by Anya Bast
“But you don’t need permission.”
He gave a loose shrug. “No.”
She looked down at the floor for a moment. The thought of having him in her head again while he was also under her skin was not a pleasant one. Yet, if he could remove the block she’d be out of here all the sooner. “All right.” She looked up at him. “I give you my permission.”
“Good.”
She walked over, grabbed her backpack, and started for the stairs. “I’m going to take a shower.” Her exhausted legs protesting every moment, she made her way up the stairs.
Minutes later, standing under the hot, driving water, she pondered what Kieran had said about allowing the fae to be free. She wanted so much to cling to her anger because of the way they’d brought her here, and because she’d been attacked twice now. Yet, in their place, if messing with the life of one human had been her only hope for freedom, wouldn’t she have done the same?
Or maybe she was simply falling victim to Stockholm syndrome.
Of course, she wasn’t ready to fall in line with everything the fae espoused. It wasn’t that she disagreed with the things Kieran had said downstairs about the freedom of the fae, it was just that agreeing with him made her feel like she was disrespecting her father. Her father had been there for her when no one else had. He’d been the one to dry her tears when she’d been small, after her mother had died. He’d been the one to give her advice while she was growing up, had been there to love her, guide her. She worshiped her father.
. . . people like your father preach hatred and fear . . .
It was difficult to think of him from another perspective.
She finished up her shower, dressed in a soft pair of PJ pants and an old sweatshirt of Kieran’s. Then she eased under the fluffy eiderdown on the bed and fell asleep in about half a heartbeat.
FIFTEEN
WHEN Kieran didn’t hear any more sounds coming from the loft, he edged his way up the stairs. Charlotte lay on her side in the bed, blankets tucked around her, hand curled against her mouth on the pillow, fast asleep. He rubbed his eyes, wanting to join her, but she’d given him permission to enter her dreams and attempt to undo the damage caused by the nightmares. Now was the best time to do it.
He eased down the stairs, closed the blinds and lay down on the couch. It had been a long time since he’d used his ability to heal a psychic wound made by recurring nightmares. He needed to enter her dreamscape and, once in, he needed to find the emotional residue left of the nightmare and remove it. That complex process meant finding the nightmare in her subconscious, replaying it, and convincing Charlotte’s dreaming self to interact with the symbols of her fear in a different way.
Letting himself drift to sleep was the easy part. Once he’d entered the dreaming state, he forced his conscious mind to become aware.
He stood on a windy beach, sand stinging his eyes and whipping his hair around his face. Before him stretched a storm-tossed ocean and rolling, lightning-streaked gray-black clouds above it. Thunder crashed through the heavens. Tossed waves and the sound of the wind ripping at his clothing filled his ears. This was his own dreamscape, reflecting his inner turmoil. Concentrating, he calmed the winds and seas, changing his dream while he stood in the middle of it, but this was not his primary objective—he needed to find Charlotte.
Glancing around, he searched for the best place to exit his private dreamscape and find a gateway to a community area. From there he could locate a door to Charlotte’s scape.
Striding into the cold, violent water, he forced the crashing waves to conform to his will. The surf calmed and he walked in mostly unbuffeted until he’d submerged his entire body and head. For a moment all he saw was dark, churning water, then everything shifted. Light flickered. Figures moved. Yes, here was a doorway into a community area. In dreams, water and mirrors often were.
Underneath his feet, the sand became stairs and the sea a placid silvery pool. He walked up out of the water into a dark, open space. His hair, skin, and clothing dried the moment they hit air.
As always, entering the community dreamscapes was like checking himself into a mental ward. People—mental projections of their dream selves—milled around talking to themselves and interacting with unseen objects, all of them lost in their own imaginings.
A blond in a pale blue dress had stopped to watch him emerge from the pool. In a moment she would likely take that image of him and spin it off into her own creation, falling deeper and deeper into her dreaming mind.
