Page 12 of Druid Dreams

He wasn’t the only one that hid it though. All of the paperwork and information that could be found on me stated that I grew up in Seattle, Washington, which was a complete lie. I grew up in the Fae realm. The portal was hidden in Oxford, England. If you don’t know where that is then grab a map, because I’m shite with directions.

“I thought the flat was on fire,” I emphasized again.

“Apartment.” I ignored Stone’s interruption and kept talking.

“I didn’t know everyone came back last night. You could’ve called. I do have a cell phone.” I waved my phone around at them, and saw that they were both looking at me with blank faces. I glanced down at my phone and touched the screen to wake it up. “Oh.” That was all I could say. I had sixteen missed calls and twelve text messages. All the calls were from Palmer, Stone and Briggs. Ten messages were from Novak, because he was a serial texter. One was never good enough for him. Two were from a number I didn’t recognize.

“So,” Palmer slowly began his interrogation once more, “Are ya gonna tell us what you were doin’? Or should we start guessin’?”

“I went to that red carpet club downtown to see someone.” I stated dismissively with a wave of my hand, already halfway down the hall on my way to my bedroom. I really didn’t want to talk to them about Sloane right now. If I stayed in there then they’d keep badgering me. I couldn’t believe I was ready to call them a little over an hour ago to figure this shit out. Now that I was face to face with them, I just wasn’t ready. I liked Sloane so far and I knew as soon as they saw her they would too. It would be nice to have my friends like my girlfriend for once. Fuck. She’s not my girlfriend. I just met her yesterday. I would like to see her again though.

Palmer was saying something to me, but I tuned him out. I didn’t care what he had to say. All my attention was on the unknown number that texted me. The snippet of the first message had my undivided attention as I opened the tab.

“Taylor Caplin will be waiting for you by your car. Please be careful. He’s angry that you were with me and his thoughts are dark tonight.”

And

“You should’ve kissed me. (Shoulder shrug emoji.)”

“Who the...” I breathed out before it hit me. “Oh. Ohhhh. Shit. Maybe I am stupid.” Fuck. My. Life. I knew I should have kissed her. No. I should’ve done exactly what Jack said. Godsdamnit. I’m a fool.

“We’ve been telling you that for years.” Novak piped up from my bed. MY bed. Where he was sprawled diagonally, in nothing but boxers, on his stomach with his face buried under my pillows. Why is he always in my fucking room? I just wanted to go to sleep.

“Why are you in my bed?” I hissed instead. “You have your own room. A room that holds very similar furniture to mine.” He could go lay in his own damn bed.

He moved the pillow from over his head and leaned up just a little, turning his neck at an odd angle. “There’s a naked girl in my bed,” he whined. “And she. Just. Won’t. Leave. Make her go away, please.” His last words were muffled as he slammed my pillow over his head again, like if he could smother himself then she might magically disappear. I huffed a laugh at him. He’s fucking dramatic.

“If I make her leave will you get out of my room?” I bartered. I really wanted to sleep. I was almost as dead on my feet as he was. I know. That’s a corny vampire joke, but it’s true.

“Yes.” He dragged the word out. “I asked her to leave hours ago but she wouldn’t take the hint. I mean, she’s cute, but not cute enough to stay for breakfast.” He rolled his eyes. “I guess Palmer will be the white knight that he is and feed her. Then, she’ll never want to leave.” He sniffled and wiped imaginary tears from his exposed cheek. “I’ll have to move into your room so I can permanently avoid her.” He sighed. He was such an asshole. “Make her leave Vaughn.” He whined again.

“You could’ve just compelled her...” I let my sentence hang, waiting for him to figure it out. Maybe he’d be smart today. Nope. I knew exactly what he was about to say. I mouthed the words as he spoke them, having them memorised long ago.

“Yeah, but then I’d have to look into her eyes again and I just can’t do it, Vaughn.” He mumbled like it was a new confession. It was not new. He’s a dog.

“Bad sex, huh? You let her down?” I couldn’t help but tease him. He was terrified of commitment. Stone and Palmer avoided relationships because they were waiting on their mates, but Novak? He was a one-and-done kind of guy, most of the time. Occasionally he was a 24-hour kind of guy. Those girls never got brought to our home though. Briggs was weary after his last heart break, and wouldn’t be looking for a companion anytime soon. I didn’t do relationships because I was too busy. I was leaning towards a change though. Fuck. Am I? Do I want to be with Sloane? I’d have to think about that later. When I was by my godsdamn self.

