Dark Flame

  When he finally opened his eyes, they were still lit up. He glanced down at her, then around the room. “Everything seems so quiet like when a storm passes.”

  “It was a storm of wind, yet we were completely safe.”

  He began to relax as he lowered himself to his forearms. “So that’s why Roche built an entire business for dreamgliding sex. It was incredible.”

  She stared at him, waiting, wondering. Had the dreamglide changed things for him? Prompted any memories?

  She worked at staying as relaxed as possible, but how much did he remember now?

  “What are you thinking about?” He stroked her curls, petting her head in a way she’d always loved. Did he know that?

  “I’m wondering if the dreamglide changed anything for you.” She searched his green eyes. He seemed content, something he’d allowed himself to experience in a dreamglide, and now he was clearly feeling it during real-time. Even the furrow between his brows had eased.

  He smiled. “I feel like it changed everything, yet nothing really. And you’ve never done this before?”

  “Participated in dreamglide sex combined with real-time? No, never.” She smiled and caressed his face, tracing a finger over an eyebrow, down his cheek, then his lips.

  He kissed her, a beautiful, warm, lingering kiss. He was still buried inside her, and because he was a big man, she could feel him even though he was no longer erect. “I feel wonderful when I’m with you, Brann.” She shook her head. “I could so get used to this.”

  “Well, I did ask if you wanted to date.”

  “You did.”

  “I don’t remember your answer.”

  She caressed his face, running her thumb slowly along his cheekbone. “You know damn well I’d love to.”

  He nodded several times in a row, his brow growing furrowed once more.

  Her fae senses told her that his mind was shifting gears in a major way.

  Oh, God, was he remembering?

  He searched around and located the extra washcloth. He carefully slid it between them and as he pulled out, he placed it against her well. “Would you mind if I headed back to the shower?”

  “Of course not. Is everything okay?”

  “Sure, I mean, yes. Can’t explain what’s going on, but I need to think. About all of it.”

  Juliet’s heartrate rose as he left the bed and she found it hard to breathe.

  She knew his memories hadn’t completely returned, but her fae instincts were screaming at her that she was in serious trouble.

  ~ ~ ~

  Brannick felt uneasy as he got the water steaming hot, then climbed under the spray. His fae intuition had kicked in again, letting him know that something big was on the way. He needed to prepare for it, yet it didn’t feel like Roche. This felt different, like it had to do with Juliet.

  He had to bend to wash his hair. Most showers weren’t built for men his size. He took his time, but fear jabbed at him. He was in trouble; he just didn’t know what it would look like when it arrived.

  As he finished rinsing off, something similar to the dreamglide suddenly rushed through his mind.

  The he understood.

  The memories were coming.

  Yet, he resisted.

  He planted a hand on the wall and stepped out of the tub.

  A piercing headache followed.

  He slid to the floor and put both hands over his eyes. What the hell was happening?

  Images began flying at him erratically, one after the other, of his bedroom and Juliet, then her bedroom and him pulling back the comforter and dropping onto the bed. She leaped on him and laughed.

  Another memory followed, the one on the bridge when she wore her red-flowered dress. He understood that all his prior experiences in the dreamglide were coming forward, one after the other and that his newly acquired faeness was telling him to let them come.

  The moment he accepted the memories, the headache ceased and it was as though a movie began to play in his mind. He could now hear the conversations, all the ones Juliet had told him they’d had.

  He saw himself completely relaxed with her and enjoying being her lover. The memories were sequential as well, though he was working through them backward, the most recent first. He also let them move swiftly through his head.

  He smiled a lot and at times became so aroused that he almost called for Juliet, then another memory would take him on a different dreamglide. One time, he’d actually gotten into a canal paddle-boat with her, though it hadn’t lasted long. His size had started sinking the small craft.

  He’d levitated her out of it before it sank and they’d returned to her home laughing and shortly afterward made love.

  Back the memories went. His affection for her grew more and more profound, until he was all the way at the beginning, asleep in his bed.

  That’s when he understood exactly what Juliet had done to initiate the affair.

  And that’s when he knew he’d never be able to be with her again.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Brannick stayed on the bathroom floor for a long time, his bare ass on the rug. He stared at the cupboard opposite and barely saw it. He kept running the last few images over and over in his mind of what Juliet had done to him in the dreamglide.

  She’d broken a huge Revel Territory law to start the process. He saw everything now, every single memory he had of her, including the fact she’d used her dreamglide to break into his dreams without invitation or permission.

  She’d essentially hijacked him in his dreams. In that sense, she was no better than Roche. Even the Tribunal prosecuted any fae caught doing so.

  Dream boundaries were most often violated for the purpose of gathering information like security codes and passwords. The sale of the information following a dream hijacking became the evidence used in a trial. The cartels, being vulnerable to this kind of tampering, made sure the Trib took this crime seriously. At least twenty fae were serving time for dream violations.

  Though Juliet hadn’t stolen anything from him, she’d broken the law and infringed on his basic alter right.

