“Sit down, Brendan,” Stone said. “The council wants to meet with Dallas. We’re discussing how we can make sure she’s ready for them. I’m thinking Horace should start training her to—”
“Now see here.” Dallas shot out from her chair and planted her slender fists on her hips. It was a glorious sight. “We just met. I don’t know you from Adam. And you don’t know me. I’m not going to let anyone, especially not a bunch of strangers, dictate my future. I’ve been doing just fine on my own up until now, thank you very much. Why should I change?”
“I’m not dictating anything.” Stone’s tone was as hard as the brick café walls. “These are your options. Going back to your old life isn’t one of them.”
“Bullshit. Despite your friendly smiles and so-called options, you are demanding I do what you want or suffer the consequences.”
The café fell silent.
“Is she still infected with the darkness?” Horace asked Brendan quietly.
Brendan nodded. The café fell suddenly silent and although no one had moved, it felt as if everyone had taken a large step away from Dallas.
Stone clasped his hands in his lap and sighed. “The consequences you would suffer aren’t of my making.”
Brendan’s innocent little songbird snarled. He felt an electric buzz on his skin as her power surged. “Don’t threaten me, Mr. Stone. I don’t need you”—her gaze landed on Brendan for a heartbeat—“or anyone to watch over me. I’m not a child. I don’t need to be coddled, protected, or told what to do.”
“We need to stop letting the New Ones go to law school. It makes them too argumentative,” Kara said with a laugh.
“Stop talking about me as if I were too stupid to understand what you’re saying!” Dallas roared. She backed toward the door. Her skittish gaze kept darting toward the shrinking space between her and the door. “I’m not stupid. And I understand you only too well. I thought you’d be different. I thought you’d understand. But you don’t. All of you, you’re no different from the rest of the world. You don’t see me. You only see how you can use me. I don’t need you! I don’t need anybody!”
Brendan eased toward her, prepared to chase after her.
Stone cleared his throat. “Dallas.” Brendan nearly choked on the overwhelming psychic power Stone had pressed into her name. Stone was using his powers to control Dallas. “You are tired, aren’t you? You would like to take a nap in the bed upstairs, wouldn’t you?”
Though Brendan shouldn’t have been alarmed, Stone would cut off his own hand before see any one of them come to harm, he rushed to Dallas’s side when the fire in her eyes dimmed. Her shoulders dropped in defeat.
“Yes,” she said, with no expression and no inflection. “I’m tired. I would be glad to be able to lie down for a while.”
Those thoughts weren’t hers. They were Stone’s. If left under her own power, she would have run. Perhaps it would have been better if she had escaped. Brendan would go with her. They would find a place where the world would simply leave them both alone and he could spend his days feasting on her incredible body and amazing powers.
“We don’t have time to waste,” Stone said. “Jake, please show Dallas to the upstairs loft so she can get some rest. Brendan, sit down. You’re the closest to her, and you know better than the rest of us that I’m right. Now that she’s coming into her powers, we need to get the darkness infecting her under control before it consumes her.”
Brendan’s jaw grew tighter and tighter as he watched Jake lead Dallas away. This wasn’t right. He should have never brought her to Stone. The council was notorious for craving after the powerful New Ones. If he wasn’t careful, Dallas could be ripped from his life forever.
For the moment, he couldn’t do anything. Stone was in charge, and he respected him too much to openly disobey him. Tamping down a gut instinct to toss Dallas over his shoulder and carry her off to his lair, he sank into a chair at Stone’s table and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Now, what do we do first?” Stone asked those sitting at the table with him.
“You stop playing with her free-will,” Brendan grumbled. “And we make sure she stays with me and under my control.”
* * * * *
Dallas watched them from the stairs. They were arguing about something. Her future, she supposed. A lump of dread formed in her throat. What if what Kara had said was true and that Brendan’s duty to her was over? And Frank Stone had mentioned something about this council of theirs being interested in her powers.
She didn’t have useful powers, at least none that she knew how to control. Even if she did, how did she know if she wanted to share them with this motley group? They were strangers to her. Brendan included. Sure, she’d gotten to know him quite intimately these past three days, but she didn’t really know enough about him to start making the kind of long-term plans they seemed to be expecting from her.
Flames flared in her chest. That Kara woman was touching Brendan’s arm. The bitch had maneuvered herself until her chair pressed against his. He hadn’t objected to either her touching or her closeness.
Kara and Brendan were probably lovers. He’d admitted that he’d done what he’d had to in order to win Dallas’s trust. Playing besotted lover may have simply fallen under the umbrella of doing-what-was-required.
This was precisely why she should have never let her emotions get away from her. She ground her teeth and, when no one was looking, slipped out the back way.
She didn’t need this. She didn’t need them. Hell, she didn’t need anybody.
But that was a lie. She loved Brendan and needed him like she needed the air that she breathed.
She had to figure out a way to convince him that he needed her, too...
* * * * *
“What am I doing here?” Brendan glanced around. “How did I get here?” A moment ago he was in The Oblique Café, trying to figure out a way to keep Dallas with him…permanently. How in the hell did he land in the world he’d created—his sanctuary—naked and vulnerable?
