by Marie Harte
Like a blurred image that has yet to be sharpened into reality, the cloaked figure shimmered as it moved over once blazing fields of tall, white grass. Whatever the figure touched, it destroyed. Grasses withered into decayed mounds of putrid pulp over reddish grey soil—no longer black and rich with nutrients. Now the soil nourished nothing but decay.
Leaving a blatant trail of decomposition in its wake, the hazy figure floated into the flames of a dimensional gateway into a heretofore-unseen realm.
But like an omniscient navigator, Samantha watched everything unfold with burning eyes, unable to look away from the evil abundant in her dream.
The indistinct features of the cloaked creature sharpened into a grotesque mask as it lowered its hood. No longer obscured in a world not its own, the creature thrived in its homeworld, in the dark shadows between the light.
Her eyes followed the sickly yellow claws protruding from frayed sleeves that still clung to its hood. Bony hands made it look like a living skeleton, appropriate for the dark coffin of a room it had entered. She followed the hands, soon unable to look away from the horrible sight of the creature’s face.
A misshapen head devoid of hair sat like a lump of melted wax on a papery thin neck. The creature had two ears, each pointed at the tips and overly long, sitting high on either side of its head. And its head…she shivered. Its head was a mottled accumulation of black and sallow bruises, with two huge, round white eyes sitting over a gaping mouth filled with rows of sharp, black teeth.
It had no nose to smell the lingering stench of death that pervaded the room in which it stood, and Samantha had to wonder if the odour came from the creature or the dark place itself.
The creature finally let go of its hood and shuffled forward, clumsily stepping towards a figure bent over a marble table.
With those blank, white eyes it looked at a man so beautiful he could have been an angel. Shaggy white blond hair caged a perfectly proportioned face, all planes and angles and masculine lines. Full, blood red lips stood out from alabaster skin, skin that appeared silky smooth and fine as a baby’s.
The man glanced up at the creature and sadness lurked in the startlingly indigo-blue depths of his gaze. “Ah, Mirego, you brought a visitor. I had so hoped you would be more careful.” Shaking his head, he stared unblinkingly at Mirego while twin beams of blue fire streaked from his eyes, lighting his minion into flames.
Mirego shrieked, an awful sound that made Samantha’s head feel as if it might split in two. Then the creature burst into ash, its form smouldering near the man’s feet.
The man looked up, it seemed, straight at Samantha. Despite her not really being there, despite the fact that she dreamed, the man saw her, knew her.
“His fire won’t save you, affai,” he whispered, his lips curled in an inviting grin, his eyes flat and cold. “The prince’s affection will only bring you pain the likes of which you’ve never experienced.”
A slashing burn whipped her throat, making it suddenly impossible to speak or swallow. Coldness consumed her, until she thought death preferable to the absence of warmth in her body.
“Join him and you bring death to your entire world,” he warned.
Samantha opened her mouth to scream out for help. But the man moved closer and reached out, his lips gathering for a kiss she knew would be worse than deadly.
“For luck, perhaps?” He smiled, exposing pointed white teeth.
Fighting the urge to draw closer to him for all she was worth, she gradually became aware of a forceful pounding. The noise grew, drowning out the man’s features and the evil place where he dwelled… Then suddenly she was staring at the ceiling in her hotel room while someone banged violently upon her door.
“Dammit, Samantha, open the door.”
Her heart still racing from the worst nightmare she’d ever experienced, Samantha tried to catch her breath as she sat up in bed.
“Hold on,” she said as loudly as she was able, her voice a pained whisper. She clutched her sore neck, slowly putting the frightening dream behind her. Clearing her throat, she said in a louder voice, “I’m coming. Hold on a minute.”
As the fog gradually cleared from her mind, she recognised Darius’ bellow. Clutching her flannel nightshirt at the collar to still her trembling hands, she dragged herself unsteadily to the door. Taking a deep breath, she strove for calm. After last night she’d need all her wits dealing with the king of all temptation.
