Only In My Dreams: A Time Travel Anthology

by Sahara Kelly

  She cleared her throat. “This is…fucking hard to accept, Grey. You do realize we both sound completely and utterly insane, don’t you?”

  “Yep.” He nodded. “I’d agree with you a hundred percent if I was anybody else listening to this tale. But for me it’s all quite believable.” He leaned back in the chair. “I remember it all clearly, not as a tale told to a child or a story read from some ancient manuscript. I remember it as happening. I know I was there. I know you were there. From that time on I have waited—and dreamed.”

  There was a soft caw from the corner. “And I have had a companion with me throughout the ages.”

  Renny turned to look at the raven who stared back imperturbably. “Jakob. Your raven.”

  “Yes. I cannot remember a time when I did not have him at my side. I dreamed of you occasionally.”

  “Wait a minute here…” Renny held up her hand. “You remember past lives?”

  “Of course.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Don’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, to be fair, there aren’t that many to recall. People always seem to think we go from one life to the next without pause. Not so.” Grey gestured with his hand as if he was giving a lecture. “I’ve had maybe ten or twelve lives since we met. That’s all.”

  “Incredible.” Renny knew her eyes were wide and her jaw slack. “That’s all?” A thought occurred to her. “So when did you start dreaming about me? Um…her?”

  He smiled. “I have dreamed of you throughout my lives. My existence has always included you. But only recently have I begun to reach you on a more…intense level, shall we say?”

  Renny gulped. “Oh fuck.”

  “Quite.”

  She knew she was blushing. “Jesus, Grey.” She couldn’t meet his gaze. “You, me…in my dreams? Holy shit.”

  “Yes. You have an amazing ability to create erotic dreams, Ren’na’ila.” He cleared his throat. “I will admit they were fun. But I much prefer last night’s adventure. And the one we shared just now, even though it ended badly.”

  “Badly?” Renny screeched out the word. “We both died, you idiot. That’s worse than ending badly in my book.”

  “Well I’m not exactly sure that’s true. About us dying, I mean. After all, we’re here now talking about it, aren’t we?”

  Renny sighed. “I don’t know, Grey. This whole thing could be just a fantasy. I may wake up in a straitjacket and a padded room, drooling on myself and burbling insanities.”

  “Makes you feel like that at times, doesn’t it?” Grey sagged a little in his chair. “Ren’na—I’m tired, love. There is more to this story. There also needs to be an end to this story.”

  Renny tipped her head to one side. “You don’t look too good. I guess I need to know it all, Grey. The whole kit and caboodle. Then we can figure out exactly what we’re going to do about it.”

  “That—whether we can do anything about it—remains to be seen. And it remains largely up to you.”

  The look in Grey’s eyes was not encouraging. Renny bit her lip as she studied him, this man who apparently had invaded her heart thousands of years ago, claimed her body and her soul and haunted her dreams ever since.

  Or had she haunted his?

  *~~*~~*

  Grey watched Renny as she heated water, stoked the fire and struggled with the coffee pot. She’d insisted he sit and do nothing, since she informed him in no uncertain terms that if he was going to tell her the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help him the Audubon Society, then he was going to need his strength.

  Jakob had shuffled his feet, ruffled his wings and fluttered to the back of her chair in approval. For once, his feathered friend had accepted a human other than himself. He wasn’t sure if he was pleased or hurt by the bird’s defection.

  So he kept quiet, let the warmth of the fire take the chill from his body and accepted the fresh coffee which was, all things considered, surprisingly good.

  “Now.” Renny settled into her chair, curled her legs beneath her and fixed him with a gaze as unblinking as Jakob’s. “Tell me the rest, Grey. Tell me all of it. About Raven and how he became Grey Corvo. And then tell me how we fix this mess. If it can be fixed…”

  He sipped his coffee and then realized he had nothing to gain and everything to lose by waiting. Or by withholding any information from his Ren’na. The more she knew the better for both of them at this point.