The pool he’d emerged from dried up, turning into black concrete as he stepped out of it, and he walked forward, avoiding the sleepers as he went, concentrating on Charlotte in order to find a way into her private dreamscape, just the way he’d done the night he’d formed the bond with her.
He passed into the darkening edges of the room and glimpsed a light ahead of him, a door cracked open to emit the glow of the sun. He reached it and pushed it the rest of the way open. Ah, here was Charlotte’s realm.
She lay on a sun-drenched hillside amid a hundred daisies. Drawn like a cat to nip, he walked to her. Her eyes were closed, a smile on her lips, arms outspread. She looked peaceful. Odd, considering her current emotional state. He studied her for a long moment while he remained unnoticed. She appeared as she had in the bonding dream. Her long midnight hair was fanned out around her head, contrasting with the white daises. Her lashes shadowed pink-tinged cheeks and accented her full red lips.
His gaze dropped to her slender throat and the gentle swell of her breasts cupped by the bodice of her dress. When he’d first seen her back during the bonding dream, the need to touch her had immediately swelled within him. His desire for her had eclipsed everything else—even the knowledge of who her father had been and how much she likely hated the fae.
Looking down on her now, knowing her better than he had back then, the reaction was even more severe. Hands fisted, he fought not to kneel beside her, kiss her softly, and draw her into his arms. He was certain that she would come to him with little more than a sigh. Then he could drag his mouth down the luscious column of her throat, take that dress off her and give careful, thorough attention to each of her lovely breasts, lick her nipples into hard little points, then part her thighs and move lower . . .
Teeth gritted, he took a step away from her.
But in order to trigger the nightmare, he was going to have to touch her. Steeling himself against his temptation, he inched his way closer to her and knelt. Before he could make himself known, Charlotte’s eyes fluttered open and she caught sight of him. She pushed up onto her elbows, but at the same time, the dream shifted radically.
His blood went cold as Charlotte’s body morphed into a child’s and the scape faded to a ruined plain of black and gray. Ragged edges, broken stones, storm-darkened skies. Armageddon Land. It looked like a nuclear bomb had hit.
Child-Charlotte seemed to not see him in this scape. She cowered behind a stone, her face streaked with dirt and her arms and legs scraped as though she’d been running. Her tangled black hair framed wide, anxious eyes.
He stood, realization slamming into him; he’d been thrust right into her nightmare without even having to draw it out. Perhaps talking about her nightmare had triggered a reappearance. Or maybe it had been the mere sight of him—a fae.
He stepped toward her and spoke in a reassuring voice. “Charlotte.”
She looked up at him with her big hazel eyes. “Who are you?”
“My name is Kieran. I’m a friend.” Somewhere in the distance, thunder crashed through the sky followed by a streak of silver lightning.
She peered over the top of the rock. “They’re coming.”
“Who’s coming?”
She glanced at him, her fingers white on the rock she gripped. Tears streaked her cheeks. Her voice shook with emotion. “The monsters. They’re coming. They—they killed my mother and now they’re after me.”
That gave him pause. So in Charlotte’s nightmare the goblins, red ca
ps, and joint-eaters kill her mother. Gods, no wonder she had a subconscious block against the fae.
“There!” she yelled and pointed over the rock. “They’re coming!”
In the distance a shambling array of the ugliest faery-tale creatures moved toward them, shaped by the mind of a child who’d been told tale after frightening tale of their awfulness. He could hear horror movie sounds—sounds no true goblin, joint-eater, or red cap would ever make—growing louder as they approached.
Charlotte stood and stumbled backward, ready to flee. Before she could run, he grabbed her birdlike shoulders and held her steady. “Charlotte, you don’t have to run. Turn and fight them.”
“No . . . no!” She fought him, eyes wild. “I can’t.”
Fear had her in its icy grip. He had to break it. He had to convince Charlotte that she had control here. Once she learned she could change this dream to suit her will, she could stand up to the boogeymen that plagued her.