He yelled her name again and her nervousness vanished under a wave of irritation. At the rate he was going, he’d have her entire floor complaining about her to the management. And it was only, she squinted at the clock, her eyes widening in dismay, eight in the morning. Whipping the door open, she grabbed him by the arm and yanked him inside, then slammed the door behind him.
“Why didn’t you answer me sooner?” he asked impatiently, his eyes travelling over her mussed hair and thin flannel nightshirt with interest.
“It’s eight o’clock in the morning. I was still sleeping.” Her dry tone didn’t have the effect she’d been striving for uttered in a hoarse whisper. “I have a sore throat. I must be coming down with something.” Yeah, a neurotic night terror about an alternate world filled with monsters and evil demons.
He must have heard something in her voice for he frowned, his eyes narrowing in what looked like concern. He closed the distance between them and parted her hair from her neck, stroking her throat softly.
Then his touch froze. “What is this?” He pressed gently against the heart of pain spearing her throat and she gasped. It seemed as if an icicle had rammed into her neck, cold blasting her from the point where his thumb touched her skin deep into her oesophagus.
“Cut it out,” she croaked. “That hurts!”
“By the Light of Tanselm,” he said in a thick voice full of worry and anger. “You’ve been marked.”
Before she could ask what he meant, he grabbed her shoulders hard and yanked her close to him, pulling her almost off her feet so that her face nearly touched his.
His eyes blazed, a strange red burning through the black of his irises. “You’re playing with danger, Samantha. Do you have any idea how lucky you are to be alive?” As if realising the harsh grip he had on her arms, he swore and lightened his hold.
“Back off, He-Man,” she rasped, trying to break free from his grasp. “I’ve had it with being manhandled. As if blondie wasn’t enough,” she grumbled and rubbed her throat, her eyes daring him to get rough with her again.
His gaze grew curiously shuttered. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” His apology sounded strangled. She could tell he didn’t give them often. “How did this happen? This should not have been possible.”
He finally let her go and she made a beeline for the bed and sank down. “I’m really confused.” She wrapped her hand around her throat and felt the spot that had alerted Darius. The size of a quarter, an icy patch of skin throbbed where she touched it. She turned to look in the dresser mirror across from the bed.
Nothing marred her skin, no sign of bruising or scratching. Yet the area was ice-cold to the touch. “This is getting weirder by the second.” She looked back at Darius, noting the stiffness of his posture. “One minute I’m having a nightmare, the next you’re pounding on my door, and suddenly I’ve got an ice block around my vocal cords. And what are you talking about, I’ve been marked?”
He carefully wiped all expression from his face, making her more nervous than if he’d yelled at her again. “Before I explain, describe to me this blond man you mentioned. What exactly did he do to you?”
Tension rose in the room like a blazing bonfire. “It’s a little, ah, complicated.” She hedged, not wanting to delve into her odd penchant for dreaming about the future. Though in this case, the psycho blond had mauled her in the present. So somehow her dreams were now reality?
“You won’t believe me.”
“Try me,” he said in quiet voice.
His dark eyes blazed with truth, and she felt
a sudden compulsion to tell him everything.
I’ll believe you.
She blinked. He couldn’t have just said that. His mouth remained closed yet she’d heard his voice. She shook her head, trying to make sense of it all. Glancing up at him, she studied his towering frame. She should have felt apprehensive around the menace he exuded. Instead she felt safe.
Hell. Maybe she was finally going crazy. Normal people didn’t visualise the future, didn’t hear voices, and sure as hell didn’t see demonic figures that marked them in real life. She rubbed at her eyes. Maybe the stress of dealing with last night’s unbelievably spectacular sex had shattered her sanity.
“Tell me, Samantha,” Darius said again in a firm but quiet voice.
