Dying Dreams (Book 1 of Dying Dreams Trilogy) (33 page)

He didn’t see or hear Fulsom until the troll’s arms were wrapping around Liza. Sloane panicked and pulled her closer, almost pitching backward.

“Shit, Rice,” Fulsom’s voice finally registered. “You don’t look so good. Let me take her.”

Sloane wouldn’t let go. He’d come so close to losing her and panic whirred through his exhausted system at the idea of letting her go and never seeing her again. Could he really trust Fulsom wouldn’t turn her over to SPA? He knew his concern, after everything Fulsom had risked to help him, was unfounded, but some primal instinct took over the rational side of his brain and made him desperate to hold onto her.

“Here, Kindred, I got this,” Sloane heard the redcap say, right before a brick wall hit him in the face and everything went black.

*LIZA*

Liza rolled over to see Sloane lying next to her in bed. His eyes were closed, an overhead fan blowing his hair gently back and forth across his forehead. He looked so peaceful and she wondered how he could stand to be in the same bed with her after what she’d done. She stretched out her arm to touch him, but pulled back. She couldn’t touch, couldn’t let herself feel, because everything hurt too much and was clouded by death. She watched the rise and fall of Sloane’s chest to make sure he was still breathing, then rolled away. She faced the blank, cream-colored wall in a room she didn’t recognize and slipped back down inside herself, where pain and fear and loneliness couldn’t touch her, where the visions couldn’t reach her.

*SLOANE*

Sloane woke with a start and sat up in bed. He needed to hold onto Liza. Someone was taking her from him. The whir of the fan and the stuffy air clued him in to a change in his surroundings. He let go of his panic when he saw Liza next to him. The room was neat, but shabby, the blanket under him thin and scratchy. Liza faced the wall, her breathing even and he didn’t want to wake her, so he eased out of bed and put his feet on the cold, linoleum floor gently. He walked out into a living room with a well-worn, green couch, and two big, scary looking dogs stretched out liked they owned it. Curtis, seated in a rocking chair in the center of the room, sipped an iced tea and watched Sloane as he crossed the room.

“You try talking to the girl?” Curtis asked.

Sloane shook his head. “She’s asleep.”

“No, she ain’t. Go try and talk to her, see if you can get through. We can’t leave her there too long or we might lose her.”

Sloane’s heart stuttered and he went back to the bedroom without asking any more questions. He sat down next to Liza and touched her shoulder. She flinched and pulled away and his stomach twisted. Why did she keep pulling away from him? Was it so awful to be bonded to him? “Liza, sweetie, are you awake?”

She didn’t move, didn’t make any indication of hearing him.

“Whenever you’re ready, I’m here. I need you, Liza. I’m not angry that you shot me, okay. I know you didn’t have any choice. I just want you back and healthy. I won’t even push you about the bond any more, I just want you to come back from wherever you’ve gone and tell me to fuck off yourself, okay?”

He reached for her again and placed a hand on her back. She didn’t pull away and he left his hand there. Just touching her, just being near her wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to hold her and talk to her and know that she would be okay, but for the moment, touching her would have to be enough. “I’m going to give you one more day, Liza, then I’m coming in there after you. I’m not going to walk away, no matter what.”

A tear slipped from Liza’s eye and slid down her face and over her nose. Sloane took it as a sign she heard him and he kept talking. “I’m scared for you. I know it’s hard, and I can only imagine the pain and… I’m not sure I would have survived what you went through, but you did. You’re so strong, I know you can come back. You need to come back and make Arty pay for what he did to you.”

Sloane felt a muscle flex in Liza’s back. “Liza, I know our bond is overwhelming to you. It’s overwhelming to me, but I don’t regret it, not for one moment. You are the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. I’m lucky to be bonded to you and I want you to come back so I can get to know you better, because I’m sure I’m only going to like you more the more I get to know you. Don’t deprive me of that opportunity, baby.”

Sloane stayed with Liza and talked to her until her breathing changed and he knew sleep had overtaken her. His stomach rumbled with hunger, and he left her and went to the living room, to find Curtis in the same spot, with what appeared to be the same glass of tea in his hand.

