Dark Flame

by Caris Roane

  The couch was too damn small, so he drew her down to the floor. In real-time, she ran her fingers through his brown hair. He looked panicked, but she could tell he wasn’t going to put a stop to things.

  He pushed her legs part with his knees then settled in-between. He was fully erect, and she was streaming, so ready for him. As he pushed inside, she gave a cry. She was one with Brann on the floor of the cottage in real-time, yet experiencing the wind of the dreamglide.

  Passion flowed so strong, but still she caught his face in her hands. “Tell me straight up that you know you started this.”

  “I know. I did. This is on me.”

  “Good.” She had no illusions about Brann’s conscious self. But it didn’t matter, not when he possessed her body as he did with his cock drawing in and out and hitting her just right.

  She arched her back and a long cry left her mouth of sheer pleasure. The wind whipped around her, as the dreamglide reflected how she felt and what Brann was doing.

  Heat radiated from his body and the humming electrical field of his vampire nature tingled wherever his body met hers.

  He nudged her neck, and she cried out again. “Yes, do it, Brann, I want to feed you.”

  A quick strike came next, which sent a thrill between her legs. More sizzle and heat.

  He began to drink, grunting with each thrust of his cock and pull on her neck. She felt her life force leaving her and flowing down his throat.

  She could feel his muscles bulking up as they’d done before each time she’d fed him. He drove deeper now, curling his hips. She glided her hands down his back and caressed his ass, loving the way it moved up and back and the way it arched, which gave her so much pleasure.

  That’s when she let everything go. She became one with him, feeling what he felt, savoring his body, the feeling of him drinking. Pleasure built like a bonfire. The dreamglide wind buffeted her, adding another layer of sensation.

  On he drove. I’m going to come, Juliet. I’m so hard for you. Are you ready for me, Baby? You ready to come?

  “I am. All you have to do is go a little faster or a lot, doing that vampire thing you do.” She moaned at the thought of it.

  He released her neck and swiped at the wounds. He was glowing as well, a silvery aura around his body. She probably was as well.

  When he lifted up, he held her gaze. “Come with me, Baby. Come now.”

  He increased the rhythm of his hips, going faster and faster.

  She stared into his intense green eyes. She breathed in heavy gulps as ecstasy bore down on her, the wind of the dreamglide sweeping over her body.

  “Brann.” She cried out his name as pleasure began to flow.

  He kept looking at her, driving harder and faster.

  He roared his passion, his eyes glowing, his body an electrical current that kept taking her to the heights, over and over. The wind carried her back and forth as well.

  She cried out again and again, her chest expanding, her heart on fire.

  When the wind began to die down, and his hips slowed then finally stopped, she lay with her arms stretched out to the sides, gasping for breath.

  He kissed her neck, her cheeks, her forehead then lingered on her lips. She took his tongue inside and suckled gently, wanting him to know how much she loved doing this with him.

  When her breathing had evened out and she looked up at him, he wore his serious expression once more. His brows were pinched tightly together. “What if in all this I lose you the way I lost my family or worse, the way my sister died? Do you understand?”

  She knew what lay beneath his words. “Does it really matter how I die? Or when? I’m choosing to go down this path. In fact, I think I made this choice five months ago when I met you in the White Flame. Resistance fighters don’t tend to survive the war, and I’ve already accepted my fate.

  “Don’t get me wrong. I plan to stay alive. But even if you ended our business arrangement, I’d find another way to battle men like Roche. Do you understand? I’m in this fight ‘til the end.”

  “I don’t think it’s that simple,” he said.

  “I know you don’t. But for me it is.”

  He looked around and grabbed his t-shirt, shoving it between her legs as he pulled out of her.

  She could tell he was really upset as he rose. “I’ll be back. I need to figure things out. But a shower sounds really good.”

  She let him go. As he’d done before, he was using the shower as an excuse to create distance. She’d said all she could say, and now that he was in full possession of their dreamglide conversations, he knew she spoke the truth. She’d held nothing back from him during the five months he’d been her lover.

  She also knew his sister’s death had terrorized him as nothing else could have, causing him to withdraw from all close relationships. She didn’t blame him. She wasn’t much different. She valued both Agnes and Mary, but she’d never truly confided in either. She’d kept her cards as close to the vest as Brann had, at least until she’d seduced him in the dreamglide and he’d opened up to her. Then she’d told him everything about herself, her fears and hopes, even about her marriage.

  Maybe time would resolve the issue between them, maybe it wouldn’t. But for now, she knew enough to give Brann plenty of space.

  She stood up, gathered her clothes and headed to the small, downstairs bathroom. She cleaned up as best she could in the half-bath then got dressed again.

  She loved sex. She wondered if she was even normal for how much she enjoyed being with a man she loved.

  When her choice of words hit her mind, she mentally repeated themselves over and over: The man she loved.

  The man she loved.

  She loved Brannick so much. On some level, of course she had from the first. But it was a hard thing to accept she was in love with someone who might never be able to return that love.

  She left the bathroom, and had just reached the dining area near the bottom of the stairs, when a loud explosion rocked the space all around her. Yet there was no debris. She turned in a circle, but she didn’t see any real damage.

