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“What’s so funny?” His words tickle my cheek as he dots his kisses along the curve of my bones.
“Meda’s faerie stories really seem to have gotten stuck in my head.”
He pulls away slightly. “You…think they’re stories?”
I open my eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re the sliver of me that thinks they might not be? I told Pollux directly I was worried she’s living in a dark fantasy because she only ever talks in storybook terms. I don’t know what she’s covering up with fairy tales.” My smile falls. “I don’t know what you’re making her do that is so terrible she needs to rewrite her entire life into fantasy in order to cope with it.”
Horror crashes across his expression so violently I’m impressed.
He moves his hand off me, tucks his claws against his palm. “Oh.” Thunder crashes above as storm clouds fill my blue sky. A hollow swear exits his lips.
“Mm, yep. That’s what you’d look like if I believed you capable of remorse. My brain’s being real funny tonight.” I sigh. “Maybe I’ve inhaled too much cat litter.”
“Kassandra, our first conversation passed in a blur of broken pieces and anxiety. I didn’t realize until this exact moment that you didn’t believe Meda. When you asked about my job, I panicked. I didn’t want to tell you that I scare people for a living, do what my best friend asks of me, and—for some—” He curses as he plunges his claws through his hair. “—reason—manage talk therapy sessions.” He takes a breath, levels out his emotions, and looks at me, pleading. “I am a faerie. You are my soulmate. Andromeda is precious to me, and I would never do anything to hurt her.”
An even more deranged laugh explodes out of me as I sit up, lift my hand, and throw the darkness out of my sky. A rainbow replaces it, and the eerie soundtrack that was building returns to appropriate peace. Now we’re introducing a soulmate concept to this debacle? Wow. Alrighty then. Let’s just ignore that. “I know I want to believe you wouldn’t ever hurt her, Pollux. But this is real life. Not this, specifically, of course. This is a lovely little dream where I can make bad choices and only have to worry about questioning my sanity come morning.” Leaning closer, I find his clenched hand and unravel his fingers. Dark blood streaks from where his claws pierced flesh, and the drops sizzle when they pollute my grass. “You’re a very pretty nightmare, dreamboy.” I kiss his cheek. “But I think I need to grow up again.”
With that, my mind clicks off like a light bulb, and I wake with Chai sleeping on my stomach.
Chapter 9
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I do not dream of bad fathers; I stress crochet.
Library, library, library, library, library.
Decidedly, the library. The library—OBVIOUSLY—is where I get more answers.
I can’t believe it didn’t connect yesterday when Andromeda alluded to the fact that Willow volunteers at the library and reads to kids. Well, okay, I can believe it. Because what she told me surrounding that information implied more horrors that consumed all my thoughts, and then I had dinner with her family, and then I ran away from that dinner crying, and then I dreamed about her father playing the lead in a spicy Y/N monster romance.
Today, I need to survive.
And then…then I need to go to the library. Because today at the library is the children reading hour. And Willow might be there. And I may get to talk to her about everything.
“Hey…Kass?” Zahra’s voice reminds me I need to breathe, so I toss a look up off my hook and yarn. “You okay, fam?”
My eye twitches, and I glance over the empty classroom. It’s lunch break. I can hear the sounds of non-dying children chattering in the dining room next door. I take a breath, let it out. “I am stress crocheting.”
Zahra presses her lips together. “Mmmhm…I can see that, Kass. Whatcha makin’?”
I lift the little pot. I need to stuff it. And crochet the succulents for it. And put a little “I’m totally okay and don’t dream about horrible fathers” smile on the pot. With tiny blushies. Because tiny blushing succulent pots are important for my mental health.
“Very cute,” Zahra offers.
“Not yet,” I counter.
Planting her hands on my desk, her purple-rimmed green eyes peer through my very soul.
I swallow, as though she can see what I was doing last night. She knows I can still feel a hand around my throat, and I was totally into it. She knows the heat of monster-Pollux’s skin is lingering like a summer cold. For having had a dream eater visit me, I’ve been left inundated with dreams ever since I woke up. I’ve shoved them into the corners of my mind and crushed them under the floorboards in my skull, but they keep growing from the cracks like a black mold.
I can’t stop myself from replaying the gentleness, the looks in his deeply disconcerting eyes. I can’t stop tracing every black line on his pale skin. If he shows up again, my brain has already practiced several hundred ways I want to touch him.
Which is terrible.
Because in much less fantasy shades, I will see Pollux Strakh again.
And instead of wanting to stab him for whatever he’s done, the slideshow in the back of my brain will be running a different PowerPoint.
