Her sister referred to the life Jordan spent in the office; what Maze didn’t seem to understand was that her big sis liked her job. Shocking, yes, but true. So this wasn’t about her. It was all Maisie, major still undeclared.
“People have gotten along just fine without Rêve thus far,” Jordan said. “All the way back to the dawn of man.”
Maze’s baby blues opened wide. “Beg to differ, Jor. Theories abound that it is not unique to our time.”
God, baby sis had been drinking the Rêve punch.
“Theories, not facts.” While Jordan had volunteered to go along for the ride, she wasn’t going to get conned into the hype. One of them had to stay grounded.
Her sister smiled and repeated by rote, as she had a thousand times today, “It’s safe. It’s legal.”
Jordan gave a derisive laugh. “Then why are we about to taxi twelve nautical miles into international waters to get on a Finnish ship in order to try it?”
***
Once aboard the Envoi, Rook kept his head low among the group of people following their guide, some chick in a Euro-spacey short skirt, down one of the ship’s corridors. The ship was already full, party chatter rising from behind the double doors of the ballrooms they passed. Their taxi had to have been one of the last to arrive for the night’s entertainment. A couple of prospects had been on board, but he wanted to get a look at the rest before he chose his target.
The vibe in the air was characteristic of Rêve: anxiety mixed with a daredevil anticipation. He could pick out the ones who’d been many times before, the Revelers—they had a quiet kind of patience, a desperation in their eyes. They’d found their drug of choice and were quickly going broke looking for their next fix.
For all the so-called safety assessments, yes, Rêve was addictive. The body might not hunger for a fix, but the soul?
He could never give it up. He’d tried.
“Just this way.” Spacey Skirt Girl had stopped outside a door, an arm open to direct them all inside an already full room where, presumably, they would be oriented, something along the lines of, “Blah, blah, limitless possibilities, blah, blah, blah.”
Coll had spouted the same shit to him years ago.
Rook glanced slightly away as he passed the Envoi escort. If discovered, he wouldn’t be detained, not exactly, but there were other ways to fetter guests, like a falcon’s tethering jesses, to restrain a dreamer’s flight.
And the whole point tonight was to hunt for prey.
***
Okay, so maybe the ship was nice.
The Envoi smelled new and clean, the color palette from the taxi’s ramp up the stairs to the wide, long hallway a combination of cobalt blue carpet and pale gold accents. Staff had divested the guests of their coats and had a slender flute of champagne at the ready for each person. A loudly murmuring crowd already filled a large, beautiful room full of jewel-toned light.
Jordan set her flute on a tall, narrow table, in the center of which stood a small blown-glass light fixture, an explosion of color—reminded her of Chihuly—creating a defied-gravity upward impact. The ceiling had similar stalactites of fluid glass illuminated with blues and greens, and hot splashes of red.
It was, in a word, dreamy. Also, high-end. And the design spoke to the surreal, exclusive experience the Envoi offered.
For a couple thousand dollars per night, it’d better be. Her savings had taken a direct and deadly blow to the heart when Maze had told her about what she’d just splurged on. Credit cards equaled free money to sis. There was no way Maze was going alone, so before the Rêve sold out, Jordan had hopped online and brought her balance down to pathetic double digits.
Speaking of Maze…she’d been right here a minute ago. Jordan looked around, then had to smile.
Moths to a flame. Less than twenty seconds and already Maze was chatting with a youngish guy, this one a little too buttoned up for her little sis’s pops and zaps of energy and adventure. But okay. Opposites and all that.
So much for sisterly bonding.
Jordan raised her glass and sipped. The champagne was doing nothing to settle her nerves. She wished the Envoi would move on to phase two already.
Movement brought Jordan’s attention to her right. A man approached—handsome, tall, sandy hair, green eyes—she recognized the face quickly enough to smile, though it took a sec to run down the contact list in her head to recall his name.
Blackman. Vince Blackman. Of the SpiderSly Company.
