Chapter 26
Chapter
Twenty-Six
CLAYTON
Going through Mal’s portal was much easier the second time around. Instead of feeling like he was being torn apart and remade, Clayton spent the endless time during the transition freaking right the fuck out.
What in the name of the gods had Clayton been thinking when he’d attacked Marshall?
If he ever returned home, he’d be lucky if the only thing that happened to him was getting the creamed corn kicked out of him.
The Guard wasn’t big on allowing members to get away with any form of disrespect toward its guardians.
They were the right arm of their god Vis, the creator of all dreamwalkers. One of the very few rules of the Guard was to never get in the way of a guardian doing their job, and Clayton had just done that in spades.
Clayton spent so much time fretting over it that he’d completely forgotten to worry about how he was going to help rescue his family. He got his chance as he stepped out of the portal, dizzy but able to stay on his feet, into a massive cavern.
It was dimly lit by thousands of tiny multi-colored lights clinging to walls that seemed to shift and melt into fathomless shadows. The more he tried to focus on his surroundings, the less it made sense, so he kept his eyes on the ground as much as possible so he wouldn’t be sick.
What the hell was Clayton supposed to do in this situation?
“Astraea?” Clayton whispered, hoping that his new best friend would tell him what to do, but there was no response. Either she couldn’t hear him or had decided to bugger off and leave him to his own devices.
Mal gave a soft laugh when he realized what Clayton had been trying to achieve. Then he put a hand on the back of Clayton’s neck and squeezed. It was grounding in some indefinable way, so Clayton allowed it without complaint.
After far too little time, Mal removed his hand and turned back to their situation, scanning their surroundings. Clayton swallowed his protest. He wasn’t a pampered princess, after all. Just a bit useless.
Mal would be fine against whatever they were up against, and while he didn’t know them, Elena and Naerith seemed like an amazingly cool power couple who could probably fuck up some kidnappers if they felt like it.
But Clayton? What was he going to do? Fall on top of the bad guys?
Deliver a scathingly proper dressing down regarding their etiquette?
If only Clayton could find a way to turn his massively bad luck into something weaponizable. He’d done it once, but he’d never managed it again after helping to rescue Tommy and Merry.
He could do what he usually did, which was ignore his uselessness until it was so painfully obvious that he had to deal with it.
Yes. That’s exactly what he’d do.
But, because he wasn’t stupid, Clayton stayed behind Mal as they made their way deeper into the cavern, all but clinging to his back. Instead of being grumpy about it, Mal gave a happy sort of rumble and reached back to hold Clayton’s hand.
It was good to have a pet monster. If life was going to fuck him over, at least Clayton got a sexy monster out of the deal.
Yes, Clayton had decided to own it. If he’d screwed the pooch so badly as to alienate Marshall, Clayton might as well go all in and allow himself to do what he wanted. Mal was awful and wonderful, mean and kind, violent and gentle. Oh, fuck it. Mal was just fucking cool.
Clayton had just finally decided to get with the program.
“What’s our plan?” Clayton whispered to Mal when he stopped moving and turned around to face their group.
Mal raised an eyebrow and glanced over his shoulder as if to check and make sure Clayton hadn’t been talking to someone else. “You’re asking me?”
“Of course I am. You’re the fighter in the couple. I’m hero support. It’s only natural for me to follow your lead here. Stop looking at me like that, and close your mouth. You’ll catch flies.”
Mal’s mouth snapped shut, but he still looked at Clayton like he’d transformed into an alien right in front of him.
“We’ll follow your lead too, Mal,” Naerith’s quiet voice inserted itself from beside them.
He and Elena had their backs pressed to a stalagmite, blending into their surroundings with an ease Clayton could only dream of. Elena held her bow ready by her side, and Naerith was empty-handed.
Clayton didn’t think for a second that it meant Naerith was defenseless. His eyes held a lethal gleam that told anyone who could see it that he was there for two things: rescue and revenge. Naerith’s kid was lucky to have such a dedicated father.
