In Her Dreams by Bolryder, Terry (the reader ebook .txt) 📕

the car stuttering ominously beneath us. The cracked leather seats bounce below me as the engine jerks and sputters, hating idling.

“Please, please let me buy you another car,” I say desperately as she hits the gas and takes us through the intersection.

“With what money?” She glances at me, then returns her attention to the road. “What, are you just going to poof one out of thin air?”

“I’ll have you know that transformations or materializations at this level take the equivalent of a human PhD to master,” I say snippily.

She grins. “Hmm, smart guy, eh?”

I frown. “Smart enough to know this thing is a deathtrap.”

She shakes her head. “No one is allowed to insult Sally. She’s been a loyal friend to us all.”

I sigh. “Then can I at least fix Sally?”

“No,” she says. “Reve, I told you. I like having you in my life. But you don’t just get to change or fix everything that doesn’t suit you.”

She pulls up to the overlook we were driving to, and there’s a concrete barrier overlooking a gray-taupe beach and a gray-blue ocean beyond it.

The car sputters to a halt, jerking us as it stops, and she happily hops out, carefully replacing the door on its hinges after.

I carefully open my door and shut it because sometimes it feels like parts of this thing are just going to fall off.

“Good girl,” Jen says, patting it as she walks around the back to open the trunk. “Good thing I always have a blanket.”

I grab the blanket for her, then snap my fingers, causing a lunch basket to appear in my hands.

I’m proud of my materializations.

“That looks amazing,” she says. “Like something out of a magazine.”

“Only the best for my mate,” I say.

She flushes, but I see that slight hesitation in her eyes that’s always there when I talk about the future.

But I love looking in those beautiful brown eyes with their curled slightly red lashes. And I love the way her soft body is encased in a red sweatshirt that counters the flaming shade of her hair, the pale beauty of her skin.

I love her profile as she turns to look at the ocean, pulling her sweatshirt around her as we head down the sandy steps that lead to the beachfront.

It’s a cloudy, stormy day, and though I’d like to change it for her, it would probably confuse the human weather people.

And the oracle of this world told us not to interfere too much in human affairs.

Plus, there’s something beautiful about this weather, I think as I snap my fingers so that a soft black blanket appears around Jen’s shoulders.

She smiles at me, pulling it tighter, and then keeps her attention on the stairs.

When she nearly slips on some sand, I grab her around the waist, pulling her close to me. God, I love her curves.

Her soft skin.

Her strong beliefs.

The way she melts against me for a moment every time I touch her and then fires up and seems to feel like she shouldn’t have melted so easily.

But that’s just natural with your mate.

When we reach the beach, the sky is a painting of silver and blue and white, the clouds hovering in white wisps with silver streams from the setting sun and deepening blue from the oncoming twilight.

“I’m glad we had some time to look at the human world,” she says as I take the blanket from the trunk and lay it out on the sand.

We sit down on it together, propping ourselves up on our elbows so we can watch the waves.

The ocean roils, sea mist spraying the air as giant waves curl and crash, sending the tide forward to tickle the sand, dampening it and retreating with froths of foam.

“This is beautiful,” I say. “If I lived in the human world, maybe I would live by the ocean.”

She snorts. “You have to pay for that.”

“I’m sure I could find a well-paying job here,” I say. “With my skills at materialization and illusions.”

“Ha, like you’d just pop cars out of thin air?”

“Sure,” I say. “If they want me to.”

“No way,” she says. “Humans get wind of your power and they’re going to capture and put you in a lab. Or on TV. Or something.”

I look over at her. “So even you admit humans are pathetic and untrustworthy, yet you want to stay here.”

“Not all humans,” she says, looking up at the sky. “My parents were good people, though they died young. There are good people around. But humans as a whole? Yeah, I don’t know about that one. I try just to think about my own little world. Taking care of who I can.”

I suck in a deep breath, ready to do battle. I know I should care more about the date, but someone has to say this. “Jen, using that car is not really taking care of Joey. Or you.”

Her gaze is sharp. “What do you mean? Nothing has happened to us.”

“So far,” I say. “But it’s honestly not safe.” I sigh. “How about a compromise? You let me get a job and earn the money, and I can buy you an actual car.”

She frowns. “I can’t let you do that.”

“We’re dating, right?” I ask. “We’re together. I mean, I agreed to stay here in the human world with you as long as I could.”

“True,” she says, considering it.

“Look,” I say, reaching over to gently brush her hair back and graze her cheek with my thumb. “You’re so precious to me. I don’t want anything to happen to you or Joey. And I know you hate giving up control, and you have good reason. Because someone betrayed you and used it wrong. But I promise I mean no ill will, and I expect nothing for it. But please, please, for the love of all that is holy in the human world, let me get you a car.”

She laughs, then rolls over, pinning me with her smaller body. “All right, all right. I know when I’ve lost. But you seriously don’t owe me