  “All right. So I’m living the lifetimes allotted me and dreaming of you occasionally. Then I begin this lifetime, become a psychologist—gosh I wonder why—and a couple of years ago this whole intense dream process begins. Probably around the time you found that pot shard.”

  “Stop there.” She held up a finger. “Why then? What did I find that set it all in motion?”

  “You tell me. Could it have been a piece like that?” He nodded at the table where the artifacts sat, silent witnesses to a story that was more fable than proven fact.

  She leaned over, frowning as she studied them. “It’s possible, I suppose. When I woke up from my fainting spell, one of the directors had taken the piece from my hand. I can’t remember seeing it again, now I come to think of it. In light of the dreams that started after that little event, I really didn’t pay much attention.”

  “Could it have been…” Grey reached inside his shirt and pulled out something on a slim chain. “…something like this?”

  He let the alabaster fetish figure dangle before Renny. He knew what she saw—a small, beautifully carved raven, with markings on its breast.

  “How lovely.” She shook her head. “No, I know I’d have remembered something so stunning. What I found was a piece of pottery. Definitely broken—but very smooth. Possibly alabaster, I can’t be sure, but it’s not unlikely. It did have markings on it, though. Markings that might well have been like this.”

  She leaned back. “So I found the pottery and started dreaming. And you came to me.” She blushed. “In my dreams.”

  “You summoned me.”

  “I did not.”

  “Did too.”

  Jakob squawked loudly and Grey blinked at Renny. “Sorry.” He felt a little embarrassed at his childish outburst. “Well, no matter who summoned which of us, the dreams began and yes, no matter what you say, I visited your dreams, not the other way around.”

  “Are you sure?” She raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes, Ren’na. I am sure. Look at me. How old would you say I am?”

  She thought. “About sixty, give or take?”

  “I’m thirty-seven.”

  “What?”

  Grey sighed. “Each time I visited your dreams it took a little of my—life force from me. That’s the only way I can describe it. Last night I summoned you for the first time. Our…interaction in the castle room restored a little of my vitality, gave me some of my strength back. But each time we meet on what I can only refer to as a psychic plane, it affects us. Especially me.”

  Renny was silent, her face betraying her confusion. “I don’t understand, Grey.”

  He sighed. “Let me see if I can simplify it for you. In each of my lifetimes I’ve dreamed of you now and again. When I do, I am slightly weakened. This never mattered before, because the dreams have been fleeting and vague.” He shifted his position a little, easing a cramp in one leg.

  “But now, now that we’ve established a strong two-way dream contact, I’m being drained. Drained past what I can naturally restore.”

  Renny smiled. “Well, that’s simple. All I have to do is to come into your dreams and you’ll get your strength back. Ta-da.” She waved her hands around expressively.

  “If it were only that easy.” How to explain the inexplicable? Grey struggled for words. “I am half of what I should be, Ren’na.” He nodded at Jakob. “My feathered friend here holds a part of what I am. He’s a true familiar although I am no witch. In the body of this bird resides the passion and the love that filled my soul when I died so long ago. It waits,
as it has waited for thousands of years, to be reunited within my breast. It waits for me to reclaim the other part of myself. It waits for me to become whole once more.”

  “Huh?”

  Grey bit back a smile. It was far-fetched, absurd, ridiculous and beyond belief. It was also true. “Here’s my theory. Ready?” Renny nodded. “Sure. Shoot. After all this, what else can you tell me?”

  “Good point. So here I am dying on the riverbank and there you are jumping into oblivion off a massive whitewater cliff.”

  “Pretty Shakespearean stuff, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. But it wasn’t exactly our choice either. We were heading into the mountains to raise goats or something.”

  “Point to you. Go on.”

  “Well, my theory is that the Goddess of Light wasn’t quite so far away as that frickin’ High Priestess believed.”

  Renny raised an eyebrow sky-high. “C’mon, Grey. You’re kidding me, right? Divine intervention?”

  “You got a better idea? Any other way of explaining what I heard? The promise that we’d be together eventually? The fact that we’ve spent untold generations popping in and out of each other’s dreams?” He folded his arms and stared at her challengingly. “Well? Have you?”

