Chapter 35
Chapter
Thirty-Five
MAL
“Well, that’s done,” Clayton said, brushing his hands together as he surveyed the battlefield. “What do we do with these guys?” He pointed at the fae warriors scattered around the cavern, all fight gone from them.
“I can eat them,” Mal offered. He wasn’t hungry, but he could still eat if he needed to.
“You’ve eaten enough. You’ll destroy my boat.” Clayton chided, patting Mal’s stomach.
“You care more about your boat than you do me,” Mal grumbled.
“You should care about it, too, since you have to live there,” Clayton reminded Mal as he began to walk back toward the aforementioned boat.
Mal followed, saying, “You could get a new place. I can make as much money as you need. You don’t need to live on a leaky old boat.”
“Bite your tongue,” Clayton hissed. “It’s a beautiful boat, and I plan on being buried with it, so you’ll start bonding with it now if you know what’s good for you.”
“No dying,” Mal stated flatly. “Not ever.” It wasn’t funny even as a joke.
“Sorry, love, but I don’t have much of a choice.” Clayton halted his progress toward the boat and turned to Mal with a soft and regretful smile. “It’s not fair, is it? I get to be with you for the rest of my life, but you don’t get to be with me for the rest of yours.”
“Why not?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Nightmares don’t age and die. They only grow stronger. I can’t imagine something being strong enough to kill you—unless you starved yourself. Not that I’m suggesting you do that.”
“Wouldn’t work. I’d discorporate, but eventually I’d come back together after taking in enough ambient fear essence,” Mal explained. It was a boring and uncomfortable process, and he didn’t recommend it.
“Seriously? I swear I could write an entire series of journals about you. That sounds even worse than dying to me. I’m not certain I’ve done you a favor by making you love me if I’m only going to die on you in a few years.”
“Why would you die?”
“Because I’m human. Or fae.” Clayton’s face did a cute little squint as he tried to articulate a concept he hadn’t fully grasped yet.
“Fine, some of both. But even if I get lucky and figure out how to stop aging like a human, I’m pretty sure fae still have finite lifespans.
Eventually, I will age and die. There’s no getting around it. ”
“Oh, is that all? Don’t worry about that.” Mal tried to make light of the conversation, but inside, he was internally combusting. How dare the universe give Clayton to him and then think it could take him away?
Clayton made an affronted gasp that church ladies would be proud of.
“Well, excuse me for assuming you’ll be sad after I’m dead.
Maybe I should just go die right now and save us all some trouble.
” Clayton tried to storm off, but Mal stopped him by grabbing the back of his shirt and yanking him until he was in Mal’s arms.
“I meant that you don’t need to worry about dying, Red. I always get what I want. I want you with me forever, so you will be. End of story.” If it hadn’t been true before, it definitely was now. Mal had taken in enough energy to be a god. He would make it happen no matter what.
“I’m not sure reality works that way, Mal.”
“It does for me.”
“If you say so.”
Naerith jogged up to them, interrupting the gloomy conversation.
“Mal, can I borrow you for a minute? My wife is currently indisposed, and she usually does the heavy lifting, magically speaking. She likes to play her abilities down, but if we need something done, she can find a way to do it, given enough time. I don’t want to disturb her right now, though. ”
Delighted for the subject change, Mal jumped on the request. “What do you need?”
“We need to contact the royal army. They’ll want to round up the survivors and question them to make sure we’ve found everyone and see if there are any children left that haven’t…
” Naerith’s eyes hardened, and he put an arm around Clayton’s shoulders and pulled him close.
“We need to learn about the fate of the rest of the children,” he finished flatly.
“I can do that,” Mal said. “I call dibs on any demons you find.”
Clayton groaned. “Haven't you had enough demons? Your head is going to brush the ceiling of the boat as it is.”
“Get a bigger boat, then,” Mal teased.
“Get a less fat head.” Clayton went on tiptoe, reached up, and rubbed Mal’s head to mess up his hair.
“So, about the royal guard,” Naerith reminded them.
“Right.” Mal didn’t want to take time away from Clayton, but if Mal wanted more demons in the near future, he would need to do his part. He could, however, have both if he got creative.
He held out a hand and frowned at it, focusing his will and thinking, Give Naerith what he wants so he’ll leave me and Clayton alone for a while.
The air above his hand glowed as his will was made manifest, and after a minute, a glistening crystal the size of a golf ball appeared.
