“And you want my advice about how to counteract the effect.”
“Yes, dammit!” He rounded, fiercely. “She’s not frightened of me as she should be…as I expected her to be.”
Cael’s eyes narrowed, as if he were assessing the situation. “Do you truly want my advice?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Well,” Cael took a turn about the office, considering, thumb and index finger at his chin. “If she is attracted to you and you to her, I can do nothing about it on either end. And why would I? She is marriageable and so are you. Ethan has Kathleen installed as a chaperon.” He came back to stand opposite Dom, gesturing mildly as he spoke. “Why not court her? And let things evolve naturally.”
“Cael.” Dom drew out his name as if he were speaking to a confused child. “Courtly manners are beyond me. I’ve lived too much in my own company.”
“Am I correct in assuming that thus far she’s been treated to a thorough display of your…eh proclivities?”
Dom felt his jaw twitch, but he could hardly deny his brutish behavior in respect to his guest.
“That’s what I thought.” Cael concluded, half-smiling. “Now, what does it tell you that she hasn’t already quit the estate at a run?”
He conceded with a nod but pressed on. “There is still the matter of her sanity to be proved, or disproved. If I am to…” He stumbled to a halt, not sure how to complete the statement. What if he were to become involved with Eden… romantically. What would it be like to invite someone to share his life, ease the perpetual loneliness? Could one small woman fill the deep void in his spirit? What if he truly were broken, unable to be fixed or filled, even by a woman whose essence shone as lovely and giving as Eden’s?
Or, what if he and the rest of his mother’s offspring did not just inherit their mother’s psychic talents, but her mental instability as well? True, he had reached the ripe old age of two and thirty with his wits still intact, but what if the madness did not set in until later? Who knew for sure how many more good years remained to him? Did he dare marry and saddle a wife with a loose-screw husband and children cursed with inevitable madness? And if she too succumbed to mind-rot…what chance did their children have, with two asylum-bound parents?
“Ahem, if I am to consider lifelong companionship, I will not repeat my father’s mistake.”
“You’re being paranoid, but I can plan a trip to the estate in a day or two to access her.”
“Bring Stephan.” Dom needed a buffer between him and her.
“Certainly. I had planned to.”
* * *
“Hmmm, Dom-inic-” Eden purred contentedly at the first touch of invisible hands running through her Repunzel-esque hair. He swept aside her tresses, exposing her neck for his touch. She held her breath, poised for his gentle caress…when suddenly a wintery breeze wafted across the sensitive skin of her nape. Instead of Dominic’s warm hands, icy fingertips grasp her throat.
Eden started, upsetting the water in the tub. The clammy, grasping hands couldn’t be Dominic’s. They were much smaller and thinner than she remembered his being, with knife-point nails. Her shoulders hunched involuntarily as she cringed forward to escape the molesting touch. They followed, grabbing hold of her shoulders, kneading in harsh strokes, inflicting pressure on her upper blades and the junction where her shoulders became her neck. The chilling ministrations grew sharp, pinched, then painful.
Eden flinched as the hands seized her neck, squeezing tightly. Her eyes widened in fear and shock; her first thought to scream…but the hands anticipated her and tightened, strangling off any sound. There would be no yell for help now. Eden began to struggle wildly, madly. She twisted her head from side to side, succeeding in doing nothing but wetting the floor and angering the hands into adding a twisting motion to the vice grip. Blind panic infused her with new strength, the superhuman strength of the desperate. Eden scratched at the unseen claws of death choking the life out of her, legs kicking up into the air. A hoarse thread of sound the only hint of the mortal battle being fought.
Water sloshed over the rim of the tub like tidal waves in the ocean, giving her a last-ditch inspiration. She threw all her weight against one side of the tub, succeeding in knocking it off its clawed feet. Eden tumbled from the capsized porcelain on the heels of the mad rush of water. The unexpected jolt off-balanced the malevolent force by just enough to cause its finger extensions of evil to lose their grip. Able to breathe again after what seemed like eons, Eden sucked in gasps of air post haste. Her breasts, wet and naked, heaved from the effort…a hand clutching instinctively at her heart. She shrank away and scrambled backward awkwardly, as the malevolent force moved in her direction. This time she did scream, a bone-rattling shriek born of sheer terror.
