CHAPTER SIX
Leta stood on the top precipice of the tallest mountain on the Vanishing Isle. She held a vial of sleeping serum that she'd borrowed from her uncle Wink-the Sandman. With it, she and Aidan would be locked into the realm of sleep and Dolor wouldn't be able to throw them out of it. What Aidan planned was so risky...
She shouldn't care. She shouldn't even be able to care, but as she stood there watching the ocean waves crash down on the rocks below she realized that she did. Aidan's pain did more than fire her emotions and powers, it touched her heart.
It had been so long since she last experienced real tenderness. She didn't want to lose it again. She didn't want to lose Aidan. He wasn't just an assignment to her.
He was so much more.
How that could be she couldn't even begin to understand. They'd only known each other in his dreams and for one human day. Yet she knew him on a level that defied logic. Her soul felt him.
And she didn't want to let him go, or worse, watch him die the way she had her family. She couldn't stand to go through that again.
Leaning her head back, she let the salt-scented breeze soothe the restlessness inside her. The weight of the vial lay in her palm like a heavy piece of iron. She didn't want to make a mistake. Trapping Aidan in the dream world might kill him.
He was certain it was their best chance to defeat Dolor. But she wasn't so sure. Dolor could be crafty and, most of all, he was deadly. Aidan had courage, there was no doubt. Unfortunately courage didn't always win the fight.
"Give me strength," she whispered to the gentle breeze that danced around her. In the back of her mind, she saw the slaughtering of her family. Nothing could dull that pain. Nothing.
But at least that pain showed her that she was alive. She wasn't completely empty and devoid of feelings.
Closing her eyes, she tried to channel it to anger. Aidan was right. It was the only way to cope with it. And yet at the mere thought of Aidan, her anger faded and a strange sense of peace overcame it.
"Leta?"
She turned at the sound of M'Adoc's voice behind her. He was dressed in a loose white shirt and white pants. His black hair curled becomingly around his face as he slowly approached her.
"What are you doing here?" she asked him.
"I heard you asked Wink for serum."
She nodded.
There was a deep understanding in his blue eyes as his gaze held hers captive. "It's a brave move to call Dolor out. Highly risky."
She didn't want him to know of her uncertainty. As one of the dream god leaders, he'd be honor bound to tell Zeus of any Dream-Hunter who might be getting their emotions back. That was something she couldn't allow. "Victory never goes to the coward."
He inclined his head respectfully to her as if he agreed with that. "By the way, I should warn you that you're not feeling Aidan's emotions."
A chill of strange apprehension went down her spine. "What do you mean?"
He leaned down to whisper softly in her ear. "Zeus's curse is weakening. Every year more and more of our emotions are coming back."
Leta paled at his disclosure and the ramifications of it. "Does he know?"
M'Adoc shook his head. "And we can't afford to let him learn it either. He will rain down on us with every thunderbolt he has."
Agony poured through her as she remembered the last time Zeus had come for them. Her vision was still tainted by the blood spilled that day and by those that followed as Zeus demanded they each be beaten and stripped of their emotions.
It'd been a harsh time for everyone.
"I thought it was part of your job to report that."
His look was harsh. Cold and determined. "I don't betray my family."
Her heart lightened at his words. Better than anyone, she knew he meant it. He'd already proven those words to her. "Can I trust what I feel?"
He gave the subtlest of nods. "But remember, don't show it. More lives than just your own are on the line with this. I'm one of the three chosen to report anyone who begins to feel and if Zeus ever finds out that I've failed in that he will have no mercy for me."
As if she would be so cold-too bad others weren't so trustworthy. "Have no fear, brother. I would never betray you."
"I know. It's why I came to talk to you. I wanted you to know that everything you feel is your own. I don't want you to get into trouble for it."
"Thank you."
He inclined his head to her before he stepped back and vanished.
Leta stood there, rolling the small vial of purple serum between her palms. So what she'd shared with Aidan hadn't been a farce. These weren't his emotions siphoned.
It was her determination.Her compassion.
Her heart.
Grateful for that fact, she smiled. Kissing the bottle in her hand, she flashed herself back to the cabin where Aidan sat before the fire he must have started in his hearth after she left.
There was an odd look about him. He was somber, but there was something underneath that that hadn't been there before.
"Are you okay?"
He nodded without looking at her. "Tomorrow is Christmas Eve."
"I know." She glanced about the room that had nothing in it to mark the coming human celebration that she'd witnessed in the Hall of Mirrors. "Should we get a tree for you?"
He snorted as if the mere thought offended him. "When I was a kid, my mother used to make us watch that 1950s movie,A Christmas Carol , and then after she died, my uncle would put in Bill Murray's Scrooged every year while we decorated the tree. Do you know the story?"
She shook her head as she sat down beside him.
He turned away from her so that he could stare into the crackling fire. "The basic story is about a miser named Scrooge. In the beginning, he's harsh and unyielding. He hates Christmas and refuses to celebrate it.