Page 88 of Somnium

A crooked grin slid over his lips as he guided her to the couch. “Oh yeah?” he said, pulling her onto his lap.

“Mmmhm,” she replied, letting out a soft sound when his hands found her hips and he began to massage the tired muscles at her joints.

“A door that looks like it leads to what may be an office …” Her words bled into a groan when he found a particularly stubborn knot. One that she’d been trying to stretch out for weeks with zero success. Gods, he was making talking extremely difficult. She pulled in a breath to clear her mind just enough to finish her thought.

“If I had to guess. My sigil works on it, so I’ll check it out next time I’m there.”

Elias went still, and Cadi felt the shift immediately, his warmth and playfulness disappearing like her words had flipped a switch. His eyes searched hers for a long moment before he gave her a tight smile. “Be careful.”

She brushed her thumb against the nape of his neck. “I will.”

Cadi’s eyes slipped closed while Elias’s hands began to move across her back, tracing slow circles that were damn near close to putting her to sleep, but her mind had other plans. She couldn’t stop thinking about the rite. The smells, the sounds. The screams. She moved her hand to Elias’s chest, resting it just above his heart. Right over the place where an invisible binding they never spoke of still lay.

“Did it hurt for you, too?” she asked, her voice hushed.

Elias tilted his head in question, lifting his hand to brush her still-damp hair over her shoulder.

“When you were bound,” she clarified.

His hand stilled, and the confusion in his eyes shifted to something dark and guarded as he gave her a small nod. “At first.”

“What do you mean?”

He pulled her earlobe between his thumb and finger. “The pain doesn’t last. Not usually. The binding actually gives Oneirios the power to sort of … connect with his followers. To influence their emotions and indirectly, their actions. He can make them feel what he wants them to feel. Pain, pleasure, calm, scared. Or like they really want to do or say something.”

Cadi shuddered. Just being close to him in the hallway tonight had been enough to make her skin crawl. The thought of having him in her head, making her feel whatever he wanted her to …

Suddenly she needed another shower.

“Does he ever … influence you?” she asked. Her stomach dipped when he lowered his chin again.

“For a while he did, yeah. But I learned how to resist it. It wasn’t easy, and it gave me one hell of a headache. Luckily, he hasn’t had much reason to try pulling my strings for a while.”

Cadi smirked, crinkling her nose at him. “Even as public enemy number one?”

Elias let out a full laugh, the rich sound settling behind her ribs and bringing the tiny flutter back to life. “That grudge is held more by members than Oneirios. Once it became apparent that no one was going to listen to what I was trying to say, he stopped seeing me as a threat and more as an annoyance.”

He shrugged, playing with her curls and letting them cascade across his fingers. “He’s too arrogant to believe that anything would be going on without him knowing about it so … I let him think that.”

Cadi let her hand fall, her fingers brushing against his stomach. She saw the fabric of his t-shirt shift with the hitch in his breath, the tiny reaction bringing a satisfied grin to her lips.

“Is that all the binding does?” she asked.

Elias shook his head, his eyes growing heavy as his hands shifted back to her waist to grip her tight. He leaned forward, but Cadi moved back, just out of his reach.

“Tell me,” she said, her lips twitching at his grumble of frustration. Elias settled back and fixed her with a look, but she just stared at him. The picture of innocent curiosity. It wasn’t her fault he was so much fun to tease.

“It gives him a constant drip of dream energy,” he answered after a beat, at last accepting that if he wanted to play, he would have to abide by her rules. “Even when members are awake. The more people who are bound, the stronger he becomes.”

Cadi’s brows knitted together, that newest piece of information clashing with what she’d thought she understood. “Wait,” she said, pressing her palm against his chest. “If he’s taking the power from the other gods, why does he still need people to be bound to him?”

Elias’s hands drifted under the fabric of her top, sliding against her skin in a way that told her the time for questions was nearly over. And she was very close to agreeing.

“He can’t use the stolen power,” he replied as he pressed his lips to her neck.

“What?” she exclaimed, pulling back again. Elias let out a low groan, resting his forehead against her shoulder before he tipped his face to hers.

“Cadi.”