Iawoke laying on my stomach. My head pounded with the worst headache I’d ever had. All I wanted was to pull the covers up and cover my head to block out the cheerful light that spilled in from the huge windows in my room. What I wouldn’t give to have the stained glass from Beth’s parlor so the light would be muted, but no. I had to have the full brunt of a sunny autumn morning blazing right into my eyes the second I clawed my way out of whatever fucked up dream I was having.
I don’t even know what woke me, but I know it was loud, and my heart still raced from it. Was it from the dream, or was it real? I couldn’t tell, and I didn’t hear anything now.
And going back to sleep sounded so good that I very nearly grabbed the covers to pull over my head. But… I had never been one to be lazy and stay in bed. My stomach growled, my eyes felt like my lids were made of sandpaper. Or, was it my lids felt like my eyeballs were made of sandpaper? Either way, they fucking hurt. Ugh. And that nasty morning taste in my mouth made me want to gag.
With a grunt and a string of surly curses, I pushed up and got out of bed. No sense staying there when the sun was in full laser mode, especially when my stomach wouldn’t quit screaming at me. I almost made it to my en suite bathroom to piss and then brush my teeth when I heard what almost sounded like a baby’s wail. …Were there kids in this place? If so, I hadn’t heard a peep from any of them since I got here.
Shrugging, I went into the bathroom and did my business, took a quick shower, and went back into the bedroom to change. And as I went through my drawers, pulling out an outfit from Mr. Cipriani, I heard that small wail again.
What the fuck was going on? I wasn’t a morning person, and that noise was both annoying and tugged at something deep inside me.
I groaned, slammed my drawers shut, and went out into the hall. I heard something again. It sounded like it came from Casersis’s room, so I adjusted the towel about my hips, and careful, so I didn’t slip around from dripping water everywhere on the hardwood floor, I went down and cracked his door open.
Inside, Casersis lay in his bed, clutching at his bedclothes. His head thrashed back and forth on his pillow, his brows so deeply furrowed they looked like they might permanently fuse that way.
Unable to stand the sight of him suffering through a nightmare, I eased into the room and closed the door quietly behind me. I still felt like absolute shit, my head still pounded like John was using his jackhammer on my head instead of a block of concrete, but I couldn’t let Casersis stay in that nightmare. It wouldn’t be right, and he really was a sweet man.
I adjusted my towel again and sat on the edge of his bed, intent on shaking him awake when he let out a sad, cracked wail, and now I knew where the baby’s cry came from. It had been Casersis all along, and it shattered my heart. How long had he been in that dream? The poor bastard.
I touched his shoulder and shook him gently. “Casersis.” He didn’t wake, so I called to him a bit louder, “Cass. Wake up. It’s just a dream.”
Casersis came alive, his arms and legs flailing. He hit me a few times, but I was fast enough to block the strikes. He still wasn’t awake. Shit.
“Cass!” I shook him a little harder, and he shoved me away with a shout of, “No!”
So it wasn’t just a nightmare. Fuck, it was a full-on night terror. He couldn’t wake from it. And seeing him so vulnerable and scared tore something deep inside me, made my heart ache in a way it never had before. I had been so sure last night that I would find a way to leave, escape, and never come back. But seeing this side of Casersis—the naked terror, the terrible loneliness that I’d seen last night, the violent night terrors that could only come from trauma—I couldn’t leave him.
Seeing him like that weakened most of my resolve to leave. I just… I just couldn’t. Not yet, at least.
Sitting on the edge of the bed again, I tried something else. I stretched out on my side next to him, and the next time he stopped thrashing, I rolled onto his chest and kissed his cheek. “Hey,” I murmured. “Cass, you’re safe. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
Casersis let out a mewling sound that haunted me. Jesus, what was this guy dreaming about? What could cause him to make such broken, heart-wrenching sounds? They jerked on every protective instinct I had, and I wrapped around him like an octopus. He’d already managed to kick off all his covers, so it was rather easy. And once I had my arms and legs around him as best I could, I squeezed him tight, making sure his arms were free.
“Cass, wake up. You need to wake up now.”
The man finally stopped thrashing, but I didn’t relax. Not until I saw his eyelashes flutter. Once I saw that, I thumped my head down onto his shoulder and let out a deep sigh. “You okay now?”
Casersis craned his head to look down at me, his eyes still unfocused with sleep, and said in a voice thick and raspy from sleep and screaming, “Beauty? What are you doing in my bed?”
