Pleasures of the Night

  Before he entered the room, Connor whistled, telling Philip that he’d succeeded and to start the clock ticking. The tranquilizer would not hold for long.

  “Tell me all your secrets,” he murmured, setting his blade next to him on the control panel. Before him lay a semicircular panel of lighted buttons. Above that, embedded in a raised lip, were a dozen small vid screens, each one displaying a view of various Guardians engaged in their assignments. He stared at the display, his mind faltering at the realization of what exactly he was looking at.

  All this time, the Guardians had assumed their moments spent in a Dreamer’s stream of unconsciousness were private. They were not.

  Which means they would have known of the captain’s suspicions about the Dreamer. They would have seen the growing attachment between the two. Perhaps they had even fostered it by sending him back to her. They had allowed the relationship to progress because they were aware, not because they were ignorant.

  Intrigued and horrified by the thought, Connor set to work, running through the archives with nimble keystrokes, trying to prove or disprove his guess. A quick glance toward the doorway showed him that the hallway floor had resumed its appearance of marble now that he no longer stood upon it. Too many oddities in a world he once thought he understood completely.

  All the years he’d spend teasing and dismissing Aidan for his overwhelming curiosity rose up as bile in Connor’s throat. Sex and fighting were all he had cared to focus on. How frivolous that seemed now. Life was not as simple as a halfhearted search for a centuries-old prophecy.

  Who are the Elders? Who put them in charge? Why the drastic change in their appearance? Where did they learn about the Key? Why do we stop aging? Don’t you ever wonder these things?

  You ask too many questions, Cross.

  Stupid. He never went into any mission without knowing every facet of the situation, yet he’d lived his life without knowing jackshit, as the past few moments had made abundantly clear.

  “No more.” He rolled his shoulders back, the primary focus of his life switching in one powerful moment of epiphany. “That’s all about to change.”

  Then he heard his name and stilled, trying to discern where the sound had come from. He heard it again, and his wide-eyed gaze lifted to the row of monitors. “Cross.”

  On the farthest screen to the right he saw Aidan’s dream…and Aidan.

  As Lyssa put lotion on her face, she considered her dilemma and wondered what, if anything, she could do about it. She couldn’t help Aidan with the books he’d brought with him since his language was beyond her, but she had noted that the new books he’d purchased the day before had been about Stonehenge. She didn’t know why the place held such interest for him, but she would find out.

  No matter what she had to do, there was no way in hell she was going to let him just walk out of her life. Not after what he’d shared with her this morning. Her immortal warrior had gone his entire life without needing or loving any woman—until he had found her. Now she was his dream, and it was a gift she wouldn’t give up without a fight.

  Stepping out of her bathroom, Lyssa paused mid-step. Aidan lay on the bed, asleep. She smiled affectionately, her heart swelling with emotion. “My poor darling. Even dream lovers need to rest sometime.”

  She padded barefoot across her short-pile oatmeal carpet, her hands tightening the fold between her breasts that kept the towel from falling. Standing over her bed, she took in the clothing he wore—loose-fitting black pants and matching vest. Unlike the clothes he’d purchased yesterday, these garments fit him perfectly, hugging him like a second skin to his hips, where the trousers then flared wide for ease of movement. The foreign material and seamless construction reminded her that they came from different worlds.

  Her heart in her throat, she memorized his beloved features as they looked in that moment, the hard, angular lines softened by slumber. Aside from the strands of silver hair that lined his temples, Aidan looked no older than her thirty years.

  “Gorgeous,” she breathed, deeply enamored with his bared arms and golden throat. Bending over, she pressed her lips to his. “I love you.”

  He slept on.

  Needing coffee desperately, Lyssa dressed in a cotton mini-dress decorated with soft pastel flowers. She was halfway down the stairs when she heard a familiar voice calling her from the open front door.

  “Lyssa?”

  She bounced the rest of the way down. “Hi, Mom.” Her hug was exuberant.

  “What the hell happened to your entryway?” her mother asked, poking at the cracked and powdered remains of a tile with the toe of her heeled sandal.

