Transference (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Christelle Mirin

  Transference

  Crystaline Campbell tried valiantly to save her cat, Mischa, from the storm, but as soon as she had her in her arms, lightning struck. Waking up in the hospital, Crystaline realizes these feelings, urges, she’s having are so out of character, something must be wrong.

  Joe Travis sees the girl of his dreams in the crystal-eyed woman who was struck by lightning. She and Joe explore the reaches of passion, but soon, Crystaline’s appetite increases.

  Jack Warner, Crystaline’s next-door neighbor, found her that fateful night, lying in the wet grass while thunder crashed around her. When she calls to ask him to come over, he doesn’t hesitate.

  But there’s something strange going on with Crystaline, something to do with a blue dream that invades her thoughts. Joe and Jack form a bond to keep the love of their life satisfied. Forever.

  Genre: Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal

  Length: 21,396 words

  TRANSFERENCE

  Christelle Mirin

  MENAGE AMOUR

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Amour

  TRANSFERENCE

  Copyright © 2011 by Christelle Mirin

  E-book ISBN: 1-61926-037-9

  First E-book Publication: November 2011

  Cover design by Jinger Heaston

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2011 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

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  This is Christelle Mirin’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Mirin’s right to earn a living from her work.

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  TRANSFERENCE

  CHRISTELLE MIRIN

  Copyright © 2011

  Chapter One

  “She’s doing it again. She’s dreaming…”

  Whispering woke her.

  Crystaline jackknifed to a sitting position, unable to breathe. With clawed fingers, she raked at her throat.

  Breathe—

  By sheer force of will, she opened her mouth and threw her head back. Air burst down her throat and into her lungs with a whoosh. She gasped, drawing in another lungful of air, her eyes burning with unshed tears and the vestiges of the blue dream wafting away like so much smoke blown on the wind in her mind.

  “It’s okay,” she croaked, forcing herself to breathe in through her nose and out through her mouth. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she was stopped from standing by a hand on each arm.

  “I think you should lay right back down, Miss Campbell. You’ve just had a bad dream,” the night nurse on her right said.

  “I’m fine. Really, I—”

  A male nurse on her left interrupted. “If you were fine, you wouldn’t be here.”

  Crystaline blinked, trying to focus. Her vision was dimming. Funny how whenever she awakened from the blue dream, she could see so clearly, even if only the dimmest light were burning. Almost like night vision. But once she came fully awake, her vision would dim. Well, not really dim…it would just return to normal. She hadn’t told them about that yet. She didn’t know if she should. They might think she was crazy. Or something else was wrong with her. Suddenly, she felt very weak. “Okay. All right,” she said tiredly. “I won’t fight you.”

  “That’s good ’cause I’d hate to have to manhandle you into bed,” the male nurse said, his voice melodic and soothing.

  “Joe Travis, I can’t believe you just said that to this woman,” the night nurse—Crystaline thought her name was Betty—said while she lifted Crystaline’s arm up to make sure the IV tubes weren’t tangled.

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” he said. He gently lifted Crystaline’s legs, his hands warm beneath her calves. “Betty always has her mind in the gutter. Don’t pay attention to her.” He winked.

  “I think I’m offended,” Crystaline said, stifling a chuckle in spite of her wooziness. She scooted her bottom to a more comfortable position in the hospital bed.

  “See, Joe—you’ve offended her now.” Betty patted Crystaline’s arm and switched on the light above the bed. “Don’t mind him, honey. He’s just a big oaf.”

  Crystaline winced, narrowing her eyes at the sudden brightness. “Actually, I’m offended that he doesn’t want to manhandle me. Do I look that bad?”

  “Are you kidding?” Joe asked, pulling at the edge of her blanket and tucking it in at the foot of the bed. “You are beautiful. Those eyes of yours…” He moved closer, meeting her gaze. “You have the brightest blue eyes I’ve even seen. They look like crystal. Bet that’s how you got your name, isn’t it? Crystal blue eyes.”

  But he wasn’t looking at her eyes right now. He was watching her mouth. For some reason, that excited her. An ember of heat kindled inside, flaring up. “My full name is Crystaline,” she said slowly. “And yes, I was named for my eyes. So my mother told me, anyway.”

  Joe raised his gaze to meet hers again. Their eyes locked and held. His eyes were hazel, flecked with gold and rimmed with thick chestnut lashes that matched his slightly wavy hair.

  “Are you sure that all these scrapes on my face don’t make you want to run away in horror?” she asked.

