Drained: The Lucid (30 page)

Riley shrugged. “You’re the head-shrinker, Professor, not me.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.” A frown tugged at Morgan’s lips.

“Professor?”

Morgan nodded.

“Why not? You’re close to graduating, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know if I want to teach college with my degree,” Morgan explained. “I’ve kind of stayed in school this long because I really don’t know what I want to do with the rest of my life.”

“Message heard and received. No more Professor. Just plain old Morgan. Unless there’s another name you prefer. How about Mistress?” Riley batted her mascaraed eyes.

Morgan’s cheeks reddened. “No. Morgan is fine.”

“Anyway,” Riley said a little loudly to change the subject. She didn’t want Morgan to think she was still here for the purposes of seduction, but it was hard to break old habits. She had always been naturally flirtatious, even before becoming a succubus. “As I was saying, you, as the dreamer, control our surroundings. But it might take some work since you’re conscious.”

“So if I wanted to put you in a mumu,” Morgan teased, “I couldn’t do that?”

“If that’s what it takes, I’d gladly don a circus tent.” Riley winked. “But no, that’s not how this works. It’s part of my free will to appear how I want to look in the realm,” she said. “If I happened to know you were into mumus, then I could accommodate your desires.”

Morgan leaned perceptively closer with interest. “So what are we talking about here? Interior decorating? A spaceship to Mars?”

“The possibilities are as infinite as your imagination. But I’ve never tried to teach anyone before,” Riley admitted. “This might take a while. You’re my first Lucid.”

“What about the others like you? You’ve never had to teach them?”

Riley shook her head. “No. That’s typically something that happens between a sire and a new cubare. I’ve never sired anyone.”

“Why not?”

“That’s …” Riley cleared her throat. “That’s personal.”

“More personal than asking when I lost my virginity?” Morgan smirked.

Riley rubbed at the back of her neck. “You make a good point.”

“It’s okay,” Morgan dismissed. “I didn’t mean to pry.” She gestured to their surroundings. “How do I do it? How do I change all of this?”

“It’s literally mind over matter,” Riley instructed. “You think it, and it happens. The better your focus and attention to details, the more authentic and three-dimensional it becomes.” She hesitated. “I’ll show you as long as you don’t use it against me.”

“So I can literally think about anything I want, and it’ll show up in the dream?”

“Just about,” Riley confirmed. “The more details, the more difficult. Like a book, for example. Those are nearly impossible to cast because you’d have to have every word on every page memorized in order to recreate a perfect facsimile. It’s far easier to conjure a book.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Casting is creating something with your imagination. Conjuring, however, is a simple summoning of a real object that actually exists outside of the realm,” Riley explained. “As long as it’s in near proximity when you fell asleep, you can generally bring it into the dream with you.”

“What about something alive?” Morgan posed, the gears of her brain churning with possibilities. “Could you conjure or cast that here?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Here. I’ll show you.” Riley opened her hand, palm open. The area above her skin shimmered to shape an object, and it solidified.

“My Isis statue,” Morgan breathed.

Riley’s fingers curled around the small figurine. “I remembered it from your bedroom,” she said, now feeling a little silly. “I wanted to fix it for you.”

“Can I … touch it?” Morgan asked with hesitation. Before Riley could respond, she had taken the clay figure. “It feels so real,” she marveled. She turned the solid object over in her own hand.

“That’s because it
is
real,” Riley said. “Well, as real as everything else around us is.”

“
Creatio ex nihilo
,” Morgan murmured under her breath.

“What’d you call me?”

“It’s Latin—creation out of nothing.”

“And here I was waiting for you to reveal that you’d graduated from wizarding school,” Riley chuckled. “But it turns out, you’re just a giant brain.”

“Hardly. My parents were religious—in an unconventional way. We went to mass every Sunday, and the priest gave mass in the original Latin.” She shrugged. “It was either learn the language or sit there totally lost every week.”

“You’ve never talked about them before.”

“Do most of your marks bring up parents in their sex dreams?” Morgan pointed out.

Riley faked a gasp. “Are you finally admitting that these are sex dreams?” It was supposed to be a joke, one to lure a smile or a laugh. Instead, Riley found a subtle shade of pink dusted on Morgan’s cheeks and a silence that fell between them.

