Dark Flame

by Caris Roane

  No, it really isn’t. We have a lot of work to do.

  Brannick made a wide, slow turn, and his arm kept her secure the entire time. Her feet were perched on his right boot, which helped.

  Brannick said, I’ve never been to this part of Revel before, but my God it’s beautiful. He flew even lower, just ten feet above the mini-canal.

  Along both sides was a park-like setting with a meandering sidewalk and dozens of trees fit for the coming summer desert heat. But there were green-belts as well, a lot of grass. Because it was spring, there were burgeoning flowerbeds scattered here and there.

  Small footbridges, many of them made of stone, crisscrossed the canal with cottage-sized homes along either side.

  A much larger stone bridge, over which vehicles could travel, kept traffic moving through the area. Where does everyone park?

  How easily she could communicate with him telepathically. We have long alleys here and the garages come off the alleys.

  This is fairly new construction.

  The development was laid out ten years ago. My husband bought a home for me here when we divorced. She’d already told him everything in the dreamglide, but she doubted he remembered it.

  That was big of him. I approve. It’s a lot more than some have experienced.

  I know.

  He began to slow, another indication he knew where he was headed. He began his final descent toward one of the smaller stone footbridges. This is Talisman Bridge, isn’t it?

  Yes. She wondered why he was stopping here and not taking her to her canal home.

  We’ve been here before, haven’t we, in a dreamglide, I mean.

  Oh, God, he was recalling another memory. Yes, we have.

  Tears burned her eyes as he touched down on the stone path. No one was around, and they had the bridge to themselves.

  When he released her, she stepped off his boot, slowly sliding her arm from around his neck.

  She watched him. He frowned as he turned in another slow circle, taking in the entire area. “It’s beautiful.” He then shifted to face her. “You must love it here.”

  “I do. When I’ve finished with my night’s work at the Board of Sages, I often come here, sometimes with my camera.”

  He frowned slightly. “That’s right. You were a photographer before you became an alter fae.”

  She had to smile. During one dreamglide, he’d asked her a dozen questions about how she’d gotten interested in photography.

  He rolled his eyes. “I take it we’ve talked about this before.”

  “I didn’t mean to smile, but you were so curious. You don’t remember our conversation?”

  He shook his head. “No. Not about photography. Christ, this is bugging the shit out of me, that you hold this over my head.”

  She drew close. “Brann, never. I would never.”

  He scrubbed both hands through his hair, afterward pushing it straight back. She loved the look on him. “I didn’t mean that you hold anything over my head, not exactly. I hate not knowing, when you know everything. It’s an unfair advantage.”

  She took a moment before answering him. “You, especially, would feel that way.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Only that you like control. You even dictated what you allowed yourself to know about our dreamglide relationship. But you can have complete access right now if you want it. I have a block in place, and I can remove it, something I learned as an apprentice sage.”

  She didn’t tell him the rest, that she’d been compelled to learn the skills because Neal Roche had attempted to hijack her once in a dreamglide. She’d barely escaped. If he’d gained control of her, she would have been lost to him for a good long time, possibly forever.

  Brannick frowned hard, a pit between his brows. “You can remove the block right now, and I can see everything?”

  She dipped her chin.

  “Have you been edging the block out of place? Is that why I’ve suddenly been remembering?”

  “No, of course not. I would never violate our dreamglide agreement.” She cringed slightly. She might not disrupt their current agreement, but she’d had no problem violating his dreamspace and seducing him within her dreamglide. In many ways, Roche had done the exact same thing to her. He just hadn’t been as successful. If Brannick ever figured out exactly what had happened, she doubted he’d ever be able to forgive her.

  In that sense, Brannick was a conundrum because during their first time together, his dreamglide self had engaged in their affair without the smallest hesitation. He’d also told her he didn’t care that she’d seduced him.

  “But I would never know if you broke an agreement, would I?” He ground his jaw.

  She could tell the situation was getting to him, but that wasn’t exactly her problem. He was the one who’d instigated the gag order.

  What she found intriguing right now, however, was that he didn’t automatically ask her to remove the block. Apparently, he didn’t really want to know all that had happened between them.

  In that sense, she was grateful. She was convinced he wouldn’t be able to handle everything they’d been doing for the past five months. Not yet.

  He paced away from her a few feet, his gaze skyward, then he spun in another circle. As a footbridge, Talisman was only about seven feet from rail to rail, though it spanned the thirty-foot wide canal stream.

  She knew what he was doing. His training as a border patrol officer was always present, even in the dreamglides they shared. He was constantly checking his surroundings, which gave her a feeling of security.

  “Let me understand. If you have a block in place, then why have I been remembering anything at all?”

  She shrugged. “No one really knows, but it happens. Some say it has to do with the individual involved. You might be overcoming my block because you’re an extremely powerful vampire. Another theory is that proximity will facilitate sudden memory surges.”

  “Memory surges?” He echoed the words softly. He drew close once more, his brow still severely pinched. “Like when you wore that red-flowered dress on this very bridge?”

