A man got out of the car, reaching back in to grab his briefcase. He locked his vehicle with a beep and, turning, spotted me. His eyes widened, and he froze. “Are you okay?” he asked.
His aura flamed red with desire as he met my gaze. Taller than me by at least six inches, the stranger was a big man with eyes the brown of milk chocolate. “Come to me,” I commanded. He moved around the car. I tilted my face to maintain eye contact as he reached me.
“What’s your name?”
“Tom.”
“Tom, that’s a nice name.”
He smiled. I didn’t want to hurt him. Please don’t let me take too much.
Tom’s head dipped, and he brought his lips to mine, gentle and slow. He didn’t resist—he wanted to touch me—but I held him back a little, held myself back as best as I could.
His briefcase hit the sidewalk with a thunk, and his hands found my waist. Tom bent his knees and wrapped me in his arms, my hunger driving him to offer more… more… more.
I moaned at his generosity. Tom was a good man.
My body tingled as he gave himself to me. He picked me up and turned, laying me on the hood of his car, the metal popping under our combined weight. His hands ran down my side, under my shirt, and he groaned as his skin met mine.
“What is happening?” he asked, his mouth trailing over my jaw.
I didn’t answer him. He was better off not knowing about me. Hopefully, he’d think this was all a dream. As his chi flowed into me the bullet in my leg popped out and tinkled into the gutter, the wound closing itself.
“Tom!” a woman screamed behind us. He didn’t notice. His lips stayed fused to my neck, his life force pumping into me. “Tom!” she screamed again. I tried to release him, but I wasn’t holding him. He wanted to feed me.
The woman grabbed Tom and yanked him off me. Spinning the big man toward her, she slapped his face. Tom toppled, landing on the sidewalk with a thunk. She screamed again, this time in fear rather than rage.
I hopped off the hood of the car, dropped my influence over her, and silenced the screaming. I was trying to think.
The woman stared at me, her eyes wide, fear thumping against my control. “You’re okay,” I told her. She didn’t believe me.
What I wouldn’t give for the vampiric ability to change memories right now. “He loves you; I made him do it. I was feeding from him.” Surprise, surprise, this did not assuage her fear.
She was breathing heavily, her hands shaking at her side. Tom groaned and rolled over, looking up at us. His eyes were sunken, his skin pale.
I should just walk away. But I needed more fuel… the woman—Tom’s girlfriend or wife—I’d guess, was young and healthy. I met her gaze. It hazed. She stumbled to me, reaching a hand up to stroke my cheek.
Power flowed through her fingertips. She laid her lips against mine, moaning with pleasure. I held her face, being careful not to take too much. I’d let it go too far with Tom.
“Enough.” I pushed her back, holding her shoulders to keep her at bay.
She whimpered. Tom got to his feet, his dress shoes scraping on the cement and crunching dried leaves. The scent of fall hung in the air—a time of change.
“What is going on?” he asked.
I looked between the two of them—totally normal humans. “Nothing. This never happened. It’s a shared hallucination. Go home.”
“What?” The woman’s voice came out hoarse, rough with desperation.
I gave her a small push. She stumbled back into Tom. His arms came around her waist, holding her up. I took a deep breath and turned, forcing myself to walk away. Once it got dark, I could find a vampire. I’d fully fuel up and hop out of this dimension.
“Wait,” Tom called after me. “Where are you going?”
I didn’t turn back.
“Do you want to borrow some clothing?” the woman asked.
That stopped me. I glanced down at myself. The hospital scrubs were thin and bloodstained. But if I went to their house… I turned to look at them. They held each other, staring at me—starving to give me more.
They wanted to die at my hand.
“We live right here,” the woman gestured to a townhouse down the block. It had a jack-o’-lantern on the steps—a sloppy grin carved into its face.
Could I be in an enclosed space with them and not drain them dry? Nope.
I turned and walked away. They didn’t have the energy to give chase. I turned the corner, walking the width of one of the townhouses. Its backyard was separated from the street by a black iron fence. Plants grew up the metal poles—tomato vines.
I stopped walking.