  “I dropped something.”

  “A sledgehammer?”

  Lyssa laughed.

  “Did you just giggle?” Her mother’s head came up, and her eyes narrowed. She whistled low. “Look at you! Whoever your guy is, he didn’t waste any time getting to the honeymoon stage of the visit, eh?”

  “Mom!” Shaking her head, Lyssa went to the kitchen for coffee, and found a covered plate of Ritz crackers with peanut butter and raisins on top.

  “What is that?” her mother asked, her wide eyes an odd contrast to her cosmopolitan appearance. Dressed in a soft gauze multicolored skirt and azure blue tank, Cathy looked fabulous, as always. She moved her hands while talking, making the thin gold bracelets on her wrists tinkle merrily.

  “It’s breakfast.”

  “Are you babysitting Justin again?”

  “Nope. This is my breakfast.” Lyssa picked up a cracker and took a bite. It was the best thing she’d ever tasted. Made by loving hands, it carried a heated reminder of their late night snack.

  “Ugh.” Her mother wrinkled her nose. “So where is he?”

  “Where’s who?” Lyssa poured a quick cup of coffee, added cream and sweetener, and washed down the sticky peanut butter.

  “Don’t be dense. I want to meet him. I haven’t seen you look so good in years.”

  Smiling, Lyssa picked up another cracker and walked around the counter to take her favorite stool at the bar.

  Her mother followed, a frown marring the space between her brows. “Is he a professor?” She moved to the dining table and looked over the books there. “Or a student?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Why the mystery? I don’t like it.”

  For a moment Lyssa tensed, wondering how she would explain the jeweled book. Relief filled her to see that it was hidden beneath a stack of papers. “You’re just nosy.”

  “Stonehenge, huh? I’ve always wanted to go there.”

  “Not me.” Not if it meant Aidan would go home. There was so much she wanted to learn about him, so many things she wanted to show him and share with him. He said he knew everything about her because in the Twilight he could see into her mind. She wanted the time to know him just as well.

  “Did he go to the store or something?” Cathy asked, looking around. “Maybe he saw your idea of breakfast and decided to get some real food. Really, Lyssa. You can’t feed a man a meal like that.”

  “He’s sleeping upstairs.”

  “Oooh.”

  Lyssa immediately regretted telling her mother. Cathy was hurrying up the stairs before Lyssa could protest. All she could do was follow and hiss, “This is bad even for you, Mom!”

  “Just a peek. I promise I won’t wake him up.” Her mom paused in the bedroom doorway and froze. She said nothing for a long moment, and then, “Jesus. Is he real?”

  “No. He’s a blow-up doll. Top of the line.”

  Her mother glanced over her shoulder with a glare. “Smart ass.” She turned her gaze back to the bed. “Where did you find him, and are there any more like him?”

  “He found me, remember?” And thank god he had. Lyssa lifted to her tiptoes so she could see him, too. Aidan Cross sleeping on her bed was the most erotic sight ever.

  The two of them were silent, both of them arrested by the glorious specimen of masculinity stretched out in vulnerable slum
ber. The only sound in the room was breathing, the soft in and out of air in lungs. Her mother took one step into the room…

  …and JB’s sudden protective growl scared the shit out of both of them. Cathy jumped and screamed, which frightened Lyssa enough to leap back and screech.

  Aidan didn’t even twitch.

  Lyssa knew her mother could wake the dead with that scream, and her own screech wasn’t too shabby in the corpse-raising department, either. Her heart, already racing from recent events, kicked up a notch. Something was very wrong. “Mom, you’ll have to leave now.”

  “Why?”

  “Hot guy. In my bed. You figure it out.” A hot guy who wasn’t moving or reacting to external stimuli.

  “I don’t know how the hell you plan to wake him up if two screaming women didn’t do it. Poor guy. You wore him out.” Cathy moved toward the stairs, her hand still pressed to her chest. “That animal is possessed, Lyssa. You’ll never catch a man with that beast around.”

