Chapter 16 #2
“By coming to my realm of your own free will.” He looks down at the sand we’re both standing in. And your will, my love, is the only thing in five realms I cannot decree, cannot command, cannot order Kali to bring me on a platter.”
I tip my head back to look at him. “You missed me,” I say, fighting a grin. “And you figured out a way to not break your promise. Liminal space indeed.”
He shrugs. “You could have simply shut your closet door. Instead, you stepped inside.”
“Don’t get smug about it.”
“I would never.”
I tilt my head. Hello? You’re getting smug about it right now.”
“Perhaps,” he admits, and there—finally—is the ghost of that smile that draws me in even though he’s turned my closet into a loophole.
“Say the word, and I will go,” he says softly. “Reluctantly, but I will do as you bid.”
And just like that, the weight of that courtyard lets go of me. “I’m glad you found a loophole,” I admit, then smile as his entire face lights up.
“Walk with me,” he says, taking my hand and pulling me along before I even have a chance to answer.
The sand is fine and pale and slightly warm under my bare feet. The ocean’s waves crash against the shore, looking like sparking embers beneath the orange sky. We walk in silence for a while, as I take it all in and try to figure out why it seems so damn familiar.
Then it hits me, and I stop short with a gasp as I release his hand and turn to face him. “I know this place.”
Adric doesn’t pretend to be surprised. He just waits for me to figure it out.
“My dreams,” I finally say. “When Chase was protecting me. The creepy scorpion monsters and the lava babies. And even before,” I say, rushing on. “This is the beach I came to with my mother.” I look straight at Adric. “How?”
“I told you. A liminal space. It can become what is needed or wanted. Kali uses it for training. I had another use for it this evening.”
“And the lava creatures and scorpion things?” I ask, my voice coming out smaller than I intended. “The ones that terrorized me before I learned the truth?”
He goes very still. “Those were created for the training exercises. They should never have left the training grounds. Kali built this place to train soldiers in conditions modeled on the Real. She based it on a coast in your world that she had studied through the scrying pool.”
“And you’re using it now. To visit me.”
“I am.”
“Without her knowledge.”
“Technically, the space belongs to the castle, though all concede Kali’s need to use it for training. But, no. She is not aware that I have used it this night to access your room.”
I file that away in the same drawer where I’ve been filing everything Kali-shaped since I first met the bitch. The drawer is getting full.
“Why this place?” I ask. “Why bring me here?”
“Because it is contained. Because I can reach you in the Real from it without breaking my vow and entering the Real myself. And because—” He pauses. Then says more quietly, “Because I wanted to show it to you the way I see it. Not the way she made you see it.”
I look at the orange-lit water. At the long, slow waves. At this Nightmare copy of a real place I used to visit with my mother. A place that later haunted my dreams.
A place that truly is beautiful now that nothing here is trying to kill me.
“I’m glad you came,” I say. “Even if you did cheat.”
His eyes go overly wide, and he places a hand dramatically over his heart. “I? I have broken no rule. I said I would not go to the Real. And I have not gone to the Real.”
“If you ever want to live in the Real, you could probably get a job as a defense attorney.”
“I’ll consider that a compliment,” he says, and we both laugh.
After a moment, he takes my hand again, then pulls me down with him. The sand is warm enough that I don’t really need the coat he conjures, but when the breeze picks up, I keep it on anyway.
Adric sits casually beside me, one knee up, the other long against the sand. “As they say in the Real,” he says, “tell me what you’ve been up to.”
So I do, taking him slowly through all of it. The Whistler memorial. The Valdez exam. “I face-planted the first one. Today I tackled the do-over. Do you know her?” I ask. “Professor Valdez?” I figure it’s a valid question since she studies dreams.
“I know the name through your uncle, but that is all.”
“What about Sebastian Vance? He’s this guy who’s a big deal in some society that studies dreams. I think he knew my mom.”
“I know of him.” Adric’s voice is hard. “The Oneiroi.”
“Yeah. That’s the one.”
A muscle works in Adric’s jaw, and he looks out at the water for a long moment.
“Adric? Tell me. You know him?”
“I know of him,” Adric says in a tight, controlled voice. “The Oneiroi are not dangerous, exactly, but you do need to tread carefully. “
“Okaaay. You want to elaborate on that a little?”