  Yet he was also appalled at how much of a willing partner he’d become right away, without hesitation, as though his unconscious mind didn’t care about the rules. Instead, he should have turned her away and reported her then and there to the Board of Sages. Her own kind would have prosecuted her immediately.

  Everything he believed about Juliet became tainted. She’d violated a sacred trust and shattered every reason he had to trust the woman.

  He rose from the floor and slowly put on his leathers and tank. He hadn’t meant to get dressed again. He’d planned on staying through the day with Juliet, making love to her, sleeping beside her, then doing it all over again.

  He couldn’t now, and given that dawn was close, he needed to get the hell out of Agnes’s compound.

  He worked on his socks and boots. When he finally stood up, he met his reflection in the mirror. He drew close, staring at the groove between his brows. Juliet was always trying to smooth it out. But she couldn’t. He lived in Five Bridges. He’d lost his family to dark flame and his parents and sister to the bad choices he’d made.

  From that point, when the cartels had taken their revenge, when his sister had been sacrificed by one of the dark covens, he’d promised himself he would take a different approach to his life here.

  And he had.

  He’d shut down his need for vengeance and had kept his road straight and narrow, no exceptions. He ran his tunnel rescue system in the same way. He’d set up specific guidelines. Because of it, he’d saved over three-hundred women, a few of them as young as thirteen. Without those rules, his organization would have collapsed a long time ago.

  He served as a border patrol officer because he was committed to the rule of law. He’d thought Juliet held the same values.

  He moved into the bedroom. She sat up in bed, but she’d never appeared more somber.

  Yet, seeing her brought the most recent memor
ies rushing forward, of making love to her, of experiencing a combination of real-time and dreamglide sex.

  He’d kissed her freckles.

  He’d felt something profound for her.

  He’d asked to date her.

  Now all of it seemed like the worst kind of manipulation. She’d essentially seduced him into a relationship with her.

  “Juliet.”

  “You know everything, don’t you? The memories have finally merged.”

  “They have. You seduced me into this relationship during a dream hijacking.”

  She sighed heavily. “I did.”

  “Which also means that you lied to me from the time the first memory surfaced in the garage.”

  “Only about how the whole thing started with you.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?” He needed to know her rationale.

  “It’s very simple. I loved my time with you, and I didn’t want the dreamgliding to end.”

  “So you deliberately misled me.”

  She seemed oddly relieved. “Yes. I should never have approached you in the dreamglide and for that I apologize, but not for the rest, not for what followed. Knowing you, being with you despite the questionable beginning, has been one of the finest experiences of my life.”

  “You don’t sound remorseful at all. I’d think you’d at least give me that.” He scowled at her, angry by her almost indifferent attitude. He had no idea what she was thinking or how she justified her actions.

  ~ ~ ~

  Juliet’s heart beat so hard in her chest she felt as though it would burst at any moment.

  It was difficult to look at Brannick. Though she’d always known this moment would come, she’d hoped oh-so-foolishly that it wouldn’t. Yet here it was, her terrible sin exposed.

  Oddly, she remembered that old saying about chickens coming home to roost. And they had, by the thousands and each of them squawking at her for being so stupid and for breaking such a critical law in the first place.

  His voice beat at her from across the room. “So you have nothing to say.”

  She glanced up at him once more. She could feel her heart tearing at each of its moorings. “Would you have asked me to date you, if you hadn’t felt this kind of connection to me?”

  He frowned even harder. “I don’t know. But it’s not the point. Or are you trying to justify your behavior, because this doesn’t fly. The end doesn’t justify the means. Ever.

  Juliet reached under the comforter and began pulling the top sheet up around her. Once she was sufficiently covered, she slid her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. She moved toward him, though she kept her distance. She knew she had to fight for him. She could see his anger. But the fae part of her intuition told her he was using her wrongdoing as an excuse to end the relationship.

  She had to fight, something she’d never had to do until she’d come to Five Bridges. She was weak in that way, and being fae didn’t help. But she was done with trying to play by the old, human-based rules. She lived in this world, and she’d been lonely as hell until she’d met Brannick at the White Flame.

  She reiterated her position. “Again, I’m sorry for what I did, but I don’t regret I broke the law to put all this in motion.”

  He compressed his lips into a tight line. “You’re seriously pissing me off. You have to take responsibility for this, so tell me why you did it? Why would you, who I’d come to believe was a woman of honor, break into my dreams like that?”

  She released an odd sound from the back of her throat, something like a sigh combined with a grunt. “Because I fell hard for you at that stupid club the night I first met you. I couldn’t get you out of my head. You were extraordinary, and that’s something I don’t think you understand about yourself—how amazing you are.

  “But I also knew your tragic history and how hard you’d worked to pull your life together so that no one else would ever get hurt again. And I saw how you looked at me that night. The fae part of me could feel your longing and that your loneliness matched mine.

  “I promise you, I didn’t set about to do anything initially. In fact, I kept hoping that you’d reach out to me in your dreams. But after the first week, I knew you wouldn’t. I’d felt your level of commitment, the strength you carry here.” She pressed a hand to her chest.