By the time he was done here, she would save her mother. Save herself. Take control. That was the way to remove the block.
The fae creatures moved closer and Charlotte ripped away from his grip. He watched her run from her dream monsters, tripping over the wasted debris of the scape as she whimpered and screamed. The problem was going to be convincing Charlotte she could stand up to her fears.
He closed his eyes, stopped the dream, and commanded it to start from the beginning.
It was going to be a long session.
CHARLOTTE woke to the scent of hot soup and murmuring voices wafting up from the living room. Blinking, she saw that twilight had fallen. She’d slept the entire day away, but it didn’t feel like she’d gotten any rest at all. Bits and pieces of the dreams she’d had filtered back to her and she realized why.
Flopping over onto her back, she recalled her nightmare—the one she’d had so many times in her life she knew every moment of it by heart. Yet this time it had been different. This time, instead of watching the monsters tear her mother apart and then come after her, she’d fought them and won. This time she’d leapt between the fae and her mom, fought them off before they could harm her, and then escaped with her into a sun-drenched landscape filled with thousands of daisies.
“Huh.”
Apparently Kieran had worked his dream wraith mojo. Now, instead of feeling sadness and dread, as she did every time she experienced that nightmare, she felt light and happy—empowered. Euphoria filled her chest instead of grief.
She needed to thank Kieran. Her lips curved into a smile. The nightmare had been eradicated, easy as pie. Or maybe it hadn’t been easy at all, considering how exhausted she felt.
Flipping back the blankets, she sought a pair of socks, then walked to the banister that overlooked the living room for the source of the murmuring voices. Risa had arrived. Her stomach did a curious little flip-flop. She was intrigued to explore her latent memories a little more, but frightened by what she might find.
Especially now that perhaps the block to her mother’s timeline had been removed.
As she made her way downstairs, the hunger rumbling through her stomach blotted out all traces of anxiety regarding Risa’s presence. It had been close to twenty-four hours since she’d last eaten.
She stopped at the foot of the stairs and locked gazes with Kieran for a moment over Risa’s head. “Thank you.”
Dark circles marked the skin under his eyes and his hair was mussed as if from sleep. He dragged a hand through it and nodded once.
Risa smiled at her. “Good to see you alive, Charlotte.”
“Me, too.”
While Kieran and Risa talked in the living room, she grabbed a bowl, filled it with hot soup simmering on the stove top, and took a slice of the yummy crusty bread that had been cut from a loaf on a board. Then she joined them, sitting down on the couch and balancing the soup bowl in her lap.
“Are you feeling better?” asked Risa. “The ball was the talk of the tower this morning.”
“As well as can be expected. Physically, I’m fine. But I’m kind of taking it personally that so many people seem to want to do me harm.”
“Well, I say we work as quickly as possible to extract the memories we need so those people won’t have reason to try anymore. What do you think?”
“Sounds good. I’m ready to go home.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to take a break today?” asked Kieran. “The dream work we did was taxing on us both.”
She shook her head. “I feel great.”
After she finished her meal, Kieran took her bowl, and Risa patted the cushion next to her with a hand that bore long, ice blue nails. She arranged herself the way Risa asked, hoping there wouldn’t be anything nasty in today’s session or that they didn’t hit another wall.
Risa gave her a kind smile. “Do you want some of the relaxing tea you drank before?”
She shook her head. “I’m fine. After Kieran’s aid with my nightmare, I’m feeling better about this process. I only ask one thing.”
“What is it?”
She chewed her lower lip, framing her request in her mind before she spoke it out loud. “If you jump into my mother’s memories and come across the one in which she dies, please fast-forward through it.”
Risa nodded. “I’ll do my best. Sometimes the emotion rolled up in the memory won’t allow me to fast-forward, but if I can, I will.”
“Thank you.”