  A gasp left her throat. “You remember that?”

  “I’ve seen little else since I touched down. I can even smell a fragrance that was in the air, very flowery.”

  “I wore perfume.”

  “How the hell can I remember a scent from a dreamglide?”

  She smiled. “Because this is part of the alter fae world. You might as well ask how you can levitate the way you do. This is what it is to be fae. That’s all.”

  He was still frowning. “I get your point.”

  She remembered the dreamglide moment he was referring to extremely well, one of her favorites, in fact. She’d wanted to dress up for him, so she’d donned the silk dress with white flowers on a red background. It showed a lot of cleavage and was cut longer in back at the hem. She’d even worn heels so that he had a much shorter distance to travel when he kissed her.

  She moved to the side of the bridge. She’d been right here when he’d taken her in his arms. She placed her hand on the warm stone. It was early May and hot during the day. But at night, it was a beautiful balmy time of year in the Valley of the Sun.

  All the trees and the water had helped to cool things down as well.

  His voice was very low as he asked, “Are you thinking about what happened in the dreamglide?”

  She nodded but shifted her gaze to look at the canal water. She saw the moon reflected in the breeze-swept ripples.

  He came up next to her and slid his hand along her lower back. “As I recall, you stood here.”

  She didn’t look at him. She was afraid to. “I did.”

  “You looked so beautiful. You’d dressed up for me.”

  “Yes.” Her gaze skated to his face, then got stuck there. “The time we spent together in the dreamglide was like dating.”

  His hand was warm through her dress.

  “And I kissed you, but not on the li
ps.”

  A shiver ran through her. She felt his interest like a soft jolt of electricity against her skin, and that wasn’t fae at all, just very human. Her intuition told her he was actually thinking about repeating the process.

  But should she let him when he was so angry about the situation?

  He squeezed her waist then pushed the long curly strands of hair away from her neck. Leaning down, he kissed her neck, his lips warm and moist.

  Juliet closed her eyes, her throat tightening. She’d loved her time with Brann in the dreamglide. But this was so much better.

  For a moment she couldn’t breathe.

  She pressed a hand to her stomach. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

  He stopped kissing her and lifted up to meet her gaze. “Why not?” He moved to stand in front of her, leaning against the stone rail of the bridge. “You liked it well enough in the dreamglide.”

  She heard the edge to his voice and knew he was still angry. “I loved it in the dreamglide.”

  “Not right now, when I kissed your neck?”

  She intended to be honest. “It was better just now, more real. Don’t you think?”

  He looked as though he struggled to make sense of what was going on, and she wasn’t certain what to say to him. The man had just learned he’d been engaging in dreamglide sex with her for the past five months. “Ask me anything, Brann.”

  He hissed, then squeezed his eyes shut as though in pain. “Stop calling me that.”

  “‘Brann’ you mean?”

  “Yes.” When he opened his eyes, he looked haunted.

  She sighed. “I’ll try not to. But I’ve been calling you that all this time.”

  His brows tightened even more and his voice had an edge. “This is real-time now, real life. You haven’t earned the right to call me by anything other than my full name.”

  “Fine. Whatever you say.” She was angry now as well. The man she knew in the dreamglide was so open with her and wanted her calling him by his nickname. Yet, real-time Brannick could barely remember anything about their relationship.

  “You’re mad at me?” A cheek muscle twitched.

  “Look at it from my point of view. All this time, you’ve welcomed me into your life.”

  He all but shouted. “But what happened between us wasn’t real.”

  She was taken aback for a moment, then lowered her chin. “That’s where you’re wrong. Everything about the dreamglide is real, and the man in them had no problem connecting with me.”

  “Is that what you want? Connection?”

  The question surprised her, and for a moment, she couldn’t answer.

  His lips curved down. “Oh, I get it. You’re the supreme hypocrite. You liked the connection in the dreamglide because, though it might have a semblance of reality, you didn’t really need to deal with me. Well, now it looks like you’re going to have to.”

  Juliet huffed a derisive laugh, but not at Brannick. “You’re right. I just never saw it until this moment. You were safe in the dreamglide.”

  “And I’m not now.”

  “How could you be? You’re a vampire and this is Five Bridges. There’s absolutely no hope for a relationship in this world.”

  “Now you’re thinking clearly.”

  He didn’t look all that pleased, however. He held her gaze, but she could see a new set of thoughts spinning within his mind. Finally, he said, “It may not have been real-time, but from what I’m getting, Jesus, it was beautiful.”

  “Yes. It was.” She hated that tears started to her eyes. But her time with Brannick, real or not, had been extraordinary. Tonight, though, it was all coming to an end.

  The muffled and very distant sound of gunshots pulled her out of the conversation. She shifted toward the southwest, leaning her stomach against the bridge. She waited to hear if more shots would follow.

  Brannick moved next to her, resting his forearms on the stone rail. “Sounds like your border patrol caught runners in the desert.”

  “Probably. Roche has dozens in his employ. The Revel Border Patrol can’t keep up. He uses a lot of decoys as well with jackets full of fake product.”