Clayton silently vowed to help them find him. He’d probably resent the little fuck behind his back for the rest of his life, but sue Clayton for being petty. He’d earned it.
“I’ll scout,” Mal said. “You two will protect Clayton while I’m gone.” On Naerith’s nod, Mal scattered into a million motes of darkness.
Clayton had to cover his mouth to muffle his gasp of horror. He’d nearly died from having his fear essence sucked out of him just to keep Mal from dissipating, so excuse him if seeing said asshole go and do it for funsies was somewhat traumatizing.
“Is that normal for him?” Elena whispered as she crept over to Clayton’s side.
“I hope not.” Otherwise, Clayton was going to die from a heart attack before the year was out.
Naerith joined them. “If he’s a nightmare, then that should be one of his original forms. I wouldn’t worry about it too much if I were you. Even if he’d vanished back at Astraea’s tree, he would have been fine after regaining some energy.”
“How do you know this?” So little was known about nightmares, likely due to the kill-on-sight order passed down from the Guard.
“We get a lot of nightmares coming through here looking for sanctuary,” Naerith responded.
“I beg your pardon, you what?!” Clayton was so loud that his voice cracked.
Elena covered Clayton’s mouth and gave him a sharp glare. “Don’t go making our job harder than it should be until your mate returns. I’d rather stay on his good side, thank you.”
Clayton pushed her hand away. “My apologies, but seriously, you get a lot of nightmares coming to the fae realm? For sanctuary?”
Naerith snorted. “Should we turn them away because their home shunned them? Because the Guard arbitrarily decided that one specific brand of monster was entirely evil and unredeemable?”
Clayton’s jaw dropped. “Are you suggesting that nightmares, literal embodiments of fear, aren’t inherently evil?”
“Is the fear of fire evil? Or is it a healthy reaction to keep us safe?” Naerith asked with a smile on his lips. It wasn’t mocking, but instead friendly, like he was happily sharing information with a child who still had much to learn about the world.
“Well, I…” Clayton gulped several times but couldn’t formulate a response.
Naerith put a hand on his shoulder. “Kid, none of the nightmares who come to us are the mindless creatures you fear. Those are either killed by the Guard or make their way to the demon realm. The ones here are simply trying to survive and make sense of their own existence.
Clayton’s jaw dropped. “Are you telling me that you have actual nightmares living here freely? What do they do?”
Elena laughed softly and patted his other shoulder.
“Not whatever that look on your face is suggesting. They do whatever they want to do. If that ends up being dangerous for the public, then our government deals with them the way they do all criminals, though nightmares aren’t more likely to hurt people than any other race here.
Less, in fact. A lot of them tend to go into public service fields. They like to work with people.”
Before Clayton had a chance to process that, Naerith followed up, saying, “My mind healer is a nightmare whose origins come from PTSD. She’s a leader in her field.”
“Excuse me… I think I need to have a mental crisis for a moment.”
Elena stroked Clayton’s hair soothingly and said, “You do that, sweetheart. We’ll keep a lookout until your mate returns.”
“Mal,” Clayton said absently. “His name is Mal.”
The couple gave him twin looks of pity, and Elena said, “You’re taking all of this really well. The fact that you didn’t side with the dreamwalker when you learned of Mal’s race speaks volumes of your love for him.”
“Love?” Clayton whispered. It was less a question than it was a muffled, hysterical sob.
“Can anything other than love win against a lifetime of social conditioning in only a few moments?” Elena asked.
Clayton didn’t respond.
If what Elena and Naerith said about nightmares was true, did Clayton even deserve to love Mal? If nightmares were capable of forming rational sentience and developing enough empathy to become safe members of society, then what the Guard was doing was nothing short of genocide.
And Clayton worked for them.
“What else do nightmares do here?” Clayton’s mind had developed a fantastic coping mechanism to deal with all the bullshit life threw at him. When in doubt, study, research, and learn.
If Clayton flooded his brain with enough information, it would be forced to sort through it all before it self-destructed.