“It’s Jordan, right?” He held out his hand.
She shook it and went with his first name, too. “Vince. So good…and surprising to see you.”
He did not return her hand, but kept it lightly clasped between his. “I’ve been meaning to get in touch.”
A year ago her market strategy team had pitched to him, but then the project had stalled pending some foreign litigation. Maybe he was ready to reconsider her company’s services. She was so flattered that he remembered her. She hadn’t even been lead, just a helper.
Her heart rate increased. She put her shoulders back, affecting an air of confidence. Inside she was doing her happy little boogie that only Maze had ever seen. This was business. Good business. Potentially worth way more than the ticket had cost.
Playing it cool, she went with, “I’m so glad to hear it.” She’d have to prep tomorrow. Update the specs. “Is this your first Rêve?”
She sure as hell would follow up on Monday morning. Bringing her boss up to speed would feel so good. Like, I bumped into Vince Blackman Saturday night. We were attending the same Rêve and got to talking…
Hello, promotion.
“My first, yes.” His grin crinkled the outer corners of his eyes, creating fans just deep enough to signify a certain degree of life experience. Really, he was perfect. “I’ve been curious about the whole Rêve thing, and when I received the ticket as a gift, I decided to give it a try. You?”
Of course he would get a gift worth a couple thousand dollars. Must be nice.
She winced. “I am more cautious than curious, actually.”
Vince smiled. “Oh?”
“I came with my little sister.” Jordan turned back to find Maze, who’d attracted another male admirer. “Believe it or not, it’s our girls’ night.”
Vince let go of her hand to raise his flute. “To girls, then.”
Jordan dinged her glass against his. “What about Rêve interests you?”
She wished she didn’t sound so formal. She needed to flirt a little, but it wasn’t her forte under the best of circumstances, and with the scary event fast approaching, near impossible.
He tilted his head in a small shrug and settled into an easy table lean. “I’m looking for control, though it must make me sound like a jerk. I want to make sure that I can be lucid.”
She huffed a relieved laugh. “Believe me, I get it.” Wait. “Not everyone can?”
“From what I’ve heard, no. Takes some people a few tries. Others never achieve mastery.”
Jordan’s enjoyment faltered, replaced with the heavy drag of lead in her belly. None of her online searches had mentioned this. The point of this adventure was to stick close to Maisie, but if neither of them were in control, they’d be separated. She’d thought the lucidity thing was a given. Why else was everyone so excited about shared dreaming if it only worked for some? Yeah, she totally understood Vince’s interest in control.
Where was Maisie? Was there a taxi back to shore?
“Hello, everybody,” an accented female voice came over a speaker. “Welcome to the Envoi. I’m Serena and I’ll be telling you what to expect tonight.”
Jordan, like others near her, looked around to find the speaker. A woman stood on a small dais at the end of the room. She was a petite blonde in super high heels and a bright purple gown with a subtle sheen. A champagne flute in her hand, too.
“Sleep is an alteration in your brainwaves, and Rêve is simply getting everyone on the same frequency. It’s as easy and painless a
s that.”
Scientist-turned-hero, Didier Lambert had discovered the principles of Rêve, the French word for dream, working from some institute in Paris. It was he who had published the first academic papers on the discovery, though others from around the world, notably UCLA, published shortly behind him. That had been fifteen years ago. Today it was big business.
Jordan felt Maze join her, sidling up close. Lil’ sis caught her hand and squeezed her excitement into it. She’d been wanting to try this since Rêve had become legal in the U.S. two years ago, but supply simply could not meet the clamor of demand.
“We are going to a very exclusive island tonight,” Serena continued. “One that this beautiful ship could never reach, no matter how far it sailed. The island literally exists on a plane dominated by imagination. You may wander it at will—stroll the midnight beach, attend a party under the stars, strike off into the trees for some privacy, or climb an active volcano for an unparalleled view. It is a free place, a place where you are all-powerful, where you can push the limits of experience with no threat to yourself, no pain. While the dream is shared, your interactions with others are voluntary; and if you become agitated or disruptive, you will simply be awakened.”
