“What? Are you two best friends now?” Helen asked with raised eyebrows. Lucas swallowed painfully like she’d hurt him. Concerned, Helen reached out and ran her hand across his face, trying to wipe away the sadness that had appeared there so fast.
“I respect him. Even if he won’t do what I ask.” His voice came out rough and thick. “It’s time for you to sleep.”
“I’m not tired,” she said quickly, winning a little laugh from Lucas.
“You’re exhausted! No more arguing,” he admonished sternly, although his playful look robbed the words of their sting. “Ask Morpheus to give you dreams again. He was very kind to me. I have no doubt he’ll help you if he can.”
“Will you stay?” Helen asked. She stared at him, adoring him. “Please, stay with me?”
“As long as I can stand it,” he promised, shivering. “I never get cold, but damn! It’s freezing in here.”
“Tell me about it,” Helen said, rolling her eyes. “Come and keep me warm.” Lucas gave a small laugh and shook his head, like he didn’t know what to do with her.
Staying on top of the covers, he settled in, allowing Helen to scoot down into a comfortable position. He folded her arms into an X across her chest and smoothed her hair back like he was laying her in her grave. He looked down on her intensely.
“Open your mouth,” Lucas whispered.
Helen could feel him shaking and watched a myriad emotions play across his face as he tucked the heavy gold wafer under her tongue. It was still warm with his body heat, slightly salty, and the weight of it in her mouth was remarkably comforting. Lucas reached out and gently closed her eyelids. Keeping his hand cupped over her eyes, Helen felt him brush his lips across her cheek as he leaned close to her ear.
“Don’t let Morpheus seduce you. . . .”
Starry skies and inky strips of silk surrounded Helen. She was in
side a tent that had no top, just undulating walls of dark, slippery sheets that seemed to breathe slowly as they caught and released a gentle and ever-changing breeze. Here and there between the swaths of material were austere Doric columns carved out of black pearl marble. Dim follow-me lights danced down the passageways, hovering in the night air. As one neared Helen, she saw that up close they looked like tiny candle flames glowing inside iridescent bubbles.
The grass beneath her feet was covered by a field of poppies, their heads nodding drunkenly with the passing winds. Despite the darkness, Helen could feel the cool dewiness of the flowers and see the golden pollen that sparkled inside the bloodred blooms.
About a dozen steps away from where she had emerged into this night-world, silk sheets and voluminous pillows of midnight blue, charcoal gray, and deepest purple spilled over the edges of the largest and most luxurious bed Helen had ever seen. The stars twinkled overhead and the piles of silk seemed to wink back at them like glittering oil slicks in the ghostly blue-moon light. A pair of ivory white arms, followed by a man’s naked chest, rose up from the dark mass of cradling material as he took a nice, long stretch.
“I’ve been calling out to you, Beauty. I’m so glad you’re finally here.” His voice was familiar. “Beauty and Sleep. Sleeping Beauty. We were made for each other, you know. All the sayings say it. Now come and lie down with me.”
His infectiously playful tone drew Helen to the edge of the bed. There was something about that voice that was so reassuring and sweet that Helen knew he had to be the gentlest soul in this or any other universe.
She looked down into the gigantic bed, and saw Morpheus, the god of dreams. He had the whitest skin Helen had ever seen, shiny masses of wavy, black hair, and long slender limbs of delicately carved muscle. Stripped to the waist, he wore silk pajama pants of such a deep wine red that, like all the other colors of his sleeping palace, bordered on black, but never quite reached it.
Morpheus looked up at Helen with startling white-blue eyes that looked almost like liquid mercury. He snuggled into the not-quite black of the silk sheets. For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night, Whiter than new snow upon a raven’s back, Helen thought as she took in the contrast of his skin on the sheets, wondering where she had heard those lines of poetry. Whoever wrote them, she thought, must have spent many nights with Morpheus.
“It’s your voice I’ve been hearing in my head. Little sneak,” Helen said, smiling down at the exquisite, half-naked man. “I thought I was going crazy.”
“You were, Beauty. That’s why you could hear me so clearly. I called and called to you, but you ignored me so I finally went away. Now come and lie down,” he complained prettily, holding out one of his milk-white hands. “It’s been far too long since I’ve held you.”
Helen didn’t even have to think about it. She had never laid eyes on this god before, but she knew him. After all, she had spent nearly every night of her life cradled in his arms. There was nothing Morpheus didn’t know about her, no wicked little secret that she had been able to hide from him, and he appeared to love her, anyway. In fact, from the way his starlit eyes gazed up at her, Helen could tell he adored her.
She smiled with relief, slipped her hand into his, and sighed as she let her head fall against his smooth, moonbeam-bright chest. Every muscle in her body let go as wave upon wave of soothing relaxation rolled through her exhausted limbs. For the first time in months, Helen experienced true rest. Just moments in the god’s arms made up for all those weeks of dreamlessness.
Morpheus made a sound in his chest, a deep rumbling hum of pleasure, and stroked her face. Gently coaxing her lips apart, he slid two fingers into her mouth and claimed his coin.
“But you didn’t need to bring payment to visit me. In the many hours you spend with your eyes closed before or after you descend into the Underworld, you are free to dream. You could have floated in with any of the other sleeping minds whenever you wanted,” he said, gesturing to the playful winds that constantly buffeted the tent, occasionally drifting in to ruffle his long, soft hair. “You have more control than you know, Helen. You can even visit me here in body without an obol if you want.”
“But I can’t visit you,” Helen protested, slightly confused. “Even when I don’t descend into the Underworld, I haven’t been able to dream.”
“Because you’re afraid of what you’ll find in your dreams, not because any outside force is stopping you. You feel so much guilt for what you want, you can’t even face it in your sleep.” Morpheus lifted Helen, and placed her on top of him so she was looking directly down on him. He dug his fingers into her hair and made it fan around them like a golden curtain that closed them in together.
“I can dream whenever I want?” Helen asked, already knowing the answer. The moment Helen had learned that Lucas was her cousin, she had stopped dreaming by choice. She’d just never admitted it to herself before.
“My troubled Beauty. I hate to see anyone suffer, you most of all. Stay here with me and be my queen and I will fulfill all your dreams.”
The face and body beneath her shifted and changed into a more familiar form. Helen gasped and pulled back. It was Lucas who sat up and gently gripped her arms.