“I wanted to see you.” Dallas stepped out from behind the waterfall. A wicked gleam sparked in her green eyes.
He stumbled backwards and nearly fell into the reflecting pool. “You-you can’t be here. This is my realm. My world.”
“Our world,” she corrected. Fire flashed all around her. “And this time, I’m taking control.”
Chapter Six
“Hey!” Brendan had zoned out again. Horace waved his hand in front of his friend’s blank face. “You in there?”
He had a hunch Brendan’s thoughts were straying to that vixen, Dallas. If they were going to have any hope of figuring out how to help her, Brendan needed to stay focused.
“Come on, Fish. Snap out of it.” He gave Brendan a punch in the arm.
Nothing.
Shit.
“Stone!”
Horace caught Brendan’s shoulders just as his friend’s legs collapsed underneath him. He carefully lowered Brendan’s lifeless body to the floor.
“Is he breathing?” Stone rushed over from the other side of the café.
“Barely,” Horace said after searching and finding only the faintest signs of life. He placed his hand on Brendan’s chest and could feel the cold fingers of death creeping into his friend’s body. Shit. Shit. Double shit.
“He’s dying.” He prayed Stone knew a way to stop it.
Stone shook his head. “He’s not in there.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“His soul has been pulled out.” A collective gasp rose in the café. This was their most heinous and feared crime. Whispers rose around them. This was impossible. Stealing souls was more of a myth than reality. It simply didn’t happen—at least not to anyone they knew.
“Dallas.” There was no doubt in Horace’s mind. She was powerful and unpredictable…and drawn to Brendan as strongly as Brendan was drawn to her. Whether she meant to cause harm or not, Horace suspected that she’d taken him.
He stared in horror at his best friend’s soulless body while Stone barked orders. Brendan needed to be put on life support. Dallas had to be found. Activity buzzed all around.
It didn’t matter, Horace thought glumly. Stealing a soul wielded an automatic death sentence. Once they found Dallas, she would be punished. Killed. Which meant that whether they saved Brendan or not, he’d be lost to them.
Losing Dallas would kill Brendan.
* * * * *
Dressed in a black leather cat suit with spiked boots that reached up to her thighs, Dallas crawled on her hands and knees toward Brendan. There was nothing submissive about her feline posture. It was all about sex and power.
Like she’d said, she was taking control. Brendan could feel her power surging all around him. His heart started pounding against his chest. She crawled closer. Her pursed red, glossy lips led the way.
He could almost hear her unspoken intentions. She meant to take him in her mouth. The minx, he could already feel her raspy tongue running along the length of his cock, a cock that had just sprang to life and was standing at attention like a damned eager puppy.
“No. Stay away from me,” he said, though it pained him to deny himself the pleasures he knew she could give him. “What you’re doing is wrong. Bringing me here like this is against the rules.”
“But…” She bit her lovely, plump bottom lip. It made Brendan’s head spin. “Didn’t you…?”
“That was different.” He shook his head, trying to break away from the web of lust she was weaving around him, which was impossible since she was rubbing herself against his legs like a succulent pussycat. “I…I…was…trying to…damn.”
She cupped his balls and took his cock in her mouth. And swallowed him down to the hilt. His legs nearly collapsed under him.
“Please.” He grabbed her long, dark hair with both hands and peeled her lips from his body. They both groaned. “I need to think.”
“I need to suck.” Her seductive purr almost did him in. His cock was throbbing. His body was aching. And she was ready and in control. Why not let her have this moment?
Because… Hell, he didn’t know what he was supposed to do anymore. He rolled his eyes to the azure sky and tried to clear his mind. Only, the sky wasn’t azure anymore.
“What have you done?” Brendan wanted to weep from the sight of it. She’d brought the darkness with her into his world. His sanctuary. It was spreading out and infecting everything he’d spent years creating.
The beautiful waterfalls were already dripping with heavy sludge. The crystal blue pool was growing cloudy and had already stopped reflecting the world’s ethereal blue glow. And a yellow tinge was creeping across the once corn blue sky.
It had taken him years to create the perfect place, a place of safety, of refuge. When the monsters who’d kept him at the farm were tormenting him, Brendan had learned to escape to this world. It was the only place where he truly felt safe. Comfortable. But no more. She had brought the darkness to his world along with the fierce hate and rage that accompanied it.
“Get out,” he forced through clenched teeth.
“But—”
Anger, hot and dangerous, bubbled up through the lusty fog she’d draped over him. “This is my world, Dallas. You’ve no right to be here. No right to ruin it.”
He raised his hands and—summonsing all the powers available to him in his beautiful world—despite how much it pained him, he pushed them both out.
* * * * *
Brendan returned to his body with a gasp. Three men in white coats were hovering inches above his face. One was taking his blood pressure. Another stood by, ready to give him an injection. He knocked a plastic oxygen mask from his nose and mouth, pushed the men away, and shot up from where he had been sprawled out on the floor in the middle of The Oblique Café.
He stumbled. Dozens of hands were immediately on him, supporting him. He batted them away.
“I’m okay, dammit.”