The shared part was what made Jordan’s stomach cramp. She didn’t want all these people in her head. Truth be told, she didn’t really want to be in theirs, either.
“But of course you all want to be lucid and in control of yourselves.”
Uh-huh. Yep. Absolutely. Those were the key words.
“So you will not be able to enter the party unless, in the dream state, you are able to reach out and open a door to let yourselves in. Likewise, you can leave at any time and simply doze until the time has expired.”
Sounded a little too simple to Jordan.
“No one can read your mind. No one can make you do anything you don’t want to. No one can make you want to do things you otherwise wouldn’t. You are simply experiencing a fantasy constructed by our dreamscapers.”
Jordan gnawed on her bottom lip. Maybe she should forgo the Rêve, just in case. That way she’d be okay if something happened to Maisie and could fight/scream/demand help if something went wrong. That was the right thing to do.
Screw the money. Stand guard over your sister.
Then again, what if something happened to Maisie during the dream? Her sis was so impulsive, didn’t think before jumping, had zero presence of mind. What if someone tried to mess with her on this island, and she couldn’t call for help? What if… Hell. The what ifs became infinite in the dream scenario, each possibility more twisted than the last.
The best thing would be to go inside, to be there if her sister needed her.
This was insane.
“If you will move into the theater—” A wall slowly parted to reveal concentric circles of uber-simple, modern reclining chairs with attached headsets. “—we will make you all very comfortable.”
Oh Lordy.
Jordan squeezed Maze’s hand. She had to keep her sister close. Had to keep her safe. Taking care of her sister was all that mattered, all that had mattered for the last six years.
On Jordan’s left, Vince grazed her arm with the back of his hand. “Ready to make the leap?”
***
Rook had his first mark and he’d named her Wild Child.
Spotted her on the taxi over—the magenta hair was hard to miss—and he hadn’t found anyone more intriguing among the rest. She was young, the creative type who lacked inhibitions. Experience told him that she would embrace everything that Rêve offered…and she would lose herself in the process.
Happened every time.
Coll would hate her, which was Rook’s only consolation for bringing her in. She’d go down fighting and make Coll’s life hell.
Not that Wild Child was a sure thing. She was an educated guess based on more than eight years’ experience. Once inside the Rêve, he’d know for sure.
The trait often ran in families, but Rook didn’t get the same punch out of the sister. Beautiful woman, though, in that classic, creamy-skinned and minimalist kind of way—all polished up like a penny—and young as well, just too restrained and suspicious to let the magic happen.
Interesting, however, that Big Sis had connected with Mr. Millions, who also had the pulse of Rêve about him. Millions clearly wasn’t here for fun or curiosity. On the hunt for new talent as well? Coll would want to look into it.
Rook shifted his attention to the other side of the room. Blondie, another potential, was exchanging her empty champagne flute for a full one. She was almost too loose, as if she knew what was about to come and how futile it was to fight. Ten bucks said she’d have nightmares; no amount of alcohol could drown them.
Rook drained his own glass in one gulp.
No. Wild Child was the one.
With the exception of the experienced Revelers among the group, she’d be the first through the door. He’d bet his rep on it.
Then he’d mark her and he’d hold her under the dreamwaters until she became something else.
It’d happen anyway; might as well be him.
CHAPTER 2
Sleep came abnormally fast and hard.
Darkness. She wanted to open her eyes, but couldn’t.
And the sound of weeping, terrible in its familiarity.
The disorientation was like the constant sense of uncontrolled falling right after Mom died. The world just wasn’t as solid and safe without her in it.
And what about Maisie? Who was going to take care of Maisie? Where was Maisie?
Jordan couldn’t find her—vertigo had ripped the ground from her feet and scrambled her up-down orientation. She knew she wasn’t going about searching in a smart way. Mom would’ve known what to do, she always knew what to do—but not Jordan.
