by Anna Durand
"Stressful day," I said around my big, loud yawn.
Nevan rose to his feet, taking me with him. In a dangerously hushed voice, he said, "If I had the power, I would travel back to that night and tear the man's head off with my bare hands before he had a chance to harm you."
I believed he both could and would do it, if given the chance. Settling my palm on his cheek, my fingertips on his temple, I felt a vein throbbing there. "The battle's long over. You can't do anything to change it and neither can I."
His eyes hooded, he turned his face into my palm. I skimmed my thumb over his mouth. His lips moved under my thumb, his tongue flicked out to sample my flesh.
Nevan stepped back, a sure sign he was about leave.
"Stay," I said. "Please. I don't want to be alone."
He nodded.
"Just let me change into my nightie first."
I hurried into the bedroom, switched my day clothes for my satin nightie, and called Nevan into the room. He strode to the dilapidated wooden chair in the corner by the window, plucked my satin robe off the seat, and lowered his lithe body onto the chair. The robe he draped over his lap, his fingers stroking the fabric. His gaze heated when he soaked in the sight of me in my skimpy nightie, with its spaghetti straps, plunging neckline, and mid-thigh hem.
"You are lovely," he said, petting my robe. "My tasty little morsel."
"Tasty morsel? I am not food."
"But you are delectable." He crooked his fingers into the robe, as if kneading flesh. "I know the taste of your kiss, love, sweet and spiced with all those luscious desires you keep bottled up. When you let go at last, I will feast on the rest of you as well."
For several seconds, I couldn't move or breathe. Feast on the rest of me. Though I tried so hard not to, I envisioned all the ways he might do just that.
I snatched my nightie off the bed and marched into the bathroom, kicking the door shut. I banged my knees on the sink, twice, while stripping off my clothes. The bathroom had just enough space between the sink and the wall to accommodate me, but no more than that, which was why I preferred changing in the bedroom. Not an option tonight.
When I emerged, Nevan grinned with wolfish delight.
My nightie was skimpy, but nobody was supposed to see it. I liked the satin fabric on my skin. The spaghetti straps and mid-thigh hem kept me cool on these hot summer nights. I wore the nightie for me, not for leering sylphs.
He wasn't leering, though. He admired me, his gaze exploring the length of my body. By the time he finished his assessment, arousal had me in its velvety grip and I had to clamp my thighs together to quell the wet pulsing there. It didn't help. No man had ever looked at me the way he did. Like he wanted to devour every inch of my body.
I scuttled to the bed, flinging the covers back.
Nevan lifted my robe to his face and inhaled. His smile took on a predatory slant. "This garment smells of you, of honeysuckle and sunshine."
My knees bumped the mattress. "Baloney. Sunshine has no scent and I don't smell like honeysuckle."
"Ah, but you do. And you taste of strawberries."
Snorting, I sat on the bed. "Haven't eaten a strawberry in weeks."
"Nevertheless, you taste of them. Elementals can detect aromas and flavors mortals can't. Human men have no idea what they're missing." He frisked the satin across his lips. "You leave a fragment of your essence on everything you touch."
"Guess that means you're stuck smelling like me."
He let the robe tumble to the floor, where it puddled around his feet. "If I could, I'd bathe in your scent so I might enjoy it every moment of the day."
If he'd walked over here, I would've dragged him down onto the bed on top of me. My annoying brain, however, preferred to torture me with fear. "What about my family? Will Brennus go after them?"
My question shattered his rapture. "I don't know."
"You need to guard them."
"I will not leave you."
"Please, Nevan, I'm begging you. Watch over my family. They have no clue what's going on."
He worked his lips, finally settling on a lopsided frown. "I will not leave you alone all night, but I'll pop over every so often to check on your family. Satisfied?"
"Thank you."
He rolled his eyes heavenward. "Your manners will be the death of us yet."
I crawled under the covers, pulling them up to my neck. The cotton sheet and acrylic blanket failed to dull the effect of Nevan's gaze on me.
