About Dream, Lover

by Glyn Soitino
17 pages / 7500 words
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc

Jethro's world is very small, defined by his tiny village and the protection of his uncle Caleb. The love Jethro dreams of, love like Caleb has with his mate Dolan, seems like it will never come to such an insignificant place. When Jethro begins to have dreams of a beautiful young man, his yearning only intensifies. Lost in his troubles one day, Jethro goes wandering off the beaten path, straight into the sights of a wild magical creature, something so unpredictable that it could change his life forever.

Sample

Wrapping a cloth around his hand to protect it from the heat, Caleb opened the hatch and took a peek inside the furnace. The embers were glowing a dull red; if Jethro didn't get back soon, the fire would go out and Caleb would have to build a new one from scratch once the boy finally did turn up. He closed the hatch and stepped to the doorway, glancing up and down the street -- no sign of Jethro. What on earth could be keeping him? Although the boy had always been something of a dreamer, Caleb couldn't imagine what Jethro could possibly have found in the forest to distract him from his assigned task of gathering a couple of bundles of wood and getting back right away. There were times when he felt he could happily strangle Jethro, and this was fast becoming one of them.

At a loose end, he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the doorpost, letting the cool morning breeze caress his naked torso; once the furnace was up to heat, he'd be running with sweat for the rest of the day. The thought grudgingly crossed his mind, and not for the first time, that perhaps he was partly to blame for Jethro's shortcomings. Maybe if Caleb stopped thinking of him as a boy and allowed him more of a hand in the actual running of the forge, Jethro would start to be a bit more responsible.

After all, Caleb had been only seventeen, six years younger than Jethro was now, when he'd taken over both the forge and the upbringing of his only nephew. Caleb's parents, sister, and brother-in-law had succumbed to the sickness that had decimated not only the village but most of the county. Despite the villagers' initial disbelief that a mere boy could take his father's place as blacksmith, Caleb had proven himself on that score and earned their respect. That in itself had been hard work, but taking on three-year-old Jethro, who had just lost both mother and father, had been far more difficult. If it hadn't been for Dolan and Dolan's parents, Caleb would never have been able to cope.

And while he did tend to be overprotective towards the boy, that was only natural; Jethro, his sister Nessa's son, was the only close relative he had left. That overprotectiveness generally came across as gruffness, but Caleb trusted that Jethro knew he loved him. The only other person in the world Caleb loved as much as Jethro was Dolan, and that was another kind of love altogether.

"Caleb!" He turned to see Jethro pounding up the street, the slap of his boots on the hard-packed dirt sending up little puffs of dust, two bundles of fallen branches bouncing on his back. "Caleb, you'll never guess what I saw!"