  “I’ve heard estimates that he has close to a hundred runners working for him.”

  “You’ve heard right. He’s an arrogant man. I heard him boast about his runners in one of the board meetings. Of course he didn’t actually use the word ‘runner’, but we all knew what he was talking about.”

  He glanced at her. “And he manufactures dark flame somewhere in Revel, though below ground.”

  “That’s the word on the street.” She held his gaze. “And dark flame is what you and I share in common above everything else.”

  “You mentioned your alter experience at the club. But I suppose you know the history of my transformation because I told you about it in the dreamglide.”

  “We’ve talked, yes. But long before that, I did a web search on you. There was a lot written about your tangle with the cartels and how they retaliated.”

  A haunted look entered his eye. He turned away from her, staring into the moonlit water below.

  She decided to break up his memories by sharing some of her history with him. “I was abducted right after a photo shoot. I’d taken a couple to one of my favorite desert locations, and when we were done, they took off. I was just packing up when three men found me. They’d given me too high a dose of the dark flame drug and, coupled with the alter fae serum, I went into a coma. I was left for dead at a gas station then taken to a hospital. I didn’t know anything about what had happened until I woke up and found that I was no longer human.

  “Brann … Brannick, I wanted to die so badly. My husband had been with me throughout my three days in the hospital. The nurses said he never left my side.” She’d told him all this during one of their dreamglides, but knew he wouldn’t have the memory of it yet. “And you and your pregnant wife as well as your daughter, drank tainted soda.”

  He dipped his chin slowly, his lips compressing. “We’d made a toast, then drank together. How many times have I wished I’d tested it first? They’d still be alive, all three of them.”

  “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  He held her gaze. “And I’m sorry for yours. Your husband sounds like he was a good man.”

  “He was the best. He wept when he signed the divorce papers. I had always thought that I wouldn’t be one of those people who left their spouse after the alter. But when I came out of the coma, I understood how profound the alter change truly is. I could feel it in every part of my body. Even colors looked different through my new fae eyes, and I had this unexpected ability to read people that went way beyond anything I’d known as a human. I could feel my husband’s revulsion of what I’d become, his fear as well. I didn’t blame him, though. The wife he’d known was gone.

  “He provided well for me after the divorce. I’ve been happy here in Lotus Tree.”

  She was about to ask him if he’d like to see her house in real-time, when movement caught her eye.

  She turned to look at the waterway toward the south. And there, flying above the water between the rows of majestic sissoo trees moving with the wind, were seven warrior fae and an eighth man. It took her two blinks to realize who the last man was.

  “Oh, God. It’s Roche. But what is he doing out here?”

  Brannick rose upright. “You sure it’s him?”

  “I know it is. He has a fae signature that I can read at any distance. But why is he out here with his security detail?” Roche lived mostly underground, the mole-like creep that he was. “Brannick, am I seeing right? Do all those men have their swords drawn?”

  “Yep. And they’re coming right toward us.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Brannick cursed under his breath. “Juliet, get down and stay down.”

  If he levitated, Roche and his men would chase him. But how did they know he was here or were they after Juliet?

  A surprising but very strong instinct surged wit
hin him, letting him know that Roche was after Juliet. He knew why as well. Given her high level of fae ability and power, Roche would want her for his dreamglide sex club.

  He thought about covering Juliet and himself with his vampire shield, but he wasn’t sure if Roche had the power to see through it or not. Some of the most powerful fae could do that, and he didn’t want to take the chance of getting trapped.

  He drew his Glock, then supported it with his free hand. Every shot would have to count if either of them were going to survive.

  He aimed at the fae warrior on the left and fired, then shifted immediately to the one on the right, pulling the trigger a second time. Both men spiraled toward the canal, dropping into the water.

  The remaining five, along with Roche, flew closer.

  He took a measured breath and fired to the left again, then the right, quick shots. The first warrior fell into the water, but he’d missed the other one who drew close to the bridge, sword raised.

  Brannick fired into the man’s chest, then levitated at the same time, diving forward to catch the warrior’s sword as it flipped from his hand midair. Brannick heard him hit the water as well.

  The three remaining warriors were farther back, guarding Roche. Yet still they flew toward the bridge.

  He needed to lead them away from Juliet.

  He levitated to the west bank. When he touched down, he turned and fired at the fifth man flying straight for him. The shot hit the fae’s left arm, the force sending him spinning backward. He landed hard on the far bank near the sidewalk, but rose to his feet immediately. Brannick had only nicked him.

  Juliet’s voice entered his mind. Fae warrior to the north and behind you.

  He took Juliet at her word, spun and drove his sword into the man’s abdomen. The warrior fell backward as Brannick withdrew the blade.

  Brannick turned and started to levitate, but the warrior whose arm he’d nicked caught him at the waist and brought him down hard on his back. Brannick still had his Glock in his hand, and he dragged it between their bodies and fired. The recoil slammed into Brannick’s gut but the warrior fell limp.

  He pushed him off and rose to his feet. He’d lost track of the other warrior.