I answered his smile with one of my own. “Why don’t you save that threat for a time you can act on it,” I suggested.
“I just might,” he said, and sighed, closing his eyes once more.
When I thought he had drifted off again, I tried to draw away, thinking to find Ahmose and tell him there was no point in both of us staying awake, but Asten caught my hand and pressed it to his chest. “Don’t leave me,” he murmured sleepily.
Slowly, I lifted my other hand to smooth the hair away from his forehead. “I won’t, Tene.” I frowned, wondering where I’d heard that word before. Was it Egyptian? Asten inhaled deeply and I felt the thump of his heart against my hand. “Shush now. You need your rest,” I said.
“You need to sleep, too,” his voice rumbled faintly beneath his chest.
“I…I can’t. You need to be well first.”
“I’m healing. I can feel the effects of the poison ebbing away. So relax,” he urged. “I’ll live.”
“It’s not that,” I said. My cheeks colored. “You need to be well enough to…watch my dreams.”
Asten opened his eyes then, cocking his head to look at me. “I can do that,” he said softly.
“But I thought—”
“Come.” Asten held out his arms. When he saw me hesitate, he explained, “It will be easier for me if we are touching while we sleep.”
I nodded and shifted awkwardly to his side as he wrapped an arm around me. Pulling me closer, my head cushioned on his shoulder, he captured my hand and brought it to his chest.
“There,” he said. “Much better. Now try to still your body. I promise I will be waiting for you in your dreams.”
There was something both frightening and thrilling about the idea, but I attempted to follow his instructions and still my racing heart. Fortunately, my body was so achingly tired that it didn’t put up much of a protest, and I closed my eyes, letting my mind drift far, far away.
The dream came upon me softly, slowly, like layers of twilight that deepened and darkened, as silky sheets of light were peeled away with a caress and a whisper. I lay on my back, my hands tucked behind my head. A night breeze ruffled the leaves of a nearby tree, but the canopy did nothing to block my view of the evening sky.
Opalescent stars glittered above me, so close they seemed to ache for my touch. The crushed grass beneath my body smelled sweet and I wiggled slightly in the indentation I’d made, feeling wild and wanton. I closed my eyes, basking in my surroundings and the peace I felt.
“Hello, little lioness,” said a voice behind me.
I turned over on my belly, twisting up to see who spoke. Asten stood with his back resting against the trunk of an old tree. He was long and lean and, strangely, seemed to be just as at home in this landscape as he was in the waking world.
There appeared to be no trace of the fever or the gash in his thigh. One of his legs was crossed over the other in a casual pose. His brown eyes sparkled in the shadows of the tree as he watched me, his demeanor reminding me of a lazy cat who’d just finished a satisfactory meal and was looking for something to play with.
“So this is the place you dream of,” he said. His gaze took in the scenery, the starry sky overhead, and then settled back on me. “I like the view,” he murmured softly, his eyes tracing my form, lighting little fires everywhere they touched.
A burgeoning storm built inside me, though I didn’t fully understand why. I licked my lips, imagining his touch, and the tempestuous feeling coated the tip of my tongue. I liked the dreamy, honeyed taste. “Why do you remain so far away?” I asked. “The view is better from here.”
Asten laughed softly, the sound an electric thing that left my limbs feeling quivery. “That it is.”
He came closer and I turned onto my back once more, stretching luxuriously in a slow purposeful way, limb by limb. When I settled back, I kept my hands by my sides. Putting them under my head again made me feel vulnerable. Asten’s shadow fell over me and I gazed up into his face, now haloed by the stars. I sucked in a breath. “You’re beautiful,” I said.
Asten froze briefly, and a guilty expression stole across his face. “Don’t say that, Lily. You don’t mean what you’re saying.”
I frowned for more than one reason. “But I do. I’ve never seen a form as pleasing to my eyes as yours.”
He gave me a curious glance and then said, “You should be careful of the things you say in a dreamscape.”
“Why?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Sometimes I forget just how young you are.” When I narrowed my eyes, he clarified. “What I meant to say is that your innocence is charming. Sometimes, it causes me to forget myself. It’s not always a bad thing, mind you. In truth, I particularly appreciate your straightforwardness, but in this case, it can cause…problems.”
I mulled over his comments and then asked, “Do you not speak your mind as I do?”
“Not as often as I’d prefer. Hearing you…well, it makes me feel…free.” He said the last part with an embarrassed glance.
“Do you feel trapped, then? Is it your past that haunts you?”
Cocking his head, Asten knelt next to me. I took his hand and drew him down. Almost reluctantly, he lay down alongside me, his head propped up by one hand so he could look at me.
“There are a number of things that haunt me, little one.”
“Is that why you didn’t wish to share my dreams? Ahmose said you’re afraid of me learning too much.”
“Ahmose is right, in a way, though you already know the bulk of my secrets since you witnessed my judgment.”
“You did not deserve banishment. Even Ahmose agrees with me.”
Asten sighed, lying back and placing his hands behind his head like I had done earlier. “Ahmose is tenderhearted and quick to forgive.”
“Don’t you feel you’re worthy of forgiveness?”
