Dark Queen’s Quest

by I. T. Lucas

  Except, that required her staying awake while they fell asleep, and she was losing the battle with her eyelids.

  They just refused to stay open.

  A strange dream started as soon as she drifted off, starring Arielle’s butler and a thousand copies of him marching in formation like an army of robot soldiers. For some reason, it terrified her. Perhaps because they didn’t look quite human, but the discrepancies were so minute that most people wouldn’t have noticed them. It took careful observation to get that uncomfortable feeling that something wasn’t right about them.

  Except, Mey was aware that she was dreaming, and figured that her mind had been affected by what she’d heard before. The real Ovidu didn’t look like that. Or did he?

  She woke up when Yamanu lifted her into his arms. “Whoa, what’s going on?”

  “The movie is over. I’m taking you to bed.”

  “Oh.”

  Crap, it seemed like there would be no snooping around tonight.

  As Yamanu laid her on the bed and covered her with the comforter, Mey turned on her side and tucked her hands under the pillow.

  The nightmare about Ovidu and his thousand replicas marching in formation was still fresh in her mind, and falling asleep could mean a return to that disturbing dream. Besides, the nap she’d taken had given her a second wind, and she was wide awake.

  Which presented her with two options. She could let Yamanu know that she was up for some playtime, or she could pretend to sleep, wait until he was out, and then go back to the living room and do some more snooping.

  Actually, it was straight-out spying, but calling it snooping sounded better in her head, and made her feel less guilty.

  The choice wasn’t difficult. Her pleasure could wait, but finding out more about Yamanu couldn’t. As it was, she was falling in love with a man she knew next to nothing about who was surrounded by mystery and intrigue.

  Safety always came first.

  Done in the bathroom, Yamanu climbed into bed behind her and wrapped his long arm around her middle, pulling her closer to him.

  She let out a contented sigh. “That’s nice.”

  “Uhm.” He nuzzled her neck.

  It didn’t take much more than that to awaken her libido, but Mey forced it to stand down. She had a mission to fulfill, and getting frisky was not part of it.

  Thankfully, Yamanu’s breathing evened out in two minutes or so, and then he started snoring lightly.

  Damn, even his snoring sounded melodic and soothing, and Mey fought hard to stay awake.

  As she waited to make sure he was deeply asleep, she thought about what the walls in the living room could reveal and realized that it wasn’t much. The exchange between Arwel and Alena she’d heard was from the day before, and the one between Yamanu and Alena was from this morning. Nothing from before had come up, and there couldn’t be much that happened after. What were the chances that they had another heated discussion this morning before she’d woken up?

  Probably slim to none.

  How about Yamanu’s conversation with the boss, though?

  He had seemed somewhat perturbed when he’d returned from the executive lounge, but she’d attributed it to him catching her red-handed. Except, he’d had no reason to be upset about her meditating because he didn’t know that she had been spying.

  So, it must have been something about that phone conversation, and if he’d gotten upset or excited, then the walls of the executive lounge might hold the echoes of that.

  She had to get in there.

  The problem was that the lounge was one floor down, and she didn’t have a key to activate the elevator on the way back. The emergency stairs could solve that part. But she also needed the key to enter the lounge and then get back to the room.

  She would have to steal Yamanu’s. Hopefully, he wasn’t a light sleeper. But if he woke up when she tried to sneak out of bed, she’d pretend that she was going to the bathroom.

  Sliding as gently and as slowly as she could from under his arm, she made it out of bed without waking him, and then crouched on the floor for a long moment listening to his breathing.

  When there was no change, she pushed up and tiptoed to the dresser where he'd left his wallet and the room card. Thankfully, the card was not in the wallet because she would have felt doubly bad about taking it out.

  Snatching the card, she pushed it inside the waistline of her yoga pants. With her loose T-shirt covering the contraband, she tiptoed to the door and opened it quietly.

  Thank God the hinges didn’t squeak, and she made it out nearly soundlessly. When the front door opened and closed just as smoothly, Mey let out a relieved breath.

  Using the emergency staircase, she padded to the lower floor and used Yamanu’s room key to get into the lounge.

  She nearly had a heart attack when the lights came on, but then she realized they were motion activated and she rushed to turn the switch off.

  With its large windows, the lounge had plenty of illumination from the moon, and Mey had no trouble moving around. An armchair at the far end seemed like the perfect place to meditate. It even had a footstool.

  Now the only problem was getting her anxiety under control so she could relax enough to get into a meditative state.

  It took a while, but eventually she did it, and the scene with Yamanu holding his phone and talking with someone started playing.

  Thank God.

  Mey had been afraid that she would have to listen to countless conversations before getting to the right one. Apparently the lounge hadn’t been used often, and when it had, nothing overly exciting had taken place in there.

  Unfortunately, the echo provided just Yamanu’s side of the conversation, and she had to guess what his boss was saying.

  It started with Yamanu holding the phone to his ear, his frown deepening the longer he listened to the other guy.

  “I can’t be in two places at the same time, and you put me in charge of Alena’s security.”

  Okay, nothing new there.

