“I’ll retrieve her… son.” Devlin’s tone was no longer unreadable: he was angry now. “Go back and try to talk to her. Tell her that Seth is on his way home, that her brother brings the child she wants. Tell her that if Faerie isn’t as it should be, her son might not be able to reach her.”

Rae couldn’t respond to whatever anger drove Devlin. She knew that the High Queen had done plenty to push Devlin away from her, but this was new; the anger was unfamiliar. Things were shifting, and while Rae didn’t understand them all, she nursed hope that they were leading to the future she’d glimpsed so briefly.

Devlin walked over to the stone building. One wall became glass. Inside Ani slept. She was holding a black- handled knife in her closed fist. He put a hand up as if to touch the barrier. “She’s… ferocious and strong. My sisters want her death, but I need her to live.”

“You always have,” Rae murmured.

He looked over his shoulder at Rae. “I hope you are there when I return to Faerie.”

Rae nodded, and then she reached out and took Devlin’s hand.

He pulled her into an embrace and held her tightly. “I wish I could keep you here or bring Ani there. I wish we were all hidden away in your cave, that you were safe with Sorcha, that Ani was safe from Bananach.”

“Be careful?” she asked.

“No.” He shook his head. “I think I’d like to be truly not-careful. Not for just a few hidden moments, but often. I was made of order and discord. Perhaps it’s time I let myself know both sides.”

Rae stretched up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “I love both sides, Devlin. I always have.”

He said nothing for a moment, just held her carefully. Then he said, “I will bring Seth to Faerie, wake the queen, but after that… I am not sure.”

Rae wanted to tell him that there was another path, but she could not speak that. She could only hope that he would see it. “If there is a way, I would always be where you are.”

Devlin’s voice was muffled as he held her close. “I’ll be home soon.”

After he turned away, Rae created a mist in his dream to hide her presence and whispered, “Forgive me, Devlin.”

And then she reached for the thread of Ani’s dream and held the two faeries’ dreaming minds in her hands. She stitched the two sleeping faeries’ dreams together. If Rae wasn’t dead, she could unstitch them later, but if Faerie was gone and her with it, Devlin would need some other way to give in to his emotions. Rae could give him—and Ani—a plane where Ani’s lethality wouldn’t hurt Devlin and his High Court restraint could be loosened.

Ani dreamed she was on a beach. Behind her were sandstone cliffs with thick forest atop them. The tide was coming in, and the water lapped against her feet. The bottoms of her jeans were wet and collecting sand.

Devlin stood in front of her. He looked around as if expecting to see someone else too. “What if this isn’t just a dream, Ani?”

“It is,” she insisted.

“Do you dream of me, then?” He smiled, freer than he was in the waking world.

“Maybe.” She blushed, but she didn’t let her attention waver. Her gaze took in the details, the foreboding posture and inhuman eyes, the more-than-faery strength and not– High Court violence that were just barely hidden. “You’re easy to look at.”

“As are you.” He reached out and caressed her face. With a serious expression, he traced the edge of her jaw with his thumb. “You’re beautiful, Ani. In all of eternity, there’s never been another faery who could make me want to forget everything and everyone else.”

“Because you like the way I look?” She rolled her eyes. “Apparently, my dream mind is shallow.”

“No, not the exterior. You… the tempers and follies and passion… even the way you care for that infuriating steed.” Devlin gazed at her like she was precious. “Even knowing you could be fatal, I would’ve said yes.”

Her chest hurt like she had held her breath too long as she asked, “To?”

“Whatever you wanted.” He didn’t reach out and pull her into his embrace. Instead, he took one step forward, leaned down, and kissed her.

When his mouth opened against hers, she didn’t drink down his energy. It was just a kiss. Admittedly, it was a forget-your-name kiss, but it was not deadly.

Nor was it lust.

Nor was it anonymous.

Kissing Devlin was unlike every other touch she’d known.

She leaned back and stared at him. “I don’t ever want to hurt you.”

“You won’t. Not here.” Devlin was so close that she felt the words on her lips. “We’re safe here.”

The wolves that appeared so often in her dreams were stretched on the sand, peering out from caves in the base of the cliffs, waiting in the trees far above the beach. They all watched with unusual contentment.

“Stay with me,” Devlin whispered, drawing her gaze back to him. “Just a little longer. We can deal with the rest when we wake.”

She wasn’t sure though if his words were a question or a statement. She ran her hands over his bare chest. Like most faeries in her court, his body was one of faint scars and tight muscles. Faeries healed most everything. To have that many scars meant that he saw plenty of violence. “In the room, I tried not to do this.”

He didn’t move away. “Do what?”

“Feel your scars. I’m sorry I don’t have many to share.” She felt a growl in the back of her throat. “Gabriel won’t let me fight.”

“I like the way you fight.”

She grinned. “Mmmm. What else would the dream version say to me? Would you tell me what you really think of me?”

“I would.”

“Would I want to know?”

“I’m not sure.” He kissed her again, briefly this time, and added, “Why don’t you ask me when you are awake, Ani?”

At his tone, Ani wondered if this was a dream. She stepped back and looked at him. He stood topless and barefoot on the beach with her. The sea beyond them was motionless, but for the splashes of curious beasts that occasionally broke the surface. It felt like neither dream nor not-dream.

“Am I dreaming?” she whispered.

“We both are.”

“If this is a dream, why can’t I make clothes vanish?” Ani spoke to herself as much as to him. She reached out to his jeans. “Buttons. Zippers. It’s silly to have these in a dream.”

He didn’t resist. “It is. They’re a nuisance in the waking world too.”

Ani gasped as he slid his hand under the edge of her shirt. “I’m dreaming.”

“Yes, but this”—his fingers curled around her side— “is”—he tugged her closer—“real too.”

Then he kissed her, emotions raw and available. When he pulled back, he told her, “You were the one who stopped, Ani. Not me.”

“For your own good,” she reminded.

“You underestimate me.” He wasn’t walking away, nor was he weakened by the energy she was drowning in. “Don’t walk away this time.”

For a beautiful moment, she was reminded of the first instant when she’d seen him, shadowed and looking like trouble. She’d thought him like Irial then, but as she pulled him to the sand with her, she admitted that Devlin had replaced Irial as her fantasy that very day.

She unbuttoned his jeans and gave herself over to the kisses she’d craved.

Ani jolted awake still in Devlin’s arms, but they were in the motel—not on the beach. For a moment, there were more emotions washing over her than she’d thought she could swallow. She closed her eyes and let the skin contact and emotional deluge fill her up, but touching could be enough to weaken him if he was letting his emotions free simultaneously. It wasn’t as bad as kissing, but it was still dangerous.

“Stop… something,” she whispered.

Rather than stop holding her, he walled his feeling up. He ran his fingers through her hair, tugging gently as the sleep snarls caught on his fingers.