“Still on my head despite my lack of hair. You should have heard the gasps of horror when the Council saw it. Even Yaya looked murderous.”
“Sounds like I missed a lot in these past few months. Like why you’re doing a scarecrow impression.”
Noth grimaced and I finally noticed the dark circles under his eyes, the black tinge around his lips.
“My Nightmare hasn’t had the easiest time away from you.”
“Show me.”
“I don’t think I can shift.”
My eyes rounded. “We should go somewhere private to have this conversation.”
He seemed surprised by my answer but Evie had told me many things about being a Queen that were not natural to her either. I wasn’t stupid. I started to learn how to be better at subterfuge, statecraft and negotiation like he was. It took only a second for his eyes to go shrewd.
“Easily arranged.” With smooth strength, he lifted me and himself off the floor and set me to the side.
Shadows flickered over him as his Nightmare reached for me but failed. I hated that he seemed trapped. His Nightmare beating against the bond tattooed a second heartbeat in my chest. Gathering extra blankets and pillows, a silk sheet I didn’t even know was in the cupboard, he made a cozy nest on top of my bed.
“Sorry. I’m having a hard time controlling him now that you’re here. I can undo it and we can just lay down.”
My heart thumped in my chest and I used all thepractice I had gained with Evie to say. “I love it. It looks snug but not very soundproof.”
He picked me up and set me in the middle. I settled into his Nightmare nest and I dutifully curled up. His whole body wrapped around me, the scent of cut grass and charred ruins filling the cocoon until I was dizzy with it. His hands stroked my hair like he would imprint the slide of it on his fingertips. The sharp angles of him were new, but still blanketed me in homecoming. Before I did anything about it, his lips brushed my ear.
Noth drowned me in sleep and when I came up for air, I was standing in a dark alleyway lit only by green witch light. It should have been terrifying, distorted in a way that made the cobbles not quite straight and the walls slightly tilted. Wisps and curls of shadow licked my ankles, announcing the form creeping up behind me. I didn’t turn. I wasn’t sure I would survive it when I walked in the Nightmare’s realm.
“Come get a drink with me,” Noth’s voice echoed in this place with a gravel that drifted across my skin.
His almost-Elven hand gripped mine and we headed for the unmarked blue door at the end of the alley. We ran forever, laughing, breathless, the unreality of the dream making our dance a fever that was over in a blink. I drunkenly swayed into his arms which multiplied by the second.
The feel of him opened my heart, my mouth. “I'm so glad you came for me again. I'm sorry I tipped our handafter we sent Brad packing. One mistake and I brought your people's ire upon my head and yours. I needed to get better at the Queen thing, or we were both going to be dead. I want you to understand it wasn’t easy leaving you.”
“You have a thousand chances, Pumpkin. No mistake would ever part you from me. I loved you from the moment you kicked me in the nuts, right in the middle of a battlefield.”
He bent to kiss me with all the longing of a separation ended. My hands brushed over the fuzz on his neck, the sensation running through my whole body. I could taste his lips forever, but as I pulled back and he looked at the blue door, I realized this was more than us fucking each other’s brains out.
“Is this a date?”
In all my many interactions with men, I blushed to realize I had never actually been on a date.
“Is that what you want it to be?” Noth leaned forward, ridiculously eager.
“I… I…” This? I was stumbling over this?
He smiled like he had already heard my answer and was going to tuck it in his back pocket. “This was the first place I ever tried real Dryad food.”
In the way of dreams, the door all but melted and the strangest pub I had ever seen opened before us. Shadowy figures filled the space with bright good cheer. Servants rushed by with giant trays of fantastic food and thestrains of a violin floated through the air with no one playing it. But the pub was no bigger than the alley, close and intimate, tables in single file. It was hard to be intimidated by such a secret pocket.
“How did you find this place?”
The knowledge that this was a date lapped against my mind. How could I be doing this for the first time in a dream?
“Ward did, of course, with that endless research he loves to do. When I told him nothing was better than Elvish food, he had to prove me wrong.”
“Smart.”
Noth winked at me with a few of the eyes that cropped up and melted away again.
