In Her Dreams

into his eyes.
“I’m in your home. I know your son, and we get along. Jerrek is here to help.” He smiles. “Now you just need to fall for me so I can take you to the dream world.”
I nearly fall off my stool, but his arms around me catch me. However, I use my hands on his chest to push him back so I can glare up at him.
“We are not going to the dream realm,” I say fiercely.
“Of course we are,” Reve says, putting his hands on his hips. “It’s much safer there, much more beautiful, and Joey needs dream fae training. Besides, wouldn’t it be better for him to grow up in a world of order and not this broken place?”
My cheeks heat because this “broken place” is the place where I have lived. Where my parents, God rest their souls, toiled and struggled but did give me love.
Plus, Joey just started a new school, and this is his chance to start over.
I don’t want to shake up his life in any way, but especially not by saying, “Oh, here’s a hot fairy I fell for. Now you have to go to a different world.”
No way.
Reve cocks his head in that odd way he has of looking so innocent but so determined at the same time. “Joey would love the dream world. Love discovering his power. And you—”
“What? I’d stay at home, baking brownies?”
Reve shakes his head. “No, you’d be a queen with your own realm. That place in your dreams—”
I shake my head. That’s my place to go and hide when the world is too much. It’s not an actual place where I could raise a son.
“It needs work, but it’s connected to the dream realm. Together with me and Joey, we could make it great. Then, when he finds a princess—”
“No,” I say, putting my hands to my ears as if they could block out any more of Reve’s words.
Everything is just echoing around me now. I have whiplash from thinking things were finally working out when, really, they’re just getting complicated.
Because as much as I didn’t expect this to go anywhere, it seems Reve not only expected it to go this way but that I would just completely adhere to what he wants and drag both myself and Joey into a world we don’t understand.
“I’m a dream warrior,” Reve says, looking at me warily as he takes a step back. “Aside from my mate pursuit and helping Reve and Jerrek, I will need to stay in the dream realm. I was born to protect it. My family—”
“What about my family?”
He folds his arms. “Aren’t they dead?”
I frown. “That doesn’t matter. They’re still here.”
“What about Joey? You just want to leave him here as a human?” Reve starts circling me, folding his arms. “He won’t ever fit in. He has strong blood. I can feel that in him. Perhaps Mark also has nightmare blood.”
“Nightmares?”
“Those banished from the dream world. I recently found out they came here. Lorien tried to banish Josh—”
I put a hand to my forehead. “Sorry, who’s Josh?”
“Rainbow,” Reve says. “Anyway, Mark could be a nightmare. He might not have awakened and doesn’t know about his blood, but he could have resonated with you for that reason. Anyway, Joey—”
My hands tighten into fists. “You leave him out of this. You aren’t turning my son into—into—”
Reve raises an eyebrow, clearly perturbed. “Into what?”
“A fairy!” I yell.
Reve’s lips twitch, but he goes deadly still. “So it’s a bad thing? Being a fairy?”
“No, I—” I let out a sigh. “We have to stay here. Joey and me. We’re humans. This is our home.”
Reve’s jaw tightens, and for the first time, I see him look truly hurt. “But you’re my dream mate, and I—”
I wave a hand. “I don’t believe in all of that. I’m sorry.” My eyes meet his. “I truly like you, Reve. I want this to be more. But I can’t be with someone who wants to uproot Joey. Who keeps insisting that we should bend to his world—”
“Your world,” Reve says, pained. “It’s also your world.”
“Take Jerrek back with you for now,” I say. “Just leave and let me be with my son.”
I have dreams around Reve, and he makes my heart soar. But in reality, I’ve only known him a few weeks.
Joey is my world. For ten years, it’s been him and me against everyone.
So I just want to be with him right now and maybe watch a movie and eat dinner together.
And let Reve think about what he’s really asking of me with that innocent, impatient face of his.
Reve stares at me stubbornly, then lets out an impatient sigh and goes to get Jerrek.
I hear Jerrek’s surprise. Then they talk, and then Reve is pulling Jerrek back into the living room.
“She wants us to leave,” Reve says. “She doesn’t want us around her warrior.”
His eyes are full of hurt.
I sigh. “He thinks we could just go to some other planet—”
“Dimension,” Reve says.
“That’s not better!” I snap. “Look, you’ve already done enough today.” I exhale. “I do thank you for handling Mark, even though I didn’t ask for it. And I appreciate you being Joey’s friend, Jerrek.” My hands tighten into fists. “But you’ve still turned my life upside down, and I need a break.”
Reve and Jerrek stare at me, then nod.
Jerrek disappears in a poof of red smoke, and Reve sends me an uncertain look.
“Can I still see you in your dreams?”
My heart squeezes for a moment, but the dream sequences are only going to make me love him more. Harder.
And I still need time to think.
I shake my head slowly, and Reve’s eyes flash in pain before he disappears in a poof of teal smoke.
I shake off the tension in my body as I walk down the hall to Joey’s room. Time for a dinner and movie night with just the two of us.
I’m sure that will set me straight.
I don’t live in a dream world. I live in this one.
And