Kiss of the Beast (A Classic Paranormal Romance)

by Mallory Rush

  "Then what is illusion?"

  "For us, for now..." His head descended and he willed her to fall inside his gaze once more. A hunger so deep it was ravenous awaited her there, but the palm he cupped to her cheek was tender as the ache of his longing for this touch.

  "Illusion, Eva," he whispered, "is reality."

  Chapter 4

  "Eva?"

  "Mmmm... Urich," she murmured, sliding her hands over his... chest? No, she was touching something harder, and her head was on it too, not nuzzled against an endless shoulder.

  Her own shoulder was being shaken. Urgently. And someone was saying, "Eva! Eva, wake up!"

  Ethan's voice. Ethan? Ethan!

  Blinking furiously against the dregs of sleep and harsh fluorescent lighting, Eva realized she was in her office, slumped in her chair and half-draped over her desk.

  Bolting upright, she demanded, "What time is it?"

  "Two a.m.," he said, eyeing her strangely. "What are you doing here?"

  What was she doing here? Why wasn't she in Urich's arms, flowing as one on a sea of stars, her lips to his neck and his in her hair? But... no, it wasn't possible.

  It's in your mind that you create your own reality. His words echoed distantly, giving her pause. Had it all been a dream? Had she actually driven herself here, gone into some delusional episode in the chamber, and then sleepwalked her way to her desk? No. She wasn't psychotic and never in her life had she sleepwalked. So how did she explain what had occurred?

  Clearly, Urich had some sort of inside track into the workings of the mind—at least the one that had given birth to him. Could it be, she wondered, that his insights were tapped from her subconscious' own? Preposterous. But what if, what if there really was a hidden door within the psyche that contained the powers she distinctly remembered Urich saying she possessed? Then, yes, Urich could possibly become real, in every sense, within her mind.

  Eva mentally rolled her eyes. Far be it for her to discount any discovery yet unknown to man, but actually reaching a place where anything imaginable could be experienced as totally real? That was a lot to swallow without the technology to support it.

  Sucking in a steadying breath, she tried to concentrate on Ethan. He looked uneasy as she assessed him with the same sort of probing vision that was unique to Urich. Urich, Urich, it always comes back to Urich.

  "I was working and fell asleep," she said, aware of a transcendent calmness that slightly unnerved her. "That explains me, but aren't you a little early to be clocking in?"

  "I, uh... I was on my way home from the bar when I passed by and saw your car. Thought I'd check up on you."

  "As you can see, I'm fine."

  He stared at her, oddly, took a step back, kept staring. What was the matter with him? He was looking at her as if she had taken on the form of a predator ready to pounce and was half-hoping she would.

  "Are you sure? You... you don't seem quite yourself."

  Well, thank God for that, she wanted to say. She was, in fact, feeling quite beyond her usual self. Confident and bold, a woman fully realized, sustained in her sense of inner peace and wisdom. Her power.

  "Oh, really? How do I seem different?"

  "I don't know exactly, but you do." He laughed nervously. "Maybe it's the clothes. Guess you went out after all and came back here?"

  "Something like that. Anything else different about me?" she pressed, wondering if she looked as different as she felt.

  "The hair, definitely the hair. And... and your face. That's it, your face. You look like you're glowing."

  "Must be the lighting," she offered, though she did feel as if she had swallowed a star and was glowing with the light of the cosmos.

  She stood and Ethan edged toward the door. "Since you're okay, guess I'll be going." He rubbed his hands together, an awkward gesture that matched his hesitant, "but I can stick around while you pack up, walk you to your car."

  "Thanks, but I have some more work I want to get done." Indicating the piles of paper on her desk, her gaze fell on a sheet with three large words, scrawled in her handwriting. Forcing a polite, "good-night, Ethan," she waited for the sound of his footsteps to declare him gone then seized the page. In her grip it shook, as did her whispered:

  "Mind over matter."

  * * *

  "Finally you're back, Urich." Raven's anxiety sharpened his voice as he padded over the floor of his private quarters.

