"I've had these nightmares for a while," Corin admitted as he slipped beneath the blankets. "About drowning. They get... messy. My emotions leak out and affect things around me."
Jamie settled beside him, not touching but close enough that Corin could feel his warmth. "Is that why Azelon mentioned 'assistance'?"
Corin nodded, surprising himself with his honesty. "He's immune to the worst of my projections. He usually sits with me when it gets bad."
"But not tonight?"
"We had a disagreement," Corin said, the understatement so obvious it almost made him laugh.
Jamie made a noncommittal sound. "Well, I'm not immune to emotional projection, but I'm a pretty heavy sleeper. So project away."
The casual acceptance was so unexpected that Corin found himself blinking back tears. He turned onto his side, facing away from Jamie to hide his expression.
"Fair warning, I'm a cuddler," he said, trying to recapture his flirtatious tone and failing miserably.
"I'll survive," Jamie replied, his voice warm with amusement.
They lay in silence for a while, Corin tense and waiting for the nightmare to return. Gradually, though, the quiet rhythm of Jamie's breathing and the gentle weight of his presence began to ease the tightness in Corin's chest.
"He saved me once," Corin found himself saying into the darkness. "Azelon. When my powers went out of control andtrapped a bunch of people in a drowning dreamscape. He was the only one who could reach me. He pulled me out of it."
Jamie didn't immediately respond, and Corin feared he'd already fallen asleep. Then a warm hand settled between his shoulder blades, solid and grounding.
"Get some rest," Jamie said softly. "We'll figure everything else out tomorrow."
Corin closed his eyes, surprised to find that the darkness behind his eyelids no longer teemed with rising water. The store hummed around them, warm and dry.
And safe.
Chapter
Three
Jamie woke to unfamiliar weight against his side. He blinked at the ceiling, disoriented by the soft glow filtering through the windows. The events of yesterday crashed back—his bookstore in another world, magical creatures, and the emotional storm that had driven one of those creatures into his bed.
Corin lay curled against him, one arm flung across Jamie's chest, his breathing deep and even. In sleep, the fae's face lost its manic edge, the constant performance of flirtation stripped away to reveal something more vulnerable. Fine lines etched the corners of his eyes. Marks of worry rather than age.
Jamie carefully extracted himself, surprised at his own calm. Only a few days ago, he'd been living a perfectly normal life. Now he was sharing a bed with a beautiful fae while his bookstore created rooms all by itself. Yet panic remained oddly distant, replaced by a practical focus.
First things first: food.
The kitchen greeted him with warm light and the smell of fresh coffee. Cabinets that usually held little aside from emergency ramen now contained flour, sugar, eggs, and other staples.
"Showing off?" Jamie asked the room at large.
A light fixture brightened in response.
"Right," Jamie muttered, pulling out ingredients. "I guess talking to my sentient bookstore is a thing I do now."
He channeled his unease into cooking. Everybody had to eat, right? That was an immediate need he could take care of.
By the time footsteps approached, he'd produced a stack of pancakes, the normality of the act grounding him in the abnormal situation.
Azelon paused in the doorway, his luminescent markings bright and glowing underneath his blue skin.
Jamie had to stop himself from staring at those markings—or that tail.
The Tideborn was an interesting sight for sure. Muscular too. Jamie could tell by looking at his arms. That was a man with a strong grip.
