Realm of Dreams
By Tracy J. Farrell

Excerpt:

     Five millennium of sharing a body with a madman had made the Lord of Dreams weary. He left Jonas raving and retreated to the small, private corner of the Destroyer’s body he carved out.
     He was dimly aware of magnificence of the passing star systems.
     It didn’t matter where they were going. He was still trapped.
     Lost in thought, he’d almost missed the minute shift within the realities.
     The Dream Lord doused his excitement. Connected as they were within their single body Jonas would sense it.
     But oh sweetness, burrowing deeper into his retreat he darted a quick gaze toward Jonas. Good, he was occupied at the front of the mind, navigating their way into hyperspace. Fortune smiled on the Dream Lord this day. Jonas wouldn’t notice him.
     Carefully, he cast the small piece of his essence not meshed with Jonas’s into space.
     For endless moments he searched. Where was it? Did he imagine it, because he wanted it so badly? Had he finally lost his sanity?
     No there it was!
     A seedling sprouted and gave birth to a tender stalk. He clasped it with desperate hands to his breast. Gentle, least you break it, he thought.
     A small hope, one he would nurture and grow.
     He’d been gone too long. He placed his mark upon the infant and returned to the body he shared with Jonas.
     Jonas was still focused on escaping the rebels that had over thrown the Destroyer and stolen his empire.
     Strapped into the copilots seat next to their body Jonas’s sister shivered, still naked and wet from the clone chamber.
     Her eyelids drifted down, then fluttered open, again and again. The time between waking and sleep grew longer and longer. Sleep was winning the battle.
     Her skin glistened from the amino fluids of the clone tank, and her hair hung in damp blond strands to her waist. The Dream Lord winced in shared sympathy. Her ribs struggled to expand, and her breaths came in jerky gasps as her lungs labored to take in enough oxygen. She’d been revived just a bit too early.
     Desperately, the Dream Lord wanted to touch her. To soothe her pain wracked body.
     The Destroyer’s hand jerked on the console. The ship arched sharply to the right.
     Leave her. Jonas’s shriek echoed within the tight confines of the Destroyer’s skull.
     The Dream Lord allowed Jonas to reclaim control of the body.
     A few minutes passed, and her breathing evened out and deepened. The Lord of Sleep caught her mind and soul and drew them both into his realm.