  “Don’t worry about that now.” Lyssa hurried her mother down to the first floor and then hugged her with more than usual fervor in the entryway, breathing in the familiar scent of Coco by Chanel. In case she wouldn’t get the chance again, she said, “I love you, Ma. A lot.”

  “I know, baby.” Cathy’s hand stroked over her head and down her back, bringing tears to her eyes. “Will I get to see your McDreamy awake sometime?”

  Lyssa set her shoulders back. “I’ll do everything I can to make that happen. I promise you that.”

  “Connor, damn it. Where the fuck are you?”

  Just as a Dreamer would be, Aidan was fully cognizant of his surroundings. However, unlike a Dreamer, his stream was degraded, creating a murky glass effect. Connor spent precious moments trying to figure out if he could reach his best friend from the control panel or if he would have to leave. In the end, he quickly erased all the vids of the last several minutes in the Temple, then met Philip outside.

  “Cross has returned to the Twilight in the dream state.”

  Philip frowned, then nodded. “Go to him. I’ll take over in the control room and see what I can dig up.”

  “No way. It’s too dangerous. You won’t have a second to watch your back.”

  “Fuck it,” Philip dismissed with a snort. “We went to all this trouble. I’m not wasting our efforts. The chances of us getting this opportunity again are slim to none, and you know it.”

  “So we find another way. An engagement like this can’t be done with only one man.”

  “You’re wasting time. And your breath.”

  Connor growled low and then cursed. He had no choice, he had to go to Aidan, and he knew that once he left, Philip would do whatever the hell he wanted. “You get caught and I’ll have your ass.”

  “Deal. Now go.”

  Rounding the building, Connor reached the grassy plateau behind the Temple and leaped, gliding swiftly past Aidan’s home to the high mountain, then beyond it. Before him spread the Valley of Dreams, wide golden beams rising from the valley floor and piercing the misty sky until they could no longer be seen. The varying streams of unconscious thoughts spread as far as the eye could see. Writhing shadows and wisps of black smoke betrayed the Nightmares who infiltrated the valley despite their best efforts. This battleground was not the hell that the Gateway was, but the stakes were just as high.

  He skimmed the edge, traveling as fast as possible, reaching the valley border farthest from the Temple and then dipping over the rise. There, in the ignored stretch of rocky outcroppings, was the flickering beam of pale blue light that represented Aidan’s stream of unconsciousness.

  Connor had been here before, just by an odd bit of chance. It had been a fluke that the barely discernible light had caught the face of a polished rock at the highest point, which had then caught his eye. He’d noted the anomaly as he exited a mission, and his subsequent investigation had led to them meeting briefly, just enough time to know that Aidan had survived the trip to the mortal plane and to see the barest imprint of the Elders’ control room.

  Stepping into the cool beam, Connor entered Aidan’s dream. His best friend pictured them on the porch of his home, a comfortable place for both of them.

  “You have the worst timing, Cross.”

  Aidan rubbed the back of his neck as Connor approached. “As bad as my suspicions were, the reality is worse.”

  It was the creaking of the porch step that drew their attention to the Elder who joined them. The deep shadows created by the large hood hid the identity of their visitor, but the way Aidan stiffened set Connor on alert. Not in time, though.

  Before he could guess the coming events, the cowl fell back and Nightmares poured from the depths of the robe.

  Chapter 15

  Connor felt Aidan withdraw his glaive from the scabbard on his back. Yanking his knife free of the sheath strapped to his thigh, he lunged into battle.

  Pure fury boiled up inside him, causing his muscles to bulge with the need to tear his enemy apart. He felt it, embraced it, then opened his throat and roared at the Nightmares that swarmed around them.

  The sound swelled and then rippled outward. Filled with fury and frustration, his yell was fearsome, and the Nightmares writhed away from it, some of them frightened enough to dissipate into puffs of foul-smelling ash. They screamed their children’s cries, which incited Aidan into a frenzy of such magnitude, Connor paused in mid-swing to watch in admiration. There was a reason Aidan Cross was the best of the Elite—he was a badass motherfucker when it came to wielding a glaive.

