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It’s irrational, but it bothers me that she’s dreaming of another man, even though this is the very type of dream I sought out. But the way he treated her…I may feed on human fear, but I never cause my victims physical harm. I don’t want her dreaming of him, even if she despises him. I only want her dreaming of me. Or at the very least, if she must dream of him, I want it to be a dream I control. One where he’ll never touch her again.
Is this what jealousy is? How curious. It’s a uniquely human emotion, one I’ve never come close to experiencing. And yet, I suspect it’s what I’m feeling.
I look at her, tears rolling down her face as she prepares to deliver her boyfriend’s drugs to a man who scares her, who maybe hurts her, and something wrenches in my heart. I have a burning need to ease her pain, so I enter the dream, making my presence known to her.
“Shhhh,” I say, cupping her cheek. “Stop crying. There’s no need for tears.”
She looks up and gives a little hiccup. “Who are you?”
“It’s me,” I tell her. “Callister. We’ve met before. Don’t you remember?”
She frowns. Her subconscious should recognize my name, but also knows I don’t belong in this dream. “You look different,” she finally says.
It’s true. Without thinking, I entered her mind in my true form, revealing my horns, my charcoal skin, my crown. “Don’t worry about that,” I say, extending a hand. “If you let me, I can take you far away from here. Somewhere you’ll be safe.”
“Where?” she asks, her voice filled with suspicion.
“Leave this dream,” I command softly.
There’s a disconcerting swirl as reality shifts. We’re in her realm now, in the darkened bedroom of the little cabin at the lake. Her eyes are still closed. She’s not asleep, but not awake either. She’s in a twilight state in between, where this still feels like a nightmare.
I inhale deeply, enjoying the sweet taste of her terror. Without thinking, I lean down and lick her cheek, the flavor of it even stronger on her sweat-slicked skin. I shiver with delight at it. “I know you can hear me. And I know you know who I am.”
She trembles involuntarily, a sign of how scared she is, and then mumbles, “What’s happening?”
“Come with me,” I whisper. “I can give you peace. I can keep Evan out of your mind.”
As much as I love her nightmares, I can do more with her if I release her from them. We can enjoy pleasurable dreams together, and she can join me in my work, helping me create fear in others. She has so much trauma in her past that I know she’ll be good at it. I can use her knowledge to inflict more terror on the dreaming world.
My demons will be shocked that I’ve brought a human into our realm, but I don’t care.
“Take my hand. I have a whole new life to show you. All you have to do is say yes.”
Of course, it will only be her subconscious that joins me. Her physical body will stay here, sleeping, helping to feed me and my court. There’s nothing I can do about that, other than making sure I keep her alive while she sleeps.
She nods and drowsily entwines her fingers with mine.
With her assent, I do something completely unprecedented: I bring a human to my kingdom. We emerge in my throne room, a cavernous space filled with torches and my massive chair.
Now that we’re here, she’s clear and alert, her subconscious aware of what’s going on in a way that her conscious mind couldn’t handle a few moments ago.
“Welcome to the Nightmare Court,” I say with a gallant bow. “I rule this place and I can guarantee your dreams are safe here.”
“Ironic,” she says, but manages a small smile.
She turns in a circle, taking in the space. It’s made of stone, polished marble and granite, with torches along the walls to provide light. My huge obsidian throne takes up one part of the room, and a long red carpet leads to it, with chairs on either side. I rarely take an audience here, but it’s useful to have seating on the occasions when I do.
The rest of the décor is perhaps…unsettling. Demonic skulls line the walls, the furniture is made of bones and horns, and demon hides decorate the walls like tapestries. It smells, of course, of fear—the salty-sweaty tang of terror. It is, after all, where nightmares reside.
“This is…something,” Libra says, and I laugh.
This room is at the heart of my palace, but like any royal residence, this place is large. I have ballrooms and a Great Hall, banquet rooms and bedrooms and so much more.
Music streams in from the right, a cacophonous noise of crashing cymbals and abused string instruments.
“What’s that sound?” she asks.
I shrug. “It could be any number of things. Let’s find out.”