  “Er…no.”

  “Hah.” Vindicated, Grey closed his mouth with a snap. He’d had long enough to go over this situation in his mind—several lifetimes in fact. He knew he was right. He just knew it.

  “Okay.” Renny stood up and stretched. “So the Goddess saved our souls from the evil Priestess with the understanding we’d be reunited at some later date. Later being like thousands of years, of course.” She lifted an eyebrow. “One has to assume that time is simply a concept to a Goddess.”

  “You are taking this seriously, aren’t you?” Grey tried to keep the doubt from his tone.

  “Hey. It’s my dreams you’ve been haunting in your Raven body.” Her eyes turned hot. “And quite a body it is too, may I add.”

  “Thank you.” Grey inclined his head. “I’d rather like to have it back. Think we could work on that?”

  “You have an idea, don’t you?”

  “A couple of them actually. One involves me back to my Raven-self and you, naked.”

  “Ahh.” Renny cleared her throat. “Yes. I could actually get behind that one as well.”

  “Okay then.”

  There was silence in the room for a moment until Jakob emitted a piercing whistle and gripped Grey’s arm—hard.

  “Ouch, damn bird. You’ll leave marks. I get the point.” Grey eased Jakob’s talons free of his skin.

  “I have to ask, I suppose. What can we do to reunite you with your…bird…” Renny nodded at Jakob. “And thus restore you to the Raven we know and would like to love?”

  “I think you’re already half way there, Ren’na’ila.” Grey stood and squared his shoulders. “First, you have to love.”

  She swallowed. “You already know how I feel about Raven.”

  “I do.” He nodded. “But do you love him enough to die for him—and with him?”

  Chapter Ten

  “Uhh…” Renny swallowed as the impact of Grey’s question ricocheted through her mind like a wayward sniper bullet. Her legs weakened and she staggered back down to plop into her chair while staring at Grey. “Huh?”

  He ran a hand through his hair and looked at her intently for a second or two. Then he held out his arm. “Jakob.”

  There was a flutter and a loud caw, almost irate in its harsh overtones.

  “Jakob, I have no other choice. Come.”

  Grey rolled up his sleeve and the bird landed just below Grey’s elbow. As Renny watched, Grey reached for his tiny amulet and held it tight in his free hand, while Jakob settled himself.

  Then began pecking at Grey’s arm. Hard.

  “Oh no, Grey…”

  Renny started from the chair, but a shake of Grey’s head sent her back again. “No. Leave him.”

  The words were sharply spoken and Renny found herself obeying, even though the sight of Jakob’s sharp beak breaking Grey’s skin was a shock.

  Blood flowed within moments and Jakob dipped his head, thrusting his beak into the wound. Renny had the absurd notion that he was drinking Grey’s life fluids. A frickin’ vampire raven, for God’s sake…

  But before she could truly absorb what was happening, Grey and Jakob began to blur in front of her eyes. She blinked and blinked again…

  The black shadow that was the raven had shattered into a cloud of brilliant ebony particles that funneled down into the open and bleeding gash on Grey’s arm. And as these particles streamed into his body, it too began to shimmer, changing, drifting, reassembling, doing things she couldn’t quite see with her simple human vision.

  It was as if another dimension was appearing before her where Grey was being reformed—recreated—as…as what?

  His eyes gave him away. It was Raven—her Raven—standing in front of her, as real as the floor beneath her feet and the walls that protected her from the storm outside. Which was nothing compared to the storm raging inside Renny as her dream man materialized less than two feet from her body.

  She couldn’t breathe—couldn’t think—could only stare at him, drinking in the sight of his broad shoulders, his soft dark hair, his grin—why hadn’t she seen how like Grey he was?

  Younger of course, more sensual perhaps, the twist to his lips as his gaze traveled up and down her body revealed his thoughts. Which, given that Grey’s clothing was tighter than tight around Raven’s younger physique, were running pretty much along the same lines as Renny’s thoughts.

