“Lyrie, please . . .” Where was her sister?
It was so cold. The cement of her sister’s small patio was like ice.
Oh God, was she dressed? Was she still naked?
She couldn’t tell. But she was so cold, so cold she was shuddering, icy from the inside out. Where was Lyrica? She was so scared. And she was so cold.
She needed to be warm again. Just for a minute. Just so she could think.
“Zoey?” It wasn’t her sister.
The voice was soft, gentle, as were the hands that pushed the hair back from her face with tender concern.
She forced her eyes open, staring into the confused, concerned gaze of her sister Lyrica’s neighbor, Samantha Bryce. The police detective, Samantha Bryce.
Sam. She had to tell Sam. Sam would keep her from dying.
Sam would take her away. She would lock her up and Zoey would never be free again.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “Tell Momma I’m so sorry, Sam.”
“Come on, Zoey. Let’s get you inside before someone sees you.”
Long brown curls flowed around Zoey as Sam’s hair slipped over her shoulder and spilled against her own.
It was longer than Zoey thought. Spiral curls like her own. The long, loose, springy curls and deep waves were warm against her neck and shoulders.
Sam lifted her, cradling her in her arms and quickly moving from Lyrica’s patio door to the one next to it.
Icy air surrounded her, but she didn’t feel naked. She was in her shorts and tank she slept in. When had she dressed?
“Sam, I’m so scared,” she sobbed against the other woman’s neck. “I’m so scared.”
Sam’s heart was pounding hard and fast against Zoey’s arm beneath the tank she wore. And though Zoey knew the other woman should be warm, still, that icy freeze encased her.
She would never be warm again. Not ever.
“It’s okay, Zoey.” Sam whispered the promise, her voice deep, sounding thick, clogged. “I promise, we’ll make it okay.”
Sam laid her on a bed, easing her back and sitting down beside her.
“Zoey,” she whispered, her voice rough and worried. “Look at me, sweetie. Open your eyes.”
Zoey fought to open them, but it hurt so bad.
Her head hurt so bad.
“Tell Momma I’m so sorry,” Zoey begged, lifting her arm, trying to catch Sam’s arm, to make her understand.
Darkness washed over her again.
She thought she heard voices, not in her head but around her.
Sam was cussing at someone. “Fix it!” she demanded. “He’s a fucking nutcase,” she cried out. “Just do it. Hurry. If she dies we’ll all die . . .”
“He’ll pop my little head like a grape,” Zoey whispered. “Like Johnny. Just like Johnny.” She shuddered at the image and grew colder.
So cold. So icy. She had to tell Sam what she had done. She had to.
“I’m so sorry, Momma,” Zoey whispered, knowing her mother wasn’t there. So glad her momma couldn’t see her with so much blood on her.
Someone gripped her hand, holding it firmly as blankets were quickly pulled over her.
I’m here.
We’ll get you warm, little one.
. . . heated blankets. Electric blankets. Electric blankets would be so warm, wouldn’t they? Wrapped around you like the warmest skin. Holding you close . . .
That voice. She remembered that voice.
At a party. Dancing with him. He’d been just a little bit drunk that night. He’d strolled to her. Striding across the large room where everyone danced, his eyes on her, connecting with hers, heavy lidded, his gaze dark and hungry.
He’d held his hand out and though she’d laughed at him, she’d still accepted the silent demand to dance. To step into his arms. His warmth.
“Dance with me . . .” she sighed. “Hold me.”
All my warmth in the blankets around you. Feel it, little one. Feel how warm I’ll keep you.
Delicious warmth surrounded her, a cocoon of gentle heat sinking into her skin as the warmth of his hand wrapped around hers, easing her, easing the pain just a little bit.
He was her fantasy.
After that night, his image followed her into dreams and into masturbation. And she’d never seen him again.
She would be gone now if he came back. Taken away and locked up for killing Harley.
“I’m so sorry . . .” She had to force the words past her lips.