  It didn’t make sense.

  She started to feel dizzy and very strange. Her dreamglide called to her, pulling her toward it.

  Brann. It had to be Brann. He’d made a decision about her, about them.

  Joy rushed through her so fast she cried out.

  She gave herself to the dreamglide and in a blink was inside. At first she didn’t understand, because the space was hazy with black smoke. And the smell was bad.

  She didn’t get it at first, except that it appeared the explosion had occurred within her dreamglide.

  That’s when she understood exactly what had happened. Roche had finally broken through and her reckless entrance into the dreamglide made it too late to do anything to protect herself.

  He emerged from the black smoke, the teal flames on his cheeks pulsing, his red hair flowing away from his face. He looked demonic. “Did you honestly think, Juliet, that I didn’t know you’d found my home? But I don’t let anyone cross into my territory without retaliation. And now, at long last, I have you.”

  She tried to back away but he moved like lightning. He surrounded her with a tight powerful grip then pulled her out of her dreamglide and into his.

  He’d finally succeeded in hijacking her. The moment she left her own secure space, she became as docile as a lamb.

  He whispered into her ear. “And now, I want you to leave Agnes’s compound in real-time and come to my home. You know the way.”

  It was a simple thing to direct her real-time self to head down the hall, open the front door and levitate to the compound’s entrance.

  The guards barely acknowledged her as she rose into the air and headed southeast, toward the southern end of the Graveyard. She arrived at Roche’s home in less than half-a-minute.

  He stood with the doors wide, and opened his arms to her.

  She went to him, as one completely hypnotized, and gave herself into
the hands of the monster.

  ~ ~ ~

  Brannick stepped out of the shower no more resolved on the path he should take than when he’d decided to get cleaned up. He dried off and headed into the bedroom. The last time he’d been here, he’d left without his duffel so he knew he had a couple of clean shirts ready to wear.

  He found the bag in Juliet’s closet. He opened it and pulled out a black tank.

  When he was completely dressed, boots and all, he realized something didn’t feel right. In fact, the house felt empty, which made no sense at all.

  He moved slowly downstairs and smelled something very peculiar, something like smoke.

  “Juliet?”

  But she didn’t respond.

  Had she lit up the barbecue? Yet the smoke didn’t have the smell of charred meat. If anything, the odor was more chemical in nature. It also seemed familiar in a way he couldn’t put his finger on.

  He called for Juliet again. When there wasn’t a response, he went outside and walked the entire perimeter of the cottage. Where the hell was she? Had she gone to talk to Agnes? If so, why hadn’t she told him?

  He headed up to the main part of the facility, but couldn’t find Juliet. He located Agnes, however, but she said she hadn’t spoken to Juliet recently.

  A terrible dread filled him.

  When he finally opened the compound entrance door and questioned the guards, he got the answer he feared. Juliet had levitated and headed southeast while he’d been in the shower.

  The sensation of dread increased, pouring over him like a flow of sludge, weighing him down. He’d felt like this once before, when he’d learned his sister had been delivered up to a dark witch coven.

  He felt compelled to return to the cottage. Juliet might have left by the front door of the compound, but that’s not where the damage had been done.

  When he went back into the house, he walked straight for the dining area near the foot of the stairs. He could smell the smoke again.

  As he examined the nature of it, his fears intensified, because this wasn’t ordinary smoke but the kind he’d smelled once before many years ago and had hoped to never experience again. When the witches had killed his sister, this was the same odor in the air. They’d used a spell to control her, to have her say aloud she was a willing sacrifice and she would die in their service.

  His first thought was that one of the dark covens had gotten to Juliet. But the fae part of him knew it wasn’t that easy. The stench in the air told him the witches were connected, but he intuited that Roche had gone to them and purchased a spell. He’d wanted control of Juliet for years, and he’d finally found a way to get the job done.

  Brannick worked hard to remain calm, especially since, as he focused on the situation, he sensed the other part of what had happened. The smoky smell was the key, because it carried a metallic quality. Roche had finally broken through Juliet’s powerful dreamglide block, then hijacked her as he’d been trying to do for a long time.

  Part of him wanted to fly straight up into the air and find her now, go straight to Roche’s house and tear the damn thing apart until he found her.

  But a wiser part that aligned with his acquired fae abilities, forced him to grow very quiet. He needed to think the whole situation through, including what he and Juliet had just done.

  He’d made love to her, but immediately afterward he’d been filled with remorse. Only this time, he knew he was the one who’d crossed the line. He’d seduced Juliet when he shouldn’t have. When real-time merged with the dreamglide, he should have stopped the whole thing.

  But he hadn’t.

  Yes, he’d been caught up in the passion of being with her, especially the erotic combination of the dreamglide with real-time. But there had been a moment when he’d actually made the choice to make love to her.

  Maybe it had been the passionate depths of her dark blue eyes, or how much she enjoyed being with him, or perhaps her purpose in becoming as she’d said, a resistance fighter. All of it had gotten to him.

