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“It’s a trinket!” He yells.
I rub my face, still in disbelief. I can see now how they were so eager to have me sent off with him, why they entertained this mad idea in the first place. And now he doesn’t have the ring anymore. “Can’t it be used against you?”
He fiddles with his earring. “Humans don’t know what it is, Astra. They wouldn’t be able to wield it, and it’s not like the Krastel King has some vendetta against me. Don’t know if you noticed, but I have other magical artifacts.”
I’m still unable to digest this revelation. The Shadow Ring? He gave the Shadow Ring to the Krastel King? I don’t know what to think. I decide to forget it for now, and take a deep breath. “Where are we going?”
“There’s an old fae who can peer into dreams.”
Oh, ouch. Awkward. I grimace. “Peer into dreams? You want this person to see them?”
He laughs. “No. But she might help us solve our problem.”
Yes, sexy dreams, what a horrific problem.
I wonder if he’s hoping I’ll tell him I love our dream sex, that in fact I love it so much we should try to make it real.
Haha. As if it wasn’t partly true.
I want to disappear.
But there’s something else I want to know. “How come you believed me? I told you I didn’t create the dreams, and you believed me at once, when I’d been trying for days to tell you that.”
He smirks. “There’s a huge, huge difference. Before, you weren’t trying to say you didn’t create the dreams. You were lying to my face, saying you knew nothing about them. To my face, making me think I was insane.” He rolls his eyes and changes his voice to a mocking tone. “Oh, husband, maybe you should seek some treatment for your nightmares.” He glares at me. “You know the worst part? I believed you. You’re saying I didn’t believe you, but I did. I started to think it was all in my head.”
When he puts it like that, I feel a little bad, but at the same time… “What would you want me to do, Marlak? Say hey, actually, I do dream about you. Sexy dreams, in fact. You would mock me, you?—”
“I would not.”
Oh, how easily he forgets his words. “You called me unattractive, told me my attempts at seducing you were pathetic. I thought you would think I was trying to seduce you and then lash out at me.”
He sighs and runs a hand over the burned side of his head. “I…” He pauses. “I didn’t think you’d believe such crude lies, Astra. And I didn’t think they’d hurt you. All I can say is I’m sorry.” He looks up, thinking, then back at me. “Though it won’t change much.”
“It does. I also said things I regret.” I squirm in shame when I recall calling him half roasted, especially after glimpsing his trauma. “I’m sorry.”
He stares at me and I can hear my heart wanting to jump out of my chest, wanting to take over and get bigger than my entire body, and yet I can feel my stomach shrinking in fear of what might happen, of my own confused thoughts.
I have to change the subject. “Why didn’t you go talk to this dream fae before?”
“As you can see, she lives far, also…” He raises one shoulder. “Is it that abnormal? To dream about someone I’m attracted to? I thought I was just very much interested in you.”
Thought. “But you’re not.”
He waves both hands in the air. “How can I even know? How much is me, and how much are the dreams? And if you don’t even want them… Who was it you kissed, wife? Was it me, or the man in your dreams?”
“Who did you kiss?” I snap back. I don’t want to consider his question.
“I know very well who I kissed. And you know what? In my dreams you’re much, much nicer.”
“Oh, as if you were the same.”
“I am!” He puts a hand on his chest. “It’s me in the dreams, exactly the way I am. No difference.”
“Of course not. The man in my dreams…” I was about to say, loves me, but I catch myself. “Is different.” And then I recall something else. “It means that in the cave, when we first met, it was you.”
He runs his hand over his hair. “That was different. That wasn’t a dream. It was me, but…” He closes his eyes and sighs, then stares at me. “I wouldn’t do it like that in our first time, but in the vision, it wasn’t…” He frowns. “Do you really want to discuss this? How I would make love to you if it were real?”
The idea flashes through my mind. Before it muddles my brain with images of him undressing me on his boat, I say, “So you gave it some thought.”