  The Nightmares recoiled, swirling insidiously around them. Pumped up with aggression, Connor leaped toward the shadowy forms with his blade leading the way. Aidan was with him, fighting with vigor such as Connor had not seen from him in many years.

  With his focus divided between Aidan and the Nightmares, Connor failed to notice that they were no longer alone with their enemy until it was too late. Before he understood what was happening, hundreds of Elders rushed up behind them, glaives flashing. Soon the entire grassy expanse was hidden by a sea of gray-robed figures and the Nightmares they fought. They spread outward like a growing stain, surrounding the porch and sides of the house.

  Connor couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on, but at the moment he didn’t care. The only thing that concerned him was the Nightmares, and killing every single one of them. With the help of the Elders, that goal was achievable.

  There is a moment in every battle when the winds of fate change direction. Warriors of every kind know it instinctively. It comes to them in a rush of adrenaline, a surge of power, a howl of victory.

  It was when that moment of triumph arrived that the Elders made their move. Moving as one, they surged up the stairs, overwhelming Aidan in a flood of grasping arms and dragging him away. The captain fought like a man possessed, but he was unable to overcome the sheer number of assailants. Connor roared his frustration and fear for his friend. But he was unable to do anything, trapped as he was by his fight with the remaining Nightmares. He couldn’t turn away; he couldn’t help.

  He could only press on and make a private vow of vengeance.

  Lyssa stared down at the book in her hands and the note that had been set carefully on top of it.

  I love you.

  She’d never seen Aidan’s handwriting before, but the arrogantly slashed letters were his, she had no doubt. Like the man himself, it was beautiful and bold, yet harshly drawn with sharp angles.

  Her fingertips followed the lines as she cried. He thought staying with her would place her in danger. He was willing to sacrifice himself out of love for her.

  “Aidan.” She brushed away her tears, and then gripped the pendant in a fist. “You’re not doing this alone, and I’m not letting you go without a fight.”

  Pushing back from the table with a weary sigh, Lyssa went upstairs to bed. She would close her eyes and pray that she would drift into the Twilight and save him. How she would manage, and what it was she could do to
help, she didn’t know. She’d spent almost her entire life hiding from the Elders and the Nightmares. Now she had no choice, she had to face them. She couldn’t just do nothing; she couldn’t leave Aidan suspended like that—his body in one plane, his mind in another. So far, she had gone with her gut instincts every step of the way. She wasn’t going to stop now.

  Lyssa set one knee on the mattress and crawled over to Aidan. She curled up against his side, her leg over his, her arm flung across his waist. His chest rose and fell steadily, but his heart raced in a desperate rhythm. She pressed her face into the side of his throat and breathed in his scent. It centered her, reminding her of his touch and his tenderness.

  He had come through a damn galactic fissure for her. It was time to do the same for him.

  Lyssa woke on a blanket on a beach. It took her a moment to orient herself to her new surroundings, but before she could catch a complete breath, the full force of her situation hit her like a bucket of ice water dumped on her head. She leaped to her feet, her hands automatically moving to dust the sand from her clothes. She touched her garments carefully—a miniature, female version of Aidan’s black vest and loose trousers.

  “Kick-ass clothes,” she said softly, lifting her chin. “Damn straight.”

  Newly armed with memories of the time she had spent with Aidan here in his world, Lyssa was even more determined to save her man. The vision of his blue eyes filled with such desolation and hopelessness made her heart ache.

  I’m glad to be here with you, he’d said the day he arrived on her doorstep. His smile had been so filled with joy, it stopped her heart and squashed her common sense like an annoying bug.

  “I’m coming, baby,” she murmured, heading toward the big metal door that waited just beyond the circle of light created by her dream sun. Taking one last breath of courage, she gripped the handle and pulled the door open…

  …and met eyes of startling gray. Nearly metallic in appearance, they were stunningly set off by tanned skin and a determined jaw. Inky black hair was tied back at the neck and fell past his shoulder blades.