"Sleep well, my scrumptious mortal," he said, with humor in his voice.
"Yeah-yeah, goodnight."
I shut off the bedside lamp. Shadows descended, obscuring Nevan, obscuring anything that might be hiding nearby, invisible. He was a silhouette in the moonlight seeping through the lace curtains, his eyes simmering with muted amber.
Rolling onto my side, facing away from him, I began the fruitless battle for sleep. Memories of Calder and Skeiron and Brennus tormented me. With a huff, I flipped over to the other side, only to endure another replay of past horrors. I flipped back the other way. All the while, I was acutely aware of Nevan's gaze tickling my skin.
I punched my pillow. "Unh."
"Something the matter?"
"Can't sleep. No idea why, there's only a supernatural assassin stalking me at this very moment."
The wood chair he sat on creaked. As the shuffling of bare feet on carpeting came nearer, I resisted the instinct to glance over my shoulder. His presence had become a tangible thing, a light caress against my soul, both terrifying and thrilling me.
His weight settled onto the bed, rocking me a little. His firm, hot body nestled up against my backside as he sprawled an arm over my hip, letting it fall across my belly. His fingertips teased me through the fabric of my nightie.
"I will protect you," he said, "if you'll allow me to."
The strange part? Those were the most enticing words he'd spoken. "Still can't sleep."
He feathered his fingers over my belly. "I will watch over you."
My gaze inexorably moved to the deeper shadows in the corners.
Nevan withdrew his hand from under the sheet. "Perhaps a bit of illumination will ease your mind."
I expected him to switch on the lamp, but instead, he raised his hand in the air and flourished his fingers. A spark ignited in his palm, enlarging into a fist-size ball of incandescent, glittering light. He tossed the orb into the air and it hovered near the ceiling, directly over the bed, casting a delicate glow. Tiny sparks floated down from the orb, disintegrating before they touched us.
"What is that?" I asked.
"A fairy light," he said, tucking his hand under the blanket again, right over my womb. "A fae owed me a favor and gifted me with fairy lights in return. Sleep now."
The orb's glow was oddly comforting and I couldn't prevent myself from going limp as I exhaled out the tension. Cocooned by his body, enveloped in his supple flesh and tough sinew, I floated down from consciousness toward slumber.
His kiss intoxicated me. But this… I could get so addicted.
Nevan murmured to me, sweet and hushed. "Dream of me, Lindsey."
As if I could dream of anything else.
15
The chattering of squirrels roused me at sunrise. Eyes closed, I luxuriated in the softness of my sheets, the fluffiness of my pillow, and the whooshing of cool air through the vents. Thank heavens I'd found an apartment with central air. This heatwave would've killed me without a retreat.
Safe in Nevan's arms last night, I'd fallen into a dreamless sleep and not woken until morning. He'd said I was exhausted, and man, was he right. Soul-baring could really tax a girl. My long night's rest had recharged me for the day ahead and whatever new surprises it might bring.
I was alone in the bed this morning. The chair by the window sat empty. Nevan must've popped out to
check on my family. I silently thanked him, stretching my arms above my head as I yawned.
Unease crept into me. My gaze migrated past the curtains to the gloom in the corner near the foot of the bed. I shivered at the unearthly sensation of invisible fingers probing my skin, and tugged the blanket up to my chin.
The darkness shifted.
Something is there.
I pushed up onto one elbow. "Nevan?"
Tentacles of energy, unseen and oily, stretched out to me, licking at my body as if testing the flavor. Whenever I sensed Nevan, his presence aroused and yet calmed me. This energy slithered over my skin. It seeped into my pores, infesting my psyche.
I heaved my body up into sitting position. The blanket slumped down to puddle around my hips. The tentacles fused to my flesh, to my bones, to my soul. Not Nevan. His presence activated my senses, nothing like this engulfing blackness.
"Who are you?" My voice came out strained, my throat was parched and tight.
The curtains billowed. An icy draft churned through the room.
My clammy hands dampened the sheet. The window was shut.
