was content sleeping, yes, but there was something more. Something she was replaying in her mind. Images flashed, as real as if I’d been witness to them, of the dreamscape she’d been in when Amon fell asleep. “What? What did you do?” They hadn’t had much time before the connection was dissolved upon his waking, but the moments they did have together were…startling.
“You…you kissed him?” I exclaimed in shock.
To be perfectly accurate, he kissed me. A rather pleasant thing, actually.
“Why? Why would you do that? Didn’t you tell him it was you?”
I thought such a revelation might best come from you. The young man suffers enough as it is without us adding to his worry. Besides, I was curious. And once he learned we could make physical contact, he was so happy. I didn’t wish to do anything to dispel his good humor.
While I stood rooted in place, my mouth opening and closing as I tried to figure out what to do, Tia sleepily yawned. Her mind was open to me completely. I sensed she felt no shame or guilt regarding what had happened either. Unable to continue the conversation with the snoozing cat taking up space in my brain, I used our connection to replay it all.
In the dream I saw Amon’s sleeping body the same as always, but when he fell asleep, another version of him appeared. His real form was battered and bruised but his dream self was whole, strong, and just as handsome as I remembered.
His hazel eyes sparkled as he looked at me, and when he said my name in an almost reverent whisper, stretching out his fingers to mine, I could see his pulse quicken. He swallowed and took a step closer.
“How can this be?” he asked as I wrapped my hand in his, an expression of awe cross his face.
I was about to answer when I realized I couldn’t. Tia had. I heard my voice sounding cold and distant. “It must be the power of the sphinx that grants us the ability to see one another and touch.”
“I didn’t know this was possible.”
“Nor did I,” my voice said.
Amon slid his hands up my arms carefully, tentatively, as if touching me might break the spell.
My head tilted. Tia enjoyed the sensation of Amon’s touch but her heart didn’t leap as mine did just upon seeing his face. I felt the pull of my lips as Tia offered Amon a half smile. “That is enjoyable,” she said.
I laughed through a sob and pressed my fingers to my lips. Though what she’d said was strange, Amon didn’t seem to care. He blinked and I noticed an intense expression in his eyes that made them just a shade darker.
“You don’t know how much I missed you,” he said, sliding his hand up my neck to cup my cheek. Amon closed the distance between our bodies, and there was a brief moment when Tia stiffened, but the moment quickly passed. I felt the hum of Tia’s contentment as he stroked my—no, our—cheek with his thumb, and little tingles of sunshine from his touch both soothed and warmed our skin.
“I don’t know if I’m hallucinating or if some blessed miracle of the gods caused this to be, but I don’t care.”
And he kissed me. The press of his mouth against mine actually made me gasp. I was utterly transfixed, and seeing it through Tia’s memory was thrilling and yet upsetting. That he had kissed her and hadn’t known it wasn’t me stirred niggling feelings of jealousy, but seeing Amon and being with him in body if not in spirit was a gift. I felt his embrace as surely as if he held my heart in his hands.
The kiss became more passionate as Amon drew me close, fitting us together so tightly, it seemed as if nothing could tear us apart.
But something did.
Jerking his head up, he spat out a word I didn’t understand, and that was when I heard the screech of an animal nearby. Amon disappeared from my arms and the battered version of himself woke. Hurriedly, he got to his feet and spun around in a circle. “Lily?” he called. “Lily!”
The ground shook as a monster, all tooth and fangs, emerged from a chasm. Tia watched until morning, but he didn’t sleep again. I wondered exactly how this dream connection worked. The lioness was no longer awake herself, and yet I could not see any vision of Amon. The connection must only work when I sleep, I