Neptune's Lair

by Dorothy McFalls

  “No,” she said, shaking her head again. She didn’t collapse. She’d soared. She clearly remembered soaring.

  However, the insistent beep, beep, beep of the heart monitor was telling a vastly different story.

  “What’s wrong with me?” Dallas asked again.

  Tears flooded Janice’s eyes. “I don’t know. The doctors don’t know.”

  It had been a fantasy. A sex dream. Not something that would threaten her life or land her in the hospital.

  “You’ve not had any measurable brain activity all night, Dallas. You were in a coma and they said you were going to die.”

  “Die? No.” The room spun and Dallas fell back against her pillow. No, she couldn’t believe it. This couldn’t be happening.

  She had sensed her brooding stranger with those singeing kisses was dangerous. But the danger would be to her heart. Not to her life.

  And dammit, it had simply been a dream. Sparked by a near-death experience? She found that difficult to believe. All she knew was that, despite the danger, her body was aching to be with him again. And soon.

  * * * * *

  “Hey!” someone shouted in Brendan’s ear.

  What the hell?

  Before he could push whoever was shouting at him away, he found himself trapped within a pair of powerful arms. He sucked in a breath and ended up with a lungful of water.

  What the hell? Coughing and spitting up water while struggling against his attacker, he tried to piece together what the hell was happening to him.

  He caught the scent of lavender. His candles. He only used them to help send himself out into the universe—a form of astral projection where his spirit actually left his body.

  Returning was always a bitch. His head felt packed with cotton. And he couldn’t get his mind to work fast enough to figure out why someone would be trying to drown him like an unwanted puppy.

  “What the hell are you trying to do, Brendan? Kill yourself?”

  Dammit, what was Horace doing here? There was no mistaking the demanding voice as belonging to the owner of one of Chicago’s hottest nightclubs. Horace was the only man Brendan had ever trusted enough to call a friend. Although, he couldn’t say he was feeling too friendly toward him right now. Horace pounded on Brendan’s back until Brendan coughed up all the water he’d inadvertently sucked into his lungs.

  “I was searching for her.” His voice felt like razors against the back of his throat. At least his face was now above the water. His lungs burned from inhaling too much of it. He coughed again.

  “Did you think she was hiding at the bottom of your tub?” Horace with his great strength helped Brendan push up onto his knees and then one foot at a time, get his legs under him.

  “You know what I was doing.”

  Horace grimaced. “Stone’s not going to like this.”

  Brendan drew a deep breath that burned all the way to the bottom of his lungs. “Then we don’t tell him.”

  “What won’t you tell me?” Stone asked from the bathroom’s doorway. He sounded furious.

  Ignoring his aching body, Brendan climbed out of the tub and grabbed a towel to wrap around his waist. “It’s nothing.”

  “I found him sunk to the bottom of that damned tub,” Horace said. Traitor. “By the look of these lumps of wax that used to be candles, it appears he’s been there all night. Damn near drowning himself.”

  “I wasn’t drowning myself.”

  Brendan grabbed a second towel and used it to dry off his hair. There was a chill in his apartment that seemed to be seeping into his bones. He padded into the other room with his focus on the coffee maker in the kitchen.

  Stone followed. “What were you doing?”

  “Tracking our target.”

  “And?”

  The lid to his coffee tin wouldn’t budge. Brendan shook the damned thing and then banged it against the kitchen’s onyx countertop until Stone took it from him.

  “And?” he asked again as he held Brendan’s coffee beans hostage.

  “Her name is Dallas.”

  Stone nodded. “Sit down.” He opened the tin and started to make a pot of coffee. “You look like hell, by the way.”

  “He was on the bottom of the tub. Under the water,” Horace said as he came into the room. He’d been in the bedroom. He tossed a robe in Brendan’s direction.

  “The darkness has already found her,” Brendan told both men. “And she has some strong barriers of her own.”

  “So you went deeper?” Stone asked.