My eyes riveted to a rotten tomato—skin split, sticky, dried juice attracting bugs.
Seventh’s rotten tomato plant came into my mind.
I looked around. It looked real, but… but… this wasn’t a world. It was a hallucination.
The freezing cave floor was hard on my back. The scent of snow filled my nose. I wasn’t here. I was in that cave.
The poison created this hallucination.
So how did I get out?
I stood on that sidewalk, staring at the tomato, feeling the freezing stone at my back and smelling snow.
They can’t kill me, but they can trap me in this hallucination forever… if I let them.
I closed my eyes, blocking out the world around me and concentrating on the cold at my back. My power was locked down. But I could free it. How? I didn’t know. But I could do it. Dammit.
I thought about Emmanuel. He’d come to me in this hallucination. But that was just me. It was all me.
This was my mind.
I took a deep breath. Okay…
Diving into my center, I concentrated on the glowing red diamond. Drawing it out and manipulating it into a point, I felt at the stone, digging around for the void.
There!
Stay calm, stay calm.
I drove my chi into the nothingness. A wind blew me back, forcing my energy into my body and knocking me off my feet. I hit the fence, grabbing onto it to steady myself.
A taste on my tongue—sweet and cold. That wasn’t Suki or Ophelia who blew me back. I caught a whiff of honey. Emmanuel smelled like honey, but it wasn’t him.
A cold sweat broke out on my skin. His father?
No. Why would he be working with Seventh and Ophelia?
But this energy was related to Emmanuel somehow. Did he have a brother? Lightning burst through the cloudless sky. Okay…
My hair floated on currents of electricity. Something was coming. I grounded myself, sensing the freezing stone at my back, the diamond-hard center of myself.
Another crack of lightning blinded me. I blinked against the spots in my vision.
A white-winged horse, a figure riding it, appeared where a spot had been. Okay…
This was just my imagination. None of this was real.
The horse’s nostrils flared, its breath freezing in the air—crystalizing and turning to snow.
Trippy.
It landed in front of me—its lavender-colored eyes wide. The horse shook its head, huffing out more steam. On its back, a shirtless man rode. He grinned at me. “Hey, babe.”
He knew me?
A tattoo on his flat stomach—a circle with symbols traveling around it—caught my attention. Images flashed across my mind’s eye: licking that tattoo, his hand in my hair. Never careful but always tender. My eyes jumped to his, sapphire blue, dancing with delight.
“Who are you?” I croaked out.
His black hair lay slick against his head, curling at the base of his neck. “I’m the man from your dreams.” He grinned. “You know that.”
“No.” I shook my head, grasping the iron fence to stay standing. “Emmanuel was the man in my dreams.” As the words left my mouth, I knew it wasn’t true.
The man leaned over the pegasus’s neck, holding out his hand. The muscles from his shoulders to his biceps stood out in sharp relief. I knew him intimately. Months of lovem
aking in my sleep. He unleashed me.
“You,” I said, meeting his gaze. I still didn’t know his name. He’d never told me.
“Yes, me.” He winked. “Come on, babe, we’ve got to go.”
“Go? Where?” Memories of his touch overwhelmed me. How could I have thought he was Emmanuel? They were nothing alike. Blue Eyes laughed all the time; he never took anything seriously. Except pleasuring me. A shiver of desire tingled across my skin.
“Somewhere they can’t get you.” The lightning cracked again, the scent of electric current hanging heavy in the air.
“Can’t get me? But this is my imagination.”
“It’s your mind, babe. And they want in.”
“Who?”
“If you don’t know, I can’t tell you.”
Awesomesauce.
What did I have to lose? I took his hand. Blue Eyes hauled me onto the pegasus, my back to his front. We fit… perfectly. Like we always had. The horse reared up, and I grabbed for its mane. Blue Eye’s breath warm on my neck, his arms around my waist, I leaned into him; energy drifted between us. But he didn’t feed me. Couldn’t. He never had. All he did was make me hunger more.
The horse’s wings beat hard, lifting us up into the sky. It neighed, a battle cry as it galloped over empty air, racing into the sky.