Chapter 16
Night had fallen. Dominic stood outside his brother’s now darkened office, watching as the hack carried him hurriedly away to his London townhouse. Cael’s advice laid heavy on his mind, mingling with his old nemesis. The two clashed. Attempts to reconcile his past demons with his present…situation…proved vexing. Weary, Dominic glanced around the gloomy, deserted square, already settling his mind for astral travel.
The second his essence shifted into the void, stark horror impaled him like a million shards of glass. Eden’s essence flashed blinding shades of purple and violet…her distress nearly palpable, even on the sense-devoid astral plane.
He sought her out, traveling at instantaneous speed. She was alone, hers the only lifeforce for a good distance. Over the years, he’d taught himself the art of astral-to-corporal spatial estimation, a necessary talent to avoid disembarking in front of witnesses. Without thought, Dominic melted himself with her and exited into the corporeal world.
His senses slammed back into him with painful intensity, a hazard of reckless astral travel. Her ear-splitting scream knocked him further off balance. He fell into a backward slide. His tailbone collided painfully against the far wall of a bedchamber…her bedchamber, he realized at the same moment that he also realized he held a flailing, naked Eden in his arms.
Wetness seeped into his clothes, and he peeked around her to take in the capsized porcelain and gallons of water sloshing around them in quick shifting waves. Satisfied no imminent danger lurked, his focus shifted back to the hysterical woman fighting desperately to escape his hold. She screamed continuously, pausing only to breathe as she struggled against him. His greater size and strength was the only thing keeping her from disentangling herself. She too was dripping wet he noticed.
“Shhhh…Eden,…EDEN! It’s me.”
“NOOOOOOO!”
They were face to face, but her eyes were tight closed. She snapped her head from side to side, hands clamped over her ears. Her back arched away from him. “No, NOOOOO!”
“Hush, before you bring the ceiling down. Shhhh, cara, please…do not cry so.” He cooed, holding a steady hand at her torso, just under her breast, while the other stroked her hair and back. He tried to stay her even as her feet pushed at the slippery wet floor for leverage to tug herself loose.
“Eden, look at me. Open your eyes. It’s Dominic, I’ve got you.”
After a time, the fight seemed to drain out of her. She lapsed forward against him, limp and breathing hard. Her bare legs curled loosely around his hips, arms and hands dead weight. Dom held her close with one arm and shrugged out of his jacket with the other. He shifted her to the opposite side to loose the other sleeve. He slipped the jacket around her tenderly as if dressing a precious little one, taking the time to guide her arms into the too-big garment. Then he gathered her fully into a tight embrace, cupped her head and nestled it against his shoulder. Her small warm form against his body was like holding a little piece of heaven in his arms. He thought her unconscious until he heard her sigh.
“That wasn’t you before, Dominic.” She accused. Her voice was raw and raspy but calm.
Not wanting to reveal the alarm her statement set off, he did his best to mimic nonch
alance. “Before when?”
“I was taking a bath when I sensed it, like before when you came to me. I thought it was you, but…the touch was disturbing, sinister-even. Then, it tried to strangle me.”
“Eden, you were alone when I arrived. There was no one here…in the corporeal or the astral world.”
She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “It retreated across the room, watching us. It only vanished a moment ago.” Eden threw up a limp hand to point to the opposite corner, as if the small movement took all the effort in the world. “Please take me away from here. I know you have odd ways of traveling. Please.”
Ahhh…Dominic had wondered that she did not ask what he meant by ‘the astral world’. It appeared she’d worked out part of the mystery on her own.
“Hook your arms and legs around me, cara.”
