The Book of Dreams Forgotten: (A Broken Creatures Novel, Book 2)

by A L Hart

  It was one thing to fall for a dark, seductive woman.

  It was another to fall for a dark, psychopathic demon.

  I wasn’t fooled into thinking Jera was the lazy, always-starving, and perpetually obnoxious woman those around her perceived her as. I knew better. I knew beneath the layer of beauty was the claws and teeth, and beneath that, a being with morals she could count on one hand, one finger. She may have considered me (and by extension Danny) loosely a part of the few people she would show a conscious to. But that was it. We were but things she cared for because she had to.

  I didn’t want to be a responsibility any more than I wanted to freely give myself over to something so . . . debased in nature.

  There was nothing debased about the way she finally sat up and yawned while stretching, the pale scape of her flat belly peeking from beneath her black night clothes.

  “We have thirty minutes until Natalie arrives. We’ve already showered and dressed. Bathroom’s all yours.”

  As she mumbled something, Danny came into the room, wiping his nose with a plush maroon handkerchief I was pretty sure Vincent—a vampire from a past case—had given him. In his other hand was the mail. “Bills, boss.”

  Oh right. I’d only checked the mail a handful of times to see if there were any letters from after hour patients, but after the fourth day of stereo static, I’d all but foregone the chore. In which Danny and Tathri adopted. The dog halted at the boy’s side, watching me with one icy blue and one cool gray eye, tongue hanging out the side as he panted.

  “Thanks,” I said, taking them up.

  Eyes squinted, freckles dashed across his cheeks, he added, “The big lady’s back, too.”

  The big lady?—Oh, the faery.

  Niv, prone to bouts of memory lapses and forgetfulness, showed up every other day, at any time of day. Unlike most humans and immortals, a door and doorbell meant nothing to a being that could clap twice and appear on the other side. Jera had been adamant in that we put up a ward against her, saying it would only require a little elf blood and a druid for hire.

  “As much as I would love to dabble in the black arts,” I’d told her with as much sarcasm I could pack in, “Niv is harmless.”

  Even if, at times, she was somewhere between six feet and eight feet tall. Even if, at one point, she’d almost wiped our memories away like spilled juice.

  After encountering the eerie faery, it became clear the female was mostly confused half the time, often forgetting why she came, where she’d come from and more often than not, who we were. But I’d promised her this place would always be open to her and whenever she wanted a coffee, it was on the house.

  While I was certain she’d forgotten this promise, the faery for some reason always showed up here like a wandering, lost spirit.

  And truly, I didn’t mind. When not starting stuff with Jera, Niv was good company.

  Downstairs at the bar, she and Ophelia were in deep conversation about some place called Skashora.

  “Mountains one hundred thousand meters high,” Niv was saying. “You can barely tell it is a mountain at all. The snow falls iridescent, but it’s not cold like one might think. It’s warm, soft like silk and when it touches you, slowly you drift into the sweetest slumber, until the sun returns from behind their glacial tips and the village awakes. To be there is to brush the gates of paradise.” Blazing green eyes turned sharply, her thrill at my presence so electric it was almost off-putting. “Oh, Pete! I was just telling Olisa here about my current project.”

  We’d all but grown used to having new names when it came to her, but she at least got the first letter right. “Oh? Skashora?” I asked, shuffling through the shop’s bills and making mental financing notes.

  “Skashora is a beautiful landscape painting I created,” she explained. Fiery red hair with streaks of silver threads fell in waves down her shoulders over a black windbreaker, leather pants fitted to a thin frame. “I find it might suit this considerably drab shop well. Why don’t I bring it by?”

  Niv sold her paintings for anything from ten grand to a hundred grand. While I was the last person with an eye for art, I did know beauty when I saw it, and her pieces were breathtaking. Ten grand breathtaking? Maybe not with my bank account.

  “Free,” she added.

  Somehow, that was worse, but the sudden challenging glint in her eyes had my shoulders deflating. “Fine, fine. I would love to have it here.” Only because she was prone to forget.

