broccolifloret

  Vanth’s conceited look didn’t change. I don't know why, he really was naked. He looked even paler against the smattering of dark hair spreading down his ft stomach, over his sinewy arms and calves, curling around brown nipples, and around a cock that was downright mouthwatering. Pretty much literally. I took a look between his legs and wanted to wrap my lips around it at once. I’m sure it showed on my face, but Vanth didn’t seem to give a shit. Not that he had any room to object. He was the one who’d showed up in my dreams with his dick out, so I can’t be bmed for getting ideas.

  “So you wanted to see me naked.”

  “I didn’t summon you.”

  “This is your dream, though.”

  “Absolutely not. It’s a nightmare.”

  “Ah, of course.”

  He didn’t sound particurly offended, not that I cared either way, but many of his—friends, let us call them, crawled and hovered and ambled close enough to hear me.

  “Sorry! I didn’t mean to insult any of you.” I bowed awkwardly all around. “I’m sure all of you are upstanding gentlecreatures I’d be pleased to dream about.”

  It was only after I’d said that out loud, of course, that I noticed a couple of needleteeth crouching near Vanth’s throne. Well, even if not all of them were as upstanding, I preferred to err on the side of caution.

  “You’ve been corteous enough. They’re not offended.” Vanth stood up, crossing his arms under his chest. Though he made it look casual, I knew he did it to draw my eye. It was drawn. He really didn’t look bad naked, at least in dreams. But then, he’d always reminded me of a dancer, from the first moment. That quiet grace, that understated strength.

  “Do you bring your lovers here?” I asked. “Do you ask permission from the residents first?”

  “What’s your issue? You’re the one who invited himself.”

  “I told you I didn’t.” I looked around. “So, do you come here on your own? Sit there naked and hold court? Do they know you’re not actual royalty?”

  “I was asleep. In bed.”

  “And that’s why you’re naked?”

  “That’s your fault.”

  “I didn’t do it. But I will apologize for waking you up again. I didn’t mean to ruin your sleep again and again.”

  He did that hand wave that seemed to mean “don’t worry about it”. “Never apologize for summoning me when you need help. Though you haven’t even awakened me this time, so my sleep is hardly ruined.”

  “If we’re both still asleep, does this mean this is the dreamvoid? Or did we end up in the Underworld somehow?”

  “Oh, no. This isn’t the Underworld. You don’t expect humans to be the only creatures who dream, do you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, Underworld creatures can also occassionally end up in the dreamvoid.”

  “Does that mean Underworld creatures dream?”

  “I can’t say anybody has provided a study comprehensive enough to answer that question with certainty—I can’t say it’s even possible. But at least some Underworld creatures are capable of dreaming.”

  “That’s a fair answer.”

  He dipped his head to me. “Shall we discuss recent events in a more private venue?”

  “By all means.”

  A blink ter, I found myself—ourselves—standing in a room. A hotel room, a fancy one, tastefully decorated in gleaming mahogany and ivory with the occassional bronze statue—replicas, but good ones. I’d seen enough fancy hotel rooms to recognize the feeling of them, as if the servants would rush in to scrub your presence out of every surface the moment you checked out. Maybe they did. This room, though, made the fanciest I’d stayed in look like a flea-infested dump.

  Vanth hadn’t bothered to put any clothes on, so you can see he was wrong to bme it on me.

  I scanned the room in search of things worth investigating and tried to open the nightstand, but it seemed to be only a solid block. The curtains were drawn; you could see the glow of light globes in what you’d suppose were neighboring buildings, but it all looked too ft, more like a clever painting than the real thing. Was this how regur dreams looked like, and I didn’t notice?

  “My suite at the Starry River,” Vanth said. “Might’ve remembered the details wrong. Haven’t set foot inside it in a while.”

  “Oh, I know the Starry. Just hearsay though.”

  He waved his hand toward a pair of elegant armchairs by the firepce. “Would you take a seat? It makes no difference, but that’s irrelevant to a good host.”

  “Can’t be a bad guest.” We sat. The firepce was lit, but didn’t seem to give any heat. Well, it added to the mood.

