The Dream Crafter(10)

Fallon graced Inara with a smirky smile, in it an obvious wish to taunt the woman. “My, that’s awful big of him.”

Inara returned the grin, giving a playful finger point to the redhead. “I see what you did there.”

“I try.” Fallon turned to Laire. “Let’s go to your appointment.”

The seriousness of the earlier conversation was gone from Laire’s tone and body language. “He never takes late clients. I’m going to be banned because you had to play with the furballs. Couldn’t you have messed with Wulver when we got back instead?”

Fallon closed her hand over Laire’s forearm and started leading the magic user to the front door. “I promise he’ll see you.”

“And how can you promise that?”

“I’m charming. People respond to me.”

“They only respond because you pull out Tenro at regular intervals.”

“It works, doesn’t it?”

And they were gone. Whatever was showing on Amana’s face had Inara touching her arm, saying, “Honey, let’s get you a drink. Come to the office.”

Inara led her into a typical office, the supple leather of the chairs and the quality of the artwork on the walls the only hints of luxury that told of the club’s success. With a whiskey neat in her hand, Amana finally spoke. “Everything they said was true, wasn’t it?”

Inara’s expression was pure sympathy. Whether it was an act or not, in this moment, Amana was grateful for it. “Whatever they want from you, you’ll come out on top. You have that look about you. So decide if you’re willing to pay their price, and go get what you want.”

Pay the price? Of course she was going to pay the price. They had her. Damn it, nothing mattered, details were just words. She was theirs and though they left without getting her answer, they knew it. “Yes, I’m going to get what I want.”





Chapter Five




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Amana had never directed herself into someone’s dream.

All her wanderings were accidental, random things. Pure chance. The one and only time there had been any type of influence was all wrapped around outside magic. It wasn’t that she directed herself somewhere. More, it was like there were random flashing neon signs that caught her attention and caused her to wander over and look. She had never gone to sleep with the desire to find someone specific.

There had been so many of those chance meetings over the years. Across the spectrum of races and abilities. She shied away anytime she felt magic, but except for that one restriction, she enjoyed herself, making connections in dreams that held deeper meaning for her than any of the real life people she’d interacted with.

The one constant was she only ever entered someone’s dreams once. Beyond the fact that she never wanted to acknowledge her power in any way, which meant she never tried to push her limits or discover what could and couldn’t be done, the plain truth was there was never any reason to revisit anyone, no matter how much she enjoyed the meeting. There was always someone new to meet, and in a dream, time was immaterial. Days, weeks, months, all of it lived in the few precious hours of slumber. One dream with someone was enough to curb her curiosity and have her moving forward.

It was the mundane, the ordinary that attracted her, and that’s what she wanted to live in the dreams. Sometimes she was fulfilling their wishes too, like when she was the granddaughter of a woman who baked wedding cakes and was thrilled when her granddaughter announced she wanted to join the business. In real life, that woman was selling her bakery, too old to keep it up any longer and with no family to pass it to. With Amana though, for one night the old woman could let go of that regret.

Other times there was no deep secret or wound to help heal. It was only the everyday world in its everyday joys and sorrows. Working beside the clerks at the local post office, all of them rolling their eyes in shared camaraderie after a particularly difficult customer walked out the door. Or running around after several three-year-olds in preschool – enjoying every moment but still collapsing in exhaustion at the end of the day.

As Amana settled into her sheets to bring about sleep, a barrage of faces flickered past closed eyelids, friends met during her wanderings.

Now that she thought about it, it had only ever been friends she had met up with. She had never wandered into a dream of someone she didn’t like, no one violent or evil. Why was that? Chance? Or did some part of her power direct her to the people she needed, the ones who kept her going when her waking hours did nothing but break her down and chip away at the will to continue?

That had to be true. Hundreds and hundreds of meetings, and none of them hurtful or damaging to her. It couldn’t be an accident.