"Show yourself." As if I held any sway over supernatural beings. If Nevan refused to obey me, why should this entity? Still, I couldn't huddle on the bed praying the thing might vacate the premises. "What do you want?"
The darkness seethed. It siphoned fragments of light from the shaft of sunshine that warmed my skin. The bright and the black coiled, spun, coalesced into a tall figure.
A man.
I clutched the blanket to my breast, abruptly aware of the my nightie's low-cut neckline.
He moved away from the wall. His knee-length white toga swished around his thighs and the curtains fluttered behind him. Blades of sunlight scraped away the shadows enshrouding him to unmask his tall, muscle-bound frame. The light coated his olive skin with a golden sheen. His platinum-blond hair blazed as if set afire by the sunshine. Energy spun out from his body to entwine me in its frigid, slick embrace.
The being eyed me with detached interest, like a scientist examining a petri dish full of multiplying bacteria.
My ears rang. Darkness invaded my vision. I realized I'd stopped breathing and hauled in a lungful of air tainted with the sharp odor of something vile and indefinable. This was the man I'd met in the shop two days ago, the one who warned me the guardian was bound to him.
This was Skeiron, the king of the sylphs.
I fought to break eye contact but I couldn't blink, much less avert my gaze.
The immortal being before me bent his head back. "Are you the one?"
I struggled to speak, but my voice had frozen, along with the rest of me.
In one stride, he crossed to the bed. His mass towered over me, eclipsing the light and, as if on command, I raised my face to him.
He grasped my chin in one massive hand.
"You," he said, his voice cool and even, "have lured my best guardian away from his task. If you are the one, and he is concealing the truth from me… "
"Guardian?" He must've meant Nevan, the only guardian I knew, but I couldn't summon the brainpower to interpret Skeiron's words. His presence overwhelmed all else — the surroundings, my thoughts, my ability to feel anything save for his alien touch.
Skeiron's eyes shrank to slits, his mouth became a slash. "You know of whom I speak. You have spent three days with him, seducing the guardian into forsaking his duty for you."
Black hair. Swirling metallic eyes. The memory of Nevan rushed through me, sweeping my mind clean. "I haven't seduced anybody. Nevan does what he wants."
The sylph king tightened his grip on my chin the slightest bit. Flames of hellfire red erupted within his irises.
I scuttled backward, away from the pull of this creature's gravity.
Serpents of power whipped and snarled around me, unseen yet tangible, biting into my skin with every lash. I swatted at my arms and face, driven by the impulse to sanitize my flesh, but the spectral serpents tore at my flesh, firing shocks of pain into me.
The assault cut off with a jolt. The energy snapped back into the humanoid being who loomed over my bed.
Between gasps, I croaked, "I know who you are. Skeiron."
His nostrils flared, his eyes too. "A mortal may not speak my name. It is forbidden."
The nerve. I opened my mouth to spit out a snide retort, but snapped my jaw shut. This bastard stole into my home, into my bedroom, and accused me of luring Nevan away from his job of enchanting gorgeous, hapless women. Yet I was forbidden? I gulped back the hysterical laughter rising in my throat.
Skeiron exuded everything dark — anger, envy, greed, and a hunger I preferred not to examine. My stomach twisted into razor-sharp knots. I clambered backward, away from him, and jumped off the bed's opposite side to barricade myself with its bulk. As if that would deter an elemental creature.
The king's top lip wrenched upward in a nasty expression. "I will root out the truth. If you are the one, I shall have you."
"I don't understand."
Skeiron flew across the bed to slam down in front me. On his knees on the mattress, inches away, he seared me with his glower. "Another seeks you, but he will not be as restrained as I."
He exploded into a black tornado the size of a man. It reeled through the room, knocking me off my feet. I cried out as my hip smacked into the dresser, my body ricocheted off it, and I crumpled to the floor.
The man-size twister plowed into the window. Glass shattered, raining into the room with a harsh tinkling sound. A final gust ripped through the space.