  He stared hard at her. He didn’t even blink.

  She continued, “I took a chance. I didn’t even know if I could do it. Agnes had always told me I had above-average fae ability, but I’d never extended myself to become more than I was. It was my way of pretending I was still human.

  “So, the night I first came to you, I was trying out my skills. I saw you through the blur of my dreamglide and I sensed you were dreaming about me.”

  “The hell I was.”

  “You were. And, I don’t know, I lost myself in that moment. I didn’t even think about what I was doing, or whether it was right or wrong. I was responding only to the depth of my need and your loneliness. Breaching your dreams was like stepping through a doorway, nothing more.

  “Maybe if there’d been resistance I would have thought twice. Instead, I drew you into my dreamglide, pulled the red comforter back and saw your state of arousal.” Heat flew up her cheeks at what had happened next. She couldn’t speak the words aloud and decided to skip to the result. “You didn’t repel me. I would have left, Brannick, if you’d told me to leave. Instead, you were completely welcoming. You told me you were so glad I’d come to you.”

  Brannick drew closer to the bed, his shoulders hunched as he glared at her. “I woke up with you straddling me in a dreamglide. What man in his right mind would refuse a beautiful woman, with his cock already driving inside her?”

  Having her actions spelled out so blatantly, increased the heat on her face.

  “Finally, you’re exhibiting a normal reaction. You should be embarrassed. You should be ashamed. What you did was wrong. Don’t you get it? I could have you prosecuted in one of the Tribunal courts. You know I could.”

  She thought about all the things they’d shared in the dreamglide, the level of intimacy they’d enjoyed both physically and in their conversations for the past five months.

  She realized something important. “You know what, Brann, I don’t give a fuck about that. What I care about is you. You’ve lived a shadow life in Crescent, holding to your rules and your ideals. And I get why.

  “But it’s time to let all that go. I’m here. I’m real. And I’m what you need and you know it. So you can leave if you want to or you can be with me, in the same way Vaughn is with Emma.

  “It’s your choice, but I’m not apologizing. I thought I would. I thought I’d fall to my knees and beg you to forgive me for this terrible thing I’ve done. But I’m not going to. We’ve shared something amazing and real despite that most of it occurred in the dreamglide.”

  He shook his head, his lips and cheeks drawn back in disgust. “You keep thinking that if you want, but I’m outta here.”

  She watched as he moved past her and started down the stairs. She knew better than to call him back. He’d have to spend some time thinking about everything that had happened between them. Only he could decide if she was worth having in his life despite her illegal seduction of him.

  She did, however, need to remind him of Agnes’s security system. With the sheet still wrapped around her, she moved to the top of the stairs. “Brannick, don’t levitate out of the compound, even if you use your disguise. Agnes has a sensor field set up that would reveal your position.”

  He’d stopped at the bottom of the stairs to listen, but didn’t look up. “Call me if you get into trouble. You might even have enough power to reach me telepathically. I’ll be at my home in Crescent, but you should be okay here. Agnes knows what she’s doing.” He slapped the bottom post of the rail, then moved out of sight as he headed up the hall.

  When she heard the front door slam shut, she hurried to the window overlooking the courtyard.

  To her re
lief, he didn’t try to levitate, but headed in the direction of the well-guarded entrance.

  She placed her fingers on the cool glass. Her cheeks felt hot and her head dizzy. Was he really walking away? Would it be for good despite all that they’d shared?

  When he disappeared from sight, she dropped to sit on the floor and leaned her head against the wall.

  What she’d feared from the beginning swamped her; he’d learned the truth and left.

  The tears flowed. Fortunately, she had the sheet to wipe her eyes and cheeks over and over.

  She understood exactly what she was losing, all the conversations she’d never get to have again, the intimacy, the physical touch, everything that had been so real in her marriage, and almost real in the dreamglide with Brannick.

  She sat on the floor for a long time, regretting what she’d done one moment, then not regretting it the next. If she never saw Brannick again, she honestly couldn’t feel bad about having spent five months in his arms.

  Over the next few nights, Juliet stayed in Agnes’s compound for security reasons. She split her time between supporting Mary during her withdrawal and with Agnes. The sage fae had been an important part of Juliet’s life from the time she’d entered Five Bridges, and she considered her a good friend.

  As for Brannick, she’d spoken with him once on her cell. He’d been withdrawn to the point of being curt, though her faeness detected just how sad he was as well. Unfortunately, he was being damn stubborn, holding to his principles, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  Though she’d confessed the truth to Agnes, the older woman had steadfastly refused to comment on Juliet’s law-breaking seduction of Brannick. Juliet had hoped to be either chastised for her unworthy use of her gifts or supported for taking such a bold risk. But Agnes had merely shrugged her shoulders. “Interesting choice.”

  That was it. Interesting choice.

  Her ‘choice’ didn’t feel interesting at all. Losing her relationship with Brannick felt like she’d lost both her best friend and her lover.