“Why? Why are you sorry, little one?” Her eyelid was lifted, light piercing her skull like a sword and causing her stomach to pitch and churn as she cried out with the pain.
The next eyelid was lifted, the lancing white light stabbing into her brain again. She was too weak to fight. She couldn’t fight anymore.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she whimpered, the blissful darkness finally returning. “Don’t hurt me more.”
“God. Zoey, honey, tell me what happened? Who hurt you, Zoey?” he demanded. “Tell me who hurt you.”
Tears slipped from her closed eyes, the horror of the nightmare images racing across her brain filling her with such a desperate, overwhelming need to hide.
“Where’s Sam?” She had to tell Sam.
“I’m here, Zoey.” Soft, gentle, and so sad. Sam was always so sad.
“Harley.” She shuddered in fear. “I killed Harley, Sam. I killed him. I have to tell you. I killed Harley.” She kept her eyes closed; she couldn’t bear to see the condemnation in Sam’s eyes. “I killed Harley, Sam . . .” Her breathing hitched with a cry. “I’m so sorry I killed him. I’m so sorry, but he was hurting me so bad . . .” Panic began welling inside her, racing through her veins, tearing through her mind. “He was hurting me so bad. . . . Please don’t let Natches kill me. Don’t let him . . .”
Detonations of pain ruptured her mind, sending waves of deep, black nothingness to surround her once again.
Just nothingness where she could hide.
It wasn’t cold here, though. The warmth that was wrapped around her stayed, like a pocket of soul-deep comfort amid the terror and icy chill.
“It was just a dream. This is all a dream, Zoey,” her fantasy whispered, his voice soothing, filled with the latent hunger she’d heard in it the night they danced. “It was a terrible, horrible nightmare, Zoey . . . It’s all okay. Remember, it’s all okay. You just had a terrible dream.”
The pain in her skull slowly eased. It wasn’t gone, but it eased. It wasn’t so deep or so agonizing. But she didn’t want to think yet. She didn’t want to remember yet.
“Zoey, Harley didn’t hurt you. You didn’t kill Harley. He’s fine.”
No, it wasn’t just a nightmare.
“Don’t let Natches kill me. I’m so scared. It was real. I know it was real.”
“It was a dream.” This time, her fantasy lover’s voice was so powerful and filled with demand, surrounding her, even on the inside, with a heat that began to melt the ice trying to overtake her. “This is just a nightmare. Nothing more.”
The sound of his voice pulled at her, drew her as it always did in her dreams, making her want to wrap it around her and hold him to her forever.
She could barely hear him, actually had to strain to make the words out, but the throb of power and the determined male force behind it was clearly apparent.
“You’re safe, Zoey. You’re safe. Harley’s safe. This is just a terrible, terrible nightmare.”
She couldn’t deny him. She didn’t want to deny him.
A nightmare.
A terrible dream.
It was more than that and she knew it. There had to be more to it. But she couldn’t make the voice understand . . .
“Zoey, do you hear me?” The dark, intently male voice pulled at her senses now as it always did. But only in her dreams. He was only in her dreams, because he’d left and he hadn’t come back after dancing with her.
She only knew this voice in her fantasies, and it soothed her, protect
ed her without smothering her.
“Answer me, Zoey. Do you hear me?”
His voice was so strong. It wrapped around her and reminded her of the fantasies that filled her dreams. Fantasies of him. The knight who rescued the maiden, the tough warrior who fought side by side with the sorceress. The dream image of the lover who hadn’t yet become a lover.
“I’m scared . . .” She couldn’t wake up, she didn’t want to wake up, not yet. Not until something made sense. Nothing made any sense. “I’m so scared . . .”
“Don’t be scared anymore, Zoey.” Warm, callused fingertips eased from her temple to her jaw. “Listen to me, and everything will be okay. Do you understand me?”
The voice touched her with pure, raw power. It was so strong. Strong enough to hurt . . .
She whimpered at the thought. She didn’t want to hurt anymore. But she had to fight. And fighting it just made the pain worse. She had to remember everything. The strange voice and Harley’s face flickering with a darker, crueler face. Sam whispering something, then yelling at someone. And now her dream lover.