  Brendan nodded.

  “That’s all well and good,” Horace said. “I may not be able to pop in and out of people’s heads like Brendan, but I understand enough about it to know that finding a woman’s name shouldn’t take all night.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “What else were you doing, Brendan?”

  “There were...complications.” There was no way in hell he was going to tell either Stone or Horace that he’d brought Dallas to his secret world, seduced her, and had spent several mind-blowing hours between her legs.

  “Okay.” Stone curiously didn’t press him for details. That wasn’t like him, but Brendan wasn’t one to knock a good thing. Stone put a mug of coffee on the table in front of Brendan. “Get some rest before going after her. I’ll expect you to bring her to the café this evening?”

  “If all goes well, I should.”

  “Call me if you run into any more…um…complications,” Stone said on his way out.

  Brendan waited until he heard his front door close before laying into Horace for calling in Stone.

  “What was I going to do, let you die?” Horace asked, not sounding the least bit sorry. He sat down at the kitchen table across from Brendan. “At least you won’t have to do that again. The next time you meet her it will be in the flesh, right?”

  Brendan sipped his coffee. “I don’t know how to find her.”

  “What? You spent the night with her and you didn’t…” Horace closed his eyes and groaned. “I take it she’s attractive.”

  An understatement. But the amazing way her body had glistened as she writhed with pleasure under him wasn’t something Brendan wanted to talk about.

  When Horace spoke again, it was in a harsh whisper. “We’re talking about your life. If Stone finds out, he’ll be forced to haul your ass in front of the council. And you know the council isn’t civilized like a human court of law.”

  Brendan knew. Hell, he knew that what he had done—ripping a soul out of a body—carried the death penalty. Somehow it hadn’t mattered. He wanted Dallas. He craved her sensual energy like he craved food.

  It was irrational and wrong. Still, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to give her up.

  “She’s mine,” he said in a warning growl. Nothing was going to keep him away from her.

  “I wonder what your poor target is thinking this morning. I wonder if she is as certain about everything as you are,” Horace snarled back.

  * * * * *

  Dallas felt drawn to him. She knew it was crazy. She didn’t even know how to find him. Not his name. Not an inkling of an address. And he’d accosted her in an alleyway. What did she want with him other than to point him out to the police?

  His body. That’s what.

  His sumptuous body.

  Oh, and his expressive brown eyes that reminded her of creamy, dark chocolate.

  “What are you doing?” Janice pushed Dallas back into the hospital bed.

  It took some effort to bat Janice’s not-so-helpful arms away. “I’m trying to get dressed.”

  She unhooked the IV, the heart monitor, and a bunch of other wires that didn’t make any sense to her. A series of alarms blared. It sounded as if she was trying to break into a bank, not crawl out of a hospital bed.

  “I’m fine.” She hoped. “Just stiff.” And horny.

  She needed to find her dream man in the flesh. Flesh with flesh. That should cure the throbbing ache between her legs.

  “You’re not fine.” Janice s
tarted fighting her again. “Hell, your lips are blue.”

  “I’m fine.” Dallas pushed back. In this condition, she wasn’t much of a match for her petite friend. And thanks to the heart monitor alarms, Janice was getting backup.

  A team of nurses rushed into the room. One was pushing a crash cart, and another had a tray piled with what looked more like medieval torture implements than medical equipment. They hovered around her like vultures, swooping down whenever there was an opening. Pinching. Prodding. The conversation hovered around scary topics like brain tumors, lesions and seizures. All this was happening while Janice went on and on about Dallas trying to leave the hospital. She sounded like a tattling child.

  “I thought you were my friend,” Dallas whispered.

  “I am,” she shot back.

  A few minutes later a doctor ambled into the room. His gaze met Dallas’s as he surveyed the chaos surrounding her. He returned her pleading look with a wry smile.

  A murmured request had the nurses and orderlies backing away and clearing a path for him. Like a royal visitor, he approached the bed.