Head still pillowed on his shoulder, she wrapped her legs around his back while her hands slid into his vest to clutch at the thin silk shirt beneath. Dom nearly forgot himself. He breathed slow and even. By the third long breath, he was steadier. Piggy-backing required a certain amount of expertise and concentration. Eden’s enticing body wrapped around him like a hug unsettled his usual calm but he wouldn’t have traded the experience for anything in the world. He rubbed her back and rested his cheek against her still-damp hair, breathing in the fruity scent lingering there. A tremor ran threw her, reminding him of their wetness. He’d have to dry them off…and soon or risk them both catching a chill.
“Relax, cara, I won’t let anything more frighten you tonight.” With that, he shimmered them onto the astral, orienting himself by the two familiar souls on the estate…Kathleen’s and Renfred’s, noting that Ethan had arrived. He angled away from all three toward the essence-less space. Dominic kept his suites emptied of servants, for two main reasons: so his domain was easier for him to pinpoint on the directionless plane and so he wouldn’t have to worry about someone stumbling upon him as he rematerialized.
They stepped back onto the corporeal in his bedchamber. Dom stood beside the bed, with Eden still in his arms. He was undecided, knowing the danger that lurked within himself. He wanted her. She beckoned to him on so many levels. Her essence was so alluring, calming and beautiful: her body, warm, welcoming, fine, but gently curved…her eyes, those beautiful hazel windows he loved to stare into. Her bruised spirit called out to his broken one. They were alone, with her naked and clinging to his affection-starved body. Dom did not know if he could stop himself from sinking into the abyss of passion her body promised.
“This is your room.” Her sweet voice fluttered near his ear like the wings of a hummingbird.
“Yes.”
“Your…bed.”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Who is ‘Cara’?”
“Not a person…an endearment.”
“Oh.”
She lifted her head up from his shoulder, pulling back to look into his face. “Why the circles, Dom? The bed, the music room, your library, all with a cyclic design.”
He smiled unabashed, amused at the guileless curiosity in her expression. He also noted that his nickname had spread…like gossip in the ton. By society’s standards, it was, ruinously inappropriate for her to refer to him by his Christian name, much less anything as intimate as ‘Dom’. He frowned, at the thought, and tilted a little out of her space. He shouldn’t be so free with her either.
“I’ve said something wrong, haven’t I?”
“No.” He took the two steps to the bed, and bent to deposit her on its soft counterpane, careful to pull together the lapels of his jacket around her. “We need to dry off. Stay. I’ll find some towels.”
* * *
Eden watched her enigmatic host exit through a side door. Instinctively she curled her wet, chilled feet under her. She snuggled, inhaling the woodsy scent of him permeating all around her. His jacket sleeves dangled overlong as she toyed with the brocade pattern of blue-black bedding. She shoved the sleeves back several times before finally giving up. What would he do with her now?
She knew he did not believe her about the evil thing. She shook her head. Why couldn’t he feel it too? It did not make sense. If he traveled by the same conventions as the evil thing, then wouldn’t they—pass each other on the street, so to speak? The evil had seen him. It defied logic that he was so completely oblivious. Her brow furrowed on a sobering thought. Why could she see it…and him? To her knowledge, she couldn’t travel as they did, so why would she be able to sense them ‘on the astral’?
Dominic reappeared through the same door, jarring her from her thoughts. Eden appraised him openly. He’d changed his pants, removed the vest and shoes…and now walked purposefully toward her on bare feet with an armful of towels and a white garment of some sort.
“Come.” He dumped the load on the bed and beckoned for her to scoop nearer the edge.
Holding his jacket closed with one hand, she complied; dangled her bare legs off the bed just next to where he knelt. He took up one of the towels and started to rub the chill from her foot with vigorous efficiency. Enjoying his taking care of her, she braced herself on her free hand, and watched his dark half-bowed head, looking for any tiny change in the lines around his mouth or the tension in his jaw. If she observed him diligently enough she could gleam subtle changes in his moods, despite the disadvantage of never seeing his eyes.