  His nostrils flared slightly. “I’d never run from you.”

  Crystaline felt a rumbling in her chest. It was pleasant, a vibration of some sort. She was all warm inside and
still heating up. Funny, she had the deepest urge to reach up and pull him—

  “You two stop that flirting now,” Betty said, taking Crystaline’s chin and turning her head away from Joe’s heated gaze and toward her concerned one.

  Crystaline blinked, coming out of the trance-like state she had been falling toward as she had looked into Joe’s eyes.

  “These are healing nicely,” Betty said, eyeing the scrape on Crystaline’s forehead, then the one on her right cheekbone. “I’ll bet they won’t scar at all.” She smiled. “Let’s see your side now.”

  Crystaline rolled onto her right side, facing Joe. “It’s still pretty tender,” she said.

  Betty lowered the blanket then untied the back of her hospital gown. “I’m sure it is tender. Burns take a while to heal.”

  Crystaline watched Joe’s face. Betty’s fingertips probed lightly along her side, just under her ribcage. His eyes followed the nurse’s finger’s progress, concern furrowing his brow. “I still can’t believe you survived a shock of that magnitude,” he said.

  Crystaline let out a soft breath. “All I remember is bright blue light then feeling like I’d been thrown into another dimension. One with sizzling electrical snakes and the smell of burnt hair.” And blue…so much blue.

  The nurse patted her lightly and tied her gown back shut. “You were lucky. Just one zap from those down wires threw you clear of the others. It could have been a lot worse.”

  “Lucky.” She smiled sadly. “Mischa wasn’t so lucky.”

  “Your cat, right?” Joe raised an eyebrow.

  She looked up at him. There was so much concern and sincerity in his face it made her heart roll for a second, and then it settled. “Yes. Mischa, my cat. The voltage blew her right out of my arms. I think it did, anyway. It killed her.”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “If she wouldn’t have been out messing around, I wouldn’t have been out looking for her during the storm in the first place. She was such a hussy. Even after I had her spayed.” She shook her head. “I guess it doesn’t matter now.”

  Joe took her hand in his. “I’ll buy you a kitten. As soon as you’re ready for one.”

  Heat radiated from his hand into hers, traveling up her arm and across her chest. “Sometimes…I feel her,” she said. “Inside me.”

  “You must have loved Mischa very much.”

  Crystaline felt a connection with this man, but she wasn’t quite sure what it was. She felt heat, attraction, and need. She wanted him, the feeling growing stronger with every passing moment. Good grief, just like Mischa. I feel like I’m in heat or something. I’ve never felt this way before. Again, there was a vibration, deep in her chest. A pleasant rumbling, accompanied by the unbidden urge to stretch.

  “I’ll let you rest now,” he said, releasing her hand. “Rest heals what ails you.”

  “We both need to get out of here and let her sleep.” Betty came around the bed and grabbed his arm, tugging him playfully. “You can romance this nice young lady after she’s well.”

  Joe winked at Crystaline, allowing Betty to pull him away. “If she’s interested, I will.”

  Crystaline felt a flash of tingling heat zip down her spine. It was not nearly as strong as the electric shock that had landed her here in this hospital bed, but still, it was a very strong reaction considering her state of being at the moment. “I would like that,” she said.

  He flashed a smile. “You get some rest, and I’ll check in on you later.”

  “Come on,” Betty said, plucking at his scrub shirt. “We’ve got charts to finish.” She glanced back over her shoulder. “If you need anything, just give us a buzz.”

  “I will.”

  With a smile on her face, Betty walked out through the door and disappeared. Joe hesitated, one hand on the doorframe.

  Looking back at her, she could feel the intensity of his gaze like a vibration in the air. She drew in a deep breath and caught the scent of his cologne, mingled with the smell of disinfectant which always seemed to permeate hospitals. After a moment, he stepped quietly into the hall, pulling the door partially closed behind him.

  She laced her fingers together and rested them on her stomach, closing her eyes.

  Her thoughts returned to the blue dream and the night that sparked its creation.

  Two nights ago, a Wednesday, the rumble of a June thunderstorm shook the house. Lightning cracked, the sky opened up, and she realized her cat, Mischa, was still outside. Mischa was her constant companion, her only “roommate” in the big Victorian house her parents had left her a year ago when they passed away. Mischa was known for her evening “romps” with the neighborhood toms, coming home every night around ten and yowling to be let in so she could curl up on Crystaline’s bed, exhausted from her escapades. It hadn’t done any good to have the little hussy spayed. She still liked the males. And tonight was no different—except it was storming.