  “I want to go home.”

  Dr. Halverson—Dallas read on the nametag he wore—hummed a response. He took her wrist in his hand and pressed his fingers to her pulse. Feeling as horny as she was, she held her breath, afraid she might pounce on him, a doctor. A young, athletic, blond doctor with crystal clear blue eyes.

  Nothing. Despite her throbbing arousal and her tingling breasts, she felt no desire to let this man—also a stranger—touch her in an intimate way.

  She released her breath, grateful to know that her trip into vivid sexual fantasies hadn’t turned her into a stark-raving nymphomaniac.

  “Pulse is normal,” he said.

  His voice sounded like velvet. But Dallas didn’t care. Yesterday, she would have. Yesterday, she would have been blushing and stammering all sorts of nonsense. And making a complete fool of herself.

  This morning, she didn’t care. Dr. Halverson wasn’t him. She needed to get to him.

  She pushed the doctor’s hand away as he tried to press it to her forehead.

  “I have to go.” She felt an odd power surge in her voice.

  Dr. Halverson looked faintly stunned. He opened and closed his mouth and then took a step back.

  “I’d like to run some tests,” he said after a long moment. “Find out what happened to you.”

  “I have to go,” she repeated, feeling her power expand.

  Despite Janice’s howled protests, Dr. Halverson gave a nod. “There’s some paperwork you’ll need to fill out. I’ll go get it.”

  He quickly returned with an AMA discharge form. Dallas’s throbbing, sex-hungry body didn’t care that she was leaving the hospital AMA—against medical advice. She wasn’t even the slightest bit worried that there might be something seriously wrong with her. In fact, by the time she stumbled out of that hospital and into the chilly morning air, she only had one thought on her mind.

  She had to go find him.

  Now.

  * * * * *

  It was dangerous to go searching for Dallas again so soon. Even so, Brendan pulled out his stash of lavender candles and started spreading them across his bathroom floor. Despite the trouble he was causing for himself, he felt compelled to do this.

  She might need him. To hell with the risk and the darkness infecting her, he had to find her and fast.

  He had to see her. Touch her. See that she was okay.

  She’s strong, he told himself. But how strong? Strong enough to weather what he’d done to her? It had virtually been a psychic attack. Could she possibly be strong enough to have survived his attack without coming away with scars?

  He didn’t know. And the not knowing scared the hell out of him.

  That wasn’t the only thing scaring him this morning. By taking her spirit from her body last night, he’d crossed a line very few like him have ever crossed. Those who had done it in the past had already been devoured and were merely following the destructive thoughts the darkness had planted in their minds.

  Stealing souls. That’s what the council called what he’d done. A body without its spirit died. When he left his body last night, he’d held onto a cord—a lifeline—that would help him find his way home. It was that lifeline that kept his heart beating and his vital organs working.

  When a spirit is snatched from a body, like he’d done with Dallas last night, she had no lifeline and no real hope for the spirit to find its way home. Not without help, anyway.

  He had never wanted to harm her and wouldn’t have needed to worry if he’d whisked her away to his world, questioned her, and gotten her back to her body before more than a few seconds had passed. But instead of doing any of that, he’d held on to her. Simply feeling her powerful spirit moving through him had been a heady experience. It had tempted him more than he was comfortable admitting. Even to himself.

  He’d been tempted to keep her and her amazing powers...forever.

  He shook the thought away. It had been his damned starved libido acting last night. Not some power game.

  He lit the first candle. Today, he wouldn’t snatch her into his world. After last night, the connection between them was strong. He could feel it tugging at him even now. That connection should give him sufficient power over her and her attempts to block him.

  He lit another candle. The flame sputtered and hissed as if it had been splashed by water. Not a heartbeat later, the phone rang.