“Tell me how it works then. This astral/corporeal travel.” She longed to hear his voice…deep, unintentionally sensuous, thick sometimes with emotions he chose to either hide or deny. Surprising her, he complied, though he never lifted his bespectacled eyes from his task.
“The corporeal is this world…any mode of normal travel, me walking across the room or you traversing the ocean in a three-month sea voyage. The astral is more undefined. It affects the same surreal, ethereal quality of a dream.” He switched feet and again rubbed vigorously to extinguish the bluish twinge from her shivering toes.
“It’s timeless, directionless, airless space. There are no landmarks. All the normal senses are dulled, replaced by mindsight, a psychic perception of sorts.”
“Then how do you find your way around?”
“Practice. I navigate using human touchstones. Emotions run wild there. That’s how I always find you, know when you’re overset. People exist in elemental form…all spirit. Everyone’s is unique. They have their own soul or essence on the astral. So I learn certain souls of people who are close or familiar to me. People whose habits I know, and they help me know where I am in respect to them and visa versa.”
He finished up on her feet, tossed the towel aside and reached for a fresh one from the pile beside her. “Lean forward a bit.”
He slung the towel over her hair and began blotting dampened chunks of blonde with circular massages and horizontal propagating rubs between his toweled hands. Her scalp tinkled deliciously. Eden’s eyes drifted closed, savoring the soothing sensations, leaning even further into the circle of his arms and resting her head on his shoulder as he pulled the towel the length of her hair, blotting the still dripping ends especially.
“Hmmm…and you can see everyone, their souls I mean.”
“Yes, but mostly they are random strangers I do not recognize.”
“Why can I sense you there?”
“You can’t. You’ve only ever sensed me when I step off the astral into invisibility.”
“Oh.” Eden frowned into his shirt, confused. This was something new. “What’s the difference?”
“When I am invisible, I am as I am now, except you cannot see me…but if I were to touch you, it would be as I’m touching you now. If I made a sound, you would hear me, as you hear me talking now. On the astral, there is no sound, no sense of touch, no corporal form to touch even if touch existed there. You see the difference.”
“I think so.” She nodded against him, lingering absently to butt her head against him like an affectionate kitten.
Eden felt him give her hair a final wringing twist with the to
wel before it plopped on the floor several feet away. With a sigh, she straightened. He too moved back from her.
“Give me your hand.”
She hadn’t realized they were bluish and shaking until he said the words, and she noticed the concerned crinkle on his forehead as he eyed the one she rubbed unconsciously against her thigh for warmth. Lulled, and eager for more of his tender loving care, she thrust both of her hands at him…forgetting that the one hand acted as a button holding the slack, knee-length garment closed around her. The jacket dropped open, an innocent instigator of passion.
Frozen in the act of reaching for a third towel, his breath split the air, audibly sharp, as he caught her reckless hands in his. “Eden…I—”
The rest of what he said was a mystery to her as he spoke sharply…in some foreign language she assumed to be Italian.
* * *
He was having a hard enough time trying to ignore the tiny glimpses of her body. Now, privy to a long, thorough view of the gentle curves of her taunt pink-tipped breasts, expanding and contracting with each hitching breath she took, as if teasing him…begging him to pleasure them. He did not dare let his eyes drift down, knowing what he would see there.
Dominic knew he’d never win the battle with his desires, much less the war with his conscience. Slowly, he clamped a hand at her waist. Sliding his thumb in a caressing arch across her stomach, he hissed out a breath at the silky smooth texture of her skin. He was lost. His other, outstretched hand shook as it shifted direction, inching toward her exposed loveliness.
Their gazes collided for a moment, his smoldering, hopeful, and lost behind the shaded barrier, hers open, giving, longing even…he noted with mild surprise. Further lured by enticing mother-of-pearl skin and rosebud nipples, his hand closed over her left breast. Her eyes registered shock and silent wonder. He loved how her hazel eyes burned hot at even his lightest touch. Her lids drifted half closed when he brushed her budded nipple with his thumb, testing its sensitivity.
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