The confusion in his eyes was fucking adorable, and I laughed at him as I leaned up to kiss his chin. “You were having a night terror. Do you remember it?”
He shook his head and laid back with a soft groan. “No, not—” He suddenly paled and wrapped his arms around me as if he needed it to breathe. “Yes…”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Casersis gave me a frown and closed his eyes. His hands roamed my back, spreading warmth over my still-damp skin, and I relaxed into him. “Not yet, my beauty. I… I do not think I can speak of it yet.”
I would give him that. For now.
And why—and when—did Casersis start calling me his? Was I his? Part of me thrilled at that idea, but another part of me was appalled. I was—and had been since I was sixteen—my own person. Casersis was drop-dead gorgeous. Every time I looked at him, especially with his glamor off, I got a little starstruck. I’d catch myself just staring when I had the time and when I knew he wouldn’t notice. It was getting ridiculous. But damn. All I wanted to do sometimes was sit there and lick his damned cheekbones. Or suck on his full bottom lip or his tongue. Hell, I wasn’t picky.
But to call me his? …Maybe if he put a ring on me, but it was far too soon for anything like that. It was… wasn’t it? He was doing my head in. I needed to see a shrink if I already got butterflies in my stomach from the thought of him claiming me.
Fuck.
Just then, Beth cracked the door open and said, “Breakfast is ready for you both in the parlor,” and shut the door without waiting for us to respond. How did she know I was in with Casersis? Wait. Last night, he was wearing a wire. I looked around but didn’t find anything. Was Casersis’s room bugged? Really? Odd…
Casersis warmed my back with another few rubs before patting my ass. “Let’s get up and eat before it gets cold. We would rather not offend Beth if we know what is good for us.”
I agreed, and once we were both up, I followed Casersis through that super-secret door, then bolted for my room to put on a pair of pants because I wasn’t about to stick around in just a towel. Free-balling was one thing but in a towel? Nope. Just nope.
Once I got back, I sat across from Casersis and stared at the spread before me. Did this woman think I was wasting away to nothing? It was glorious, but who could eat that much food? There was some kind of artsy, cheesy scrambled eggs, sausage links, bacon, toast with three kinds of jam and whipped butter, and waffles. Jesus. I was going to gain a hundred pounds within a week if I ate like this every day.
I swallowed my pride with half a glass of orange juice and loaded my plate. No matter what my brain said, my stomach was doing a happy dance and telling me to hurry up and start shoveling. I had no choice with this much food but to obey and feed the growling, howling pit that opened up in my gut.
And damn, I’d never tasted anything that good before. The first bite of eggs was an explosion of flavor. Chives, spices I couldn’t name, parsley, cheese… I was in heaven and devoured half my plate before I came up for air. When I did, Casersis had this amused grin aimed at me, and I blushed from the roots of my hair to somewhere down near my navel. He was even more stunning when he smiled with his whole face. Shit, I could get used to seeing that every day. If he looked at me like that more often, I may not even fight him about sticking around, provided he kept his promise about letting me go out with a security detail after he magicked me up.
The keyword there was “May” because I kind of liked to rile the bastard up. It was fun, except when I drove him to tears. But damn it, I had a life before he kidnapped me, so I deserved to throw a few fits. Right? …Right.
But why did I feel like shit about it?
I sighed and turned back to my waffles and smothered them in butter and syrup. If nothing else, at least I was getting a good meal out of the deal. But when I was done, I decided that I had left Casersis to his own mind for long enough. Sure, I wouldn’t pitch a fit now, but I’d be damned if I would let him brood over that nightmare. He needed to get it out of his system, or it would most likely repeat, and I couldn’t bear to hear him let out another cracked wail like he did this morning. It would break me.
“So, you gonna tell me about your dream now?” I asked once I had swallowed the last bite of my diabetes-inducing waffles.
Casersis stiffened and darted a glance in my direction, then started pushing the remainder of his food around on his plate. He’d eaten a lot slower than me, but I admit, I’d wolfed mine down in record speed.
When he didn’t answer, I poked his ankle with my bare foot. “Come on, Cass. If you don’t talk about it, it’s more likely to repeat. Get it out of your system.”
I fully expected to get a fight out of him, but the elf’s shoulders drooped, and he hung his head, nearly dropping his waist-length hair into his half-eaten breakfast. “I dreamed of my exile,” he whispered. And those broken words stabbed me right in the gut and heart. I reached across the table, and it surprised me that he gave me his hand. He gave me a grateful smile when I squeezed.