  Crystaline opened the front door and squinted into the darkness beyond the front porch. “Kitty-kitty-kitty,” she called loudly. Rain fell, tapping a rhythm on the porch roof. She stepped out onto the porch. “Mischa?”

  Lightning flashed. A low rumble followed immediately, vibrating through the heavy air.

  She edged her way to the front steps. “Mischa? Kitty?” She could have sworn she’d seen the lithe black body of her cat clearly outlined in the flash of lightning, cowering at the side of a white car parked at the curb directly in front of the house.

  Crystaline’s heart stuttered in her chest. “Kitty? Come here.” She clapped her hands. Wind whipped rain across her face. She swiped at it with her hand. “You’re going to make me get wet, aren’t you?”

  The sky flickered with angry light, throaty thunder mingling with the wind.

  She saw Mischa crouched by the car. Teeth clenched, she hurried down the steps into the rain and was instantly drenched. She stooped low, scrambling toward the car. Breathing through her mouth, hair plastered to her head, she reached for Mischa. Her fingers brushed wet fur…then nothing. “Mischa!”

  She bent, hands on knees.

  The cat was under the car.

  Crystaline could barely see her. The only light was from the streetlight on the other curb, and it was flickering.

  “In for a penny,” Crystaline said, dropping to the grass beside the curb where the car was parked, “in for a pound.” She lay flat on her stomach, the ground squishing beneath her.

  Stretching, she reached beneath the car, trying to keep above the river of rain running past her in the gutter. Mischa cowered, hunched up, and let out a strangled “meow.”

  “Come on, kitty,” Crystaline said over the hiss of the rain. It was splattering the grass in heavy droplets, smattering her face with mud. She grunted and slid, reaching deeper. Finally she touched fur. “Sorry about this,” she mumbled, grabbing Mischa by the scruff of the neck.

  Bringing the cat from under the car quickly, but without hurting her, Crystaline rolled on her side. Mischa dove into her chest, claws out, scared and desperately wanting comfort.

  It wasn’t comforting for Crystaline though when Mischa’s claws pierced her skin then sank into muscle.

  Crystaline screamed, her cry joining with the crack of lightning. She let go of Mischa and pushed off the sloppy ground, struggling to stand. The cat held on.

  Mischa shifted, moving up toward Crystaline’s shoulder. The pain went deep, taking her breath. Crystaline bit her bottom lip, grabbing Mischa around the middle with both hands. Rain pounded her, blurring her vision. She took a step toward the house. Her foot slid in the slippery grass. Lightning flickered then—

  Fire touched her side, shooting through her nerves. Her muscles reacted, clenching, turning to steel. Crystaline’s jaw clamped shut hard enough to chip teeth.

  She saw—eyes. Blue eyes. Wide and bright. Lit from within. Mischa’s eyes, the pupils black slashes through the icy blue. The intense clear blue dulled, turning smoky. Swirling. Moving. Toward her.

 
The rain sizzled in her ears while the world filled with icy blue smoke. Tendrils reached out from Mischa’s eyes, snaking, blurring, and entered her nostrils.

  Suddenly a bomb went off in her head.

  Crystaline gasped, drawing much-needed breath into her lungs, along with the coiling blue tendrils of smoke that was alive—alive—coming from Mischa’s eyes. Then a millisecond later, Mischa flew backward, ripped from Crystaline’s grasp by unseen hands.

  The last thing Crystaline remembered was a strange send of being “filled” just before her legs crumpled, and the world went black.

  That was the last thing she remembered until she’d awakened in this hospital bed the next morning. Crystaline shook her head. She still couldn’t believe it.

  They told her that lightning had struck her, hitting her in the side where her skin was burned. It should have killed her, but it didn’t. They told her it had happened in an instant, but she didn’t believe that either. The experience had felt like it went on for solid minutes, she and Mischa locked together by an electrical charge. Mischa hadn’t been as lucky. The cat hadn’t survived. It still hurt, deep in Crystaline’s heart. But Crystaline could swear she could still feel that odd blue smoke moving through her at times. Especially while she was having the blue dream. And just after waking from it, too.

  She frowned and opened her eyes. A small red light pulsed like a beating heart on the machine that controlled her IV drip. A shaft of light spilled through the crack in the doorway from the hall where it stood slightly ajar.

  Crystaline let her eyes roam around the dim room, the IV machine sounding like the jittery motorized hum of an egg timer beside the bed.