  Yamanu chuckled. “Maybe for motorcycle gear. She’s built like a lumberjack.”

  Surely he wasn’t talking about Alena. She was delicately built and very feminine.

  “Since when did you become so attuned to people’s feelings?”

  The other guy said something to which Yamanu replied, “Nope. That’s why I was surprised. How is your wife by the way? The pregnancy going okay?”

  Yamanu smiled as he listened to the response, so the boss’s wife must have been doing well.

  He switched the phone to his other ear. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

  The boss must have said okay because Yamanu asked, “How did you know that Syssi was the one for you?”

  Syssi was probably the boss’s wife, and the answer was lengthy.

  “How?” Yamanu asked.

  There was a pause, and then Yamanu sighed. “Yeah. I did. Her name is Mey and she is a model in the same agency that signed Alena up.”

  Mey’s heart skipped a couple of beats, almost throwing her out of her meditative state. She forced herself to calm down and keep on listening.

  “I feel the connection, but she doesn’t have any paranormal abilities. I know that some of the other Dormants didn’t have them either, so it is not a prerequisite, but then how would I know if she is a Dormant or not?”

  Startled, Mey lost her concentration and her eyes popped open.

  Paranormal abilities? Dormants?

  Her heart pounding a thousand beats per minute, she found it difficult to breathe as she tried to decipher the cryptic remark.

  Yamanu felt the connection, which was good because she felt it too, but he needed her to have a paranormal ability, which was apparently a prerequisite for being a Dormant, whatever that meant.

  53

  Yamanu

  “Your girlfriend was busy last night,” Arwel said as Yamanu entered the living room.

  “I know. I heard her going out.”

  “Any idea
where she went?”

  Yamanu shrugged. “Wherever it was, she couldn’t get far. She was barefoot. I figured she couldn’t sleep and went outside to call her parents without disturbing us. It was daytime on their side of the world. Besides, she isn’t a prisoner here. If she wants to go somewhere, she can.”

  The truth was that he’d been suspicious when she’d slinked out of bed, but after seeing her go out without her shoes, he'd come up with the phone call explanation, which seemed logical enough to him. The safe he’d put her phone in was in the living room, and Mey had the code.

  What other reason could she have for wandering the hotel’s corridors in the middle of the night?

  “Mey must feel lonely now that her sister is gone and her roommates are away,” Alena said. “I’m glad that we can be here for her. She’s such a nice person. You should wake her up and have her come get something to eat.”

  Lifting the thermos, Yamanu poured coffee into two cups, put them on one plate and added two pastries. “Yesterday, Mey said that she wanted to have breakfast in bed. I thought to oblige her today.”

  Alena looked at what he was holding and grimaced. “You call this breakfast?”

  “It will do for now.” He took the plate and went back to his room.

  Not surprisingly, Mey was still sleeping. She’d come back to bed after three in the morning. If he weren’t so selfish, he would have let her sleep longer, but he’d gotten so used to her company that he missed her even though she was right there.

  Wednesday, he would have to leave her behind, and the thought of three days without her made him cringe. How was he going to survive it?

  Worse, how was he going to survive letting her go if it turned out that she wasn’t a Dormant?

  And how the hell was he going to find out whether she was or wasn’t?

  Lifting his eyes to the ceiling, he uttered a silent prayer for the Fates to give him a sign.

  Except, nothing happened, no thunder boomed, and no lightning struck. Perhaps he was expecting it too soon.

  Putting his makeshift tray on the night table, he leaned and kissed her cheek. “Time to wake up, my lady Mey. I’m lonely without you.”

  Her lips lifted in a smile before her eyelids fluttered open, revealing her gorgeous brown eyes. “Good morning.” She sniffed the air. “I smell coffee.”

  “You wanted breakfast in bed.” He motioned toward the plate on the nightstand.

  The smile turned into a grin. “You remembered.” She lifted up and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Thank you. I’ll hop into the bathroom for a moment and when I come back, we can both have breakfast in bed.”

  He kissed the tip of her small, upturned nose. “I like the way you think.”

  While she ducked into the bathroom, Yamanu fluffed up a bunch of pillows and stacked them against the headboard. Then he kicked his shoes off and got in bed.

  As she’d promised, Mey got out in a matter of minutes and joined him on the bed. Except, something must have spoiled her mood while in the bathroom because she suddenly looked troubled.

  “Anything wrong?” he asked as he handed her a cup.

  She shook her head. “I can’t believe how perceptive you are. You notice the slightest changes in my mood.”

  “You are easy to read.”

  She cast him a sidelong glance. ”Really? You are the first person to say that about me.”

  He wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “For me, you are easy to read because I pay attention.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean, why?”

  “Do you pay attention because you feel a special connection to me, or because you are trained to notice things?”

  “Both. What is this about? Did I do something to upset you?”

  Mey didn’t answer, but instead she lifted the cup to her lips and sipped on the coffee until the cup was empty.

  He had a feeling she needed a little time to decide whether she wanted to share with him whatever was bothering her or not.