  “Magnificent choice. I shall retrieve it this instance—”

  “Tomorrow,” I insisted. “We have plans this morning.”

  At that moment, Jera came moping down the stairs, straight for the pastry compartment, where she supplemented her nutritional needs with sugar enough to put any human into a coma. There were times I envied them. Immortals. From their invincibility to human faults to the fact I was sure Jera showered, brushed and clothed herself in as little as three minutes whereas it’d taken me twenty.

  “What kind of plans?” Niv asked.

  The doorbell went off, Natalie standing on the other side.

  I sighed. “Those kinds of plans.”

  *****

  “Couldn’t we have done this, I don’t know, sometime warmer? Like in the spring?” I asked miserably.

  Jera sagged forward onto the one bench in the dojo. “Or never.”

  We were in Wabaunsee, in a small building along a semi-busy venue of clothing shops. Across the street was a Walmart Supercenter and video store, the highway hung over the mainstreet. I’d never seen a dojo or anything similar outside of the gym I was a VIP member of yet never attended. The place was surprisingly empty. Hollowed, carrying echos from one side of the matted blue walls to the wall made of mirrors reflecting our miserable faces. The floor space was open, what looked like boxing equipment lined in one corner, punching bags in the other. Interesting sparring equipment was nestled in large crates off to the back.

  As expected, Ophelia was the only one of us genuinely stoked to attend the lessons—even if she dressed as though we were going to a ski lodge. We’d just recently gone out shopping and of all the winter apparel options at the woman’s disposal, she’d gone with the cotton candy colored ear mittens, black and pink actual mittens with Mickey Mouse imprinted on the back, matching the hat pulled down low over her horns, furry black mouse ears bobbed on each side of it.

  Meanwhile, Jera and I dressed to the tone of our reluctance. Black jacket, black joggers, black mittens, black hat. Black, gloomy regard of it all.

  That was until Natalie offered Jera one of her protein bars and now I was left to the gloom with Danny.

  A look of pure doom and gloom shadowed his features. However, that was no surprise. The kid had been latched to my hip ever since the incident with his brother, which was concerning in and of itself. I didn’t have the heart to nurture the unhealthy coping mechanism out of him. Yet.

  “Alright, strip down,” Natalie started.

  “Didn’t know this was that kind of training,” was Jera’s predictable response while she devoured the protein bar.

  I aimed a glare at her. “Remember what I told you.”

  She bulked, shooting me a flagrant glare of her own, until my scowl deepened. “Very well.” The one thing I asked of them while they were here was that they refrained from expressing their full strength and ability. These lessons were to appease Natalie, not disable her.

  The twins removed their jackets, scarfs and gloves, Danny and I following, until we all stood in our base clothes.

  Natalie’s eyes roamed over the twins’ horns once, but she said nothing.

  I wondered what theories she had on the things, seeing as I had assumed they were cosmetics, having gone as far as to even yank one of them none too gently. Luckily, Natalie never asked.

  “First order of business is simply understanding. Can any of you tell me what krav maga is?”

  “A form of martial arts,” Ophelia offered.

  Natalie smiled. “Exac
tly. Now drop and give me ten push-ups for speaking out if turn.”

  We all blinked ignorantly. I was sure Danny and I blinked out of surprise while Jera and Lia blinked more so out of ignorance as to what a push-up was.

  Confirmed when Lia asked, “A push-up?”

  “Peter, demonstrate,” Natalie ordered.

  Ordered. Her voice was clipped, lined with no nonsense as though to say my old friend Natalie had checked out for the next hour. It was going to be a long three months.

  With a sigh, I lowered myself down, arms out, palms flat on the gray mat that was the floor and feet a foot apart. I went down once, then back up, then down, then up.

  “Good, stand.”

  I did.

  Jera was tongue-in-cheek, holding back a laugh like she was five years old and Lia was on the verge of tears at having to be punished for answering a question.

  “Now, like I said, ten,” Natalie said, unphased by the threatening crocodile tears. What bit was that she didn’t believe in “girl-push ups”.

