Chapter 5

 

 

 

 

The cab pulled up outside her house, so she tipped the driver and hurried inside, intending to rush straight to the bathroom to drop to her knees in front of the toilet, worshipping the porcelain god. She hated the similarity to the way she started every day for more than a month so many years ago and the way the memories made her feel, but it couldn’t be helped.

The scent of oranges hit her after she’d taken three steps, followed by a bump that sounded like one of her kitchen cabinets closing. She almost turned and ran outside, but a voice carried from the kitchen. A familiar voice.

“Gaia, you’re here.” Another bump. “If I’d known you didn’t have coffee, I’d have taken the time to get some.”

Chloe gasped and walked down the hall to see the guy from the bar opening and closing her cabinets as if looking for something. Her stomach churned. She hadn’t woken up at the motel after all. She was still sleeping off the bourbon and about to embark on a freaky-ass dream.

How the hell . . .

No other explanation fit. She’d left him sleeping and caught a cab to come home. He couldn’t have beat her there—it wasn’t possible.

She was probably about to wake up and barely make it to the bathroom, given the way her stomach felt in this dream.

“Gaia, you didn’t look so good.” The man rushed to her, brow drawn down in concern.

Chloe took a couple of steps back and put her hand up. “Shhh. If I’m going to have a drunk dream, can it be a quiet one?”

“Drunk dream?”

She turned toward the bathroom. Was she really going to vomit in her dream? Yes, she thought she was.

“You don’t look well.”

“I’m not.” She made it to the toilet, but didn’t drop to her knees. That was too close to how she’d spent weeks of morning sickness so long ago, and too painful. She stood, her head hanging, waiting for the inevitable purge. Her head throbbed like an all-drum band was having a parade inside her skull.

“Please allow me to help you. ”

She ignored him.

It was a dream, so rudeness could be forgiven, right? When he stepped close behind her and wrapped his arms around her, she decided not to fight it for the same reason. None of it was real, so what did it hurt?

Her stomach knotted, she leaned more, tried to bend at the waist so she didn’t miss, but the guy’s hand pressed against her stomach, and another touched her forehead. She couldn’t bend, in fact she straightened against him and—

Chloe shouted.

It punched out of her as something zapped through her, a jolt like the world’s worst static electricity shock but throughout her whole body. She jerked free of him and spun, nearly toppling backward to sit on the toilet. He grabbed her and kept her from falling.

“What did you do to me?” she demanded, her fingers and toes still tingling.

“I helped,” he said softly, almost sadly. He let go of her.

“You shocked me…you…” Chloe swallowed, her stomach no longer threatening to erupt. Her brain had stopped throbbing, and the light didn’t hurt her eyes anymore.

Her hangover was gone.

Yeah, this was definitely a dream. The distasteful thought came that maybe she threw up while asleep and that explained why she felt so much better.

“Come, let’s find some coffee,” he said. “It’s one of the few beverages here I enjoy.” He took her hand in an attempt to lead her from the bathroom, but she pulled it away. When he left the bathroom, she followed and opened the drawer where she kept the coffee. His face lit up as he set up the pot to brew.

Chloe sat on a stool, watching him.

This can’t be real. I’m having one hell of hallucination.

She’d never had a dream quite like this.

He sat next to her and pushed a plate of orange wedges in her direction. “For my lady.”

Chloe eyed him, and almost said he wasn’t her anything, but instead she popped a piece of orange into her mouth and closed her eyes at how sweet and fresh it tasted.

“Thanks,” she said automatically. She opened her eyes, really looked at the man, the stranger whom she’d slept next to and was dreaming about. He was beautiful, with the brightest, clearest eyes. Were they really like that, or a trick of her dream?

If she was going to be stuck here, being rude to him would go against her nature, even if it wasn’t real. Why does it feel so real?

“What did you do, in the bathroom?”

“I healed you.”

“Apparently so. But how?”

“I’m a kitsune. Well, half-kitsune. My father was a full-blooded demon.”

“That so?” She smiled, humoring him, and chewed another piece of orange before pushing the plate toward him to offer him some. “And a kitsune is…”

“A fox spirit.” He said it slowly, as if talking to a child, or surprised she didn’t know these things. He ate a piece of orange.

“So you’re a demon fox mix?”

He spread his hands. “Essentially.”

“And you said something about protecting me?”

He beamed. “Yes, you remember! I won the Selection and have been knighted your royal consort. I’ve come for you.”

“And I am…”

His voice took that careful tone again. “You are the goddess Gaia, reincarnated once again on earth.”

“I’m a reincarnated goddess, and you’re a fox demon who’s come here to be my boyfriend. Well, that makes sense. And here I thought you were going to say something crazy.” She brushed her hands together and leaned her elbows on the countertop.

“Gaia, perhaps I can explain—”

She put a hand up. “Please, for the love of all that is holy, stop calling me that. I’m Chloe.”

“Hmm.” He tapped his finger on his chin, contemplating. “It would presumptuous of me to recklessly utter your divine name.”

“Call me Chloe. It’s an order.”

He froze a moment as if he was seized with an invisible bond “Very well.”

“You can explain all day long about goddesses and spirits and demons, and I’m still going to wake up pretty soon probably not even remembering any of this.”

“Wake up? No, Chloe. You’re awake now, I assure you.”

The thing was, she felt awake. She had always been a vivid dreamer, but her dreams had an ethereal quality about them that distinguished them from reality, almost as if anything she wasn’t looking at directly was behind a thin, white gauze.

And usually there were creatures in her dreams.

She could never figure out what they were, but had always thought fairies, wood nymphs, the kind of stories her dad used to read to her when she was a kid. Except when she had nightmares.

Her nightmares these days always involved Norman in some way or another.

A noise came from the front of the house. The mailman. Chloe’s mailman was the most reliable thing in her life most days. She was in the front of his route, she’d discovered after making conversation with him one day on her way to work, and had discovered he delivered the mail almost exactly at ten minutes after nine every morning. She went to reach for her purse to check the time on her phone, but remembered she’d done a dance on it in the bar. She leaned back to look past the guy to see the clock on her microwave: nine minutes after nine.

Would a precise detail like that make it into a dream?

Chloe put both hands on her face and leaned on her elbows. This really isn’t a dream?

“Okay. I’m awake. That doesn’t mean anything you’re telling me is true. None of this can be real. It can’t be.” Her argument sounded feeble even to her own ears. She took a deep breath and turned to him. “Okay,” she breathed, her stomach flip-flopping.

This guy had cured her hangover with some sort of static electricity charge. He’d beaten her there even though she’d left him sleeping in the motel. She couldn’t explain either of those things. And she certainly couldn’t explain the fact that two ears stuck out of his hair on either side of his head. Two cute, furry, animal ears. Ears like…a fox. A white fox.

She blinked.

I’m never drinking bourbon again.

No.

Not a drop of alcohol will touch these lips again.