  Resigned to an interrogation, Urich gave a small bow.

  "I'm sorry for waking you."

  "No apology needed." With hope, he added, "I'm sure your delay is justified."

  "It is," Urich confirmed. What he didn't say was that his delay had been due to some painful self-examination. He had crossed a line with Eva that left him straddled between loyalty to his people, wanting her for himself, and truly caring about her needs, not the least of which was her right to freedom. And what had all his soul searching netted him? Nothing but a stalemate of emotional confusion, guilt for his betrayal to the mission, absolute rapture and absolute regret for holding the woman he never should have touched.

  Disguising his inner turmoil with a detached facade, Urich heard the lie leave his lips. "She's elusive. It could take awhile for me to convince Eva that her future belongs with us."

  Raven raised a speculative brow. "Eva, is it? Do I detect a personal interest in Dr. Campbell that doesn't bode well for your delivery of her to us?"

  "The success of this mission depends on my ability to win her trust in me." And he was winning it, winning it so quickly and easily, and not deserving her trust at all. Swallowing against the foul taste of a traitor, he further compromised himself, saying, "It's her nature to trust those she has a personal affinity with. You know this as well as I do, Raven. Therefore, why should you disapprove of the relationship I was ordered to form with... Dr. Campbell?"

  Raven met his challenging glare. Unable to withstand Urich's visual lancing, he began to stalk the room, copious silver hair swishing in time to the weary shake of his head.

  Urich noticed the stiffened measure of his gait, the slight slump in Raven's shoulders, still proud but heavy with the burden of more than his age. He looked as though he carried the weight of a dying race in his arms, one he couldn't let go any more than he could continue on.

  "You trouble me, Urich. Always, always you've troubled me with the powers you possess and the isolation you covet. But never have you troubled me as you do now. Even I, who can't search your mind, can perceive the... affection? Yes, the affection you have for this woman."

  "Affection isn't something I'm familiar with," he hedged.

  "Then since you feel none, you wouldn't be adverse to abducting her?"

  "No. I won't do such a thing, Raven." He took a menacing step forward. "And neither will you."

  "Ah, Urich, there it is. The source of my concern. You're becoming protective and possessive of her. Such attachment will cloud your judgment. And it's bound to cause problems once she joins our fold. We need her for a greater purpose than your own desires dictate."

  It was true, all of it. He wanted to demand they stop this atrocious plan, but no, here he was composing his face into an implacable mask and denying every rightful charge.

  "My desires dictate that she come willingly to us. Should she be abducted, she'll be resistant and our greater purpose will suffer for it."

  Raven was silent for a telling length of time. When he finally spoke, it was with the skill of a swordsman cleanly spearing the most vulnerable point of a comrade well known.

  "As always, your judgment is sound. No wonder I regard you with a respect few others command. Proceed with Dr. Campbell—or rather, Eva—as you deem most advantageous to our mutual goal. We are relying on you and I'm certain it's an entrustment well placed." A meaningful pause. "If you like, we'll do away with any surveillance of your meetings—your loyalty being without question. Accept my gratitude for your service to our people, and the success I know you'll achieve."

 
Urich bowed and quickly cut a path to the door. But before he could escape, Raven struck another velvet blow.

  "By the way, your father wants to see you. Zar will be so pleased when you relay the progress you made tonight."

  The door trembled slightly, the force of Urich's distress beating at the exit like a pounding fist as Raven went on.

  "In exchange for your typically sage advice, perhaps you'll accept a bit of mine. Before you see Zar, might I suggest that you see to your appearance? There's an imprint on your neck, several of them in fact. Red and slightly smeared, but they do bear a curious resemblance to lips."

  * * *

  Staring out at the stars, so like the illusion that had surrounded him and Eva, Urich smacked the glassy barrier.

  Pacing, pacing, searching for answers and none forthcoming. Why had he let her into his most secret place, shared his very essence and absorbed her kindred spirit as if it were rain to feed the drought of his soul? It had been empty, so empty for so long that he had become like the void, feeling no joy, no pain. An infinity of nothingness.