Curtis stood. “Come on, I’ll buy you lunch,” he said.

“I can’t leave her here alone.”

“She ain’t alone. Got the dogs here watching over her.”

Sloane eyed the dogs and looked at Curtis, eyebrows high.

Curtis smiled. “They’re hellhounds, son. She’ll be well looked after.” Curtis studied the dogs for a moment. “Lazarus, go on and lay down with the girl.” The larger dog, a russet brown, with a spiky brindle and the biggest teeth Sloane had ever seen, stepped daintily off the couch and leapt onto the bed next to Liza in one bound. He landed without a sound or a bounce and snuggled up against Liza’s back. Liza didn’t move and Sloane did feel an odd sort of comfort that the dog was with her.

“I appreciate them watching over her, but I don’t want to leave her.”

“You need to eat and I got nothing here for you. Besides, I want to talk to you and I don’t want her to overhear. She’s got enough on her mind.”

Sloane couldn’t argue with Curtis’s logic, even if every instinct he had told him to stay by Liza. “Okay, as long as we aren’t gone long.”

Curtis nodded and led the way to the front door, his movements those of a man younger than he appeared to be.

“What time is it, anyway?” Sloane asked as he stepped outside with Curtis and blinked in the bright, hot sun. “How long have I been out?”

“It’s ten in the morning. You’ve been out about twelve hours.”

Sloane remembered the brick wall. “What did the redcap hit me with?”

Curtis smiled at him and walked on, leaving Sloane to follow. “His fist,” he said over his shoulder.

Sloane whistled. “He packs a hell of a punch.”

Curtis didn’t say another word until the two of them were seated in the diner. “Redcaps are fun-loving mischief makers, and their favorite form of mischief is violence and destruction. They are well-built for it, and I expect you to keep that information to yourself.”

Sloane nodded. “After what we did, yesterday, I doubt I’ll have anyone to tell.”

Curtis studied him and nodded to himself, just as the waitress strode up and took their orders. “You might be in more trouble than you think,” he said, as soon as the waitress walked away.

Sloane’s heart sank. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t survive more trouble than he already had. “What else is there?”

“There’s no doubt Arty abused Liza and her ability, he nearly killed her, but there’s a good chance she owed him a favor.”

Sloane groaned. “No, no, no. If she did then…” He knew Liza had been helped by Arty and, if she’d thanked him or agreed to owe him anything, he could claim his kidnapping of her and use of her abilities was her carrying out that favor. In that case, Sloane would be in the wrong for attacking Arty’s house and killing his people. “What does that mean for us?”

Curtis shrugged. “You went in not knowing about the favor and you rescued your bonded mate from her kidnapper, no one would fault you for that. But you killed Arty’s people and he could legitimately demand recompense.”

“What kind of recompense? Can he take her back?”

“No one’s going to take your mate from you, but he’d be in his rights to ask for a blood payment or a favor, most likely he’ll ask for money.”

Sloane shook his head and rubbed his temples. “What if he tries to take her away again?”

“If he does, it will be within your rights to kill him. He could try to claim that she hasn’t fulfilled her debt to him, but I don’t think he’ll get any support for that claim.”

Their food arrived and they ate in silence. Liza had told him how good the food was, and it smelled and looked delicious, but he tasted nothing. He had to protect himself and Liza from SPA, Arty, and anyone else who might find her ability valuable, and he had to find a way to bring her back to herself. A ball of panic started to build in his chest and he thought, at first, that he might be having a heart attack. He never panicked. Extreme emotion just wasn’t his thing, but he couldn’t breathe past the panic threatening to engulf him. “We have to go back. We can’t leave her alone. What if—”

Curtis place a gnarled hand over his, and he felt calm wash through him. “She’s fine. The dogs would let me know if she wasn’t.”

Sloane nodded. “Have you gotten any further figuring out who Arty is working for and what he wants?”

