Chapter 67 Chapter Sixty-Seven
Garrick was on the threshold of sleep—hovering between shallow awareness and the slow descent into dreams.
And Kaelani… was drifting straight toward him.
She stepped into Garrick’s dream.
The transition was seamless—a slow bleed from the dark veil of thought into something heavier, thicker. She expected resistance, some kind of barrier. But his mind opened like a cracked door, already weakened from neglect.
And inside… was misery.
The dream formed around her in muted grays and decaying light. Cold stone walls, damp with age. A narrow cot bolted to the floor. A heavy iron door with no handle on the inside.
A prison.
Not the actual cell where he’d been held—but a twisted echo of it, shaped by his own mind. Loneliness clung to the air like mold. Silence stretched too long. He sat on the cot, hunched over, face buried in his hands.
Kaelani stood in the far corner, unseen.
The fae women had followed—silent watchers on the dream’s edge. They didn’t interfere. Not yet. Their forms shimmered faintly in the periphery, shadows waiting, watching, curious to see what she would do.
Garrick shifted slightly, murmuring to himself in a voice dry and cracked. The words were unintelligible, broken. His fingers twitched, digging into his scalp. Shame rolled off him in waves. Regret. Resentment. But mostly… abandonment.
He felt it like a chain around his throat.
Kaelani’s lips pressed into a line. She didn’t feel pity. Only a strange, hollow satisfaction.
Now he feels it.
What it’s like to be forsaken.
To reach for a warmth that never comes.
To wonder if you’re even worth the love you so desperately seek.
Her steps were soundless as she approached. The dream didn’t resist her presence—it bent to her.
And she began to mold it.
The walls stretched taller. The light dimmed further. The door faded entirely, replaced by endless shadows that offered no exit.
She whispered—not aloud, but directly into the fabric of the dream.
“They never even fought for you.”
Garrick flinched.
“Your mate. Your children. They never even showed up to your hearing to defend your name.”
The cot beneath him rusted. The floor cracked.
“Now you understand.”
Her voice curled like smoke through the air. “What it’s like to be alone.”
The shadows deepened.
The walls pulsed with memory.
Images flickered around him—ghosts of family dinners he wasn’t part of, of his children moving on without him, having children of their own. Birthdays and celebrations where his name was never spoken. His mate severing their bond and mating another.
He reached for them—desperate—but the images vanished as quickly as they came, dissolving like ash.
Kaelani watched it all, calm and unflinching.
She shaped more, merely using his own fears against him.
The air shimmered like heat rising from a kettle. Garrick’s prison dissolved—not all at once, but in ribbons—until the cold cell gave way to a new setting.
A family room.
Familiar, warm, once. Family portraits lined the mantle. A fire crackled in the hearth, but its warmth didn’t reach Garrick. He stood in the middle of it all, confused, hollow-eyed. The sound of footsteps echoed down the hall.
Christian appeared first, looking older than Garrick remembered—sharper in the jaw, harder in the eyes. He didn’t hesitate.
“You’re a disgrace to our name,” he said, voice low but laced with fury.
“Everything you taught me about honor—about loyalty—you spat on it. You don’t belong here.”
Garrick opened his mouth, but no sound came. His hands shook slightly at his sides.
Then came Elara.
She stepped forward from the shadows, elegant and composed—her voice cutting, her eyes ablaze.
“You destroyed this family.”
“You crushed my mother’s spirit and left us to pick up the pieces of your selfishness.”
“Do you know what it’s like to watch someone you love fall apart because of you?”
He tried to speak then. His throat moved. “I—I didn’t mean—”
“You always meant it,” she hissed. “You just didn’t think we’d survive without you. But we did.”
And finally… Brielle.
She didn’t emerge so much as arrive—as if the room shaped itself around her grief. Her face was pale and tear-streaked, her gaze locked on him like a blade.
“How could you?” she whispered.
“After everything we built—after all the nights I waited, believed, trusted—how could you betray me like that?”
Garrick fell to his knees. “I was tricked,” he gasped. “She came to me in dreams—I didn’t know what was real. I didn’t want her—”
“Liar,” Brielle snapped, her voice trembling now with pain.
“You welcomed her. You begged for her touch. You didn’t just bed her—you adored her. Over and over again, you chose her.”
He choked on a sob. The room began to tremble.
Kaelani watched, detached. Not cruel—but resolute. This was the reflection he’d never been forced to see. Until now.
The dream flickered.
And behind Kaelani, the fae women stirred.
Their eyes gleamed with something mischievous. The air turned cold, the fire in the hearth snuffed out as if by unseen hands.
They stepped forward.
And the dream… began to rot.