She sighed. “Fine. But I warn you it sounds crazy.” She described her ability haltingly, then the dream in detail, leaving nothing out. He remained silent throughout her tale, merely stared at her with his fathomless gaze. “And right when he was about to kiss me,” she paused and shuddered, “you knocked on the door. I honestly don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been here.”
She frowned then. “What are you doing here?”
He didn’t answer. Instead he sat down beside her on the bed and reached out to stroke her throat. His fingers felt overly warm, brushing her skin like the fluttering of butterfly wings, simultaneously easing the constriction on her throat while stoking the flames of desire he’d so easily stirred last night.
Her face flamed and she thought she saw an answering heat flare in his eyes. How easy it would be to lean forward and kiss that skilled mouth of his.
God, had it only been last night?
Swallowing hard, she forced herself to move back, needing to preserve what small sense of self she had left. In just moments he was going to tell her she was nuts, or worse, call the men in white coats to pay her a visit.
He frowned when she withdrew, and opened his mouth as if to say something. Here it comes, she thought.
“Samantha,” he paused, “it isn’t safe for you here.”
She blinked. “What?”
“I want you to come with me.”
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” She eyed him shrewdly. “What is it you’re not telling me, Darius?”
He stood and stared down at her with a familiar gleam of impatience. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way, but the end result will be the same.”
She stood, absently noting the pain in her throat had completely vanished. Her eyes narrowed. “You’re an arrogant bastard, you know that?”
“It isn’t arrogance that makes you feel this.” And in an instant he sealed her protest with a soul-shattering kiss.
Lips like silk slid over hers, hot and supple with promise. Like catching a flaming tiger by the tail, she was well and truly snared. Much as she wanted to deny what he did to her, she couldn’t resist him.
“Tell me I am alone in this,” he muttered as he trailed his mouth over her neck, his hands roaming lower. He undressed her before she understood his intent. And by then, she was too far gone to care. “Is it my touch alone that makes us burn? I am consumed with need, on fire to have you, no matter the cost.”
So saying he sought her mouth again, showing her with his lips and tongue the passion he claimed. His hands found her thighs, rubbing and pressing her closer to him, to the steely length prodding her core.
He slid one hand between her legs and groaned when he met bare skin. Then he plunged a finger inside her, making her arch into him despite her irritation that he could so easily control her.
“You’re so hot, so wet,” he said thickly and began thrusting his long finger in and out of her, mimicking the action with his tongue in her mouth.
Need welled within her, her desire so strong it bordered on pain. With trembling hands she reached for the fly of his jeans and reached inside. At her touch he groaned and swelled, his shaft like iron, a burning testament to the passion between them.
She quickly freed him from his jeans, briefly enjoying the velvety steel of his erection before he took control of the moment. Almost desperately, he shoved her hands away and threw her to the bed, immediately following. He landed between her thighs, his focus intent and unbreakable.
Sealing his mouth to hers, he drove deep inside her, sliding through her welcoming warmth with a moan. Then he began pumping, harder and harder, until they were one heartbeat. Over and over he plunged, riding her with a fierceness that fuelled the animal heat roaring for release within her.
“Samantha,” he rasped and stared into her eyes, his body pounding hers. “I need you. I can’t stop…” His loss of control pulled her deeper into the abyss until her heart felt as if would explode.
“Now, affai.” He rotated his hips, the friction on her clit unbearable, and thrust so hard she saw stars. She cried out his name as she climaxed, dimly aware he found his own release.
When she could catch her breath, she realised this time had been better than the last, that she hadn’t imagined his sexual potency. Her one irresponsible fling had turned into two flings, and irresponsible or not, she felt too limp, too sated to regret it.
“Good. Regrets are futile since we can’t undo what’s been done.” He flexed and she bit her lip, the feeling of him inside her deeply satisfying.
Unfortunately, he sighed with regret and withdrew. “But we do need to get moving. You’re hell on my discipline, woman.” Standing, he waited while she threw on the clothes she’d set aside to wear for the day, then helped her to her feet like a gentleman.
