“K—Kaimos…?” I asked, as his face started coming into focus. “Where am I?”
He gave me a soft smile, and I realized now that there were candles arranged around us. On a dresser, on the end table, on the windowpane. A soft breeze rolled in from outside, fluttering the thin curtains hanging near the window. I thought I could smell the ocean, flowers, freshly cut grass. I didn’t recognize this place.
“You’re with me,” he said, bringing his hand up to my cheek. He was sitting next to me in the bed, upright, watching me as I slept.
“But I can’t be with you—I was just… wasn’t I with Alexa?”
“You were, but I brought you here. I wanted to have you near me.”
Kaimos leaned a little lower and searched for my lips with his. There was power in his kiss, longing, want. Instantly my hands went searching for his face, fingertips stroking his cheek, his jaw, then plunging into his hair.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“Don’t ask questions,” he whispered against my mouth, “You’re here with me, and you’re safe, now.”
“But—” he kissed me again, and now I felt his other hand slowly trail along my chest. It went up and over the curve of my naked breasts, continuing toward my abdomen, and dipping lower still to rest between my legs. My back arched all on its own, my hips spread just a little, and I moaned into his mouth as he touched me.
It was electric. My body responded to him like a flower in bloom, not simply happy to be with him, but eager to have more. I suddenly stopped trying to understand what was happening, where I was, or where I was supposed to be, allowing myself instead to submerge into the moment and enjoy the soft ripples of pleasure moving through me.
I was his. Lost in the moment, lost in desire itself. The more he touched me, the faster his hand worked, the closer I drew to a climax, and if that was real, then whatever all this was, was real too. But I didn’t want to reach a climax on my back, and when I couldn’t take much more of it, I grabbed his face with my hands, pushed him onto his back, and straddled him.
Kaimos lay on his back, a beast of a man, his rounded shoulders and muscular chest caressed by the candlelight, his green eyes glimmering. Careful at first, I took him into me, and I groaned with him through those first few moments, those long, slow, languid thrusts. Not once did we take our eyes off each other. It was as if we were both trying to make sure the other was real, even if we knew it wasn’t.
It didn’t take me long to find a quick rhythm. Kaimos’ hands roamed my body, going up my sides, then down, following the curve of my back, settling on my thighs only to come back up again. I was already so close, and judging by the quickness with which his breaths were coming, I knew he was too.
I dipped lower, kissing him, drinking deeply of his lips even as I rode him hard and fast. “Tell me you want me,” I whispered against his mouth.
“I want you,” he said.
“Tell me you need me.”
“I need you, Six.”
I bit his lower lip as my climax surged up like an explosion. Kaimos’ whole body stiffened in response, the muscles in his neck straining, his erection throbbing inside of me. Moaning, gyrating, we waited it out like a storm, until our bodies stopped moving entirely, and our breathing returned to normal.
Words best left unspoken burned on the tip of my tongue, but I wouldn’t let myself say them. Instead, I kissed him, letting my tongue dance with his, keeping it busy enough while the moment came and went. When it was over, I placed my hands on his chest and arched upwards to look down at him.
I could see the light of my amber eyes reflected in his, the glow lightly caressing his face. Kaimos only looked up at me, his expression soft, and comforting. I thought he had a little smile on his face, and I couldn’t help but smile with him, but then my smile started to fade as reality tried to infect the moment.
“What are we doing here, Kaimos?” I asked.
He took a deep breath in through the nose, exhaled, then lowered his eyes for a moment before bringing them back up to me. “You’re dying.”
My heart leapt into my throat. “I’m what?”
“The injury you sustained… it was fatal.”
I shook my head. “No. No, that’s… not right.”
“I was there, Six. I saw it happen through the monster’s eyes.” He turned his head. “I wish I hadn’t. I cannot take that image out of my mind.”
The more I tried to visualize what had happened to me, the more I realized that he was right. I remembered, now. I could still feel the damage the creature had done to me, even now, even here. “But I’m not dead?”
Kaimos shook his head. “I pulled you deeper into the dream. It took every ounce of strength that I had to do it, but it was the only thing I could think of if I wanted to see you again.”
I tucked some of my hair behind my ear. “How… much longer do we have? How long can I stay here?”
“Forever, if you want.”
“Forever?” I frowned. “How is that possible?”
“Anything’s possible through magic. I could keep you here with me for as long as you’re willing to stay. When you’re ready to leave, all you have to do is go through that door.”
“Then what happens?”
He lightly shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe death—maybe whatever comes after.”
“So, my choices are death, or this cell,” I said.
“It is not perfect, and I would not wish for you to have to endure eternal imprisonment,” he paused, “But if you know one thing about me now, it is that I am a selfish man. I could have let you slip away, but instead I pulled you in here—out of one cell and into another. The irony is not lost on me.”
I looked around at the room we were in. It was small, and cozy. Large enough for a bed, a dresser, an end table, and that window. There was a door, too, but I wasn’t sure where it led. I thought I could hear the ocean somewhere outside, breaking against rocks by the shore. I had never seen this place before, I had never been here, which meant this was somewhere he was familiar with.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“A place I used to come to a lot when I wasn’t… this.”
“It’s so small.”
“Believe it or not, I never liked big open spaces much, but I have always loved the sound of the ocean.”
I rolled off him and laid on my belly, looking up at him. He looked like a prince, his long black hair lazily falling over his shoulders, his body a temple to the human physique, his eyes lazy, perhaps a little sleepy.
“If I stay… what happens to you?”
“I stay with you.”
“And the beast?”
Kaimos took another deep breath. “I let it take the rest of me and hope someone can put it down.”
“Wait, you’d be giving up control of your body to that thing?”
He shook his head. “It is increasingly becoming a fight I cannot win. Splitting my Guardian from my soul has made it more powerful than before, and I don’t know if I have the strength to defeat it.”
“But if you give it what it wants, then it’ll go on a rampage and murder everything in sight. You know that.”