“Want to talk about it now?”
He sighed and turned his head to stare out the window. “My son, Kennan, did not form a soulbond with this omega he wished me to welcome into the family, and I disliked his chosen mate’s character. I refused to allow their marriage until they formed a soulbond if that was possible.”
Casersis cleared his throat and set down his fork as if just remembering killed his appetite. “His feelings for Sisavel were so strong that Kennan allowed him to talk him into forcibly overtaking the throne, and soon after, they exiled me from my home realm. I chose to leave Adradis and come here rather than beg for citizenship from a neighboring realm on my homeworld. It… was less painful that way.” Tears formed in the corners of Casersis’s eyes, and he rubbed at his forehead. “This way, I got to keep my beloved sunshine.”
Flabbergasted, I stared at him for long moments. My mind went blank as I let the information sink in. My stomach twisted until I set my fork down and pushed my plate away, though I took up the rest of my orange juice just to have something solid to hold on to. When the initial shock wore off, my mind churned, and I found myself tilting my head. “The other realms don’t have sunshine?”
Casersis shook his head. “The Dividing Wars turned half the world into a Twilight, magically making it so that the sky is never fully dark, nor light. The moon never rises, nor does the sun. The Highdark lies within caverns inside the bases of mountains and below, for the most part. The Netherdark is deeper underground. Elhrovin is also built into the mountains, though high above within the peaks.” He took a deep breath. “The Summerlands is the only realm on our continent truly open to all the glory the sky has to offer.”
“Whoa…” Suddenly my past seemed pale in comparison. My parents were killed. At least they didn’t abandon me by choice. I grimaced at that thought, because honestly, neither were better or worse than the other.
Casersis squeezed my hand. “What of you, my beauty?”
I gave him my best confused-dog look. “What do you mean?” At the same time I said that, my brain screamed at him, begging him not to ask about my past. Not yet. I didn’t have night terrors, so I didn’t need to talk about it, right?
Apparently, he didn’t get the memo. “What of your past? I could find nothing before you turned sixteen. It is like Dustin Juniper did not exist before then.”
I shrugged. “He didn’t. When I was fifteen, my parents were murdered.”
Casersis let out a soft gasp and squeezed my hand harder. “I remember you saying such. Again, I am so sorry for your loss.”
Looking down, I sipped my orange juice and sagged in my seat. “There was a bank robbery five years ago.” I shifted in my seat, wishing someone could shield me from the memory, but there was no one who could. “I just remember a blur of loud noise and screams, but the robber grabbed my mom by her hair and used her as a shield. Dad tried to defend her. He got an old fashioned bullet to the face, and my mom freaked out and started beating the bastard with her umbrella. He shot her in the head before security could contain the situation and neutralize him.”
Casersis had that preternatural stillness going on again as if he didn’t breathe or blink. Then he relaxed minutely and frowned. “I remember that robbery, but their last name was Jacobson.”
I nodded and stirred my fork into the leftover syrup, trying to decide if I could stomach saying more. But Casersis told me his sob story, so it was only fair. “I went into foster care after their deaths. Had no other family. When I was sixteen, I fought for emancipation and changed my name to Dustin Jacob Juniper to keep the press away. I had it done during the court thing to get my full emancipation so I could work full-time after school and get out of that abusive family the foster system tossed me into.” I shrugged again. “I used to be Daniel Arthur Jacobson.”
Casersis stared hard at me. After a squirm-inducing moment, he asked, “Why were you living in such squalor? You had no inheritance? They left you with nothing?”
Oh, they left me with shit, all right. I licked my fork clean and set it on my napkin. “They had life insurance, but that went to pay for their funerals, burial plot, debt, and other shit. I have a life insurance policy they had through some baby company that turns into a trust fund kind of thing, but I can’t tap that until I go to college or turn twenty-one.” I took a page out of his book and stared out the window so I couldn’t see the pain in his eyes anymore. “It isn’t much. They also left me with a bank account they started for me when I was six, but the bank won’t let me touch that until I’m twenty-one, either. Sure, it’s not that far away, but there are other stipulations, like the fact I have to show proof that I’m enrolled in college.”
The elf sighed and started petting my wrist with one of his fingers. “You have had to be so strong. I wish I could have been there to help you. I wish I would have followed that story more closely.”
I gave him a small smile. “You can’t save everyone, Cass.”
He whispered, “I know.”