“Perhaps, for some things.”
A winged creature of the night cried out as he took flight, and we followed its path until it disappeared.
“Which of your former actions continues to plague you?” I asked bluntly.
He gave me a wary look. “It’s not my past that plagues me. I’ve come to terms with my demons. It’s my future.”
“The future? You know what is to come?”
“Being the Guardian of Dreams is a very weighty responsibility, especially when those dreams involve myself.”
“You said you’d dreamed of me. Tell me, what was your dream of?”
“I…,” he began, but then shifted uncomfortably. “It would be better if I kept those things to myself.”
“Do you think that I will judge you?”
“No. I think that you might encourage me and encouragement is the last thing I need. I’m barely able to control myself as it is.”
We remained quiet for a few moments, and then I leaned up on my elbow and said, “You do not need to play the part of a prince or a godling or even a brother while you’re with me if you don’t wish to. When I look at you, all I see is a man, a man that pleases me in countenance and in temperament. A man I admire and am proud to fight alongside of. There is no secret you could share that would alter my perception of or my feelings for you.”
Asten gazed up at me with an expression full of something hopeful and euphoric. Gently, he reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, and when he did, his fingertips glowed. The section of my hair was now sparkling, the strands turning as white as the stars. I leaned into his touch so that his hand caressed my cheek.
“I can feel you here, you know,” he said, “without you using your power, I mean. In the dreamworld a touch happens on a different plane. It doesn’t matter that you are living and I am not.”
I closed my eyes and said, “When you touch me, my heart races faster than I’ve ever experienced before. I feel as if I am running but I am utterly and absolutely still. To move right now would be torturous.”
His fingertips traced my lips in a deliciously slow way. The fee
ling was glorious, tantalizing, transfixing. I opened my eyes and remembered what it was like to bask in the warmth of the afternoon sun. Asten was a burning star, and the warmth with which he looked at me heated my blood to a point that I wanted to give myself over to it, to him, forever.
Moving my lips against his hand was heady, intoxicating, and it soon became evident that the passion inflaming me was echoed in him. I made a tiny involuntary sound and then his hand dropped. The tenderness I’d seen in his face was now gone, replaced by an expression of doubt and concern.
He sat up and wrapped his arms around his knees, seemingly wishing to forget the passionate experience we’d just shared. “Have you seen Amon at all?”
“Amon?” I echoed, confusion filling me. I sat up beside him. “No. Should I have?”
“No. Not tonight, anyway. That’s good. It means I’ve been with you since your dream began.” A red flush crept up his neck.
“You’re embarrassed,” I said.
“No. It’s not that.” He got up and walked a few steps away, staring up into the night sky.
I watched him, feeling swirls of uncertainty eating away at the pleasant experience I’d just had. That he regretted touching me just now was obvious.
I longed to join him but I couldn’t bear the thought that he didn’t want me. Didn’t crave my closeness as much as I did his.
“I miss them,” he said, interrupting my thoughts.
“Miss what?” I asked.
“The stars. It feels wrong not to glance up and see them. They are what I miss the most on my long sojourns.”
“Are they?” I asked, finally mustering up the nerve to approach him.
He shot me a quick glance. “Yes. Though now I’ll have something else to miss.”
I was going to ask him what that was, when over his shoulder I saw something.
Pointing up to the heavens, I said, “Oh, Asten. Look!” A shooting star blazed across the sky. I was delighted to see it, and a bit envious of the speed and freedom it had to race across the expanse of space.
When it was gone, I turned to find him watching me, an air of sadness and longing on his face. “I’m surprised,” Asten said.
“What about?”
“That this is what you dream of.” He held out his hands, spinning in a circle. “It’s…it’s peaceful,” he said, turning back to face me.
“Aren’t most dreams?” I asked.
“No.”
“What do most people dream of, then?”
“In dreams people process the day-to-day things. Their worries and concerns are puzzled over, and they find solutions. Some dream of terrible things they’d dare not speak of or do in the real world. But in a connected dream such as this one, I can see what it is a person wants most in the world.”
“And what is it that I want?” I asked, taking a step closer.
Asten regarded me with a mixture of fascination and fear. His reaction made me feel powerful. I got up and stepped past him to brush my hand along the thick limb of a nearby tree. Arching my back, I stretched like a cat and then turned to him, an arm still draped across the limb. He swallowed. Then, eyes glittering, he closed the distance between us. “You want to bask in the starlight on an evening still warm enough to heat your skin,” he said. He lifted his hand, tracing a path from my elbow to my wrist. The surreptitious touch was tantalizing, and I desperately wanted more.
“What else?” I pressed with a mysterious smile.
He leaned against the branch and looked up at the sky. “You gaze at the stars as if they hold secrets you wish to find answers to. Why do they intrigue you so?” he asked.
“The stars are…beyond,” I said.
“Tell me what you mean.”
“They beckon me. When I was first joined and became a sphinx, there was a part of me that belonged to the earth, to my former home, but there’s also a part of me that belongs elsewhere. I want to race through the stars and discover all the worlds and all the beings found there. The idea of getting lost and leaving my old life behind entices me.”