“Okay, relax your body and let me work my magick.” Risa pressed her fingertips to Charlotte’s temple. Power crackled into her head. Memories flashed through her mind’s eye, flickering at first and then getting steadier, like an old filmstrip taking hold.
Soon the memories whirled like a roulette wheel, nauseating Charlotte. They slowed, and then stopped where they’d ended before, with Risa trying to jump the line of recollection from her to her mother. The muscles in Charlotte’s body tightened, expecting to slam into another barrier, as Risa probed for a way to cross over. Having Risa in her head was a little like being chained to a train; she had no control at all if Risa suddenly decided she wanted to speed a hundred miles an hour into a wall.
Risa slowed to a crawl at a most interesting memory—Charlotte’s birth. They hadn’t jumped the line yet, so these were still her memories—albeit memories buried far, far in the recesses of her mind, ones she couldn’t examine without magickal help. She watched in her mind’s eye with fascination the moment of her entry into this world and the look of complete elation on her mother’s face as she was placed in her arms. Tears swelled in Charlotte’s eyes. So her mother had been happy to give her life. Charlotte had always wondered.
The look on her face was not the expression of a woman who would later commit suicide when her daughter was only six. This was the expression of a loving, doting mother who wouldn’t leave her child at any cost.
In her effort to jump the line Risa replayed the memory over and over, like a video on rewind, until Charlotte wanted to break down and sob. Finally Risa must have found a crack or a bridge or something because suddenly they were in her mother’s memories and Charlotte was a bump in her mother’s stomach.
The memories were not linear here, jumping to various times during her mother’s life. They skipped from Charlotte’s third birthday, to the day her mother had met her father, to the day her mother had graduated from college. The way the memories played, it was almost as if Risa was trying to gain control of the timeline and go straight backward, but something wouldn’t let her. Charlotte could feel her irritation though the psychic link they shared.
Sometimes the memories had sound and sometimes they didn’t. Really, it was like watching a defective DVD. One of the memories that did have sound was quite interesting—when her mother told her father she was fae.
Her mother and father had been lingering over lunch in a fancy, mostly deserted restaurant. Charlotte surmised her age at the time to be something like five or six, close to the time when her mother had died. Her mother had revealed the
information about her fae blood to her father haltingly, as if she feared his reaction. From her mother’s vantage point, Charlotte watched her father’s expression go from utter shock to a flash of cold hatred to calm acceptance.
Acceptance?
Charlotte studied her father through her mother’s eyes. No, that wasn’t acceptance on his face—that was rage wearing a mask.
Before she could process any of that, they were off again with a lurch, tripping all over the memory timeline once again.
The memory trail caught on one specific event, Risa tried to move on, but it only caught again. Over and over.
Her mother and father entered the house she’d grown up in. Evening painted the sky dark beyond the windows. They were both dressed up, apparently home after having gone out. Through her mother’s eyes, Charlotte caught flashes of the blue sequined dress her mother wore as she moved around the room. Toys scattered the swank living room.
Again Risa tried to move on, and again the memory caught. Charlotte felt Risa give up and just go with it. Now the memory moved in real time.
Her mother and father paid Lisa, the babysitter, Charlotte remembered. Her mother collapsed on the couch and toed off her sparkly blue heels while her father poured a drink. They spoke cordially of the evening in low tones, but a tension hung in the air. Charlotte was only privy to what her mother saw and heard, not her emotions, but tightness lay in their communication and body language. All was not well between them.
Her father handed a short crystal glass filled with amber liquid to her mother, who set it on the coffee table, saying she’d return after checking on cricket.
Cricket?
Her mom rose and walked into a darkened room that Charlotte immediately recognized as hers during childhood. Standing over the bed, Charlotte got a good look at her child-self in the bed fast asleep. Her mother stood, taking in the scene, before she knelt, brushed Charlotte’s hair away from her forehead, and laid a tender kiss to her temple.