Chapter Nine
“I need you to start at the beginning,” Caspian insisted. It was the first time he’d faced Bran outside of his dreamscape, and he found himself embarrassed. It didn’t feel possible, but Bran was even more handsome in real life. The slope of his nose and the angles of his face were sharper and more masculine. The lines of his body were more tightly defined. It wasn’t until Caspian looked back through his memories that he realized how blurry his time in his dreams had been.
Fleeting moments.
Glimpses of beauty.
Exquisite pleasure.
All of it had been fantastic, but none of it had been real. At least, not in the way that Bran was real now.
“The beginning, hatchling?” Bran asked with a smile that turned Caspian’s knees to jelly. “That’s a lot to cover. Are you sure you don’t want to be more specific?”
“You know what I mean,” Caspian accused. “I mean, I want to know what you are, and who you are, and—”
Bran stepped forward and laced their fingers together. Caspian fell silent. He licked his lips and lifted his chin to look into Bran’s eyes—Bran stood a good few inches taller than him—and forgot what he intended to say. Bran’s touch lit arousal deep inside Caspian and immediately filled the void he’d lamented over the last few days. Caspian was taken with the feeling.
“You are too distracting,” Bran whispered. “Beautiful.”
When had their lips gotten so close? Caspian’s eyelids drooped. Chemistry crackled in the air between them. It raced through him, stirring excitement in his stomach and waking his cock.
“Come. While we talk, we should be comfortable. Take me to your bed, hatchling. Let us nest together.”
Caspian moved on instinct. His fingers stayed laced with Bran’s as he guided him to the bedside. They sank onto the bed together. Bran nestled close, and it took a great deal of Caspian’s willpower not to claim his lips in a kiss.
“Now, I’ll share with you what I know. Are you prepared to listen?”
“Yes.” Caspian was more ready than ever.
“Then you shall know.” Bran pressed a kiss to Caspian’s forehead that made him wish Bran’s lips would travel south. “There exist other dimensions, hatchling, did you know?”
“No,” Caspian said. “Not really.”
“Well, there are. Many. Hundreds. Thousands. Endless possibilities. Endless alternate realities. Infinite variation. There are many of those dimensions, like yours, who know nothing of life beyond their own. There are many, like mine, that do.”
“So… so you travel between dimensions?” Caspian asked. He watched Brian's lips as he spoke, enchanted. “Is that how you found me?”
“No, hatchling. You were the one who traveled between dimensions.” Caspian kissed him on the tip of his nose. “What a brave little creature you are, so bold as to set off on your own when others of your kind shy away. What a brave thing you are.”
Caspian glowed from the inside at the praise, but he wasn’t sure he deserved it. “I didn’t do it on purpose,” he admitted.
“It’s of little consequence.” Bran drew him closer. Caspian had never felt so whole as he did when pressed against Bran’s chest. “Perhaps it makes you braver for facing so many unknowns and still pressing onward. You had no idea what was happening, did you?”
“No.”
“But you didn’t flee. You came to me. And now you are mine.” Bran smiled. The adoration in his eyes crept into his lips, and Caspian wondered if it would be rude to interrupt him to get a taste of it. “The woods beyond this dwelling harbors a weak place between dimensions; a veil draped over a hole in a wall that allows the passage of those from near and far. It is guarded, and the guardian turns most away, but there are some with permissions to come and go.”
“Like me?” Caspian asked.
“No. I supposed you slipped through the cracks. The guardian has been… occupied lately.”
Caspian wasn’t sure he got the reference, but he let it go. The guardian wasn’t his focus. “So I’ve traveled into other dimensions without knowing it?”
“Mm, yes. You have. It’s how we met.”
“And now you’re here in my dimension to…”
“To set things right between us,” Brian said. “I regret that I haven’t had time to visit at night, but there have been issues I’ve had to tend to that have prevented me from visiting.”
Caspian wasn’t sure he understood all the pieces of the puzzle yet, but he was doing his best to get a look at the big picture. Bran, the raven, was a prince. He had to tend to business in another dimension. Caspian had crossed at an interface between dimensions and had happened upon the prince while he was injured and in bird form.
It was a lot to take in.
“So… so what about your wing?” Caspian asked. “I mean if that was you. You are a raven, yes?”
“We bear the blood of corvids, yes. When you found me, I was injured in a dimension other than my own. We were… well, the details are confidential, hatchling, but you can be rest assured that you did me a favor by rescuing me.”
“Are you a spy?” Caspian asked, his eyes narrowed.
“I am many things, but out of all of them, the only important thing I am is your lover.”
Caspian blushed. He shifted a little closer. He was fully clothed, but Bran was naked. It was very hard to resist running his hands down Bran’s body. “You’re saying that to distract me.”
“Maybe,” Bran smirked. “And it is no bad thing.”
The upward curl of the corner of his lips was tantalizing. Caspian leaned a little closer, struggling to find a balance between listening to the information he needed and enjoying the things he wanted.
“So, what? There’s still a lot to understand. When I found you and brought you back to my dimension, your wing healed. Why? How?” Caspian wanted to know and understand so much but didn’t know the right questions to ask.
“On the way back to your dimension, we passed through another with deep wells of magical power,” Bran explained. “I utilized it to repair my body. The dimension in which I was injured didn’t have power like that.”