“Hold on,” Blue Eyes said. “You’re about to wake up. And when you do….”
The wings beat loudly, the wind pummeling me. It tasted like honey.
“You’ll need to feed and fast. Go for the cat man. Cyrus. He’s got a lot in him. Enough to get you out of there.”
“Will I remember you?”
His lips caressed my bare neck. “You’ll never forget me again.”
Lightning cracked, blinding me. I blinked against the bright light. “What’s your name?” I asked.
“See you soon, lover.”
My vision focused. I was staring up at the cave ceiling. There was movement to my left. I stayed very still. They couldn’t know I was awake or Seventh would bite me again.
I needed to stay motionless. Not hard considering I couldn’t actually feel my legs.
Closing my eyes, I let my awareness come to the auras in the room. Seventh and Ophelia sat by the fire; Pinky stood near the door.
Cyrus waited outside. I drifted my influence over Pinky’s head and slipped out into the night. Curling my power around Cyrus, I let him smell me.
Yes, he wants to feed me. Like all living things.
He wanted to die at my hand.
The feline stood, turning from his post and facing the cave. Too tall to enter as a cat, he shifted. The energy that punched off him as he transformed drew Ophelia’s attention. Seventh hissed. “What is he doing?”
“I don’t know.” Ophelia stood.
Cyrus, naked but not cold—he had an inner warmth that I wanted to taste—ducked to enter the narrow passage of the cave. “What are you doing?” Ophelia asked, her power cloaking Cyrus, taking control of him as he entered the cave.
Oh no you don’t. He’s mine.
I rose up. Ophelia sucked in a breath of surprise. Seventh slithered toward me, a torpedo of speed and danger. Pinky raised her sword, and her wings beat.
I slowed time. I. Slowed. Time.
Seventh, clawed hands stretched toward me, fangs exposed, moved as if through molasses… as if through honey. Pinky’s wings no longer blurred fast as a dragon fly but flapped like a leaf falling to the ground on a windless day. A low scream started from Ophelia—slow, so slow—like I was dragging my finger against a record.
Cyrus waited for me, caught between my will and Ophelia’s. I crossed to him—all the time in the world, all the time in the universe at my disposal.
How?
I reached up and took hold of Cyrus’s mane of golden hair, pulling his lips to mine. He did not resist, didn’t have the power to stop me.
Nothing could stop me.
Laughter rang in my ears—Blue Eyes found all this deeply amusing.
I took from Cyrus—the combination of our energies powerful and intoxicating. He was mine to do with as I pleased.
Ophelia’s scream grew louder—low and agonized.
The slow slithering of Seventh against the stones continued.
Pinky’s toes left the ground.
I pulled the life force out of Cyrus, dragging him down to me.
My eyes closed as energy surged. It blasted through me—my ability to absorb it in direct contrast with the sluggish passage of time. Colors exploded behind my eyes.
A low moan rumbled through Cyrus to me in delicious waves.
The slithering got closer.
Ophelia’s scream tapered off.
Time to go.
I dragged my chi across the edge of the world and found the void—it waited for me. Tightening my grip on Cyrus, I pulled us in. We became nothing and everything.
Emmanuel’s energy called to me, and I went to it. We materialized, lips still sealed, but time released. Cyrus’s hands clutched me, pulling me up, so that he could kiss me more thoroughly. The man had ideas.
Before he could act on any of them, a thrust of energy blasted us apart. I flew backward, smashing into a wall, my head knocking into hard stone. Stars danced in my vision as I collapsed onto the floor.
Telescopo. We were in Emmanuel’s castle. I looked up, pushing back my hair. Emmanuel held the shifter by the neck, his energy pouring into the man. Killing him.
“No,” I yelled, my voice too quiet.
Emmanuel raged, his hair lifted on the wind of his anger. We were in a sitting room. Couches faced each other, and a large fireplace held burning logs—the flames bending away from Emmanuel’s fury. The drapes on the large windows whipped. The door slammed shut.
I climbed to my feet. “Emmanuel! Stop!” I yelled. But he didn’t hear me.
