He knew that angry bellow. “You must leave,” he said, sweeping a quick kiss across her lips.
“But—”
He gave her no time to argue before he sent her back to her world and rolled over onto his back to appear nonchalant.
She had barely vanished before M’Ordant appeared to stand over him. Dressed in the same black clothes, M’Ordant looked very similar to V’Aidan. Same black hair, same silvery-blue eyes. The only thing they differed in was height. V’Aidan stood a good four inches taller and he wore the look of a deadly predator.
M’Ordant looked like a person the humans called a Boy Scout.
“What are you doing?” M’Ordant asked.
“I am lying in the sun,” V’Aidan said, placing his hands behind his head. “You?”
“Is that an attempt at humor?”
V’Aidan shrugged as he looked up at his brother. M’Ordant was one of the oldest of the Oneroi and was one of Morpheus’s most favored sons. “If it were an attempt, it would be wasted on you, now wouldn’t it?”
“More humor?”
V’Aidan sighed. “Why are you here?”
“I have heard distressing news about you.”
“And to think I thought all news about me was distressing.”
That was lost on his brother as well as M’Ordant stared down at him. “Did you learn nothing from your punishment?”
Yes, he’d learned to be more careful seeking out Erin. To tell no one of the precious time they spent together.
“You’re boring me, M’Ordant. Go away.”
“You can’t be bored.”
“And a good thing, too, since I’d no doubt perish from it while in your company.”
M’Ordant stared at him blankly. “I am merely here as a courtesy. As of this moment, the woman is tagged. Summon her again, and you will deal with me.”
“Well, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time you and I have crossed.”
“True, but I have permission from Hypnos to make it the last time if you interfere with her again.”
* * *
Erin went to sleep that night and waited for V’Aidan to show himself.
He didn’t.
When she woke up in the morning, she trembled with loss and worry. Had something happened to him?
He’d acted so strangely yesterday. And that shout …
What could have happened? Could the Skoti have found him? Hurt him because he protected her?
“V’Aidan,” she whispered. “Where are you?”
* * *
V’Aidan ached as he heard the plea in Erin’s voice. He stood at her side, so close all he had to do was shift slightly and he would touch her. “I’m here, Erin,” he whispered. “I’ve been here all night.”
She didn’t hear him.
He’d stayed by her bed the entire time she slept, watching her. Making sure none of the Skoti found her. He was sure Krysti’Ana was behind M’Ordant’s appearance.
V’Aidan was all that stood between Erin and Krysti’Ana. So long as he visited her dreams and they were together, his sister would never be able to claim Erin.
Erin’s mind was ripe with happiness and creativity. Her dreams were vivid and warm and bubbling over with emotions. Any Skotos would be attracted to her.
And now he could neither protect her nor …
His thoughts scattered as she wept.
Pain lacerated his chest at the sight of her grief. She sobbed as if her heart were broken.
Why?
But worse was the helplessness he felt. He hurt for her. “Please don’t cry, akribos,” he whispered, trying to gather her into his arms.
It didn’t work.
He wasn’t of her world. He could never be part of her world. Grinding his teeth, he cursed his formless existence.
Erin wept until her eyes grew heavy. Until she was spent and so tired, she couldn’t move.
And as she slipped back into sleep, she thought for an instant that she caught a glimpse of V’Aidan in her room.
The next thing she knew, she found herself high on a mountaintop, looking out on the ocean.
The grass caressed her bare feet as the waves crashed on the surf far below. Wind whipped through her hair, plastering her white sundress to her body.
She breathed in the crisp, clean air and listened to the gulls cawing. How peaceful.
Just when she thought her dream couldn’t improve, she felt two strong arms wrap around her. “Do you like it here?”
She shivered at the deep accent of V’Aidan’s voice in her ear. “Yes, I do.”
She turned in his arms to see his hot gaze staring down at her. She trembled at his concerned look, at the handsome lines of his face.
“Tell me why you were crying,” he demanded.
“I was afraid something had happened to you.”
“And it made you sad?”
She nodded.
V’Aidan shook with the knowledge. He leaned down and rested his chin against her shoulder and inhaled the sweet scent of her skin. She felt so incredible in his arms.
She had worried over him. It was unbelievable.
“Where were you?”
“I was with you,” he breathed. “I just thought you’d want a night off.”
She laughed at that. “You say that as if being around you is a trial.”
“Isn’t it?”
She looked aghast at the very idea. “No. Never.”
“Why do you like being around me?”
“You make me happy.”
He frowned. “I made you cry.”
“Only a little.”
“And still you want to be with me?”
“Of course I do.”
The woman was the greatest fool in history.
He knew he didn’t have long before M’Ordant would find them. He’d brought her to his land to help mask what he’d done, but it wouldn’t shield the tag permanently.
But before he returned her, he wanted to share one last piece of himself with her before he said good-bye to her forever.
V’Aidan moved away and pointed out to the horizon that his special perch looked out onto. “Did you know you can see the edge of the world from here?”
“Excuse me?”
