AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It’s a stupid question. He’s some projection of my mind, a product of whatever has caused my dreams to be so weird. Hoping he might trigger some of my forgotten memories was a nice thought, but apparently every bit as much a dream as the scene around me.
He steps closer to me. So close, his heat washes over me again, along with a scent that’s woodsy and spicy and makes me want to fill my lungs.
“Honestly, linasha, I am uncertain,” he says, voice a little gruff at the edges in a way that makes my breath catch in my throat. “But I vow to you, if it were within my means, I would move the entire forest to make your path easier to walk.”
He raises a hand to my face, brushing the backs of his fingers gently over my cheeks, and I’m too stunned to protest. The absolute softness of the touch makes my knees tremble. No one has ever been soft with me before.
“I know you do not believe me to be real,” he continues. “I understand this. But when I find you in the waking world, you will know that this is not just dreaming, but the dreamspace. A place shared only by those Lina has chosen to be mates. You are mine, linasha, and I am yours. Your hurts are my hurts, your pains are my pains, just as your joys are my joys. Whatever ails you, whatever troubles you, you no longer have to bear it alone. Because I am here and I will give you whatever aid it is within my power to give.”
“Mates?” The word squeaks out of me, my entire body thrumming with his nearness, even as my mind scrambles to work out why the hell this is how my subconscious is choosing to behave.
“Yes.” His hand settles on my neck, burning hot. I have to fight the urge to arch towards him. “You know the ways of mating? It is when two people are joined in their spirits.” He gestures at the space around us. “Their bodies.”
His other hand comes to the small of my back, scooping me closer to him.
“We will share in our lives, cherish each other, raise younglings.”
Younglings?
“Kids?” I say, the word like a bucket of ice water pouring down my spine. “No, I don’t want kids.”
CHAPTERSIX
Maldek
My linasha’s words are a shock of cold to my spirit.
I don’t want kids.
“None?” The word croaks out of my suddenly tight throat, and I take a step backwards, body and headspace both reeling at this revelation.
Immediately my thoughts spiral through all the images of my imagined younglings, their sweet faces grown familiar to me over the many sleepless sunsets. It feels like a loss of something I already have, rather than of a dream, and a pain as sharp and strong as any I have felt in the waking world lances through my chest, tearing at my heartspace.
“None?” I say again, my spirit stuck on this single word.
It would be no more than you deserve.
This time the voice strikes with words like physical blows, each sound cutting deep into my heartspace. The breath that her beauty stole from my chest is now being held prisoner by my pain.
It is apt. You failed in your duty, and now Lina punishes you.
No. No. Ours is not a vengeful goddess. And such punishment of me would punish my Brooks also, and I cannot believe that she could deserve that.
Go, I bid the voice. Go and take your venom with you. I will not listen to your hate.
I think it hard, raising as much force of will as I can. But the voice is as slippery as a vetti eel. Though it retreats, I can still feel it at my edges, waiting for the next opportunity to strike.
I turn back to my linasha, afraid of what she might have seen in my expression. But she seems oblivious to me, her own expression a deep frown.
“‘I don’t want kids’? Where did that come from?”
Hope, bright and brittle, fills my heartspace. She does not know where these thoughts are come from, perhaps they do not reflect the truth of her spirit. Perhaps-
She does not know. The thought makes other things that she has said echo suddenly loud in my headspace, dislodging the grip of the voice at last.
I already remembered that part.
I remember that much.