  But what Natalie didn’t know was that—

  The twins dropped into position and completed the push-ups before Danny and I could even get in formation. Natalie stared, mouth dropped.

  Shaking my head, I looked to Danny and told him, “It’s alright if you don’t finish them. It’s a work in progress.”

  “I can finish them, boss,” he said, refusing to call me by my name, no matter how many times I told him it was alright if he did.

  I did my push-ups in time with him, waiting and pacing myself to his struggle towards the end until we were coming to our feet. When we did, Natalie held a hair tie out towards me.

  “Bring your own next time to keep all of that out of the way.” She gestured at the unruly brown curls that’d taken over my head, stopping just past my shoulders.

  “Sorry,” I muttered, leaving out the complaint that even when I cut it, a week later, it was right back there. That wasn’t the sole bizarre alteration in my appearance—that I’d noticed, anyway. There was the black dot on the nape of my neck I was monitoring obsessively. Not being able to go to the hospital to have it monitored for skin cancer was but one more hindrance caused by HB and their henchmen deployed inconspicuously. Then there were my irises, things that, by all accounts, should never change. Except, they had. When looking in the mirror, I still had my same nose, fair cheekbones, squarish jawline, but when I peered closer, I could see the bent and twisted contortion of the irises. As though trying to stretch into shapes, symbols.

  “Don’t sweat it.” Natalie stepped back and looked to us all. “Outside of the dojo, I’m your friend. Inside, I’m your teacher. You are to respect the art of krav maga by respecting me. Speak only when spoken to and reply only when called upon.”

  Jera cleared her throat, lips pressed together a little too tightly.

  Natalie’s brown eyes narrowed to bemusement as she continued. “However, Ophelia, as I said, you were absolutely right. Krav maga is a martial art, but to elaborate, it is a contact form of combat, honed as a primary means of self-defense. What you learn in here will hopefully help you out there.” She nodded her head to the dark, early morning.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Lia said, at which point I was sucking my cheek as tightly as Jera to keep from laughing.

  It wasn’t in disrespect. Just . . . I’d only ever seen Nat ambling about the coffee shop, or dancing at the club. The closest I’d ever come to this authoritative part of her was when she was going hard at the gym while I slacked off with the ten pound weights or when she was literally body slamming some grown man at the club while drunks cheered her on like it was WWE.

  “Oh, I get it, the two of you find me amusing,” she said, looking to Jera and I both. She had that look on her face, the one she usually gave the previously mentioned men right before she went in for the KO.

  I saw it, understood it, and wiped the smirk from my face.

  Jera didn’t.

  “Alright,” Natalie said, serenity placating her features. “Ten push-ups.”

  Skeptical of her angle, I got into position just as Jera did.

  The moment we went down, Natalie said, “Stay.”

  And there the angle was.

  We both froze in our down formation.

  Natalie came and squatted in front of us then, but it was Jera whose face she leaned in close to and said, “Lower.”

  I felt Jera’s surge of heat rise, not physically, but through the bond. Authority plus Jera equaled disaster in one form or another.

  Never a good thing. “Jera,” was all I said, nose just about touching the mat, a slight strain beginning in my upper arms.

  Gray slates flicked my way, registered the warning, then let out a growl rumbled from her. She went lower, nose nearly touching the floor just like mine.

  Natalie rose and stepped back. “I don’t know what it was the three of you got yourselves into last week, but I do know Peter was hurt as a result of it. My reason for having you all participate in this class was not solely to be my first students—I already have a line of them. I signed you all up first because it’s clear to see something’s going on. Something dangerous. I’m not one to put my nose in business it doesn’t belong, but this man here,” I grunted when the tip of her foot pressed down on my shoulder. “Means something to me and I’m guessing to the three of you as well. I won’t have a repeat of him returning beat up and unconscious. I won’t have any of you returning in that state. So you all are here to learn to protect yourselves, not joke around and get a few laughs. Understood?”

  “Crystal,” I breathed, arms trembling.