  Perhaps it was somehow connected to calling her parents last night. She’d probably told them about her new boyfriend, and when they’d asked questions, she hadn’t had answers for them because she didn’t know much about him.

  He could imagine calling his own mother and telling her that he’d met a girl. She would grill him for hours. The truth was that he knew only general facts about Mey, but he didn’t need to know how she’d spent every moment of her life until meeting him. He knew the kind of person she was, and he liked everything about her.

  Hell, he loved it.

  She was his perfect lady. Not too timid, and not too assertive, gorgeous, but not stuck-up about it. Smart, caring, kind, and passionate. There was nothing he would have changed about her, except her genetics.

  “What’s a Dormant?”

  It was good that he’d already swallowed his coffee, or he would have spat it all over the white duvet.

  “It’s a synonym for latent. A talent or an ability that hasn’t manifested yet.”

  She turned to look at him, her brown eyes turning nearly black as she stared him down. “I didn’t ask for the dictionary definition. What is a Dormant to you?”

  Desperately, he tried to remember if anyone on his team had mentioned the term with Mey around, but they all had been careful not to talk about anything that might seem suspicious to her.

  “Why? Did you hear anyone saying that?”

  54

  Mey

  Mey debated her next move. If she told Yamanu where she’d heard the term Dormant, her secret would be out, but then he wanted her to have a paranormal ability for some reason. It sounded as if being a Dormant was a prerequisite for them having a long-term relationship, but paranormal ability wasn’t a sure indicator of someone being a Dormant.

  She had to find out what a Dormant was, and her curiosity wouldn’t let her rest until she had.

  It should be a good thing, right? Something desirable.

  “I heard you talking with your boss.”

  He frowned. “How? Were you just pretending to meditate when I came back? Had you been eavesdropping outside the door and ran upstairs as soon as I was done?”

  He was angry, and she didn’t like it. Not when his anger was directed at her.

  It would have been easy to say that yes, she’d been eavesdropping outside the door. After all, her culpability was the same whether she’d listened to the conversation while it was taking place or later to its echo.

  The thing was, if she’d went with the mundane explanation, Yamanu would find a way to explain away the use of the term Dormant and wouldn’t tell her the truth. Just as she kept secrets from him, he kept secrets from her. Perhaps if she revealed hers first, he would respond in kind.

  “I didn’t listen outside the door.”

  “So how did you hear me?” He got even angrier. “Did you somehow plant a bug on me?”

  Damn, he was jumping from one wrong conclusion to an even worse one and escalating the stakes. It was time to put an end to it.

  She took in a long breath and then let it out slowly through her nose. “You told your boss that I didn’t have any paranormal ability. That wasn’t true because I actually have the most bizarre talent, one that you’ve probably never heard of.” She snorted. “I certainly have never heard about anyone who can hear echoes of past conversations that are trapped within the walls they’ve been held in.”

  By the confused look in Yamanu’s eyes, he hadn’t understood what she’d been trying to say.

  “If I meditate in a room, I can hear and see things that happened there before. Not everyday stuff, but things that were emotionally charged. It’s like watching a film. I’ve noticed oddities about you and your team, and since I was falling for you, I figured I should learn who you really were before it was too late for me. So, while everyone was gone, I meditated in the living room, and I heard Alena talking with Arwel about her butler. It was such a strange conversation, but it didn’t tell me anything about yo
u. The only thing I learned was that Arielle’s real name is Alena. Not a big scoop there. I knew she was using a fake name along with her fake accent.”

  He nodded. “So last night you snuck into the executive lounge and listened to me talking with my boss.”

  “Yeah. I couldn't hear his side, just yours. I almost lost my concentration when you told him that you felt a special connection with me. Somehow, I managed to hold on to the meditative state and heard you talking about paranormal abilities and Dormants. That was when I lost the echo. I got so excited that I couldn’t concentrate anymore.” She looked into his eyes. “I know that I heard things out of order, and I might have misunderstood, but it sounded to me as if you needed me to have a paranormal ability to prove that I was a Dormant, whatever that is, and that the dormancy was a prerequisite to us having our happy ending. Did I get it right?”

  Yamanu nodded, but he still looked as if a bomb had exploded at his feet, and he wasn’t sure whether he was still alive or not.

  Mey put her hand on his thigh. “Are you okay? You look a little gray.”

  55

  Yamanu

  Mey was a Dormant.

  Yamanu had no more doubts.

  That explained the irresistible temptation she was. He’d been celibate for centuries, and thanks to the potion and his daily meditative routine he’d become so adept at resisting temptation that he hardly even felt it.

  Until he laid eyes on Mey, and his resistance had become paper-thin.

  What was he going to tell her? What was he allowed to?

  Before he explained about immortals and dormant genes and how a female Dormant’s transition was induced, he had to talk to Kian again and explain the situation.

  Or did he?

  No one had the right to dictate to him how he led his life, but he owed the boss at least a forewarning before eliminating one of the most powerful weapons in the clan’s arsenal.

  “Yamanu?” Mey prompted. “Are you going to talk to me or keep staring into the distance? I just told you my most guarded secret and that’s what I get?”