By the time it finished, it usually calmed down.
Sometimes it even presented Clayton with a solution to his problem, and Mal was a problem with a capital P.
One Clayton didn’t think he could live without anymore.
He’d only had Mal back in his life for a day, but he’d occupied Clayton’s thoughts nonstop since they’d parted that day in Boston Below. It was high time he faced what that meant.
“There’s a nightmare in our capital city who deals with all the wild magical beasts.
He’s able to control them because his origin is the fear of the forest. There hasn’t been a need for a public animal hunt since he arrived.
He keeps the beasts away from the people and advocates to make sure they have preserves where they’re safe.
He’s saved hundreds of lives since taking the job. ”
“Wow. Just… wow. It never even occurred to me that this could be possible. I don’t think anyone in my realm knows about this. They couldn’t…” Clayton trailed off, unsure if he believed that. “So you don’t think it’s weird for Mal to be my, um, mate?”
Elena shrugged. “A sentient creature is a sentient creature. We don’t judge as long as consent can be given.”
When Clayton had told Marshall that they would stay in the fae realm, it had been an act of desperation, not something he actually wanted to do. But if what Naerith and Elena had just told him was true, he wasn’t entirely certain he wanted to go back to the Real.
Though if they did stay, Mal might have a difficult time with the other nightmares. Would they all instinctively run in terror if they saw him? Would Mal be compelled to eat them?
It became a problem for another day when Mal returned in a cloud of black vapor.
His arrival was heralded by an intensity to the shadows around them as darkness coalesced into something substantial and vaguely humanoid in shape.
Clayton bit his lip and tried not to think about Mal fucking him in this form. He wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t.
Just in case, Clayton pinched his arm incredibly hard to give himself a fighting chance to stop the thought from forming.
He mostly succeeded, but it was touch-and-go when he saw a vaguely tentacle-shaped portion of the darkness shift into an arm.
How much of Mal’s usual form was a construct simply made to get around easier in the Real? What would he look like if he had no constraints?
It was odd how much it didn’t matter to Clayton or his dick. He was pretty certain he’d be happy getting fucked by Mal in any form he chose.
His mouth was dry, and his voice cracked as he asked, “What did you find?”
Mal dipped his head and kissed Clayton hard on the mouth and then gently on the nose, laughing as Clayton sputtered incoherently from embarrassment.
He hooked an arm around Clayton’s neck and pulled him into his side before saying, “This dimension is unstable. We should have arrived right next to the boat, but instead, we ended up here. I think the terrain keeps changing. While I was gone, the way back here had changed, so it took me longer to get to you.” Mal frowned, and Clayton had the feeling his monster was taking it personally.
“Did you find the boat?” Clayton had to fight to stay on topic because Mal—his mate—smelled intoxicating, and at such a close distance, it made it hard for him to think.
Mal nodded. “Yes, but it probably won’t be in the same place if I try to lead you there. This place feels alive. I think it’s working against us. I’d portal us again, but something tells me that we’d end up back here, or somewhere worse. I saw things you’re better off not seeing.”
“What about the children? Did you see them?”
Mal gave a snort of laughter. “They’re fine. The shield is still holding strong, and our kids are pelting anyone who comes close with Grampy’s food. They’ll be safe until we can get to them. I guess Marshall isn’t completely useless after all.”
Unlike Clayton. Mal hadn’t said it, but Clayton couldn’t help but feel like he should have.
“What do you think we should do?” Clayton had no doubt that Mal already had a plan. He exuded competence equally on par with his aura of asshattery.
“Follow me, do what I say, and stay close.”
Yesterday, Clayton would have argued with Mal, but now everything had changed, so he nodded. “Lead the way, Mal. Let’s get our children back.”
It may have been Clayton’s imagination, but it seemed like Mal’s night-black eyes softened, transforming him from an unfeeling, devil-may-care asshole into a partner. Someone who actually gave a shit about Clayton and his needs.
Mal nodded and said, “Let’s go get our kids.”