For a moment, I think he’s going to blow me off. I’m about to push the point when he says, “They are a human organization with magical ambitions, mostly aimed at preserving their own position in the Real when the barriers go.”
“Isn’t that what you’re doing?” I hear the harshness in my voice. “It’s not like you’ve got your soldiers out there shoring up the barriers. You want them down, too.”
“True. The realms should not be separated. That was never the Emperor’s intent.
But the reunification must be controlled.
And control is not within the Oneiroi’s vocabulary.
Instead, they are pests. Opportunists. Vultures who not only expect but long for the chaos they believe will come.
As for this man, Sebastian Vance has been with them a long time.
He is a senior figure. Whatever interest he has in you, it is not a casual one. ”
“He said his door is open.”
“Of course he did.”
“What does he want?”
“I don’t know.” His expression turns serious. “But until you do, do not be alone with him. Do not eat what he offers you. Do not accept gifts.”
“Eat? Really? You think, what? That he’d slip me something?”
“You are the last Bride, my love. And scarcity increases value. Best not to test him.”
My stomach twists. “He bought me a coffee.”
“Did you drink it?”
I grimace.
“Perhaps that is a sign of benign intent. But I suggest that in the future, you get your own coffee.”
“You really think he would try to hurt me?”
“Be wary. That is all I’m saying.”
I nod, because he’s right. I still don’t understand who or what I am or why I should be a girl engaged to a king, but I am. And I’ve read enough history to know that royalty often gets a really bad deal.
For a long time, we’re quiet, both just listening to the waves. “I missed you,” I say finally. “All week. I told myself I didn’t.”
“I know.”
I turn to face him more directly. “How could you know?”
He smiles. “Because I told myself the same thing.” He flashes a warm smile that quickly heats up when he turns and kisses me, deep and unhurried.
And the part of me that’s been telling myself that I don’t miss him goes quiet and stays quiet.
And the part of me that has been telling myself that I will not want him goes silent too, so that all that’s left is the warm sand under us and the orange sky above and his mouth and his hands and the delicious craving that has been mine since the night before the betrothal.
He undresses me without hurry—the sleep shirt eased over my head and tossed aside, the shorts down my hips, his fingertips trailing along every inch of skin he uncovers as if memorizing the route.
The vial on its chain stays at my throat, and he kisses the spot it touches with something close to reverence before his mouth moves on.
There’s something cocky in the way his hands move over my body—as if he never once doubted that I’d step through and into his arms.
And as his lips trace a slow line between my breasts to my belly, I have to admit that I’m okay with being that transparent.
Then his mouth slides even lower to the soft skin below my navel, and all thought leaves my head because now it’s just need and want, and I’m arching off the sand in anticipation, following the path of his mouth and knowing exactly where he intends to land.
“Patience,” he murmurs against me.
I laugh, breathless. “That’s rich from a man who built a doorway into my closet because he couldn’t wait.”
I feel him smile against my skin. “The lady has a point.”
And then his mouth is on me, slow and certain, and whatever I was going to say next dissolves into a sound I don’t recognize as mine.
For that matter, I’m beginning to think this body isn’t mine, because he is definitely proving he knows it better than I do, knows exactly what to do with his mouth and his fingers, where and how much and when to ease off just long enough to make me beg before he gives it back.
I fist my hands in the sand. I say his name. I beg him to fuck me, to take me, to do whatever he wants to me, so long as he doesn’t stop this brilliant waterfall of pleasure.
And though I beg, he takes his time—patient and certain and utterly without mercy, drawing it out until the wanting is almost unbearable, until I’m trembling and slick and so far gone I can’t remember why I was ever angry at him.
He slides one hand up my body to cover my breast, his thumb working a slow circle that has me writhing, while his mouth keeps its gloriously maddening rhythm below.
The breeze off the water lifts my hair across my collarbone, and I can feel the warmth of the sand at the small of my back where his hand isn’t, and the contrast of it—the cool air, the warm sand, his hot mouth—undoes me one nerve at a time.
When I come, it’s with his name on my lips and his hands holding my hips still, and he works me through every aftershock until I’m boneless and shaking and reaching for him.
“Now,” I manage. “Please. Now.”
“Now,” he agrees, low and rough.
He rises over me, and the sight of him—silver eyes, dark hair fallen forward, the coat of shadows tossed casually in the sand—would be enough to undo me a second time if he weren’t already reaching for me.