  Desire. Lust. Need—the simple need of one human for the touch of another. That special touch that only a lover can provide.

  Renny finally got strength back in her legs and stood, reaching a hand to Raven’s chest and laying it carefully against him. She was afraid, afraid he’d disappear, afraid her hand would pass right through him, afraid she was losing her mind and this was all some cruel hallucination.

  He didn’t disappear, nor did her hand penetrate his body. He was real, all right. Real, hot, lovely and smelling just right. Renny’s heart thundered as she let her fingers drift to his skin and caress the tiny amulet still hanging around his neck.

  “Hello Raven.” She croaked out the words as she lifted her gaze to meet his eyes.

  “Hello Ren’na.”

  His arms encircled her pulling her roughly into his embrace. She went willingly. There wasn’t another place on the planet she’d rather be right at that moment. And when her gaze fell to his lips, she watched with fascination as they curved into a tiny smile before he bent his head and kissed her.

  He tasted—oh so good. Sweet and tangy, his mouth was familiar yet new, his tongue welcomed home by her own and explored with vigor. They dueled and touched, finding the warm wetness arousing and beguiling.

  Renny’s pussy ached with a ferocity that made her quiver in his arms and she could feel the rock-hard length of his cock thrust against her through their clothes. Finally, before she collapsed from the pleasure of it, she tore her mouth from his. “Raven…my God, Raven.”

  He smiled and leaned his forehead against hers. He was hot, very hot, heated by some internal fire that blazed through him. “Yes. I’m here at last.”

  “I don’t understand…any of this. But you’re here.” She ran her hands up and down his arms to reassure herself. Again she felt the heat. “And you’re running a fever I think.”

  Worried a little, she leaned back and stared at him, lifting a hand in the classically maternal gesture and touching it to his head.

  He burned. “God, Raven. You’re on fire.”

  “I know.” He sighed but refused to release her. “I am using energy, Ren’na. This melding, this joining of all of me into a whole…it uses a lot of physical energy. I cannot sustain it.”

  Dread seeped down Renny’s spine like a trickle of cold water. “How long?”

  “An hour. No more.” He
lifted her chin. “But an hour with you is worth it. In the past, I have changed before sleeping. My body reverts naturally when I’m asleep. I wake tired and drained, but I do awaken.”

  “This time, you may not.” Renny understood the implications as Raven simply looked at her. He would not confirm or deny what she’d said, which was an answer in itself.

  “What can we do, my love? How can we fix this? Make it right, the way it should be?” Renny’s heart ached as she stroked her cool palm down his hot cheek. “How can I help?”

  Raven kissed her once more, then took her hand and cupped it around his hardness between them. “Touch me, Ren’na. It’s been such a long wait. I’ve yearned for your hands on me. Dreams are all well and good, but they were your dreams. And just a little one-sided…”

  His grin was naughtily delectable and there was nothing Renny wanted more anyway. Touching Raven was no hardship, touching his cock was a pleasure she couldn’t wait to explore. She smiled as she tugged his clothing free and dropped it away from the body she remembered so well.

  “I can’t imagine anything I’d rather do. But Raven…” She unfastened his pants and peeled them down his legs, letting him step free of them. “Giving you a blow job isn’t going to fix our problem, is it?” She pulled down his underwear and freed his cock. “Oh my.”

  Raven cleared his throat. “Maybe not, but hell. I’ll settle for the blow job.”

  She curved her hands around him. He was thick and swollen, standing proud and erect from a nest of silky curls that coiled around the base. The ridged head was purple-red, glowing with desire and dewed by droplets of excitement. He was a work of art from the school of testosterone, a magnificently hewn tribute to masculinity.

  And Renny couldn’t wait to suck him off. “You’re a real guy, you know that?” She knelt more comfortably between his legs and glanced up, looking past the rippling abs and the muscular chest to the face and the dark eyes watching her.

  “I love you.” His hand brushed her hair and toyed with a strand of the pale blonde curls. “I’ve loved you for longer than I can remember. I have never loved anyone else.”