“You’re magical?”
Bran shot him a heavy look. “I can transform into a raven, hatchling. That feat isn’t magical for me, but I believe by your standards, I am very magical.”
“Oh.” Caspian bit down on his bottom lip. “Can you teach me?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Will you try?”
“If you will listen.” Bran unlaced their fingers and ran a hand affectionately down Caspian’s side. Caspian shivered at the touch. “There’s not a thing I won’t teach you so long as you retain an interest in it.”
Caspian felt he could listen all day to the mysteries of Bran’s world. He’d never believed in magic before, but he’d seen the raven transform into a man before his eyes. Caspian couldn’t explain that away. Not unless he’d ingested a very potent illness when drinking from that stream.
“I’d like to learn. But there are still things I need to understand.”
Bran’s hand stopped wandering. He cupped the modest dip of Caspian’s waist. “I am ready to answer.”
“So I understand how we met and the circumstances surrounding your sudden recovery. But what about who you are? You’re a prince?”
“I am a prince. The crown prince, sole heir to the throne.”
“And so…” Caspian struggled to get the next words out. “So that makes me wonder why you’d give me the time of day. You said you owe me a ‘great boon,' but I mean… we had sex the first night, right? Shouldn’t it have ended there?”
Caspian was afraid to ask the question because he feared the answer. Since he’d met Bran in his dreams, his world had changed. Caspian had never felt as connected to Bran as he had any other person. If Bran were to shoot him down now—to say that the connection was totally one-sided—Caspian wasn’t sure what he would do.
Bran stroked in small circles against Caspian’s hip. The silence lingered.
Finally, Bran spoke. “I expected only one night. You’re right. I wanted to repay my debt and have it over with.”
“So… so what?” Caspian bit his cheek to keep from breaking down. “What changed? You came back.”
“I did.” Bran looked worried. “When I pulled you into the dimension of my dreamscape, I saw into you more transparently than I had before, and even though you are numb to magic, you called to me. You spoke to my soul, and my soul spoke to yours in kind.”
“I don’t understand.”
Bran looked Caspian in the eye. The air hung thick with unspoken meaning. “You are a fit for my soul, hatchling. My counterpart. My other half. And now I am bound to you.”
Caspian suspected he blushed all the way to his toes. The sincerity in Bran’s voice mixed with honey sweetness, and it made Caspian melt.
“Your soulmate?” Caspian asked in a near whisper.
“Yes, in both the purest and most abstract sense of the word.”
His soulmate. Caspian blinked back sudden tears. Was he destined to spend his life with a man as handsome as Bran? It didn't seem possible. A magical regal prince from another dimension. Their time together had been short, but the connection they shared was strong. If it was to last his whole life long, Caspian didn’t think he’d ever grow tired of spending time with his raven prince.
Caspian reached out to caress Bran’s cheek.
Bran’s eyes closed.
The moment between them was tender, and Caspian never wanted it to end. “I’m just a human. Isn’t there a raven out there who’s a better match for you?”
Opening his eyes, Bran took Caspian’s hand in his own. He guided it to the scant space between their bodies and held it loosely. The heat from Bran’s chest warmed Caspian's hand from one side, the heat from his own body warming the other. “Never.”
“And so I’m…”
“You are the one for me. The only one, forever. You are the keeper of my soul and the bearer of my seed. One day, should you wish it, we shall raise a royal family together and do the kingdom proud.”
A crown prince. A kingdom. Caspian was about eighty percent sure he must be dreaming, but the twenty percent of him that insisted this was real life refused to be shut down.
“I don’t even know the first thing about where you live. I mean… I live here. Are we going to live here? In this dimension?”
“No.” Bran’s gaze flicked down Caspian’s body, then met his eye again. “I live in my own dimension and tend to the matters of my kingdom from there. I cannot do the business I need to do from abroad. My life is enveloped in policies and decorum. I am expected to uphold certain standards—one of which is that I must maintain residence in the palace. Is that an issue for you?”
Yes. Definitely an issue.
“No.”
Bran smiled. He leaned forward and kissed Caspian sweetly, and Caspian closed his eyes and kissed back. He didn’t mean what he’d said, but in moments like this, it didn’t matter. He was pretty sure he hadn’t been to Bran’s world yet. Who was he to shoot it down prematurely? There was a chance it was a nice place.
“You make me happy, hatchling,” Bran whispered against Caspian’s lips. “I’m so glad I found the time to be able to visit you outside of our dreamscapes.”
“Are those dimensions, too?” Caspian asked. He was woozy from the kiss, but the question begged to be asked. “I found the waterfall and the little clearing we made love in. The rock was damp exactly where we climbed out.”
“Dreams are the travels of an unchained soul through neighboring dimensions. Most times the soul doesn’t wander far, and reality doesn’t shift that much, but there are times when that can change. Nightmares come to mind as an example.”
“Then there are frightening dimensions, too?” Fear clenched in Caspian's lungs and left him squirming. Every bad dream he’d had was based on a real place?
“There are.” Bran smoothed his hair reassuringly. “Just as there is good, there is evil. Just as there is comfort, there is terror. There is never one without the other, hatchling. But I will keep you safe from that which seeks to destroy. I will always keep you safe.”
Caspian believed him. “Then I want to see where you live. I want to know what kind of good it is.”
Bran smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”