Page 166 of Sweet Nightmare

Jude’s eyes go wide as he watches the whole thing unfold. Once they finally settle, he murmurs, “They can’t hurt you anymore.”

“I don’t think they want to hurt me,” I counter, and I realize that I’m leaning into him. That just his presence alone is a magnet I have no desire to resist.

“Holy shit,” Luis says as he finally figures out what just happened. “You’re mated!”

“We’re mated,” I agree.

“That’s totally badass,” Mozart breathes, her eyes wide and starry. I recognize it because I feel the same way.

And though we’re in the middle of an important, save-our-asses activity, we take a second to accept congratulations anyway. Because a moment like this only happens once in a lifetime, and it deserves to be acknowledged.

Remy’s the last one to congratulate me, and when he leans in for a hug, he murmurs, “See, Kumquat? I told you you were going to be just fine.”

“You knew?” I ask, surprised.

But he just shrugs in that mysterious way he has as he steps away.

I narrow my eyes at him, wishing that I could see useful things about the future like he obviously does, instead of this bizarre past, present, and future thing I’ve got going on.

What good does it do me to have to figure out who is with me in the present day and who in the room is actually from the past or future? Like the witch making her potions over— I freeze as I realize the witch is gone.

Which isn’t a big deal, in and of itself, but so is the hotel employee putting jam on the shelves. Not to mention the teen vamp from the future who likes to use this as a make-out spot. They’re all gone.

I turn back to Jude, who smiles at me as he goes back to sorting nightmares. There’s only one of him—but there’s only ever been one of him. Not to be sappy, but I can’t help wondering if it’s because he’s my mate. He’s my past, my present, and now my future in a way that no one else is or ever will be.

He hands me several more nightmares, and I slide them up my other arm as I turn to look at Luis. And nope. He’s still got three people—baby Luis, present Luis, and a very dim future Luis. For a second, I flash back to that moment at the dorm, when I saw him bleeding out from that chest wound. But I tamp it down, block it out. Because there’s absolutely nothing I can do about that right at the moment, so I have to let it go.

“You okay?” Jude asks as he pulls two more nightmares out of the tapestry and passes them to me.

I loop them around my biceps as I answer, “Yeah. I’m actually really good.”

After the last few days—the last few years—it’s a strange feeling. But it’s a nice one.

A couple of minutes later, Jude hands me close to a dozen more nightmares—now that he’s been doing it for a while, he’s really getting the hang of it. But the faster he goes, the faster I run out of room on my body, too.

But then I remember the idea I had earlier, right before the mating bond kicked in. I don’t have a clue if it will work or not, but considering how well the nightmares are currently responding to me, I’m inclined to try.

I turn back to Jude and closely watch what he’s doing to unravel the tapestry. After I have a pretty good handle on it, I take two of the nightmares he’s given me and hang them in the air in front of me. And do my best to weave them together.

They bind to each other, but it’s not easy, and it’s definitely not pretty.

“What are you doing?” Mozart asks, getting close enough to watch but still leaving a wide gap between her and the nightmares.

“We’re running out of space. I’m trying to weave them back together—and doing a shit job of it.”

“Want some help?” Remy asks, moving close enough to actually touch the nightmares.

“I don’t know if they’ll respond to you,” I tell him.

“It’s worth a shot.” He waves a hand, and I watch in amazement as the two nightmares weave perfectly together.

“How’d you do that?” I ask, shocked. Even Jude pauses what he’s doing long enough to check out—and obviously approve of—Remy’s handiwork.

Remy shrugs. “Nightmares and dreams exist outside of time,” he explains. “So people who can exist in the spaces between time tend to be able to handle them a lot more easily than people who don’t.”

“Is that what you do? Exist in the spaces between time?”

He grins. “That’s what we do, Clementine. It’s not just me.”

---