Surprised at his manners after his aggressive, sexual behaviour, she opened her mouth to tease him but shut it when the peculiarity of his comments dawned. She watched him in awe as one dark eyebrow quirked in an arrogant gesture he seemed to have perfected. Have you finally figured it out?
Her temples throbbed and her dry mouth made it difficult to swallow. As if dreams of demons and hearing voices weren’t enough, she’d just made love to a mind reader, one with blazing red eyes that couldn’t possibly be human.
Chapter Six
Darius could feel his eyes sparking with heat. Making love to Samantha hadn’t been smart, not at all. It had done nothing to sate him, and everything to make him want her again. Not a good time, considering what she’d recently been through.
Swearing under his breath, he brought his power under control, enough so that he knew his eyes cooled under the uncomfortable dark contacts he was forced to wear. Samantha simply continued to stare and he thought maybe he’d pushed her too far.
Sighing, he took her by the shoulders and looked down into her wide, stunned green gaze. “Look, I know all this is hard to believe. Trust me, I know the feeling all too well.” He took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair.
Maybe ordering her to come with him had been harsh. His eyes lingered on her vulnerable neck. After what she’d been through, not only with ’Sin Garu but also with the combustible chemistry they seemed to share, she had a right to be wary.
“Samantha, I’m asking you to please come with me. I promise, once we’re at my house, I’ll answer all your questions and tell you more than you probably ever wanted to know.”
She stared at him, her gaze deep and assessing. “I’ll go with you,” she said slowly. “But I want you to promise you’ll stay out of my mind.”
He nodded, though it would take no small effort on his part to give her the space she desired. For some reason, his mind tuned to hers naturally, and the more he was around her, the less he was able to remain distant, both mentally and physically.
He didn’t feel comfortable with this sudden need for a constant ‘mental touch’, and the desire he felt when around her had not abated. Not at all. No, the orgasm he’d just experienced hadn’t sated him, merely made him hungry for more of Samantha’s delectable body.
As he watched her throw her things together into a bag, he wondered at the lack of spark in the crystal embedded in his skin. If Samantha was his true affai, the
crystal should have been pulsating or doing, well, something. But it did nothing, merely sat like a scar on his chest.
Samantha finished packing her clothes in record time and he gratefully grabbed her bag, using the motion to take his mind off anything related to the word ‘affai’.
They walked to his truck in silence, his attention on the dark world around them, conscious now of the Djinn threat. Samantha, he imagined, was trying to come to grips with what had happened in her hotel room.
He had driven halfway to his house before she spoke.
“What is an affai?”
He turned to her in shock. “What?”
“Watch the road!”
He barely managed to avoid the car in front of him. “Where did you hear that?”
“From you.”
“When?” He didn’t remember mentioning anything about an affai to her. Hell, he had planned to avoid explaining that part of the story until he absolutely had to clarify it. The thought of marriage still made his stomach roll.
“When we were making love. You called me affai.”
His gaze remained on the road but he could see her blush out of the corner of his eye.
“It’s a term of affection, nothing more.” Why had he called her that? Granted, making love with her was better than anything he’d ever experienced, but great sex was a far cry from a lifetime of commitment.
The stupid crystal around his neck seemed no help. Despite not wanting an affai—not in the slightest, he told himself—he was disappointed the stone hadn’t reacted to Samantha.
Silently cursing the vexing stone burned into his skin, he knew it was best to keep any talk of a bride and permanence to himself, at least until he knew just what his connection with Samantha truly meant. Better to gauge her reaction to his explanation of Tanselm and the Storm Lords. No need to overwhelm her with talk of a binding future, especially if there wasn’t one.
For her part, Samantha seemed to accept his explanation and remained quiet the rest of the drive. Thirty minutes later he escorted her into his home, more than curious to see how she would react to his brothers. In Tanselm, a place where the Royal Four existed and were accepted, people continually stopped and stared when he and his brothers grouped together.