  Until Eva had filled him with her substance. What a fool he had been to partake of what he couldn't keep. Yes, only a fool would have slipped into her deepest reaches and grasped the woman within. The whole of her so fine and glorious, he had reverently fondled each nuance of her mind.

  And the innocence of her, gathered so trustingly in his arms, the press of her lips to his neck...

  Urich stroked where she had marked him. He had begrudged each swipe of the cloth ridding him of her traces; yet forever would he remember the power of her intimate touch.

  "Power," he snarled, spitting out the word as if he could trample upon its fickle composition. How well he knew the powers of the mind. But they were as nothing, nothing, compared to the influence a heart could dangerously wield.

  He had thought his heart immune to such human weakness. How wrong he had been. And now he was paying, and dearly, for it. His visit with Raven had been pure pleasure compared with that of his father.

  Trapped, that's what he was, trapped in a cage of his own making, and no one but himself to blame from start to finish.

  With a snort of self-derision, he wondered what insanity had possessed him to let Eva retain all they had shared—save his carrying her to the office, almost crushing her with a consuming embrace, then departing with a command to sleep deep and dream of him.

  Urich dropped his face into his hands. What was done was done. But he would not, could not, repeat that mistake. His responsibilities were clear and there was no margin for compromise. When next he saw Eva, his heart must be hardened.

  It twisted painfully, revolting against his vow.

  * * *

  "I will not go to the chamber," Eva vowed. "I will not go to the chamber. I will not—" She stopped in mid-mantra. That rap at the door could only be Ethan. Jeez but she wished he'd get a life outside of work.

  Good advice, Eva. Listen to it and take up a hobby, join a club, just get the hell out of here and go mingle with some real people. "Shut up," she muttered to that nasty little voice nagging at her again before calling out, "come in."

  The door swung open and there was Ethan of course, and of course he was pushing up his glasses, then swinging back his front mop of hair and slouching against the frame, hands shoved in pockets, Mr. Wannabe Cool posture assumed.

  "I'm not leaving without you tonight," he announced. "You owe me a rain check on yesterday's beer and on top of that, we hit a breakthrough today—"

  "A minor one." She sounded as bitchy as she felt. Eva blamed Urich for that. If she didn't have him to compare the other hologram to, she'd be smiling big instead of glowering at poor Ethan. "The hologram didn't talk."

  "But it did show up on cue. And it moved."

  "I'll say," she grumbled. "The damn thing was all over the place—Jim Carry on speed with his tongue cut out!"

  "Hey, there's more than one way to change reality as mankind knows it." He gave her a boyish grin that revealed the braces Ethan usually tried so hard to hide. He was trying to cheer her up and the least she could do was fake a smile. "Much better. Now listen up. We're celebrating whether you like it or not. Not only did we have—okay, a minor—breakthrough, I get my braces off tomorrow. The first round's on me." He unhooked her jacket and flapped it like a matador enticing a charging bull. "As for the second, we can flip a coin if you're in one of your Gloria Steinem moods."

  Well, well, it seemed Ethan could get pushy if he put his mind to it. Mind. Mind over matter. Damn, why didn't she just burn the paper that had seared its message into her brain as surely as a hologram named Urich had screwed with her head.

  A day. One day and one inexplicable night had passed. It seemed like a lifetime since she'd seen Urich and yet it seemed like he never quite left her.

  If she didn't leave, not all the mantras in the world would keep her away from the chamber. Hell, Eva decided, if Urich was some kind of spook in disguise—yet another "yeah, right" hypothesis to log in with the rest—let him follow her to the bar. She was out of here.

  * * *

  An hour later, all Eva could think was I want out of here! Ethan's choice of bar was one of those grunge rocker places. Tunes she'd never heard blasted from a CD jukebox; as for the neo-hippy attire sported by much of the crowd, her own black slacks and white turtleneck seemed ironically outdated.

  Ditto for her volume tolerance. The music competed with arcade games that apparently doubled as dance floor space. Getting down atop a pinball machine was a pencil thin waif in army boots and saggy jeans with rips in the knees.