“Why do you want to teach me to control my environment?” Morgan asked, breaking the quiet.

Riley cleared her throat. She couldn’t reveal that she felt somehow responsible for the torment Morgan had endured because of Sean. But maybe if Morgan had more control in her dreams she could give her the tools she needed to prevent something like that from ever happening again.

“Think of it as an early Christmas present.”

“I don’t do Christmas.”

“Why not? Are you Jewish or something?”

“No.” Morgan shifted uncomfortably. “I’ve just never liked it.”

“So what do you want to cast first?” Riley asked, saving Morgan from continued discomfort.

Hazel-green eyes seemed to dance at the idea of unlimited possibilities.

• • •

Riley cleared her throat and looked down at one of the ice cream containers discarded on the kitchen tile around them. Within a few minutes of Morgan’s first successful casting, it had become apparent that only the floor had the capacity to hold every dessert her mind could think up.

A light chuckle escaped Riley’s lips. “That has to be the worse recreation of coffee ice cream in the history of dreams.” The ice cream in question certainly looked delicious, and the texture was spot on with its creamy softness. Even the faint aroma was worth salivating over.

Morgan pouted and grabbed at the seemingly normal carton. “It’s not that bad.” The corners of her lips curled.

Riley narrowed her eyes and dipped her spoon into the softened dessert. “Yeah?” She propped herself high on her elbow. “Then why don’t you eat it? Take a nice big mouthful.”

Morgan’s lips clamped shut at the suggestion. She shook her head vehemently, but her smile remained.

“Why not?” Riley pried. She inched closer and hovered the spoon near Morgan’s mouth. “Could it be because you cast what should be savory, mouth-watering latte, and made it taste like sour lemons?”

Morgan burst into a fit of giggles. “It was a simple experiment to see if I could mix and match aesthetics and flavors.” The tip of her tongue peeked out to inspect a small sample of the offered spoon. Her face lit with amusement at the sharp, acidic, tang. “If I’d known you’d take a spoonful the moment it appeared …”

“You would have what?” Riley’s eyebrow arched. “Saved me from your devious plan to ruin the thing I treasure most in this world?” She lifted the spoon higher and focused on the melting liquid that pooled on the metal underside and threatened to drip.

Morgan hummed, and the jovial sound caught Riley’s attention. A hint of a sly smile perched on Morgan’s mouth, but there was depth in her eyes, and the intensity of her stare sent a chill down Riley’s spine. Absentmindedly, Riley’s lips parted as she watched her companion’s head dip and swipe at the pooling liquid with her tongue. Satisfied the dessert wouldn’t drip, Morgan worked on the melting pile atop the spoon. The human took multiple licks of the treat, each one more languid than the last as she savored its taste. When there was little left, she took the utensil into her mouth and slowly pulled back, using her lips to clean off what remained. She swallowed, and a satiated smile formed upon her face.

“It tastes like coffee now.” Morgan’s breath fogged the bare metal.

Riley blinked. Breaking her fixation on the spoon, she dropped her gaze down to the dozens of dessert options that Morgan had cast. “I’m starting to regret my decision to teach you all this,” she admitted, her voice breathy. “You’re a troublemaker.”

The metal utensil hung in the air for a few moments longer before it was discarded into a container. With her hand free, Riley snatched up a warm brownie and reclined onto the floor. She tucked an arm behind her head and focused on the baked good indulgence. It was all she could do to try to forget the imagery of Morgan’s licking.

“You might want to slow down on your new skills.” Riley looked over the choices for her next dessert selection. “If my theory on your lucidity is correct, you won’t feel well-rested when you wake up, especially if you try to do too much.”

Morgan nodded her understanding, and they continued to pick at the buffet of treats in a comfortable silence.

It was during that time Riley reflected on Morgan’s newly honed abilities. The human was an exceptional student, having picked up the craft with a natural aptness. Casting was often the most difficult subject when a cubare was first learning to use their powers in the realm. Many struggled to remember ways to satisfy all the senses with their recreated items. The more inaccuracies, the more likely a mark would focus on the poorly constructed elements rather than the sexual experience. Because there was a fine balance between the subjects and their visitors in the design of the dream, there was always leniency on deficient recreations that stemmed from the subconscious of the marks and not of the cubare.