He smiled. “It’s true. See that gold glinting in the sunlight? That’s where the human world begins.”
“Where are we?”
“This is the Vanishing Isle. Greek sailors used to believe they would come here when they died so that they could always be near the ocean.”
“And why do they call it the Vanishing Isle?” she asked.
“Because you can only see it for a few minutes at sunup and sundown. Much like the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, you can try to reach it, but you never will.”
She looked up at him. “Are you really a Greek god?”
“Would it scare you if I were?”
“Do you want me to fear you?”
V’Aidan hesitated at her question. It was the answer that truly surprised him. “No, I don’t.”
She smiled a smile that shook him all the way to his heart. “Is this where you live?”
“Sometimes.”
“Why only sometimes?”
“There are certain times of the year when I am banned from here.”
Her brows drew together into a concerned frown. “Why?”
“The other gods don’t like my kind. I am a pariah to all.”
“Why would they feel that way? You are a champion.”
“Not really. I’m a dream master and not what you see. I’m nothing more than the image you have made for me, but in reality I have no substance. No feelings.”
“I don’t believe that. A man without feelings would never have helped me the way you have.”
He fingered her cheek. “You are so naive. Are all women like you?”
“No,” she said with a devilish gleam in her eyes. “I’ve been told many times that I am highly unusual.”
V’Aidan dipped his he
ad down and took possession of her mouth. Erin sighed as she fisted her hands in the folds of his black shirt. “You taste like heaven,” she breathed.
He needed to let her go. It was time.
But …
He couldn’t do it.
Zeus have mercy on him, he couldn’t send her back. Not when all he really wanted to do was hold on to her for the rest of eternity.
The air around them sizzled with electricity as the sky above turned dark. Erin trembled in his arms.
“What is that?” she whispered.
It was his death.
“Don’t worry, akribos,” he said, “I will protect you.” The emotion behind the words stunned him most of all. He meant them, and for the first time ever he understood them.
Suddenly one of Zeus’s lightning bolts hit the ground, driving them apart.
Erin fell several yards from V’Aidan.
V’Aidan tried to reach her, but before he could, ten demon Skoti appeared and surrounded her.
In her snake form, Krysti’Ana laughed, the sound cackling louder than thunder. “Tell me, human,” she lisped. “What do you fear more? Dying yourself or seeing him die in your place?”
“Let her go,” V’Aidan said, rising to his feet. He summoned his black armor to shield him and he pulled his sword from the air around them.
“Never,” Krysti’Ana said with a laugh. “I need her ideas. I need her mind. Look at you. Look at me. See what she has done to us? You didn’t make her weaker by releasing her creativity. You made her stronger. I have never been so powerful.”
It was true. Erin’s mind, her depth of spirit, was a treasure. One he had sworn to himself that he would protect at any cost. “Release her, or I will kill you.” He pierced each of the Skoti with a murderous glance. “All of you.”
Krysti’Ana laughed even harder at that. “You are forbidden to take my life.”
“Forbidden or not, I will kill you before I see her harmed.”
Erin watched in terror as the Skoti attacked V’Aidan. He fought them with his sword and arms, but he was outnumbered. It was futile. They flew at him, tearing his skin with their claws, shredding his armor.
The she-snake caught him with her tail and slammed him into a tree.
V’Aidan’s entire body throbbed as he tried to push himself to his feet. In his human form, he didn’t stand a chance against so many of them. He couldn’t teleport out and leave Erin behind, and without touching her he couldn’t teleport out with her.
“What’s the matter, little brother?” Krysti’Ana taunted. “Why do you not change to fight me?”
V’Aidan glanced to Erin and he knew why. He didn’t want to frighten her. He only wanted …
He only wanted her love.
The thought tore through him. He was to never know such. Was beyond it. But still the need was there. Aching. Yearning.
V’Aidan struggled to breathe. He could live and lose the possibility of her love forever or he could be what she thought he was and die in this human form.
If he died, she would have no one to protect her.…
Lost and unsure, he did what he’d never done before.
He called for help. “Hypnos!”
The god’s reply came in the form of M’Ordant.
The Skoti backed down, circling back to Erin and Krysti’Ana in a protective circle.
M’Ordant approached him slowly, his face completely void of any emotion. “What would you have Hypnos do, V’Aidan? Would you have him offer you mercy for your crimes? Tell me, is there any rule made which you have not broken?”
“I…” He looked to Erin as she struggled against the Skotos holding her. Deep in his heart he had known what Hypnos’s answer would be. He was nothing to the gods. Nothing to anyone.
But at least this way, Erin would be returned to her world and she would be free of the Skoti forever. “Protect her for me.”
M’Ordant arched a brow at that. “For you? My job is to protect her from you.” M’Ordant turned to face the Skoti. “He is yours to do with as you please. The woman, however, belongs to me.”
V’Aidan felt the foreign sensation of tears in his eyes as he looked at Erin.
She was safe.
As for him …
He didn’t want to live without her anyway.