She had to remember.
Pain lanced at her head, ripping through it with such agony she wanted to scream. Oh God, it hurt so bad.
“Zoey?” he whispered again, his voice so low she had to strain to hear him. “You have to listen to me so the pain will go away. I can make it all go away, but you have to listen to me.”
He was holding her hand, palm turned up as he stroked the skin of her inner arm to the crook of her elbow. There, he massaged the skin, eased the joint. She felt something tighten, and then finally, blessedly, the agony in her head eased a little more.
“See, I’m going to make it better. Trust me, Zoey. Trust me to make it better,” he told her in that deep, rasping whisper she could barely hear. “To always take the pain away. I’ll take it all away.”
Just trust him. That was all she had to do was trust him.
The nightmare would go away then.
Slipping deeper into sleep, into the fantasy she sometimes created for herself, Zoey watched as the shadowy figure moved to her. Strong and tall, pulling her against his warm body. His arms holding her, his voice at her ear.
A sigh slipped from her.
Okay, this was better. The fantasy she had created for herself, the lover who came to her in her dreams and whose touch awakened a sexuality inside her that she didn’t possess while she was awake, he would protect her from the pain.
He was there with her now. His gaze was dark, filled with secrets and with hunger. His expression implacable, aristocratic, and filled with arrogance. And her fascination with him never waned.
“You came back . . . I kept watching for you . . . you’re only in my dreams now . . .” She fought to speak to him, to hold him in this place where everything was so out of control and filled with pain. “Hold me. Just hold me . . .”
If he would just hold her, take it all away . . .
“I have you, Zoey. I won’t let you go. Isn’t this part of the dream so much nicer?” There was a hint of sadness in his voice, in his dark eyes. “I always like this part of the dream better than I do the part that rips open my skull and leaves me wanting to scream, but I can’t find my voice to do so.”
They hurt him too?
No. He was warmth, protection without being smothered. How did she know that? Why did the nightmares come to him too? She fought to tighten her fingers around the hand holding hers. Struggled to find the strength but only succeeded for a moment.
“I hate that part of the nightmare,” he agreed, as though that faint pressure was all he needed. “See how much better this part is? See, that’s how you know it’s just a nightmare. I’ll be here with you and if I’m here, then the pain will go away. And if I’m here with you, nothing and no one can hurt you.”
Of course. It had to be a nightmare. A horrible, horrifying nightmare. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be dreaming of the shadowy lover who usually filled her dreams and kept her waiting for him.
“Just a nightmare . . . When you feel the pain, when it tries to come back, I’ll be here with you. The pain can’t touch you, Zoey. I’ll keep the pain away . . .”
“Don’t leave me.” She struggled to force the words past her lips, to convince him to stay this time. “Hold me.”
“Just for a little while.” His lips eased over her fingers. “But I’ll be back. If you promise me you’ll know it was just a nightmare.”
She would promise him anything. “Just a nightmare.”
But she knew something wasn’t right about that either. Something bad had happened. Something so terrible it was terrifying too, but she didn’t know how. She didn’t know what it was, or how it happened.
If it wasn’t real, then Harley was alive, she reminded herself as the voice stroked the pain from her head, kept her warm and tried to convince her that grass was blue and the sky was green . . . That it was all a nightmare.
“Sleep for me now, Zoey,” he whispered. “Sleep. And know when you wake up that everything’s going to be fine. It was just a nightmare.”
It was much more than a nightmare, she knew. She just didn’t know which part was real, and which wasn’t. She didn’t know and she was terrified to learn . . .
—
Chatham Bromleah Doogan the Third eased back from the bed and rested his elbows on his knees, watching Zoey painfully as Detective Sam Bryce stood still and silent at the bedroom door, her back to him.
How many times had he stood and watched this little imp over the past few years? She was intriguing, beyond beautiful, and she had mesmerized him from the first moment he’d seen her.
