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She sang and held the goblinborn close—held his goblinborn, children that she had no responsibility to love and yet loved with abandon. Every bit of his heart’s resistance exploded outward like displaced stone during an earthquake. Emotions flooded through him unchecked. Staring at this human girl with her freckled cheeks, sun-kissed skin, and wild auburn hair, he didn’t care that they came from different worlds. He didn’t care that she was betrothed and that she didn’t want to be there.
He loved her.
Loved her more than he had ever loved another living soul.
Anrid broke off mid-word when Trap and Math appeared behind Kora.
The housekeeper hastily belted a robe around herself.
Kora shook himself out of his surprised stupor. “What exactly is going on in here? Do you know it’s the middle of the night?” He had the gall to sound peeved, but then when he stared at Jael, there seemed to be a sliver of concern in his sharp eyes.
“Of course we know,” Jael ground out. He studied Anrid for an awkward minute, wondering what he should say in front of the children. “The children needed calming is all. I was—I was—”
He knew he should say something to explain why he was in Anrid’s bedroom in the middle of the night. He didn’t even remember barging in…was that what sleep walking was like?
When he couldn’t finish the thought, Anrid cleared her throat and answered on his behalf. “He was trying to help,” she murmured. “We were having bad dreams, weren’t we, children? But it wasn’t real. Just a bad dream.”
Her eyes swept to Jael, however, and held.
They both knew what had happened was anything but a dream.
“Yeah, a bad dream,” Rig confirmed with a sage nod of his head. “There were these mean shadow snakes, and they were trying to get to us, but Uh-NEE and the prince wouldn’t let them.”
“Yeah,” Crag chimed in, pretending to slash the air with an invisible blade. “They fought them off and locked the door!” The rock monkey clinging to his shoulder shrieked and shook a fist at them as if trying to reinforce Crag’s tale.
Something inside Jael stuttered and twisted. How did they know all this? They hadn’t been in the dream at all! They’d been safely in their beds...
Hadn’t they?
He saw his own horror mirrored in Anrid’s face as she tried to hold the children closer. Neither of them spoke, but the children continued to discuss the dream. The details were too specific to be a coincidence.
They’d been there. Somehow. The children had been a part of the dream.
“Trap,” he called out, his voice hoarse and weak. He cleared his throat and tried to shuffle children off to the side. “I need you to put the children back to bed.” He fended off protests as the goblinborn tried to hug his legs and waist to keep him from leaving.
“I need to talk to Uh-NEE,” he explained to them with a patience he didn’t feel.
Anrid startled.
“Trap will stay with you,” he added. He flicked his gaze to his younger brother. “And so will he.”
Kora appeared horrified before he swiped his face clean of expression. “Oh, and a jolly time we’ll have too,” he said dryly. “I love a ruckus in the middle of the night.”
Jael waded through the piles of children to get to the door, where he clasped Math by the shoulder and leaned against him, almost too weary to stand. His apprentice sought his face for answers.
Jael shook his head. Not now. Not here.
He turned to wait for Anrid, but she still sat on the floor with the goblinborn. As if sensing his impatience, she lifted her chin. “I shouldn’t leave them—”
“Please,” he interrupted her, more sharply than he intended. “Please. I...I need you.”
For an agonizing moment, he feared she would refuse, her arms too full of children to care what he wanted or needed. But then she nodded and began to slide them off her lap. Trap dove in to help her, clucking as she tried to direct the littles ones back to their beds.
Anrid paused beside Kora and stretched out a shaking hand to grip his forearm. “Don’t leave them until I return?” she whispered, almost anxiously.
Kora stared for a fraction too long before quirking a smile at her. He splayed a hand against his bare chest. “I wouldn’t dream of it, love. I’ll take care of the wee darlings, don’t you worry now.” He shot a smirk toward Jael, whose skin suddenly felt as if it were on fire. Hot, white jealousy coursed through him.
He wanted nothing more than to lay his brother out cold on the floor for being half naked and looking so good while doing it.