  Beside me, Jera was silent, but even her face was becoming more red by the second, her curls tied back, but the shorter fringes hung down. A sheen of sweat gleaned her temple. She stared at the floor hard, her posture admirable, but her breathing . . .

  It exited in ragged jets, uneven heaves.

  I guess even succubi got tired, or—

  Her knees gave out then, her hand clamping over her mouth as hyperventilating breaths went into it.

  “Jera, what’s wrong?” Lia asked, kneeling beside her in a blur.

  Jera shook her head, eyes peering through black inklets of hair, all the red in her cheeks draining and draining, until her complexion dipped below the cream shade she was wont.

  And then she was sprinting for the bathroom.

  Lia leapt to her feet, took one step forward as though to follow, then stopped, fists clenching at her side, eyes cast down. “I . . . you go.” She looked my way.

  Me?

  Oh, me. Because the problem revolved around me.

  “No one mentioned asthma on the forms,” Natalie said. “Should I call an ambulance?”

  I shook my head. No medicine in the world could act as a cure for the attack she was having.

  I doubted even I could.

  *****

  She was huddled over the sink towards the back of the women’s restroom, breathing hard into it, black brows creased together. This time, the heat she emitted, it was wholly external, the bathroom tepid, the mirrors all fogged, a sauna in the making.

  Against the white walls, the black sweatsuit and curls did little to strip the coils of fury clinging to her person. Erecting a wall, distancing. Inside of her, ribbons of crimson dark energy were gnarling in on themselves, swarming into one angry, starved ball. Sickness. Need.

  The sensation floored me, left me rooted on the opposite end of the restroom as the door closed behind me.

  “Leave,” Jera grated, the word strong enough to vibrate my resolve, my concern.

  “Jera, you can’t just ignore the problem and hope it goes away.”

  “Peter, now is not the time.”

  “Then when is? When you’re dead?”

  More low growls, then—

  That floral, violet flora scent crept throughout the space between us, overpowering the Airwick air freshener. I shivered, never growing used to the aroma the creatures released when in need. An aroma only
I could smell, only I would quake beneath.

  I plastered my tongue to the roof of my mouth as it began to water. Then, swallowing heavily, I asked her, “Then what do you propose? What solution do you have?”

  “Stop,” she commanded, gaze of granite darting my way when I took a step forward.

  I continued.

  When I’d first accidentally bonded us, she’d promised to rain havoc over my life, but since Thanksgiving, when we’d both been sure the faery was going to erase my memories, she’d spoken to me with her heart laid bare. There’d been fire raging from it, genuine concern—even if circumstantial—but since Niv left my mind intact, Jera had acted as if the moment had never happened. I wasn’t going to pry the reason out of her, but the total shutdown wasn’t an option for her. She could deny the feelings all she wanted, but the action we had to commit?

  She didn’t want to have this discussion at the shop; she didn’t want to have the discussion outside of the shop. So when? Was I supposed to sit back and wait until the end?

  “I mean it, Peter,” she whispered darkly as I drew closer.

  But at her tone, I complied.

  I didn’t get it. We were both fully aware of the dynamic we shared. Neither of us mistakened this for love, but because of a past decision, this was the only way for her to persist. It wasn’t like I would ever hurt her, something that I’d have thought I’d proven by now. I told her this.

  “It’s not that simple,” she quipped, her breathing still harsh, temples still perspired.

  “You need it, I’m available. Doesn’t get more simple than that.”

  “I—” She bit back her words, arms quivering slightly. From this proximity, I could see her eyes were dilated, blown up into black holes of . . . fear?

  A feral fear.

  A wild animal cornered, defenseless.

  Which didn’t make any sense. I knew her to possess strength enough to crush me, so I couldn’t have been the threat. But if not me, then what? Sex?

  A light came on in my head, shining over a critical element I’d missed in all of this: the fear of sex. The last thing one would expect from a creature whose bane was sex was for them to fear it, but there was one factor I’d overlooked, one that completely justified and explained the fear.