A sound interrupted Riley’s thoughts. It was faint at first, a small echo in the distance. But as seconds elapsed, it became clearer and louder, more defined. It was music. With perked ears, Riley focused her hearing, trying to decipher where the sound was originating. In addition to the warmth of the song, she heard the distinct sounds of pops and crackles. The noises filled her with curiosity and she bounced to her feet, leaving the other woman behind to investigate.

The living room hadn’t changed aside from a record player that sat in the middle of the coffee table.

A solid item such as a spoon was easy, an edible item that involved multiple senses was intermediate, but the details to produce music were advanced. It was easier to conjure a music player from the waking world than to try and emulate a music playlist from memory.

“I think this confirms that you are a brilliant witch,” Riley said, her fingers grazing over the glossy wood box. “You remembered almost every detail with this. There’s only a few blank dials on it.”

“I better have remembered. I used to listen to that thing every day as a kid.”

“Are you playing who I think you are?”

Morgan smirked at her selection. “
Tchaikovsky.
”

Riley shook her head, chuckling. “Your parents didn’t buy you tapes on the ABCs?”

“Oh, I had my ‘Wheels on the Bus.’ Those classics played all the time.” Morgan moved closer to the coffee table. “That was until I was tall enough to reach the record player. My dad used to have it stacked on top of his stereo cabinet.” She sat down on the couch and motioned for Riley to join. The action didn’t need to be repeated before the succubus plopped down on the next cushion.

Morgan patted her leg and Riley regarded her with a quizzical expression.

“Just lay down.” Morgan laughed.

Riley obediently twisted herself around to use the offered space as a pillow.

“Close your eyes.” It was a simple command.

“Anything you want. It’s your fantasy …” Riley’s words tapered as she felt Morgan’s fingers stroke through her hair, and the gentle movement lulled her into compliancy.

“I want you to imagine you’re in a lush field. A vast sea of tall green grass sways under the night’s coming breeze, tickling your fingertips as you wander.”

Riley cracked open her eyes. “What book did you memorize this from?”

“Keep your eyes closed,” Morgan said in a hushed tone, and she moved her hand to cover the succubus’s vision. “I’m a big brain, remember? I read many books.”

“Uh huh. This confirms it.”

“Now shush.” Tentative fingers returned to thread through Riley’s tousled mane. “As I was saying, before someone rudely interrupted, you let your gaze float up and roam across the twilight blue that paints the sky. As the radiance of day subsides, flecks of light flare to life in the distance, catching your eyes like glimmering gems. The only evidence of the sun’s existence is a deep red sinking below the horizon. It fades away like the dying glow of old embers dwindling into ash and earth, but it does so knowing it will be reborn when the darkness passes.”

Riley hummed at the mental image and she could feel the tension leave her body as Morgan’s fingers massaged at her scalp. The lucid human continued to describe the colorful world. She detailed mountains and rolling hills and mentioned the scent of freshly dampened earth. It was a place that felt free of the stress and worries of normal life. At the gentle voice, Riley felt herself drift, and she became lost in the soothing sound.

“One day, I’ll dream up a whole world for you.” The words made Riley’s eyes flutter open, and she stared up at a set of determined hazel-green irises. She looked serious, as if her words were a promise. “I can only give you ice cream right now.” Morgan’s face looked crestfallen at the mention of the earlier accomplishment, and Riley ached to reach out to cup her face in comfort. But the succubus decided against it.

The music changed, and the beginning of another waltz began to play. “You could also give me a dance,” Riley suggested. “Come,” she said in an affected accent. “The music beckons.”

She peeled herself from Morgan’s comfort and rolled off the couch. A simple push of the coffee table cleared enough space for the basic waltz Riley had in mind. She glanced down at Morgan and, with a wide smile, offered her hand.

“Would you do me the honor?” Riley straightened her posture and bowed her head slightly.

Morgan’s hand slipped into place. “It would be my pleasure.”