Cyrus’s eyes went mercury silver, glowing with the change. Music played in my ears—his transformation was a song. It was all a freaking song. I started toward the two men as Cyrus’s body shimmered with magic.
Emmanuel threw the larger man. He crashed into one of the couches—it splintered, the pillows exploding feathers into the room. Cyrus roared, his body expanding, sprouting fur and twisting reality until the giant cat creature stood before us.
He shook his head and roared again, the sound vibrating the window casements and shaking the walls.
Emmanuel faced him, arms at his side, the veins in his forearms standing out above clenched fists. His eyes glowed as well—the normal ash brown with sparkles of purple emanated sparks of cognac. His influence shrouded the cat creature, who slashed at it with his claws, tearing through the ethereal power and spilling blood onto the floor. What the what?
Emmanuel raised his hands, shoving at Cyrus. The cat launched backward, hitting the fireplace, the stone work shuddering under the impact. The flames leapt, catching at the shifter. But he rolled, extinguishing the singed fur and coming back up on his feet next to the closed door.
His eyes locked onto Emmanuel.
There was no way Cyrus could win, but he wasn’t giving up the fight.
“Stop!” I screamed, my voice echoing, traveling in a wave that hit Emmanuel. He finally turned his attention to me.
Cyrus struck, leaping onto Emmanuel, his canine’s tearing at him. Emmanuel threw Cyrus aside, but blood drained from a large gash in his chest. His breathing came in sputtering gasps.
No, no, no. No!
Cyrus scrambled back to his feet and, with another roar, came at Emmanuel again. But Emmanuel was ready this time. He held up a hand, blood pooling at his feet. Cyrus collapsed—his giant body going from pure movement and power to an object, nothing more than a shell, in a blink. He tumbled onto the floor, lifeless.
I reached Emmanuel, and he collapsed into my arms. His eyes found mine, and he raised a blood-soaked hand to touch my cheek. “I love you.” His eyes slid closed, and the same stillness that he gave to Cyrus came over him.
Empty. Gone. Dead.<
br />
Impossible.
Hot tears streaked down my face, falling onto him. I buried my face in his hair and wept. He couldn’t die.
That wasn’t right. He did die. But he’d come back. Right? He always came back. Emmanuel said he would be born into a new world. That must be what’s happening… right?
I smoothed a curl away from his face. Emmanuel’s dark lashes lay against pale skin. I glanced over at Cyrus. The size of a van, the stillness of a vampire. He wouldn’t be coming back.
A sucking sensation pulled at me. Crap. Incoming.
I stood, laying Emmanuel gently on the ground. The puddle of blood around him slowly expanded. He’ll come back. The dying didn’t hurt, he’d said. And there were no sins to forgive. So he’d come back. Easy-peasy.
Ophelia appeared by the fireplace. I threw up a bubble of protection around myself. Her eyes landed on Cyrus. Ophelia’s face crumpled, grief tearing through her—it flashed across her aura, a burst of white-hot pain.
She took a step toward him, then stopped, covering her mouth with her hand. A sob racked her narrow shoulders. She looked so vulnerable all of a sudden. Even with the badass haircut and leathers.
“You killed him.” Her gaze found mine—the green eyes red rimmed and swimming in tears.
I didn’t answer. Who killed him didn’t matter.
Her gaze dropped to Emmanuel’s body at my feet. A grim, satisfied smile crossed her lips. “He killed your love first.”
I twisted the ring on my finger. Fiancé, actually. This didn’t seem like the moment. I still needed her blood. She wouldn’t leave here without me getting it.
“You’re not afraid I’ll kill you next?” I asked.
Her eyes met mine. “You need my blood.”
“I’m sorry about Cyrus.” Her eyes returned to him, pain lancing across her aura again. “How long were you two together?”
Her face hardened, and she sneered at me. “We’re not going to become girlfriends here, Darling.”
“No, we’re sisters though, aren’t we?”
Her lip rose in a half snarl. Definitely some shifter in her. “Mother sent me after you because I was the best bet we had. But you’re right that I can’t kill you. Seventh can’t kill you—couldn’t even keep you locked in your own prison.”
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