  “If you didn’t summon me intentionally, I can only assume you felt threatened.”

  So I told him what I’d seen earlier. Despite myself, my eyes kept wandering back to Vanth, to the trail of hair spreading across his chest and down his stomach and all the way to that magnificent cock in full dispy. He spread his thighs for me as he listened quietly, then added, “Sounds like you’ve been beset by sniffers.”

  “Sniffers? What kinda name is that?”

  “A descriptive one. Sniffing people out is what they do.”

  “Oh, I see. Sniffers, needleteeth, you’re just bad at names.”

  “Some of those creatures were first described in grimoires predating the Protectorate,” he said frostily. “But you’re not interested in that.”

  “Hells no. Do you think the necromancer found me? Sergeant Vargas said it’d be hard.” After those words escaped my mouth, I pointedly didn’t look between his legs. Thankfully, Vanth’s attention seemed to stay with our discussion.

  “He’s right. As proof, you noticed the sniffers long before they had a chance to notice you. What I wonder is, do you trust Sergeant Vargas?”

  I chewed on my lower lip. “I don’t, but I don’t particurly distrust him either. He saw you appear out of thin air when I needed your help, remember. We also told him about drawing the necromancer out. He probably already figured out I trust you more than him. I don’t think he particurly cares. After all, it only makes his job easier, don’t you think?”

  “I bow to your superior expertise with the man. The only question left, it seems, is whether anybody other than the necromancer would summon those sniffers.”

  “So you have another suspect, is what you’re saying.”

  “Not quite.” He looked out of the window, into the endless bck. “So far, all I know is that court knows you’re headed to the capital. Oriana Lemarezin cims to want you alive. As for how many others want you dead—” He shrugged.

  I sighed. “Can’t say I’m surprised. Wait, what if the necromancer has something they could use to find me? Do you think that’s possible?”

  “Something with your retive’s essence isn’t anywhere near as effective as something with yours, but it’d be much more effective than sending the sniffers in blind—metaphorically speaking, as they’re literally blind.”

  “You mean something from one of the Lemarezins? Like that Oriana or someone like her?”

  “I was thinking of someone much more closely reted to you. Your parents weren’t at the farm.”

  “My only living parent would never hurt me.”

  “Intentionally.”

  I had to admit he was right, but that’s as far as I cared to discuss my Dad with him. Maybe I could ferret some information out from Valentino, instead of giving either him or Vanth the full picture.

  “That’s all I can tell you,” I said. “Haven’t talked to him in years.”

  “Fair enough. Why didn’t you summon me intentionally, though? It’s the third time now.”

  “Third?”

  “Once when you were awake and another time when you were sleeping. Or did you forget that, too?”

  He asked it with such a snippy tone.

  “Oh, wait,” I said. “You crossed the dreamvoid that time—was it really only yesterday? Well, I guess it’s already two days ago. But you see, I wasn’t sure if this was a regur dream or not. When you’re dreaming, you don’t stop to wonder why things are like that. And also,” I added, as I remembered something, “isn’t dreamwalking illegal? You shouldn’t accuse me of doing it on purpose without evidence.”

  Vanth just stared back.

  “What, are you entitled to kill dreamwalkers too?”

  “Not entitled. Required.”

  “Would you kill me too, if I was a dreamwalker?”

  “Stop fretting over nonsense. You can’t simply barge into someone’s dreams by accident. The dreamvoid is inconceivably huge. If we weren’t carrying each other’s essences, we’d never find each other.”

  “But you would kill me.”

  I could’ve sworn he hesitated for the briefest moment. “Are you afraid of me? You know I can’t hurt you.”

  “I mean, you’re an intimidating guy.” Again, honesty seemed to be the path with least pitfalls. “And I guess some people must really hate that about you, but—it can be a good kind of fear too. You know, when it’s not so different from being turned on? I don’t know if that makes sense. Anyway, I think you know exactly how I feel when you show up in my dreams naked and all.”