Sinking to his knees, he dropped his sword and waited for the Skoti to carry out his sentence.
Erin screamed as she realized the monsters intended to kill V’Aidan. They circled around him like hungry lions stalking prey.
“Come,” the unknown man said, taking her by the arm.
“They’re going to kill him.”
“If they don’t kill him, I will.”
“Why?”
He didn’t answer. Erin felt the familiar pull of the Oneroi trying to send her home.
But she wouldn’t go. She wouldn’t leave V’Aidan alone to face the monsters.
Twisting out of M’Ordant’s hold, she ran toward the Skoti and shoved her way through them.
She found V’Aidan on the ground, covered in blood. His armor in pieces around him, he lay helpless.
* * *
V’Aidan felt someone tugging at him. The desperate, grasping hands hurt him even more as they rolled him to his back. He looked up, expecting to see Krysti’Ana poised to end his life, but instead he met the dark brown eyes of heaven.
Erin wrapped herself around him, shielded him with her body as she willed herself to wake up. He heard her loud thoughts screaming in his head.
He wanted to tell her to go but couldn’t.
His strength gone, V’Aidan could do nothing more than wrap his arms around her and cradle her gently. Her tears stung his wounds and he wanted to tell her not to cry for him. He wasn’t worth it.
He’d never been worth anything until she had taught him kindness.
He heard M’Ordant trying to get through the Skoti to pull Erin back, but the Skoti refused.
“I’ll have them both,” Krysti’Ana snarled. “His life and her mind.”
Closing his eyes, V’Aidan summoned the last of his powers. He kissed Erin on the lips, then sent her home.
As she shimmered out of his world, V’Aidan felt himself slipping, sliding down a deep hole. The world shifted and spun. Too weak to fight it, he allowed himself to go wherever it took him, and he was sure that place would be Tartarus.
Not that it mattered. Any day without Erin in his life was hell.
* * *
Erin woke up from her nightmare with a jerk and a scream lodged in her throat. She couldn’t be back, not without V’Aidan. She had reached down deep inside her and had fastened on to him with all she possessed.
Her eyes were clenched shut. She didn’t want to open them yet.
Didn’t want to know that she had left him behind to die.
There had to be some way back to him. Some way to save him.
Her heart pounding, she felt something shift beneath her.
Opening her eyes, she realized she was back in her bed … and lying draped over a naked and bleeding V’Aidan.
5
“Ow,” V’Aidan said as he lay in stunned disbelief. His entire being ached from his wounds, but then he’d suffered a lot worse beatings than this.
Still, in this “real” physical body it hurt so much that he could do nothing more than shake from the weight of the pain.
The only thing that made it bearable was Erin’s presence. The softness of her body on his.
And quick on the heels of that thought came the one that if she had managed to bring him here, the others would follow to reclaim him.
V’Aidan had no fear for himself, only that they would come while he was too weak to protect her.
“Oh my gosh, it’s you. It’s really you!”
Erin reached up and touched his swollen jaw where one of the creatures had struck him hard. She brushed his hair back from his forehead and caught the panicked look in his eyes before he shielded it.
Even though bruises
and cuts marred his face, she’d never seen anything more spectacular than V’Aidan alive and in her bed.
He was human.
She didn’t know how she had managed it. Maybe it was her determination combined with his powers that had been forcing her away from him. Maybe it was a lot of things.
But all that mattered right now was that he was here with her. He wasn’t a dream.
V’Aidan was a real-life man.
“I have to get out of here,” he said, trying to get up. “I don’t belong here.”
No, he belonged to her dreams, and yet …
He was actually here. With her.
“I’m bleeding?” he asked, looking at his arm in disbelief. “Is this blood? This is blood. I’m bleeding.”
She nodded, torn between the desire to cry for his wounds and to laugh out loud that she had somehow managed to bring him back with her.
“I need to get you to a doctor.”
“No!” He winced. “I’m not supposed to be here. I’m not…”
V’Aidan paused. “I’m not human.” He closed his eyes to teleport himself home. It didn’t work.
Over and over he tried, and over and over he failed.
His heart pounded. It had been untold millennia since he had walked the mortal realm.
He’d forgotten the vividness of this world. The brightness of the colors and sharpness of sounds and smells.
Erin slid off the bed and disappeared while he tried to sort through it. How could he be here where she could see him?
How could he bleed real blood?
It had to be the fact that his demigod essence had been drained out of him during his beating.
The only way to kill a god was to remove all powers from him, which was what the Skoti had been doing. Erin’s mind must have found some way to bring him over the threshold in that last moment before he died.
He should be in Tartarus by now, paying for his crimes for the rest of eternity. But somehow she had saved him. Somehow she had brought him here. There was no other explanation.
The power of her mind and spirit was phenomenal.
Erin returned with a damp washcloth. Carefully she wiped the blood from his face and body.
V’Aidan trembled at the softness of her hand and the way the cloth felt gliding over his flesh. She was always so kind. Until her, he had never understood that concept. Never known what it was to help someone else.
Phantom Lover Page 5