“Surely there’s something of your old life you’d like to keep,” he murmured.
Unbidden tears filled my eyes. “No.” I shook my head sadly. “There’s nothing left for me there.”
“Nothing?” he asked as he brought his hand to my face, brushing away the fat teardrops with his thumb.
I blinked and his hand slid down from my cheek, gliding over to the corner of my mouth. His touch stirred my despair, coaxing my emotions from drowsy flames into a blaze so powerful I was overwhelmed by it. His gaze, before full of sympathy, was now fired by something else, something smoldering.
“There’s something else I want,” I said. “Do you know what it is?”
“I do,” he said, his eyes roving over my face and fixing on my mouth.
A subtle cry escaped my lips—part inhale, part whimper. Before, it had caused him to take a step back but this time he came closer, so close that our bodies touched. Had I thought he was cold before? It must not have been his natural predisposition because he was hot now. Being near him felt like I was baking beneath the light of a thousand, thousand suns.
The anticipation of something I couldn’t describe burned, inflaming every inch of my skin. I trembled, yearning, not knowing how to make the thick pounding in my veins stabilize. Slowly, almost hesitantly, he lowered his head until his lips made contact with the delicate skin where my pulse beat erratically.
I flinched momentarily, but he didn’t bite. His caress was gentle, soft, like the barest of touches. He trailed soft, deliberate kisses down my jaw to the corner of my mouth. I was lost in the sensation, and savored each press of his lips against my skin, yielding to his embrace.
As his mouth grazed my ear, he paused and slid his hands to my shoulders. I panicked, thinking he was going to cease touching me in the lovely and delicious way he had been. “Asten? Don’t stop,” I begged.
He shifted his head away, his breathing deep. As if unable to keep his hands off my skin, he slid them up to cup my neck. Asten lifted his gaze to look directly in my eyes, his expression haunted. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because my desire for you isn’t something I can control in the dreamworld.”
“Is this what you were afraid of?”
Reluctantly, he nodded.
“And you’ve seen us together like this in the future?”
He paused a moment, as if deciding what to tell me, but then he sighed and said quietly, “Yes.”
“Then I don’t understand your hesitation.”
“My”—he swallowed and sucked in his lower lip, a gesture I found transfixing—“my hesitation came with knowing how you feel about Amon.”
“Amon?” I blinked, and a cold irritation piqued, settling in my stomach and threatening to squash the escalating ardor I felt. Resentment washed away every happy sensation from moments ago.
“Am I not allowed the freedom to love whom I wish? To explore my feelings? To follow the urgings of my heart? Of my soul?”
“Of course you’re allowed those things.”
“Then you need to understand that there’s a fervor running through my blood that calls to you. I will work to save Amon. I will fight the Devourer. I may even die. But before I do all these things, I want to understand these feelings. Discover the tiny pleasures that I’ve only just begun to learn.” I stroked his cheek and found the roughness of the stubble on his face a soothing distraction.
He stilled my hand, placing his on top of mine. “Are you sure this is something you want, little lioness?” he asked.
I smiled. “This is something I very much want, Tene.” Love. The word felt right. He felt right. And yet, a nagging thought plagued me. “But…”
“But?” Asten frowned.
“There is something I need to know.” He nodded, encouraging me to speak, and squeezed my hand. Hesitantly, I asked, “Is the desire you claim to feel for me the result of the scarab’s pull?”
>
“You’re asking if I can love you for yourself?”
I nodded, relief and gratitude filling me. He understood me in a way no one else could. He could see into my heart.
Asten studied me for a moment and then slowly, purposely, his eyes never leaving mine, brought my palm to his lips. His kiss so sweet, my entire body hummed. Then, wrapping his arms around my waist, he drew me closer. “The scarab has no sway in the dreamworld,” he murmured, nuzzling my ear. “What I feel for you here is genuine and comes from my own heart. Does that answer satisfy you?”
I nodded.
He pressed a kiss against my temple and continued. “I was a man who usurped another man’s place. Who hid who he was and what he wanted. If all I ever get is to love you in my dreams, I’ll take it and praise my good fortune.”
I was about to protest, but he raised his head and pressed a finger against my lips. “And if, when you wake and decide that the things we’ve said and done were a mistake, I’ll understand. A long time ago, I made a vow never to take what belongs to another man again, especially my brother. But where you’re concerned”—he paused, trailing his fingertips across my skin and down my jaw, leaving little tingles in their wake—“I find oath breaking an all-too-pleasing prospect.”
I leaned into him, a tiny groan escaping from my lips, but he took hold of my shoulders. Pressing them lightly, and letting the cold, unfeeling wind flow between us, he waited for my eyes to open and meet his. “I need you to understand,” he said. “If, after this trial is said and done, you decide that you want to pursue this…this feeling between us, I will. I’ll move the stars in the heavens to find a way to be with you. This I vow.”
I smiled, teasing him lightly, “Do you ask me to trust you, then? A self-professed oath breaker?”
His eyes pierced me. “I would break every oath I’ve ever made or will make just for the chance to capture even a moment of what I’ve seen in my dreams. But the time is not yet, little one.”