Page 3 of Nightmare's Flight

“Take the men, princess. Take the shadows. Go, before it is too late.” The creature hissed at me, clearly unhappy, and I could imagine under other circumstances it would be chasing me down, pinning me to the ground with those dagger hands, and feeding me to the corn.

Though we’d ended up in the corn because I’d overdone my use of shadow powers, I’d apparently been here long enough to recover. I touched Dio and Geraint, gathered the shadows around me, and pulled.

The effort was almost too much, as if something resisted my powers. Finally, the power that opposed me gave way in an almost audible snap, and we shot through the shadows nearly faster than I could control. I sensed our destination and desperately grabbed for some sort of anchor to pull us out of our headlong rush. I latched onto my connection with Nic. He may have even sensed me and reached out, for I crashed into his arms and his own control over his powers saved me, Dio, and Geraint from broken bones, or worse.

“Ember!” someone exclaimed, while Nic simply crushed me to his chest.

My head pounded, my world spun, and my stomach threatened to rebel, but I couldn’t have been happier in that moment. I curled into my shadow prince’s arms and let him hold me. For a minute or two, I could pretend that the entire weight of the dream realms wasn’t on my shoulders and that Nic would take care of me. Usually that was Geraint’s role as my knight and my longtime lover, but I’d accepted Nic into my life and he also did an excellent job making me feel safe.

“What happened?” he asked once I’d recovered enough that him helping me to my feet didn’t make me retch. I wasn’t sure where we were. Some sort of receiving room? A big hallway? Fantastic tapestries lined the walls, and the iridescent marble floors let me know I was in Dream Palace, the fantastic dream castle that the nightmare queen and the dream king ruled the Unconscious Realms.

Ash stood back, her tattooed, muscular arms crossed over her chest. My cousin was now dreambound, having been forced into Dream to escape death at the hands of a couple of clowns that were trying to capture Dio, my primal prince, and his essence. Our friend Casey, a performer friend of mine who’d been caught up in the chaos, was also now dreambound—never again able to set foot in the Conscious Realms. The only reason I could cross over was because I was the Nightmare Princess.

Geraint sat hunched over, clutching his head, and Dio, still in cat form, groaned in a way that would have had me calling the vet if he’d actually been feline.

“We went back to Nightmare. Everything was okay until a nothingness storm chased us into the corn.”

Nic went rigid. “How did you escape?”

“The corn took something from each of us then let us go. The good of the realm depends on it, after all.” I said the last a touch bitterly.

Nic inhaled deeply and crushed me against him, again. “I don’t know how many times I can almost lose you before I give in to my desire to lock you away where you will be safe.”

I snorted. “Not sure anywhere is safe right now.”

“True.”

Nic pushed me back a touch so he could look at me. He brushed my tangled hair back and stared into my eyes.

“You and Dio worked things out?”

“Oh, uh, yeah.” I blushed as I realized I hadn’t told him the rest. Compared to the corn, the rest, while vitally important, had seemed insignificant enough that I’d forgotten about it. Only momentarily, though.

The surge of fear and rage as I’d come upon Dio standing over a fallen Geraint. The energy it had taken to push essence into Geraint and heal him. A different kind of fear when he’d told me what had actually happened and all the uncertainty I’d felt as I’d gone after my primal prince.

I told Nic all of this, including that the woman was a dreambound—a mortal who had somehow ended up in Dream and could never leave—and had worked on her scheme to destroy Dream and Nightmare in the hopes that she could return to the Conscious Realm.

“A dreambound mortal is behind all of this?” Nic stared at the ground, frowning while he thought.

“Yeah. So, anyway, Geraint and Dio are okay now, and Dio and I… uh…” I ran my hand through my tangles and shrugged. “Well, I think we’ve worked things out, too.” Telling Nic I’d had sex with his brother just felt weird, even though that was what everyone expected and even hoped for. Being with three men, and hopefully, eventually four, was the end goal but still felt strange.

Nic smiled. “Good.”

I knew being the princess of Nightmare would involve more than hot sex with four men, but the first thing we had to do was complete our bonds so we could strengthen the realm against attack. Of course, Baz was still unconscious from having his essence ripped out of him and we needed to fix that right away. And then I had to get over what not-Baz, the changeling that had taken his place and was helping to destroy Nightmare, had done to me when he was trying to figure out if I was the princess they were looking for. Of course, the real Baz also had to be interested for this to work. I’d never force something like this on anyone.

I turned away, putting my hand on Geraint’s shoulder. “You okay?”

He slid his hand over mine. “Yes, spark. I’m okay.”

His soft Irish lilt rolled over me, and I wrapped my arms around him before going over to Dio and dropping to my knees. He remained in his winged panther form, and I ran my hand over the soft, thick black fur.

“Dio?”

He rumbled out a purr before folding his wings against his back and beginning his shift back to his human shape.

Nic’s pleased expression turned serious again. “Wait, did you find Baz’s essence?”

“I must still be addled by the shadows. Yes!”

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