She ran toward the sound of tears, only for the cries to bounce in another direction like a thrown voice. Empty shadows pulsed with the red-blue whirl of an ambulance light. The atmosphere was rough, chafing her skin like sandpaper as she drove forward in her panic. She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs were on fire from her breathless run.
Ahead of her a red door appeared—home!—the front door to their old house before that really bad day. The worst day. Maybe her little sis was at home. Please God, let her be here.
Jordan reached out, reached as far as she could, reached for the only family she had left. She gripped the knob and burst inside, yelling, “Maisie!”
***
Rook wheeled around at the deep, gut-wrenching sound of panic. He knew that sound well; it echoed around his own hollow chest. Loss and loneliness.
Onto the midnight beach of the Rêve’s dream island a woman emerged, frantic with worry, and yet also luminous with pulsing feminine energy. The powdery sand lifted with each of her steps and was slow to settle again.
I’ll be damned.
Seemed Mr. Millions had picked the right sister after all.
And not only was she the first of the newbies, she was the second after him to enter the Rêve space, and he’d been plugged into shared dreaming since it was the illegal and preferred high on the street. Who wanted to live in the real world when a better one waited behind closed eyes? Of course, the dreams he’d shared back then had been much darker, some black enough that a mind never got clean. All these years later, the grit still clung to the walls inside his skull.
From the shadows of the jungle tree line he watched her acclimate.
Her energy settled into a low, sensual simmer as her gaze darted over the setting: the pristine, powder beach, empty but for her, with its rushing waves and an ocean as full of stars as the sky above. She stared briefly at the way the water struck out into dreamspace and flowed like an infinity pool into nothingness. The sense of vastness was part of the experience—proof that this was indeed located beyond anything where physics dominated. Her mouth parted when she got a load of the volcano, lazily erupting ruby lava. No danger there. And then her gaze scraped across the beach and settle
d on him.
Beautiful woman in a dream? The body ache that rushed him was natural, blood chug-chugging south. He’d be rock hard in the real world, where he slept. Luckily, in dreams he had more control.
Similarly, a forced composure came over her—the one that had fooled him into thinking it was her true nature. Turned out she was something else entirely, all her electricity condensed into the form of a beautiful woman. Nevertheless, it was there, zapping just under the surface.
She’d spotted him effortlessly.
Coll would say he was losing his touch, the hunter caught. But Rook was intrigued. He hadn’t been surprised in a good way in so long.
Her eyes narrowed—angry?—and he tried not to laugh as she strode fluidly toward him in spite of her high heels digging into the sand, all the normal, subtle hitches smoothed from her stride by the dream.
“Where is everyone else?” Her voice had the Rêve’s bell clarity over the rush and hiss of the waves on the shore and the boom-boom-boom of the dance music from deep within the jungle.
This close, he could enjoy her wide-set eyes, silver in the moonlight, like light on water. Her face cut in smooth and delicate planes, accented by the tip of her nose and a lush, full mouth. God, her mouth. She was long-limbed, like a dancer, but her figure flared in all the right places.
Maybe he should’ve shaved, like Coll had suggested. She was too…graceful to go for him.
Didn’t matter anyway. Chimera had rules about fraternizing with marks, though the organization turned a blind eye where other agents were concerned. The dream medium was inherently sexual.
Point was, he couldn’t touch her, but it was good to feel human again.
“Well done, you.” He raised his hands and applauded, and he meant it. “That was a very fast entry. Really. Not everyone can do it, even those with experience.” For example, no Mr. Millions yet, which meant her natural aptitude was greater than Millions’s clearly amateur skills.
“The others?” she demanded.
She meant her sister, Wild Child. “The others are most likely pondering their doors, trying to remember where they lead or how a doorknob works. A few people always bug out at the last second, scared they’ll arrive naked or something.”
Dark and Deadly: Eight Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance Page 46