Within their dreams (Reverse Harem)

Chapter 2

Leo's POV

My room feels empty without her but the scent of her still lingers in the air. I breathe deep, feeling the smell of peaches wrap itself around my heart. My brother stands in the corner of the room, copying my deep breaths like he's trying to inhale every piece of her. I have to stop myself from reaching over and slamming my hand over his nose and preventing him from taking too much of her scent from the air.

"We need to find her"

No shit. Ever since she appeared in our ballroom that first night I've been searching for her, but she's a hard one to find. We didn't have that much to go on at first, and were too distracted by the little noises she makes each time we touched her to think of interrogating her. I knew straight away that she was my mate when she first appeared to me, the woman I'd waited years to know. I've searched for my mate for a long time, knowing the other half of my soul was out there but the longer it took for my heart to find her, the deeper the ache in my chest. When she finally appeared though, I was skeptical. I still am. She managed to appear in our home like it was nothing and that set me on edge. What made it worse was hearing the steady thrum of her heart, the sound of a human heartbeat.

I spent my life searching for my mate in my own realm, never once assuming I could have a human mate. It's not practical, being with someone so easily breakable and ill-fitting to be at my side. But every time she's near me in caught in her spell, my body reaching out to touch her like an instinct, one that at the time I'm too weak to fight. Especially when I know all too soon she'll disappear and I'll be left with the same pit in my stomach that I've had for a month. Because I know that this is something that can't be acted upon, as much as my body wants to. The council will never allow an interspecies mate-bond to be completed, much less if one of them was human. It's almost unheard of for mates to be from a different group from one another but to mate with a human? It's extremely rare. Only a few of those relationships have occurred here, typically if someone does discover their mate in the human realm, it's easier to go there than remain here and be subject to ridicule.

And as the crown prince of the realm, how am I supposed to explain that? I'd have to abdicate, which is out of the question. But yet, I still crave her with every fibre of my being.

What I didn't expect, was for my twin brother to declare she was his mate too. While not necessarily uncommon, sharing a mate wasn't exactly the plan. My brother and I are both very selfish people when it comes to the things that belong to us, and it's still difficult at time to learn to share. It's not like we can ever really take her from the other. It would hurt us as much as it would her, not only because we're brothers but now connected in a whole other way. Unlike me, Owen doesn't care where she came from. He's never been as interested in the throne as I have, which meant that the council spent years focusing on preparing me while he got to do the bare minimum.

He revolts against many of the old customs, yet our people still love him just as much. If anything, his charismatic charm makes them like him more. In his mind, we should complete the bond with her as soon as possible and bring her here to stay with us. I've managed to hold him back so far, but I can tell his patience is wearing thin.

I'm not sure she's aware of what we are though. While she submits to us each night and lets us explore her, I can tell she's not aware of who she's allowing to touch her. Or that she's jumping between the realms as easily as blinking. In her mind, she seems to believe that she's dreaming, which means that she's unconsciously transporting here each time she falls asleep. At first, I thought she was being brought here by someone else, but when I watched her appear in my bedroom last night, I rejected that idea.

Everything about her screams human, but her smell...underneath there's something other.

I've been using the time she's here to get inside her head. She leaves her mind open, once again making me believe she isn't aware of our skills. I'm able to see flashes of her life from her memories, using that to help guide me to wherever she came from. Most of the images I see are from her childhood and I always see a glimpse of a bookshop. It seems to mean a lot to her, which means she must go there often.