“Fuck you, Vaughn.” There was no heat behind his words. He sounded truly exhausted. He still had his head covered with my pillow. He thrashed his legs violently, almost like he was throwing a silent tantrum, before rolling over and removing the pillow to continue, “She said she wants a relationship with me,” he pointed to himself for clarification. “After one good fuck. I’m not interested, and I told her straight up. She didn’t listen. She’s waiting for me to come back in there with my mind changed. It’s not happening. She doesn’t understand that she means absolutely nothing to me. Last night, today, just showed me that I’m fucking sick of this. I’m ready to find my mate. I’m tired of all these bullshit one night stands.” He heaved a heavy sigh of relief, and if I had to guess he needed to get that off his chest.

He sounded so serious that I almost wanted to believe him, but Novak is.... well, Novak. I’ll believe it when I see it. We all wondered sometimes if he’d already met his mate and just didn’t notice. He’d been binge drinking for the past couple of months so it wouldn’t surprise me. I’d asked him to talk to me about it but he always shot me down. He'd talk when he was ready though, and he knew I was here to listen when he was. I could tell he wasn’t going to say anything more so I decided to reroute the conversation.

“Do fae have mates like vampires do? Because if they do, then I think I found my mate yesterday, Novak. I’m a mixture of confused, terrified, and excited,” I whispered. It was an admission I wasn’t quite ready to say out loud, but I’d known Novak longer than anyone in this realm. He was always the first person I told things to. He was what I needed to work my feelings out. A vampire therapist. I needed someone to tell me what I felt wasn’t my imagination. It was real. I really hope it’s real.

He looked up at me with wide eyes and then looked around the room like someone else might be in here. “She’s not here.” I scoffed. “But, that’s where I was last night. I didn’t know you guys were all coming back at the same time. I thought you’d be out until later today. The others weren’t due back for days. Briggs came home too? What’s going on?” I questioned him, hoping he’d have answers.

“Neither did we.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I just had this feeling like I needed to be home. Like something big was gonna happen, but I didn’t know what.” He had his brows drawn down and his eyes squinted like he’s trying to piece together a puzzle while talking to me. With what pieces, I didn’t know, but he never failed to figure it out. Sometimes he was a dumbass, but other times he made me wonder if he was more of a genius than Palmer.

“What are you thinking?” I inquired. What did he know that I didn’t? The feeling that I was missing something huge was weighing on my shoulders. I still felt that strange pull on my chest too. I distractingly rubbed at the center of my chest and Novak snapped his attention to my hand. His eyes widened, eyebrows flying up in the process, and his mouth gaped open before he could compose himself.

He cleared his throat and then carefully asked “Vaughn, does your chest hurt like you’ve been punched?” He paused for a beat, but I knew he wasn’t done. “Or, does it feel like someone threaded invisible strings through your heart that they’re pulling on right now?” He made a motion with his hand like he was stringing two objects together. I felt the blood rush from my face. My heartbeat was rapidly increasing. My hands were clammy. He saw it all, and he kept talking.

“I’ve only heard stories about fae having mates, but I suppose it could happen. We’d have to talk with Palmer to be sure. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say you’re not ready to bring that up to the others yet.” He raised a skeptical eyebrow at me and I nodded my head silently. He slowly nodded his head back at me and dropped his voice. He sounded like he was speaking to himself when he continued, “Surely we didn’t all get the same feeling that we needed to be here solely because you found your mate.” The way he said “your” didn’t go unnoticed.

“What are you talking about, Novak?” I needed to know. It’s going to drive me crazy. He was onto something. He had that distant look on his face that he got when he was focusing on putting all those invisible puzzle pieces together. I just didn’t know what all the pieces were that he had. Clearly more than me. He didn’t answer. I wasn’t even sure that he heard me.

I sat on the edge of my bed and gave him a few more minutes of silence before I repeated my question. This time he looked at me and shook his head. His hair flopped down into his eyes. He pushed it back before he shook his head again. “It doesn’t make sense yet, Vaughn,” he admitted to me, but I didn’t think he was trying to answer my question. He was talking about whatever he was working through. He’s answering his own question. I didn’t know what the question was though, so I couldn’t help him.

He shook his head a few more times and then groaned. “Naked chick. In my bed.” He brought me back to the task at hand and I sighed dramatically. I didn’t like doing his dirty work, but sometimes it was fun.