  “Mr. Hamlet asked me to check in with you,” his secretary, Trina said. Unlike Franz Hamlet, she was human and wouldn’t understand why Franz was suddenly concerned about Brendan’s welfare. Rumors moved among the Protectors at a frenetic pace.

  “Tell him I’m fine,” Brendan said. Although neither Stone nor Horace would have said a word about this morning, there were several who were adept at reading minds and anxious to share the secrets they learned. He wondered what exactly those busybodies among them were saying about him today. “Oh, and Trina.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I won’t be coming into the office for the next couple of days. But please don’t hesitate to call me if something important comes up with any of the cases I’m working on.”

  He needed uninterrupted time with Dallas—preferably with her in his bed. He pictured her with her wrists tied to the bedposts so she couldn’t dash away from him.

  “Of course, sir.” Trina knew well enough to not ask why. “You missed a job interview yesterday with a Dallas St. John. But I should tell you that she was nearly a half-hour late. You might want to forget it and move on to the next candidate.”

  “Dallas St. John?” An unusual name. He doubted that there were more than a handful of women in Chicago named Dallas. His heart started beating in his throat.

  “Dallas St. John?” He’d been swamped with work and had completely ignored the stack of applications for the vacant associate position the personnel officer had sent to him over a week ago. Personnel and Trina had scheduled the appointments. All he had to do was look at the files and show up for the interview.

  “Yes, sir. That’s what the file says.”

  Fate or the universe or whoever was pulling the strings up there had screwed him over good this time. If not for that damned vision, he would have met Dallas under normal circumstances and recognized that she was a New One all on his own.

  Stone would probably want to hear about this new complication right away.

  “Give me her address and phone number. I’ll contact her.”

  Trina gave him the information without questioning why he would bother calling a potential employee. After talking to Stone, he dialed Dallas’s home number. The answering machine picked up.

  A sense of dread filled him. He pictured her lifeless body sprawled out in the middle of her apartment. But that wasn’t a vision, he reminded himself. Those were his fears speaking to him.

  God help him, he needed to find her.

  * * * * *

  A light
snow twirled through the soggy, cold Chicago streets. The dreary weather must have convinced the sun to stay away. In the grim light of late afternoon, Dallas plodded forward, searching aimlessly.

  She dabbed a tissue to her nose. It had started bleeding again.

  That morning, she’d taken a cab to her apartment to shower and change into some warm clothes before setting out on this insane search of hers. Insane or not, she felt pulled by a force outside herself.

  “I’ve got to find him,” she grumbled and dabbed at her nose again.

  A horn honked behind her.

  “Dallas.”

  The horn honked again.

  “Dallas!”

  A flashy, red Toyota sports coupe pulled up alongside her. It slowed to match her pace.

  “DALLAS!”

  “Leave me alone, Janice.”

  The car jerked to a stop. Dallas kept going forward. She wished whatever force tugging at her would do her a favor and look at a map. She’d already been down this street. Twice.

  She was about halfway down the block when she heard Janice slam her car door shut. The tattoo of heels beat against the pavement sped up as her friend grew closer.

  Dallas figured there was nothing to do but wait for the inevitable. Annoying as Janice could be, she couldn’t deny that Janice really was a good friend to be looking out for her like this. Her mind was still tripping over that warm, fuzzy thought when Janice grabbed Dallas by her tender shoulders and spun her around until they were standing face-to-face and toe-to-toe. She gave Dallas a nasty shake that made her brain knock around in her head.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Janice shouted. She didn’t need to shout since she was close enough that their foreheads nearly knocked together.

  “Not so loud,” Dallas breathed. “You’re hurting me.”

  A frigid wind swept through her, chilling her to the core. She pushed away from Janice and hugged her arms against herself, trying to fight the intrusion of all this cold. A shiver tiptoed like icy fingers down her back.

  She blinked.

  This was her third time down this street, yet not until Janice had spun her around had she noticed a storefront that wasn’t much wider than its full glass door. A faded, old wooden sign announced that the place was called The Oblique Café.