  She hated this place. It made her feel old.

  "The sixties don't look any better now than they did back then," Eva muttered sourly before taking a sip of the warm beer she was still nursing.

  "Say again?" Ethan leaned across the table with the same eagerness he'd shown every time she uttered a word.

  What was with him tonight? The way he kept urging her to drink up and cut loose for a change made her wonder if he was trying to get her drunk so he could pick her brain for those secret calculations he wasn't above snooping for.

  How cynical, Eva thought with a twinge of guilt. Ethan was simply being sociable and she was grouchy because she was having withdrawals from her mind candy fix.

  Forcing her mind from the chamber's temptation, she pointed to the jukebox and said, "I was wondering what kind of music is that?"

  "That's Trent Reznor. You know, Nine Inch Nails."

  No, she didn't know. Which just went to show how out of touch she was with the life she needed to get outside of work.

  Then again, maybe not! The lyrics assaulting her were appalling. Surely she hadn't heard right.

  "Ethan, did I just hear what I thought I heard?" she asked, mouth agape.

  "Uh... yeah," he said, sporting a sudden blush.

  Eva could feel her own cheeks heating up as the singer—if she could call it singing—once again shrieked that he wanted to "do it" like an animal... or rather "do you" and the "do" part was about as bathroom stall graphic as it got.

  The lyrics were embarrassing enough, but what really disturbed her was the image of this most basic act of nature, becoming just that. Raw and primal, without the inhibitions that divided animal from man. What would it be like? Even as she wondered, Eva was stunned to feel the lick of arousal. It made her uncomfortable, especially since it sprang from a song that was downright disgusting.

  "How about a video game?" Ethan asked as the song faded out and she searched for an excuse to fade out herself.

  Glancing at the nearby arcade area, Eva noticed the waif on the pinball machine was eyeing Ethan and swiveling her hips in his direction. A chance to escape? Yes!

  "I think she has designs on you, Ethan."

  "Designs?" He tossed back his hair, scrunched up his brow—apparently stumped by a term that preceded dude.

  "She wants to get something going," Eva explained. "As in, see me hit the road so she can introduce herse
lf." Grabbing her purse, she promptly plunked down a twenty, and got up, jacket still on. "The rest of the night's on me. I'd wish you luck, but I don't think you need it. Something tells me she'll bring her own glass."

  Freedom a step away, she paused—then said the only nice thing she'd said all day. "Oh, and congratulations on getting rid of those braces. I know they bother you. But Ethan, with or without them, you'll always be the same to me—a sweetheart who not only puts up with my moods, you're cute."

  With that, Eva took off. Once outside, she sighed her relief and waved to Ethan at their table near the front. He didn't see, Eva noted with a smile. He had company. Good for them, she thought, the night was young and so were they.

  She wished she could say the same for herself. Thirty-four wasn't really very old, but somewhere, somehow, she'd lost that vital spark which was the true measure of youth, no matter one's years. Urich made her feel young. And confused. And scared. And beautiful and brave and alive as never before. And she had to stop thinking about him, get some distance and take back control.

  "I will not go to the chamber," she chanted, cranking the engine to her modest sedan that would take her to her modest home. All so predictable, all so very her.

  As she drove, Eva chastised herself for so meanly judging Ethan's social maturity when her own was hardly better. After all, here she was stopping at the video store and renting Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. Then home again, home again, jiggety jig—especially around the hips that could stand to lose two inches since she'd rather ignore them than work out with the leotard lithe crowd. Loads of butter on the popcorn, great for depression, a DVD player and a remote control, what more could a woman want?

  What does Eva Campbell want?

  Stuffing her face with mega fat grams only made her feel more empty. And the sound from the tube was grating on ears that were desperate to hear Urich's voice.

  How long could she stay away from the chamber? Once there, Urich could work her mind like the remote control she clenched. Eva held it tight as a security blanket, needing to control something while her life was exploding like Jiffy Pop shaken over a cerebral flame.