Curtis leaned back in his seat and sighed. “I looked into this righ carraig you say Arty is searching for and I came up empty. There was no rock in Fairy that fueled any sort of technology or power grid. I’d never heard of such a thing, but I’d never had any reason to learn how or why the lights stayed lit at night. I was a prince and a warrior and incurious about such things. It was a failing of my youth. I talked to those with more knowledge than I have, and none of them had heard of such a rock, but they claimed Fairy was full of another kind of rock. They said the rock impeded technology, and that it was the rock and not tradition that prevented us from having technology in Fairy.”

“And you think that’s the rock he wants to find? He actually wants to limit technology here?”

Curtis nodded. “Or end it all together. I don’t know what Arty is after, but it’s clear Arty loves money and power and I’ve heard talk… Some are afraid that humans will revert to their old ways and destroy this earth as Fairy was destroyed. We have already seen this beginning to happen, airplanes are flying again, and more cars are being built. Perhaps fear of increased damage to earth and to fairy is what drives Arty, but I wonder if he does not believe fae would have more power here if we didn’t have to compete with technology.”

“Magic would certainly have greater currency if humans had no other way to light their homes or travel or–”

“Or live the way they’re accustomed. One who held the reins of such power, who could control who got technology or magic and who didn’t, would be exceedingly powerful.”

Sloane could picture it. Arty using the rocks as he saw fit and charging people for the luxuries they desired. He could get very rich, if he placed the rocks so that no one understood what they really did, so no one else could control them. “You think he wants to help the fae to live as they used to?”

Curtis shrugged. “He doesn’t seem the sort to concern himself with the well-being of others, but you can’t be a king without subjects.”

“Well, Arty isn’t the king I’d choose,” Sloane said. He remembered what Liza had told him about Curtis, that he’d been a king in Fairy and had ruled for hundreds of years. “And what do you want?”

Curtis smiled. “I’m not opposed to a world in which technology is limited and the fae regain their proper place and status. But I do not want Arty to rule, either.” Curtis took a long swallow of iced tea and stood. “I think we need to focus first on healing your mate.”

That was enough for Sloane. He stood and started back to the house, dropping money on the table as he went. Curtis chuckled and followed him out.

The dog had curled himself around Liza and she still slept in its warm, furry embrace. Sloane ached for her and wished she’d let him curl up with her like that.

“You should,” Curtis said stepping up behind him. “Your touch will help her heal. Just don’t let her push you away.” He snapped his fingers and the dog leapt from the bed and walked out of the room, head high, without a glance at Sloane.

Sloane climbed onto the bed and curled himself around Liza, as the dog had. He felt her tense and push back against him, but Curtis said he could help her and he wouldn’t be pushed away. He relaxed his grip a bit and nuzzled his face in her hair, breathing in the smell of her shampoo and sweat and the human, musky odor that was only her, and she relaxed and remained asleep. He couldn’t sleep, so he held her and let that be enough. Enough that he’d gotten her back.

Eventually, he started to get a little bored. He needed to do something, but he didn’t want to leave her, didn’t want to let her go. So he got out of bed long enough to ask Curtis if he had any way to watch TV. Curtis wheeled in an old tablet computer and plugged it into his solar outlet. Curtis had a solar panel on his roof and it looked like it’d been repurposed, but the man didn’t ask Sloane to limit his usage or warn him about the need to conserve power.

Sloane managed to arrange the laptop between them and searched the internet until he found what he was looking for, a program from fifty years ago about remodeling homes. Sloane didn’t watch much TV, but he loved those shows. To see the way people used to live, the space they found it necessary to have, and the way they used electricity like the supply would always be unending. Sloane remembered what it had been like to live in that time, not the fifty years ago of the show, but a time when new houses were built every day and there were no limits on electricity usage. He’d been twenty when the catastrophe changed his way of life, and he’d had to change his ideas about what his future would be. The construction of new homes was halted as part of the campaign to limit the release of more carbons, and refugees from the coasts moved West and East and filled the homes that already existed. One-story homes of more than 3,000 square feet had been converted into two and three family homes, and people learned to live with less space. Not that he’d given much thought at twenty to what size his future house would be, but he’d had to give up his car, a car he’d spent five years saving up to buy. A beautiful, classic mustang. Those old shows allowed him a glimpse of a world that seemed so different and impossible, a world in which he would have had that car.