     I leaned over licking, the salty taste of her skin savoring the sweetness of it.
     She sighed, “You found me.”
     “Yes.” I nudged her thighs apart with my knees and whispered against her neck. “Let me in. Please.”
     My heart wept at the beauty of her.
     So pure and innocent.
     She started to wake from her dream, and I pulled her back in.
     Not yet.
     I knew it was selfish, but I couldn’t let her wake. My own guilt ate at me. Its nipping teeth sunk into my soul.
     Still I kept her. I knew this would be the only time I could touch her. Before she remembered, before I was forced to wear the face she despised.
     Moving down her body, I licked and suckled her small, perfect breasts. We both moaned as she arched into me. I brushed her dreaming mind and joined it to mine. “Let me in.”
     I ran a hand up her damp smooth, thigh and touched her. Her pleasure spiraled, and her body arched and I felt a boundless joy to have brought her so close to release. I withdrew my hand. Left her dangling and sipped her cries from her lips into my mouth. Oh, goddess, they were sweet, their taste finer than anything within the endless realm.
     My voice a plea filled whisper, knocked upon her lips. “Love, please--let me in.”
     She parted her legs, and I sank home. My hands touched her everywhere. They never stopped. I was desperate, for I knew not when I could touch her again.
     Her skin was damp and soft and cool. Mine hard, hot, needy. I reveled in the feel of it against mine.
     Wretch, pitiful beast, my conscious taunted me. And I despaired.
     The dreams of billions twisted in sorrow.
     My soul cried begging for the words. My whisper was no more then a breath against her skin. “Please give them to me, before you remember, before you wake and weep.”
     My heart stopped. She would reject me.
     Fear crawled down my spine and a million stars winked out across my land.
     Silk, her legs shifted against me and her wet heat gloved me, like no other. I stroked in and out of her searing pleasure.
     I cleared the despair from my mouth and pleaded. “Love, tell me. Tell me, there is only me.”
     I moved in a heaven, contained in a hell of my own doing.
     I kissed her face, her lips, and whispered my love into her ear. My body poured my heart into to hers. Worshiped hers. Sharing her pleasure as she shared mine.
     I had to have the words, weak and disgusted by my need. “Love, please, before it is too late.”
     We were one. The stars lit and my realm knew light once more.
     “Tell me.” Before you despise me, I thought. My desperate pain fell liquid upon her.
     She raised her face and dried her cheeks against my hair and her voice brushed against me hot and sweet. “Forever, it is you.”
     I rolled her on top of me, so when she remembered she wouldn’t be trapped. She could leave me.
     She rode me, pulling the pleasure closer, even while I tried to hold it back, miserable for more time. I stilled her hips, and she squirmed. “No, wait.”
     She smiled at me, and my heart shattered, spreading across my realm. I could see it--millions of sharp glittering jewels.
     She panted and ground against me, and I was lost. Still I tried to hold her back. Selfishly I craved my release while she still looked at me and smiled, while she still loved me.
     She leaned over her face next to mine and whispered hot seductive words. Words of pleasure and love.
     Pleasure shatter through me spilling into her. She moaned and clenched around me.
     I gripped her pumping hips, stilling her. Bringing her back from the edge of her own satisfaction, weak bastard that I was.
     But I needed her more then I needed everything.
     “Please--let me.” She begged.
     “Just a little longer?” My voice a horse plea.
     My heart joyous pain and my realm ceased to breath.
     “I need.” She sighed.
     I sighed, and a rain of a thousand tears, a million sorrows, drenched my realm.
     It was always the same. She would implore me, and her body would writhe and plead for release.
     Yet, selfish, greedy and cruel, monster that I was, I held her back. Away from the first waking, away from the memories that would separate us.
     But as always I loved and I had never been able to deny her anything she wished.
     All.
     I would give her everything I had in my possession, even the remembering.
     I released her hips and waited beneath her for her to take her pleasure. Waited for the hate to return. I closed my eyes on her sweet, treasured face, too frightened to see her love fall to the ground.
     My realm trembled with my anguish.
     Storms raged and my minions wept with my grief.
     Her body stiffened, and pulsed around me.
     Agony and delight and sweet, oh she was so sweet.
     Her cream coated me and her low moan vibrated and settled within.
     I cradled her earlier words in the empty space that had held my heart.
     She stilled, and silence reigned, and I waited for her to leave.
     Utter silence filled my realm. Billions of dreams slumbered within cocoons of emptiness.
     She didn’t slide off me.
     Afraid I squeezed my eyelids tighter. She would go, she always did.
     And time stalled, her velvet heat remained.
     I ventured a peek. Cold sad eyes brimmed with tears.
     I should pull out. I stayed, even though I had no right.
     She was no longer mine to take. I wore the face of the one she loathed.
     One that trapped and used us both.
     Rage. My realm quaked. Nightmares bust into the emptiness, the dreamers shuttered and moaned.
     It was my power that held her here, my power that kept her tied to him for five thousand years. And I was helpless to free us.
     Wails filled the air around us, the sound an endless dirge. Sorrow draped their room.
     She twisted around, and studied the flimsy gauze wall I’d erected under a bower of fragrant blossoms. The petals fell upon the canopy as the trees shed them.
     The cooling breeze I’d called dropped to a pale whisper.
     Shame followed in the wake of desolation as I hardened again. She moved tilting her gaze toward my face. I twitched inside her.
     My cheeks grew hot. I averted my eyes. Still I didn’t move, lest she slip off me and end my pleasure-pain.
     She took my cheeks in her hands, her skin cool against my hot face and turned it up so our gazes met.
     Soft and gentle her words met my ears. “Which one are you?”
     The wind died completely and the last petal fell. “It doesn’t matter. We are two who is one.”
     Her pale blue gaze snapped at me, and she planted a hand on my chest and leaned forward. “Don’t play games with me. Only one of you is master.”
     And because I knew her. And because his obsession had become mine, this one woman whom I desired above all.
     Forbidden to one such as I, as was love and desire.
     I’d been a fool and was caught by my own curiosity, too cocky to believe it possible. I dwelt in a nightmare of hunger and desire, one I deserved.
     I sighed. “What does it matter? We both hunger for you. We both took you without your permission. We are one and you hate us.”
     The sad smile was back. She traced my brow, my nose and my lips, and again I pulsed deep inside her. Unable to stop the pleasure, I arched my hips and seated myself to the hilt.
     Disgrace washed over me, but still the pleasure came.
     Her voice was gentle now. “Why, because we are here, not in the lab.”
     I was confused, lost within her. “We have always met here, before you wake. And we always meet in my realm when you sleep. Why should it matter? He and I are bound. We are one.”
     She kissed my mouth, and her sweetness lingered.
     I was so full, so fearful, afraid draw air, to speak, to move.
     “It matters, because this time I remember.” She brushed her lips to mine and gifted me with a word. “Everything.” She sat back, her mouth turned up. “The times we were here. The long years, the endless time.” Her sad smile returned, bittersweet. “I awoke before they could steal it from me. Which one are you?”
     “You know who I am.”
     “I want to hear it.”
     I could deny her nothing. “Orerios.”
     She leaned forward and rested her cheek next to mine. Her breath hot and fragrant. “Do you think we have a chance this time?”
     “Yes.”
     “Tell me all.” Her gaze sharp.
     That was my little love so smart I returned her grin. “The one who will walk between the realms has been born. When she’s old enough, I will gift her with my name. And she will destroy us.” I clutch her to me and buried my face in the silk of her hair.
     Softer then the wings of a moth I dared ask. “Will you come with me, when it is time?”
     Fear crawled through me.
     I laughed, the Lord of Nightmares, quaking over love.
     “ Yes.”
     My world reformed, and I realized I was still inside of her, and she remembered and hadn’t left me. I shifted my hips, and she hummed and smiled and moved back.
     Fool, leave it be, I couldn’t I had to ask. The question burned on my tongue. “Do I have his face?”
     “No, you have your own. I remembered it from my dreams.”
     She leaned down and bit my shoulder. “Move I want more of you before I wake.”
     Soon we wouldn’t have to fear the waking. Soon I would be free.