The next apartment housed a party of teenagers, all of them dreaming psychedelic dreams. He felt a small twinge of remorse but doused it quickly as he remembered his goal. He would not be made soft by one human woman and her delicious tears. Hewouldbe sated.
In this way, he continued through the complex until all of the mortal souls dwelling there were cultivated, though he left each of them with their lives intact. The weight of the door easily gave way under his push as he slung it open and paused on the steps. He stared down at his hands as he flexed them open and shut, then grew a few fleeting butterflies between them. His conjurations danced and twirled between his speckled claws until he put them out with a sizzle.
With this much mass, he would surely be able to feel the succulent woman’s touch. It would be the ghost of a feeling, but a sensation all the same.
The thought of her rose unbidden and tugged on an invisible string attached to his nonexistent heart, followed by another curiosity. What was she dreaming about now that he was not there to provide her aid?
Some dreams were truly dangerous. They could rise in power and create illnesses of the mind that could not be easily cured. The illness perforated the soul of the sleeper, allowing a weakness that was easily exploited by hungry ghosts, demons, and wraiths from the darkness to steal the dreamer’s body and soul for their own. Modern-day human medicine was ill-equipped to handle such possessions as they lacked the magical touch of the elves and focused too much on the mind of the afflicted. Judging by the strength of her night terrors, the woman was a prime candidate for such an ailment.
Before he realized what he’d talked himself into, Traeyr was dashing through the neighborhood, breezing over the trees, and tangling in the shadows on his way to the mortal’s window.
The mellifluous tones of her scent reached him long before he arrived at her home. With a flavorful dulcet of rich tones, it’s a wonder the dreamer hadn’t been tracked down by a monster more corrupt than Traeyr. Night creatures that dwelled in the domain of terrified sleeping mortals like hags, mares, incubi, and baku who had been monsters for so long risked losing themselves in the darkness they commanded. It would be simple to do. For a century after the death of his mortal self, Traeyr could have easily succumbed to the darkness. It still called to him on occasion, with whispered promises of a life no longer a slave to consumption, even if it meant a brainless existence. When the whispers became tempting, he knew to remove himself from inhabited places and spend time dwelling in the beauty of the earth.
The woman slept fitfully. The gray sheets bunched in her fists as she thrashed against her innermost horrors. The sight was difficult for Traeyr to behold and his power thrummed against his borders. He remained powerful even after the energy it took to reach her side so quickly, although his limbs were fading at the tips. He didn’t trust himself to ride her chest again this night—nor should he attempt to do so any night now that he knew she was a weakness—but surely he could ease her suffering from here with a touch more power.
A middle-aged couple with no children or pets slept dreamlessly in the neighboring home. They’d seen many horrors in their day and one more night of dark dreams would do them no great harm. After filling up, he returned to her window and pressed a semi-corporeal hand of flickering shadow to the glass pane.
Her cheeks glistened with pain, little dewy drops of sweet cream that Traeyr balled his fist against the urge to steal for himself. Without riding her, he had no way to consume the slivers of her dream as he shaved them away. He could only send tendrils of shadow to do his bidding. They rose from underneath her bed and left swirling trails in the air as they completed his task.
Once he was satisfied that the intimate details had faded from her private hell into a subdued version of common fears all humans faced, he ripped himself from her window and stalked into the trees.
Chapter 5
Addison
“The night terrors are back again. I had a full-fledged attack of sleep paralysis last night. That hasn’t happened since all that stuff with my mom’s boyfriend back when I was a teenager.”
Addison paced from her bedroom to the living room, walking figure-eights around furniture to keep her restless body moving as she clung to her cell phone. Dr. Ellis lived in Florida, a twenty-minute drive from her old apartment. Going through the new patient process to locate a brand-new therapist and having to re-purge all of her traumas to a total stranger wasn’t appealing in the slightest. She’d gone through the grueling process ten times over back home and was grateful she’d come across Dr. Ellis when she had. No way would she do it allagain, especially since she planned on moving as soon as her lease allowed. Even if that meant suffering in silence, what was one more year when she’d done exactly that for the majority of her life?
She tilted the phone away from her mouth and tried not to breathe like a maniac on her therapist’s voicemail. “Maybe things are worse than I thought. Please give me a call back if you can do a video appointment. Thanks.”
Her phonethunkedonto the couch and promptly slid into the crack behind the cushion. Addison followed it with a shaky sigh, her elbows landing on her knees. Without the obstruction of her phone call, the music clicked on at full volume. She scrambled to locate the device and shut off the music, too wound up to handle it without giving in to the jungle-like feeling of humid anxiety thrumming in the bass.
Nightmares weren’t new to her; quite the opposite. They were one of the most constant things in her life, along with the mountains and valleys of depression that haunted anyone with the heavy weight of past trauma. Night terrors and anxiety loops were like old, reliable friends. It wasn’t the presence of bad dreams that worried her. It was theinconsistencyof them.
For the past few nights, her dreams had swung from deeply personal past traumas to plain-Jane, movie-esque nightmares that had nothing to do with her at all. The chaotic swing of the pendulum had seemingly no structure whatsoever and reminded her too much of her mom’s similar mood swings. Was she grasping at straws, trying to make correlations where there were none? Or could these dreams be a sign of something deeper, something lying dormant in her mind?
To top it off, she’d woken with slickness between her legs each morning. Her preferences and ideas around sex had come up in sessions with Dr. Ellis in the past, who assured her it was normal for people who had experienced abuse to have some confusion around sexuality. Still, it was uncomfortable to think she was turned on by the air of darkness surrounding her dreams, regardless that some were more tame than usual. The only somewhat justifiable explanation for her arousal was the handsome elf whose likeness had emerged in at least two or three of her dreams.
Regardless, she would happily pay Dr. Ellis for another session just to hear her reiterate that Addison was reacting in a reasonable, understandable manner.
With her hands still a little shaky, she flipped her palms up and practiced the breathing technique Dr. Ellis had shown her.Palms up to show my body it’s not in danger. Breathe into my belly. Breathe out slowly, as though trying not to douse the flame of a candle.
At least the calmer nightmares allowed for a reprieve between the rest. Not for the first time, she wished she werenormal. A normal person with normal problems who was afraid of going to work naked.
I’m probably just lonely.She didn’t miss Justin’s passive-aggressive attitude, but she would give just about anything to be held right now. Hell, she would even hop into the arms of the demonic creature she’d hallucinated while under the spell of sleep paralysis.
That thought made her snort a little and she began to calm down, enough to turn on the music in an attempt to drown out the rest of her panic attack.
Work passed in a blur. Addison had a vague awareness of her body and its surroundings but spent most of the day disassociated or preoccupied with anxiety. Hardly five minutes could go by without feeling the need to check her phone, hoping to find a voicemail from Dr. Ellis, but Addison felt she was doing a decent job of hiding her nerves.
Apparently, she wasn’t hiding it well enough, though, because Leah pulled her aside with a concerned look behind her sharp blue eyes.
“Are you okay? I’ve never seen you this distracted.”
“I’m fine.” Addison smiled weakly, the lie bringing a quiver to her lips. “Thanks for asking.”
She returned to her task, only to have Nasty Nathan wave his hand in front of her face. She raised her gaze to meet his over the dead fish on the counter and bit back a glower at his exaggeratedly dumbfounded expression.
