. Now you have to wonder what's serving the Barrier Keepers purposes." He leaned closer, and Daniel caught that winter-frost scent again. "They maintain order at any cost. And damn the consequences."
Daniel frowned. "What consequences?"
"Think of the people from Veridia who now live in your world. What happens to them if the walls go up? What happens to Knox, to Adrian?" Caelen's voice dropped lower. "What happens to our connection?"
Heat crept up Daniel's neck at those last words. He pushed the reaction down, focusing on the bigger picture. "You don't care about Knox and Adrian," he reminded Caelen. "You only care that you couldn't stalk me anymore."
Caelen offered him another smirk. "There you go again, insisting you want me to disappear from your life. I don't believe that."
Daniel's heart thundered in his chest.
"Of course that's what I want," he made himself say, hating how his voice wavered. "And besides, the barriers need to be fixed before more people disappear."
"And you trust the keepers to do that?" Caelen's fingers brushed Daniel's cheek, sending electricity down his spine. "They'll destroy everything in their path for their precious walls."
Daniel jerked away from the touch, scrambling off the bed before he could do something he would later regret.
"Stop trying to make me horny to manipulate me." He wrapped his arms around himself, pacing the dream-blurred room. "You don't care about fixing anything. You just want revenge on Knox."
"Perhaps." Caelen watched him move. "But I'm not lying about the keepers. They're dangerous fanatics who see the world in black and white."
"Unlike you, who only sees it in shadows?"
A laugh escaped Caelen—actual amusement, not his usual mocking tone. The sound made Daniel's stomach flip. "I promise you, I see things in a much greater context than the keepers do. They can't offer you what you need."
"And what are you offering?" Daniel asked pointedly. "Because last time we met, you weren't exactly big on choices. You locked me in a room and tried to drain my energy."
"Things have changed." Caelen rose from the bed. "You changed them when you looked into my soul."
"Stop." Daniel held up his hands. "Just stop. I can't… I can't think when you're..." He gestured vaguely at all of Caelen. The perfect face, the flowing white hair, the predatory grace. "Being you."
A flash of amusement crossed Caelen's face. "When I'm being what, exactly?"
"You know what you're doing." Daniel backed up another step.
One more step, and his back hit the wall. Trapped. He'd let Caelen maneuver him into a corner. Literally and figuratively. The half-fae moved closer, and Daniel's breath caught in his throat.
"You're deflecting," Caelen said. "Tell me what I'm doing that disturbs you so. Making you… horny?" He recalled Daniel's earlier words.
Daniel glared at him. "I want you to get away from me."
"And yet here you are, in my dream."
"Your dream?" Daniel laughed. Trust the Shadow King to twist everything. " You invaded my dream."
Caelen closed the distance between them, one hand on the wall beside Daniel's head. His presence filled Daniel's senses—that winter-frost scent, the chill of his skin, the way his white hair almost seemed to glow. Up close, Daniel could see the subtle shifting patterns in his green irises, like sunlight through leaves.
"Perhaps we invaded each other's dreams," Caelen murmured. "Perhaps that's what happens when two souls touch."
Daniel's heart stumbled. "We didn't—that's not what happened. You tried to take my energy, and I accidentally saw..." He trailed off, remembering that tortured figure trapped inside Caelen. The pain. The rage. The loneliness.
"It doesn't matter what you saw," Caelen said. "What matters now is what we make of our bond… and how it can help your situation."
Daniel swallowed hard, his skin tingling from Caelen's proximity. "What could you possibly do?"
"This connection between us." Caelen brought his hand up near Daniel's cheek, not quite touching. "It bridges both worlds. We could use it to stabilize the weakening areas."
"Adrian and Knox have that too," Daniel said, proud that his voice remained steady. "Their connection spans both worlds too."
"Knox?" Caelen spat the name. "I have something he lacks."
"What are you talking about?"
Caelen leaned in, his lips brushing Daniel's ear. Deceptively warm breath tickled his skin as the Shadow King whispered, "I have the powers of a god."
Daniel's heart skipped, then raced. The words settled into his bones like ice crystals, beautiful and chilling. He could feel the truth of them, the raw power emanating from Caelen, different from Knox's powers of illusions or even the Barrier Keepers' magic.
This was something older. Something darker .
And Daniel really, really wished he didn't find that hot.