  He stood up, and I stood up too so he wouldn’t look down on me as much. With both of us on our feet, my eyes were level with his colrbones, so you can see I needed the help.

  Vanth pushed my head up, forcing me to meet his eyes. “I’m trying to keep you alive.”

  I pulled free from him, much like a bird hopping away from a rattlesnake. A part of me regretted it. I wanted those long-fingered hands all over me. Inside me.

  “And I appreciate that! I’ll remember to summon you next time.”

  He stepped forward, caging me in his arms. Strangely, I could feel his body warm and solid around me, even if it wasn’t the same as being there with him.

  I rested my head on his shoulder. “Can you feel me?”

  “After a manner.” One of his hands was squeezing my ass, so I guess he did. “It’s possible for the mind to reproduce physical sensations absent the true source of the stimulus. Most people don’t go anywhere near as far.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think I want my weird dreams to feel any more real.” I found it hard to give a shit about any of that with Vanth’s heart thrumming faintly against my skin.

  He pushed my head up once more, to meet my eyes. “Someone should train that defiance out of you.”

  I swallowed. Far away in my real body, my flesh-and-blood cock was hard. At least he couldn’t know that. Right?

  “Oh? You have someone in mind?”

  Vanth smiled, if you could call that fsh of gleaming canines a smile. He looked like something you wouldn’t want to meet at night. Faintly, my cock stirred.

  I leaned in to kiss him, but our lips had only touched for the briefest moment before I took advantage of his distraction to back away once more.

  He licked his lips. “It’s good to indulge your pet, but everyone’s patience has a limit. Are you sure you want to find out the consequences?”

  My body was screaming at me to surrender already.

  Vanth tilted his head toward the chair I’d recently vacated. I took another step back.

  He looked right into my eyes, smug like someone who already won, and let himself fall on his back. The room disappeared beneath him; he was caught by a soft, shimmering darkness that soon swallowed up the entire room.

  Vanth raised a hand to his chest, kneading a pink afterimage into the pale flesh. He threw his shoulders back so I’d see how beautifully his muscles rippled, and pinched his nipples hard enough to make my own stomach tighten. He moaned out loud, obviously putting up a show. I’d done that for my lovers often enough, but nobody had bothered to reciprocate before.

  If he could make this dream look like anything he wanted, I wondered, couldn’t I do the same? I didn’t know how, and I was distracted by Vanth’s hands still stroking his chest, then down his stomach, between his obscenely spread legs, cupping his balls and squeezing. My mouth was dry.

  “And you called me a cat in heat,” I said, ‘cause I’ve never had much in the way of self-preservation.

  “I said quite a few things about you, didn’t I?” He spat on his hand and rubbed up and down the impressive length of his cock. A drop of precome glistened on the tip.

  Careful, careful, I didn’t want to let him know how much he’d gotten to me.

  “Sure, but did they meant anything?” I did manage to sound as politely skeptical as I intended.

  He ughed. What’s worse, he sounded genuinely amused, as if my silly attempts to resist him were simply delightful. Shame smoldered quietly in my chest and throat—which is what he’d intended. After that first night, he knew something of what made me tick.

  Vanth stroked himself to a bzing red erection, pumping his hips and arcing his back like the fucking show-off he was. “Tell me.”

  I cmped my mouth shut. It felt like a childish attempt at rebellion. Well, I wasn’t going to make things any easier for him. If he wanted me, he should bring me to my knees by himself.

  My eyes followed his thumb as it rubbed circles up the veiny shaft of his cock, as it pushed the bulbous head out of its foreskin. If I gave him this one thing, would he allow me to lick it? It wasn’t the worst trade.

  “You said you’d make me beg for it.” In a sudden burst of defiance, I added, “And you haven’t.”

  Vanth ughed again, in surprising good humor for him. I wasn’t fooled. That was a scorpion hiding in the wildflowers.

  “Oh, so you think I can do it?” Was that a cheerful lilt in his voice? Yes it was. “Well, come here, unless you’re scared. Look, I won’t touch you at all. I’ll even let you do all the touching. Don’t tell me I scare you that much.”