  But he’d also recalled how she’d refused his initial overtures when they’d first entered the dreamglide. She’d made her position clear and he’d loved her for that.

  Now Roche had her, and he’d used a dark witch’s spell to finally break through Juliet’s blocks.

  Roche had been there from the beginning, the main supplier of dark flame throughout Five Bridges, Arizona and in more recent years the entire U.S. Maybe he even manufactured the alter fae serum that corrupted the human genetic base and made long-lived fae out of regular humans.

  Roche had been there the night his sister had died as well.

  He’d been the one constant all this time.

  Something shifted at the base of Brannick’s soul, something so extraordinary it felt like tectonic plates moving around. His view of the world rumbled with a dozen earthquakes.

  He finally confessed the truth to himself that he’d allowed Juliet to seduce him in the initial dreamglide because he’d fallen hard for her at the White Flame. And every damn time he’d made love to her in the dreamglide, as well as every conversation he’d shared with her, had deepened that love.

  He’d been pretending all these months that he didn’t love her, that it would be too dangerous for him to love anyone.

  What he hadn’t realized until this very moment was the terrible truth of what Juliet had said to him recently. Five Bridges was a death sentence to every alter human being who chose to make a difference in their world. He could no more control Juliet’s ultimate fate than he could his own.

  He felt a soft drift of fingers down his face, and he knew without having to explore the sensation very long that his wife, in her ghostly form, was with him again.

  She appeared, smiling, barely more than a soft mist. I love you, Brann. And I can see you’ve finally made the leap. I’ve had permission from the powers who serve paradise to say good-bye, all three of us.

  Brannick’s chest swelled as three beings appeared before him: His wife, his child and the baby born in another realm. He tried to reach for them, but they weren’t real, yet each approached him, even the babe, and ran fingers down his face. He could feel their beautiful spiritual energy touching him, loving him and wishing him well.

  Good-bye, Brann. Remember, all is forgiven. Now tend to Juliet. You’ll do tremendous things together. You’ll see.

  Both his children smiled and continued to smile as his original family disappeared. He wiped at the tears on his cheeks. His soul felt free at last. Free to live and to love. Free to battle for the woman who meant everything to him and for the life he wanted for them both, as well as for all decent citizens in Five Bridges.

  He let the sensation roll through him as he considered the desperate situation before him. He could have accessed his own dreamglide, but instead wondered if he could take over Juliet’s without her permission. The moment the thought entered his head, he knew he could. He might have developed a few fae abilities, but he was still a vampire and with that came a strength of will that he’d always valued. So, yeah, he could be inside the woman’s dreamglide.

  He remained standing because he knew in his gut this experience would be very different. He’d have a conscious awareness of exactly what was going on in both realities.

  With a brief thought, and his mind fixed on Juliet, he moved straight into her dreamglide. The stench of the spell infused the space. He saw the blown out blurred wall, with the twisted steel rebar bent toward him like a flower that had blossomed.

  Because the dreamglide belonged to her, it was with her, inhabiting her current location.

  He looked down through the blurred floor of the dreamglide and saw Juliet below him. She lay on her back on a sofa that looked familiar. Remaining very still, he glanced around. Sure enough, she was in Roche’s home.

  Fortunately, the fae bastard was nowhere to be seen. Good.

  His fae senses also told him that however unguarded Roche’s home appeared, there were powerful fae warriors in the
house, lined up and ready to attack.

  Roche had set a trap for him.

  He drew out of Juliet’s dreamglide and was back in real-time at the foot of the stairs in the cottage.

  He had to think and to plan.

  He felt certain Roche didn’t know just how much of a fae Brannick had become during his time with Juliet. His solitary vampire nature at one time might have sent him storming to the house alone, ready to be slaughtered. But the fae part of him had added a strong level of wariness.

  He felt the need to take a team in and considered his options. He knew Vaughn had to stick close to the safe house, because it was under a constant threat of attack. He turned therefore in a different direction, toward Savage Territory.

  He contacted Fergus telepathically. In a few brief sentences, he told him about Juliet’s abduction, how he knew where Roche lived and that Roche was using Juliet to draw him into a trap.

  Fergus didn’t even pose a question but simply stated the exact response Brannick needed. I’m in. Tell me when and where.

  Brannick pictured the entire operation in his head. I want a heavy diversion at the entrance to the Fae Cathedral. Contact Keelen and tell him all that’s going on. The more of Roche’s security force that I can draw away from his home, the better.

  Then I’ll need a small group of your best fighters to enter with me through Roche’s front door, which is from the strip-center side. But come well-armed. Roche has men in there ready to fight.

  He explained the layout in detail as well as the elevator they could use as needed to get to the factory level. And I’ve got Juliet’s ability with dreamgliding, so I can scout every location first.

  Fergus detached his telepathy for a few minutes to get his end set up. He returned a moment later. I reached Keelen. He and five other squad cars are heading to the Fae Cathedral to make some noise like last time. Each is prepared to battle and die, just like you, so don’t give me any shit about withdrawing if things get tough.

  Brannick smiled, then wondered why he’d ever thought he was alone in this world. Here was a whole group of men ready to take up arms, and none of them were vampires.