I had seen my mate. Every day seemed to tear another strip of my heart from my chest, the lashes leaving me bleeding and breathless.
I wondered what Nix was up to at that moment. I hoped she was cuddled up with one of the others who could be with her when I couldn’t. That was the beauty of a harem. Nix would never have to be alone. One of us would always be there to keep her safe.
The clock on the wall ticked slowly, and though I still had some time before meeting Ciarán, I eventually gave in and lay down, pulling the blankets up over my stomach. Bracing an arm over my forehead, I closed my eyes and tried to relax, keeping my mental blockade firmly in place as I ran through the information I needed to share with Ciar one last time. Soon, I’d be utilizing the Council’s tricks against them in war, but for tonight, I just wanted to pretend my mate was in my arms. I curled into my pillow, forcing myself to breathe deeply and evenly until that dark, blissful oblivion staked its claim.
“Took you long enough,” I griped at a cheery Ciarán, as he bounced happily from mist to solid form in the span of a second.
It still shocked me to see the guy generate from nothing, especially in the recesses of my consciousness like this. There was something invasive about knowing he could pick through my mind at will, though I had no reason to suspect he would do so. Since the Celt had shown up that day at the waterfall and divulged the information that set me on my path to Nix, I trusted him implicitly, and tonight was no different.
“Aww,” Ciarán cooed, before perching himself on a fluffy cloud that hadn’t been there a moment ago, easily creating whatever environment he wanted to in my dreams, “you missed me.”
“Or something.” I rolled my eyes, but damn if he wasn’t right. It was true I missed him as a direct link to my family—my mate—but I also missed the Celt for his humor and the sense of familiarity and friendship his visits brought in their own right.
“Bad day?” Ciarán stood and waggled his fingers to change our surroundings again, this time taking his creation to the extreme as he morphed it into a bright, shiny shop filled with a variety of candy. He popped over to a shelf and pulled the metallic lid off a glass jar, shoving his hand in and pulling out an enormous fistful of gummy worms. Tossing one up in the air, he caught it effortlessly in his mouth before looking back at me with half the thing dangling from his lips.
I shook my head and blinked a few times as I tried to process that seeing Ciarán was as close, and as normal, as I could get to my previous life. And then I nearly laughed at the words ‘normal’ and ‘Ciarán’ in the same sentence. Pulling myself back to our conversation, I decided to answer his question. If I didn’t, I had a feeling he’d be standing there staring at me all night just... waiting.
“Yeah, you could say that.” I paused, casting a hesitant glance at Ciar to make sure he’d warded this conversation. I didn’t understand how he did it or how it worked, but all I cared about was that it did.
“You wound me, brother. You can’t possibly think I’d leave you hanging by not warding your dream, do you?” He threw his hand—the one still clutching candy worms—over his heart like I’d stabbed him, clawing at his chest as though he was actually in pain.
I pinched the bridge of my nose as the candy clattered to the floor and instantly disappeared in a puff of illusion, reminding me this wasn’t actually happening.
“There’s no such thing as being too careful—a lesson I’m sure you’ve learned in spades by now,” Ciar murmured in a rare moment of sincerity.
“That’s the truth. They have eyes, ears, and spies everywhere. Being in the Lodge with them is making me exceedingly paranoid.” I scratched distractedly at the nape of my neck and huffed out a breath. “Every day in the trenches like this is difficult. It’s getting increasingly harder to sit in the same room with them. Today alone, they killed no less than five people who they claimed had ‘tendencies toward rebellious thoughts,’ just to have another reason to exercise their power.”
“If they think ruling by fear is