In the stillness that followed, I blew hair from my eyes. With both hands, I grabbed the mattress and hauled my ass off the floor. On my knees, bent over into the bed, I gaped at the shattered window. Bits of glass stuck to the wooden frame, which had splintered into multiple pieces. The curtains hung in tatters.
Nevan had alerted me to the danger, but I refused to listen. Refused to believe. Here, in my own home, the king of the sylphs had thrown down a gauntlet at my feet. And I still had no clue what Skeiron wanted from me.
Thunder boomed overhead. The building rattled around me and the floor trembled.
I staggered to my feet, bumbling sideways into the bedside table. Water sloshed in the glass I'd left there last night.
My battle with Calder nearly destroyed me, but at least my foe had been human — if deranged. This time, I floundered for the words to describe my predicament. Somehow I'd earned an enemy with unspeakable power and motives beyond my comprehension.
Skeiron's voice bellowed on the wind. "The guardian shall not have you. Your power belongs to me."
He thought I had power? This guy was terrifying and insane.
A bolt of dark power sliced through me. Nausea twisted my gut. Tears burst from my eyes, borne on a retching sob as the agony of Skeiron's energy clawed at my soul, and I clutched at my stomach, doubled over on another body-wrenching sob. A single thought seared my mind, a frantic call sent out through the ether, on a wavelength I'd never imagined existed. Maybe it didn't. Maybe I was freaking out from the knowledge I was about to die, but my mind — my heart — screamed the plea.
Nevan, I need you.
Thunder detonated overhead. The building trembled. Bits of paint and plaster showered down from the ceiling. The quaking escalated into a bone-jarring crescendo as framed photos bounced off the wall, striking the floor one by one. Glass cracked. The bed jounced.
The ceiling collapsed on top of me.
16
Tick, tick, tick. The sound roused me from a fog of dizziness and exhaustion. Darkness encased me, though I swore it had been morning a few minutes ago. My head pulsated with pain.
Flat on my stomach, I lifted my head. The floor tilted and spun.
Tick, tick.
The noise originated overhead. I pushed up onto my knees, but my muscles gave out
and I collapsed again. Dust plumed up into my nose and eyes. I coughed, sneezed, panted. A heavy object pinned my feet, and though I jiggled them, I could not free my ankles. Resting my cheek on the floor, I blinked to clear the watering of my eyes. The ticking battered my eardrums like hammer blows.
I crawled my fingers across the floor, hunting for the source of the sound. My fingers bumped into a cold, metal object. I closed my hand around it and dragged the thing close to my face. The ticking got louder, its relentless rhythm apparent now. I held my alarm clock, an old-fashioned kind with hands that counted off the seconds and minutes. I was still in my bedroom.
Duh. A psycho with supernatural powers attempted to murder me, with my own bedroom as the weapon.
When I stretched one arm up over my head, my fingertips grazed popcorn-like balls. My muddled brain spit out one lucid thought. The balls came from the ceiling. Skeiron had stomped his proverbial, or perhaps literal, foot down on a pesky, eensy bug — aka, me.
I huddled under a large hunk of the ceiling. It pitched down at an angle, the higher end wedged on my bed, the lower pinning my ankles. I shoved against the ceiling chunk. No movement. I twisted around to push with both my hands, but succeeded only in punching pains into my shoulders and neck, straight up into my skull.
Trapped.
My chest morphed into a granite block crushing me. My breaths panted, shallow and unhelpful. Numbness tingled through my face and spread out into my body. I was hyperventilating. If I passed out, and the super-scary king of the sylphs came back, I'd be thoroughly screwed.
"Help!" My scream echoed in the space around me. My ears hurt from the noise. My eyes hurt too. Every muscle in my body burned or ached or quivered, or some combination of the three. My breaths puffed shallower and faster, the numbness sweeping down my limbs. "Somebody help me!"
My hoarse shriek set off a fit of hacking. I crumpled onto my stomach, cheek on the floor, hot tears streaming down my nose to drip onto the floor. No one was coming. I'd hyperventilate myself to death, if that was possible, or die in some other, more horrific way.