Whoever had done this to her would pay. He’d make damned sure they paid with their lives.
She was lucky Doogan was in town to meet with one of his agents, Graham Brock. Otherwise, Homeland Security as well as the Mackays might have found themselves involved in one hell of a mess.
But what would it have accomplished?
The young man in question didn’t work for Homeland Security, officially. Unofficially, Doogan had provided whatever help the younger man needed.
Harley and Zoey were friends, though. They’d had a little spat a few days ago, Harley had laughingly told him. Zoey had come to his apartment and caught him with a young woman he shouldn’t have been with. She’d been outraged. But they hadn’t really fought, and she’d hugged him before leaving the apartment’s parking lot afterward. Harley had indicated it was no more than a friendly disagreement.
Someone was determined to destroy Zoey with it, though.
On the bedside table were the vials of blood he’d drawn as soon as he’d arrived and the syringe that held the drug he’d used to ease the pain while he worked with the hallucinogenic he was positive had been used to convince her she’d killed her friend. And as he worked to reverse the nightmarish images planted in her head, his chest had ached while a dark, burning fury grew inside him.
What was it about those pale, pale green eyes and Zoey’s pleas not to leave her, to keep her warm, that caused the break in his control and in the wall he maintained around his emotions?
Rubbing his hands over his face and blowing out a hard breath, Doogan forced back the regret, the stirrings of anger. If he was going to help her, if he was going to fix this, then he had to keep his head.
Without saying anything more to Zoey he rose from the bed, his movements drawing the detective’s attention. Before she could speak, he motioned her to the other room.
He didn’t want Zoey’s memories further influenced by anything they might say between them. Her mind was so completely open at the moment, the effects of the hallucinogenic she’d been given at its height. Any suggestion, any discussion in her hearing could influence her thoughts and memories detrimentally.
Closing the door silently behind them, he pointed to the door of the guest room across the living room and followed her into that room. Once again securing the door, he breathed out heavily, wearily.
“Ha
rley answer your text yet?” he demanded, keeping his voice low.
She gave a quick nod. “He asked to meet in another hour at Ziggler’s All Niter, the convenience store at the north end of town. He said he was hunting at the moment.”
Hunting. He was no wildlife hunter. Harley, despite his youth, was one of the best human trackers Doogan had ever had the discomfort of meeting.
Sam cleared her throat then, her hazel-green gaze wary, heavy with fear for the young woman now sleeping in her bedroom. Sam had a soft spot for the other young woman. It wasn’t lust, or love, but her affection for Zoey ran deep.
“I checked her arm,” he said, pushing his fingers through his hair. “There’s evidence of several injection sites made in the past few hours . . .”
“Zoey does not do drugs, Doogan,” she hissed, furious. Gathering the long curls that fell over her shoulder, she pushed them behind her as though preparing to battle.
“You didn’t allow me to finish, Detective,” he pointed out, berating her mildly. “As I said, the injection sites were made in the past few hours. She has all the signs of having been dosed with a powerful hallucinogenic. It literally rips the mind open and allows someone with the right training to convince the person something has occurred that didn’t. In this case, that she killed Harley for trying to rape her.”
Sam flinched.
She crossed her arms over her breasts, the gray ribbed cotton wife-beater tank she wore with loose gray shorts attesting to the lateness of the hour. She’d been asleep when the sound of a vehicle stopping outside her neighbor’s small patio awakened her. At least, that was what she told her father, director of Homeland Security John David Bryce.
“Why?” she demanded.
To that, Doogan shrugged. “She’s a Mackay; according to Timothy, trouble shadows them. Where’s her sister Lyrica? Doesn’t she have the apartment beside you?”
“She’s staying the weekend with Kye Brock, Graham’s sister.” Sam paced across the room. Turning back to him she watched him suspiciously. “What the hell’s going on, Doogan?”
Doogan pursed his lips thoughtfully. Sliding his hands into the pockets of his slacks, he leaned a shoulder into the wall and considered her question for a moment.