It was a lie. His head pounded. His lungs burned as if they’d been raked through hell. And every damned muscle in his body felt bruised and stiff. Blood dripped from his nose.
“What the hell happened just now?” Stone demanded.
“She took you, didn’t she?” Horace said. “How did you manage to escape?”
Brendan denied Dallas’s involvement, claiming instead that he’d passed out from the strain of the past few days. Murmurs rose in the café.
No one believed him.
“The council is on their way,” Stone said, quietly. “Unfortunately, a representative was here and saw you collapse. The little pencil-neck geek went running to the phone.”
Brendan closed his eyes and tried to tamp down his raging emotions. “Nothing happened.”
“Right.” Stone reached out to help Brendan make his way to the nearest table. Brendan shot him a quelling glance that had Stone pulling back, as if he feared for his life. “Regardless, the council has been called. They’ll demand a hearing.”
“Where’s Dallas?” He needed to see her. He needed to know what game she was playing.
Stone shrugged. “She’s gone. No one saw her leave.”
“I have to go find her.” He surged for the door, but stumbled.
Horace lifted Brendan from the floor and handed him a mug of the special herbal restorative tea. Brendan breathed in the tea’s spicy steam. Dallas had sighed with delight after tasting this tea.
The memory stabbed him in the chest.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Horace asked as he waved a medical technician over.
“Yes, and keep those damned vultures away from me.”
“Touchy, touchy.” Horace shook his head.
“We need to find Dallas.” Stone snapped them both back to the important problem at hand. “She needs to be brought back here before the council arrives.”
“No! You’ve done enough already, Stone.” What Dallas had done was punishable with an automatic death penalty. No matter how angry she’d made him by destroying his safe haven, he wouldn’t bring her back so those power-hungry bastards could kill her. “She didn’t understand the repercussions.”
Stone lowered his voice. “We need to find her and find out what’s going on before the council captures her and questions her. I told you this already, if the darkness has been living inside her all these years, we have no way of knowing how it’s affecting her. Is the darkness tugging at her? Why else would she leave when we offered her sanctuary?”
Brendan winced. His sanctuary was lost forever. He’d torn it apart in order to gather enough power to throw his spirit and Dallas’s back into their bodies.
“It’s the darkness that I’m worried about,” Stone continued. “Can’t you feel it? Its power is growing. Expanding. We need to act or else we’ll lose her.”
Bullshit. They were on a witch-hunt.
“So we’ll lose her.” Actually, given his options, losing Dallas to the darkness didn’t seem so horrible anymore. Good riddance, anyhow. What did he need with a woman in his life? Especially one who wanted to turn the tables on him and play the role of scheming little dominatrix?
Why in the hell did she intrude into his world in the first place? She had no business there. He’d made their roles clear and she had agreed. He was the master. He was the one in control.
“I don’t understand what’s gotten into you,” Stone said.
Brendan didn’t either. He felt hot and uncomfortable and had an urge to punch something. But not Stone. He knew he’d get himself into more trouble than he’d know what to do with if he fell off the deep end and actually punched Frank Stone.
Even so, he curled his hands into a pair of tight fists. “You said it yourself. Some of us are beyond help. That despite all our best efforts, some of us are doomed to be consumed by the darkness,” he ground out.
“Yes, yes, I said all that. And it’s true. Some will be lost.” Stone slammed his coffee mug on the counter. “But. Not. Her.”
Bren
dan growled again. “She’s nothing but trouble, Stone. She’s not worth the effort it would take.”
“Horace?” Horace was easing out of his chair. He looked ready to bolt. Stone snagged his arm. “Can you knock some sense into his bony head?”
“I doubt it, sir. He’s gotten himself all twisted up in her net that I doubt he knows which end is up anymore.”
“Is that so?” A curious light flickered in Stone’s eyes.
“No,” Brendan protested, afraid he knew only too well what the two men were thinking about him. “You’re wrong.”
“Am I?” Stone asked.
“Dead wrong.”
“Then prove it. Do your damned job and help her.”
* * * * *
He didn’t love her. They were wrong about that. Love meant having feelings of understanding and forgiveness.
All Brendan felt was anger, dammit.
She’d betrayed him and had put herself in danger with the council in the process. Why in the hell did Stone want her saved? If he found her and was somehow able to separate her from the darkness that was threatening to take her over, he’d be forced to bring her in front of the council. And they’d snuff out her life.
Either way, she was damned.
Why bother? Why take the risk of becoming infected himself?
He wasn’t going to do it. Stone could go fuck himself and his unreasonable demands for all he cared. He was done. Finished. He hadn’t really fit in with the rest of them, anyhow.
Brendan jammed his hands into the pockets of his wool coat and braced himself against the sharp winter wind as he plodded aimlessly through the city streets.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Fish.”
Decades had passed since he’d heard that voice—a voice he’d hoped never to hear again—yet there was no hesitation. He recognized her right away. Drawing a steadying breath, he turned to face the demon of his worst nightmares. Through the gloom, he saw her huddled next to a Dumpster. Lady Czarina, the gypsy woman who had sold him to a pair of heartless monsters before he was old enough to protect himself.
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