“Here,” Mal said and chucked it at Naerith.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” Naerith said, catching the crystal easily and examining it.
Mal shrugged. “Figure it out.” He couldn’t do everything for the man. Mal had important things to do.
Naerith poked the crystal. “Am I supposed to eat it?”
“Please don’t eat random things that monsters give you, Dad,” Clayton said with an eyeroll.
“You should definitely eat it. I want to see what happens.” Mal would stick around for a few minutes more if Naerith was going to do something interesting.
“Mal, don’t experiment on my father, please. I’d like to get to know him before he dies tragically.”
“He won’t die. I would never do that to you," Mal grumbled. He stroked his chin, tilted his head, and added, “There is a small possibility that he could become a part of me, though.”
Naerith paused, hand almost to his mouth with the crystal present and ready to be consumed. He snapped his mouth shut and held the crystal gingerly between two fingers as far from his body as he could get. “No. Just …no.”
Clayton shuddered as he fought away the mental image of his father merging with his lover. “Take it to Mum and let her figure it out. She’s not playing with Kendric anymore, so I think she’ll come out of it soon. Just be patient.”
“I’ll go do that,” Naerith agreed and legged it back to his wife.
Elena was indeed rousing from her bloodlust. Her eyes were clear, and she appeared quite satisfied with herself, so she was probably safe to approach.
“Back to the boat?” Clayton asked, holding out a hand to Mal.
Mal took it and nodded. “Back to the boat.”
As they approached the boat, Mal scooped Clayton into his arms and leaped onto the deck smoothly. Clayton sputtered and pushed at Mal’s chest, but Mal only grinned and rubbed his face against Clayton’s cheek.
He planted a noisy kiss on Clayton’s mouth before dropping him without warning. And because Clayton was no longer poisoned by the Real’s influence on his magic, he landed easily on the uneven floor.
“You did it!” Merry and Tommy cried out and ran toward Clayton at full speed. Halfway to him, Merry tripped, fell on top of Tommy, and they both began to roll down the slanted deck, straight toward a gap in the railing.
Before Mal had a chance to do anything, Clayton snatched a stray Tupperware container off the ground and tossed it.
It bounced off the laundry line, causing it to break free and send clean sheets and towels to fall and land in the perfect position to catch the two small children before they rolled off the boat to the jagged, rocky cave floor below.
Mal whistled and said, “Not bad, Red.”
“You liked that?” Clayton gave him a proud smile. “It was pretty cool, right?”
“Very.”
“You should probably send us back to the Real soon, though,” Clayton sighed, and his energy shifted from proud to resigned. “If the boat stays like this any longer, someone is going to get hurt. I guess I don’t need superpowers that badly.”
“Why do you want to go back?” Mal could live anywhere Clayton wanted to, so he certainly wasn’t holding him back.
“Well, I have to, don’t I? I have a job—at least I hope I still have one. I can’t just abandon it, especially now that I know what nightmares really are. I have to tell people in the Guard. Someone will listen; they just have to. If I can convince Samantha, then we can change everything.”
“Why do you need to change everything?” Mal had no idea what Clayton was going on about. Nightmares were monsters. Mal had empirical evidence of the fact.
“Nightmares are people, Mal. You’re living proof.”
“I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but I am definitely not a person. Just because you love me doesn’t mean I’m not a monster. It just means you’re braver than most.”
Sure, there were plenty of self-proclaimed monster fuckers out there, but when faced with an actual opportunity, the number of people in the world who would actually fuck a monster was pretty low. The screaming and running generally started long before any fucking could happen.
“I am very brave, aren’t I?” Clayton struck a silly pose, putting both hands on his hips and pretending to stare majestically into the distance.
“However, that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. My parents told me that some nightmares live in the fae realm like regular folk.
They don’t prey on people. They use their skills to live peacefully rather than running wild. ”
For the first time in his existence, Mal doubted his hearing. As a physical construct, anything he created worked exactly as he willed it, so it had never been an issue.
“I’m sorry, did you say nightmares are living with people in the fae realm?”
“Living and thriving, according to my parents,” Clayton confirmed.
“One of my teachers was a nightmare,” Merry announced, pulling Tommy along behind her up the deck. “Before we came to the Real, Tommy and I both had a nightmare teach us how to swim. He looked like a fish and made funny faces.”
Mal was stunned. “Timin?”
“You know him?” Merry looked excited.