Each snake is different, but they share one common mission: get Alistair.
An anaconda the size of a food truck comes for him, wrapping around his body. He doesn’t even flinch. If it weren’t for the slight increase in his heart rate, I would think he escaped the nightmare. Alistair studies the snake closely, then grins into its gaping maw. “This is remarkable!”
Those three words feel amazing. All the rejection, being a constant disappointment. Suddenly, the hatred of the other supernaturals in the Fringes is a little easier to take.
I let myself smile, relieved neither of them can see me, then insert myself in the nightmare, banishing the snakes and merging the scenes again.
Shooting Luca a mischievous grin, I add a cocktail to his hand—the same orange one he made for me a lifetime ago at the club. His eyebrows disappear beneath the brim of his baseball cap, and he takes a sip before I can stop him.
“Oh fuck!” He gags. “Dude, this is shit.”
“I know. Sorry!” I scrub my hand over my face. “I’ve never been able to simulate taste.”
Luca shrugs and studies the glass in his hand. “I felt that go down my throat, but I didn’t actually drink anything, did I?”
I shake my head. “My magic is inside your brain. If I stimulate the right places—which is mostly instinctual for me—you will smell, hear, and feel things as if they’re real. It’s what makes nightmare illusions different from something a fae or witch might do. They show you a picture. I create the picture with you in it.”
“That must take a lot of energy,” Alistair says.
I nod. This is an elaborate nightmare, but it’s within my limits. I can weave simple illusions off and on for three to four hours ormaintain complex ones for an hour without slipping. I’ll feel like death afterward, but it wouldn’t be the first time.
“I can’t do it forever,” I admit, giving him a nonspecific version of the truth.
I’ll help Alistair with his project, but I’m not going to tell him my weaknesses. That would be idiotic. I’m not desperate enough for his attention to make myself vulnerable.
“Try the combo thing.” Luca takes another sip of the orange drink, then spits it over the side of the hammock. “Still ass,” he tells me cheerfully.
Alistair takes a few steps forward, standing in front of the hammock in the vision and the couch in reality. “Hand me that drink,” he says. Like melted chocolate running down the sides of a fountain made of gold—it’s the most decadent sound I’ve ever heard.
But Luca’s fingers stay firmly wrapped around the drink. “Get your own,” he teases.
Alistair sulks. “I can’t connect to him. There’s a barrier.”
“It’s probably my nightmare,” I say. Thanks to his lighthouse mind, this nightmare is super thick. “You need to get through it without piercing or tearing it down.”
There’s a pause, then Alistair growls, “How the bloody hell am I supposed to do that?”
“Careful, Ali,” I tease, grinning despite the headache creeping along the base of my skull. “Your scone-encrusted past is showing.” I love it when he forgets to hide his British background, but I’ll be damned if I ever let him know it.
He growls again, and I feel sharp pressure on the illusion. I roll my eyes. “You’re bludgeoning it. That’s the literal opposite of going around, dude.”
Alistair tosses his hands up in both realities, creating a double vision effect when I look at him—as if he has twentyfingers instead of ten. It feels like being drunk, and I have to swallow a few times to banish the nausea.
“How am I supposed to go around something with no edges or corners? That makes no sense.” He’s infuriated with me—and I love it.
“I shouldn’t be telling you this, but look for ripples,” I say. “I’m always good but never perfect. They’ll be there.”
I sense his focus; the intense way he studies my nightmare, and shudder. His inspection is fucking intimate. Plenty of people at the compound have used my nightmares to practice their mental walls, but it’s never felt like this before.
“I see one,” Alistair whispers.
A warm, enticing trickle of his magic slithers against mine; it may as well be my bare skin. When Alistair’s compulsion makes it inside my nightmare, I know immediately. The sensual magic is almost uncomfortably warm. It pulses with intensity just like him. It doesn’t feel like he went around either... it feels like we’ve merged.
Alistair crouches in front of the hammock again and stares directly into Luca’s eyes. “Can I have a sip?” he purrs. “Give me a taste. Please.”
Luca’s pupils dilate, and his hand shoots forward, offering Alistair the cocktail. Condensation runs down the side of the glass, and their fingers graze. As soon as Luca lets go, Alistair punches the air triumphantly, sloshing the orange drink everywhere.
“We did it,” he shouts.
