Page 22 of The Quoram Effect

Narrowing my eyes at him, I grumbled, “You always need to talk. Maybe you should get yourself a therapist.”

The Damson God chuckled. “Someone has a sharp wit about them tonight. Perhaps it’s an effect of all the Q roaring around your system.”

I ground my teeth together, ashamed of myself for stooping so low; angry at him for bringing it up. At least my shoulder didn’t hurt anymore. But then again, this was a dream. Could I feel pain in a dream? Surely only emotions plagued the mind during such a time.

“If you don’t want people to feast off the drugs your planet provides,” I bit back, “perhaps you shouldn’t have created them.”

“I didn’t,” he hummed, clearly amused. “That was my darling Dyana’s design. Being the deity of harvest and fertility, she created it for my Damsons, and my Damsons alone.”

Incredulously, I laughed. “So, in all your wisdom and godly good-doings, you’re telling me, you and your besties never intended Q to be used as a life-saving medicine?”

“No.” He smirked. “Consuming too much in any form will cause the same detriment as The Quoram Effect. Your doctors and scientists simply haven’t worked that out yet.”

Baffled, I gaped at his smugness. “But it causes no ill effects to Damsons?”

“That is correct.”

I shrugged. “I guess I’m entitled, then.”

“Oh, Remi. You’re not technically a Damson, are you?”

Fire roared upwards, swamping my body with a furnace of heat. And to add insult to injury, in his usual, irritatingly calm manner, he chuckled. “I see that statement has riled you.”

I growled—literally growled. Rage fizzled across my shoulders, my heart pounding with the icy pulses of resentment. I wanted to wake up, but I was trapped in this dream until Mr Make-Me-Feel-Like-Shit won the conversation with a show-stopping comment that would probe my thoughts for the entire day that followed.

Huffing, refusing to bite, I strode to the table and poured myself a glass of wine.

“What I’d like to know—”

Here we go again.I rolled my eyes, slugging back half the glass.

“—if it riles you so much, why is there a man, who I’d like to point out isn’t your Damson, currently in your bed smothered in your pheromones?”

Almost choking, I wiped my mouth with my right arm, noticing the area around my wrist was pulsing with a silver glow. “As you clearly have not absorbed any of my comments from our previous conversations—”

“I assure you I have.”

“—my Damson rejected me nine years ago. And there are no rules against me taking another consenting adult to my bed.”

“This isn’t about the law of society, Remi. This is about the law of the heart. Of the soul.”

“Torz doesn’t love me like that!”

“So, you admit that he does love you.”

The charming, godly figure swirled the lilac liquid around his glass, the smirk plastered across his face triumphant. When I didn’t answer, his strange violet eyes flicked my way, satisfied with the gape locked in place on my lips.

“I…” I’d never considered the idea that Torz held anything deeper than friendship for me, but friendshipwasa form of love. Would that grow? Would that develop into something more for him, like it had for me? But surely, I would’ve known. I would’ve sensed it.

All I’d ever been to him was his friend, his colleague, his loyal lieutenant.

Gods, who was I kidding? I was his fucking Damson.

No, no!

“Stop messing with my head!” I slammed the glass on the table, sloshing the liquid over the sides. “Why are you so damn obsessed with my failed relationship with him?” I stomped over to my standard place during these dreams—by the curved window.

“Failure is only an outcome if one tries, Remi.”