The fae women fanned out, encircling Garrick like sharks scenting blood. The dream began to distort, warping at the edges, as if the world itself were exhaling in dread.
The walls buckled. The ceiling stretched higher and higher until it vanished into darkness. The warmth of the house turned rancid. Family photographs melted, dripping down the walls like tar. The floorboards cracked open—not deep chasms, but mouths, whispering things Garrick couldn’t understand.
The hearth erupted with black flame.
Christian’s face twisted first.
His jaw dislocated. His eyes turned white. His voice gurgled like broken glass.
He took a step forward—and with each step, his limbs grew out of proportion. A grotesque, warped version of Christian, towering over Garrick like a shadow with no soul.
Elara’s mouth split ear to ear in a silent scream. Her body jolted like a marionette, limbs bending in unnatural angles. Her eyes bled black tears, staining her cheeks.
Then came Brielle.
Her dress was soaked now, the fabric clinging to her like burial shrouds. Her mouth moved but made no sound—until a second mouth opened on her neck and screamed for her.
From the shadows behind them, other figures began to emerge. Not people—fragments. Slivers of twisted memory and unresolved guilt. A woman with no face and Garrick’s voice. A child with glowing eyes who pointed at him, weeping blood. Another version of himself, naked and hunched, gnawing on bones in the dark.
Garrick stumbled back.
The walls closed in—only they weren’t walls anymore. They were flesh. Pulsing. Breathing. The house exhaled, and the air smelled like rot and regret.
He screamed.
The floor gave out. He fell into water. Ice cold. Hands reached for him from below—too many to count. They clawed at him, dragging him down.
Kaelani felt it all.
She stood at the edge of the collapsing dreamscape, breath caught in her throat. What she’d intended as justice was spiraling into torment. This… this wasn’t what she’d meant to do.
“That’s enough,” she called out. Her voice wavered but held.
The fae women didn’t stop.
They moved as one—graceful and terrifying—each a conduit of nightmare. The dream obeyed them now.
The sky cracked open like glass, revealing nothing but void. Screams echoed from no source at all, the kind of sound that didn’t just fill the air—it pierced it.
Kaelani stepped forward, heart racing.
“I said stop.”
Still, they didn’t.
Garrick was drowning. Suffocating. Convulsing beneath the weight of his own mind made monstrous.
His hand clutched his chest.
Kaelani’s eyes went wide. The fear, the affliction—he wasn’t just dreaming it. He was feeling it.
Kaelani surged forward, eyes glowing. “I said… stop!”
Her power exploded outward in a brilliant violet shockwave. The fae women were ripped from the dream, their physical bodies hurled like ragdolls across the chamber. Gasps rang out. Draevyn’s stance tightened. Even the seers—long accustomed to raw power—stared in stunned silence.
Kaelani was still inside the dream.
The freezing lake cracked and fell away.
She seized control with sheer will—and reshaped it.
The ice dissolved. The screaming winds stilled. The black water receded like a tide.
In its place bloomed warmth.
The scene transformed into a glade bathed in golden light. Towering trees swayed gently overhead, their leaves catching the sun like stained glass. A soft bed of moss replaced the jagged ice. The air smelled of earth and something sweeter—jasmine, maybe. Peaceful. Quiet.
Garrick fell to his knees—soaked, shivering, hand still clenched over his heart, his face twisted in agony.
Kaelani dropped beside him, catching his body before it fully hit the mossy earth.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, voice trembling. “This isn’t what I wanted.”
Her hand hovered over his chest, and violet light began to pulse at her fingertips—flickering like embers called by instinct rather than intent.
She took a steadying breath, closed her eyes, and gently pressed her palm to his heart.
The light spread through his chest in gentle ripples, warm and rhythmic—like a song only the soul could hear. She reached deeper, through the panicked rhythm, through the chaos and damage.
His breathing slowed.
The tightness in his face eased.
The sharp, stuttering thud of his heart calmed—resuming its proper tempo.
And then… she felt it.
A warmth—not from her power, but from him.
She opened her eyes and realized that Garrick had rested his hand on hers, holding it against his chest—not in fear, but… something gentle. Something real.
Her gaze lifted to his face—and for the first time, she saw something in his eyes that had never been directed at her before.
No anger.
No arrogance.
No bitterness.
Just… remorse.
A regret so deep it aged him. Guilt that could not be undone. And beneath it all, something quieter.
Something breaking.
And Kaelani’s heart—fortified by years of being hardened—softened.
And then, in an instant, the dream shattered.
She gasped softly as her eyes flew open in the chamber, the violet glow still flickering like fire behind her irises.
All around her… silence.
Eyes locked on her—Draevyn, the seers, the fae women still recovering from where they’d been thrown.
No one spoke a word.