Dark Heart of the Sun

by SK Ryder

  The idea hit her with disorienting force. She hardly knew him. How could this feel so right? The wind brushed his hair against her face, and her senses swam with him and the night. And snow.

  Unable to step away as she planned, she closed her eyes and lingered, drifting in the dark, savoring this powerful, surprising sense of connection, knowing without a doubt he felt it too when he leaned his head against hers. His hands slid up her arms in a slow caress, but he didn’t embrace her.

  “Cassidy, ma petite . . . no . . .”

  “You would defend me if I was attacked,” she whispered into his ear. “Wouldn’t you?”

  “I would tear him to pieces,” he whispered back.

  The vehemence in his husky voice almost made her believe it. She turned her face to look at him, only to find his mouth on hers, tentatively tasting her lips. A razor-sharp tang of desire shot through her.

  Oh, my God. What’s happening? This couldn’t be right. She tried to push away, but only managed to break the tender kiss. He made no attempt to hold her, but his proximity alone seemed to tether her in place.

  “Dominic. What are you doing? I thought I—” She gasped when he kissed the sensitive skin beneath her left ear. His hands settled at her waist. “I thought I wasn’t your cup of tea.”

  “I never said that, chérie.”

  She trembled with indecision—and anticipation. So easy to step away from him and put a stop to this. But he had been right when he claimed seduction as his gift. Maybe another moment then, one more minute of being high on him. Leaning her head back and to the side, she bared her throat to his mouth.

  Finally his arms came around her, drawing her close. His body, hard against hers, vibrated with tension. A tiny alarm went off somewhere in the back of her brain. Something she should remember or know, but didn’t. It was quickly silenced by the warm craving sliding down her spine and pooling at its base. Damn, but the French pain in the ass knew how to kiss a neck.

  With a moan and a vague hope that he wouldn’t leave a hickey, Cassidy surrendered, losing herself in him and the thunder and wind rolling over them both.

  Reality shifted around her. The stormy night vanished, and she stood in the middle of a deep-green meadow filled with the sun’s golden warmth. All around, enormous trees crowded in, a forest of impenetrable darkness. In the cobalt sky arching over all, an immense, brilliant ribbon of light slowly spiraled, surrounding the meadow. The ribbon pulled at her. Cassidy became light and felt herself spread out on it. The air filling her lungs was redolent with fir, water, and earth.

  And snow.

  Dominic knelt by her feet and stared up at her, his face awash in sunlight and emotion. She marveled at the deep, obsidian beauty of his unblinking eyes. Even on the mountain she had never seen him like this. She had never seen his tears.

  She dropped down into the swaying, sweet grasses. “What’s wrong, Dominic?” Wind tousled his hair, blowing it into his face. She brushed it aside and placed her hand against his cheek. “What are you doing?”

  Chapter 15

  I Am Here

  Rapture!

  Her blood slid down his throat as rich and intoxicating as the finest wine. All but senseless with lust, Dominic drank her glorious essence and plunged at last into her mind.

  He groaned, ecstatic at the cool, green oasis of light that welcomed him. Her bright emotion was the clear spring water quenching his thirst, her soul the gentle wind that blew the filth from his own. He fell to his knees, sobbing as though witness to a miracle. In a way it was, for the oasis reached out for him . . . touched him.

  What are you doing?

  The shock of it brought him up sharply, reminded him of where he really was, what he was really doing. The beast all but tore him apart in its eagerness to have her. Know me!

  She did. She truly did.

  His control in tatters, he fell into her, every fiber of his being yearning to merge with her—body, mind, and soul—to drown in this ferocious ecstasy beyond measure.

  But the image of her in the sunlight dimmed as the shadows in the forest pushed in.

  No, wait, she called. I found you. Don’t go.

  Dominic blinked into a night heavy with storm and foreboding. He lay flat on his back, pinned down by a furious blood-drinker. Laughter bubbled in his chest, though whether from relief or hysteria he couldn’t say.

  Serge took a tight hold of the back of his neck and pulled him close. “Tear me to pieces, will you? Tell me, blood-child, what should I do with you then? Do you remember nothing of what I’ve taught you?”

  Dominic sobered. Cassidy’s blood . . . he could still taste its sweetness, smell it in the ozone-laden air. “Mon Dieu. What have I done?”

  Serge shoved him over and got up, but before he could touch her still body, Dominic rolled to her side. With gentle hands he turned her over and felt light-headed with relief when he found her breathing and her heart strong. In the physical contact, he sensed her mind welling with shadows, unconscious and confused, but very much alive.

  Her hair had come undone from its tie and the wind swathed her face in the silky mass. Brushing it aside, he tensed when he saw her face. Blood scent rose from her like steam off a pot, and when he saw why, he gritted his teeth. Though they were already healing, the puncture wounds on her throat still oozed.

  Serge, crouching across from him, sighed. “You are not ready to feed from one you want so desperately. Why did you?”

  Keeping his canines firmly sheathed, Dominic bent down and licked, cleaning and healing until only two tiny pink marks remained, obscured in the remnants of the bruise. When he lingered an instant too long, relishing her warmth, her nearness, Serge gripped his shoulder in unmistakable warning.

  He slapped the hold away. “At least I didn’t leave ugly damage.”

  Serge ignored the barb. “What did you see, blood-child? In her blood?”

  “Light,” Dominic said, not sure where else to begin. Also, somehow the experience felt far too private to share with the lunatic. Even if said lunatic had proved useful these past few nights by teaching him to feed without killing. Or trying to. While Dominic had learned to exert a measure of control over the beast, he still lost himself more often than not, and Serge ended up pulling him off his meal.

  “Of course you saw light. What else?” Serge scooted closer on all fours, eager now.

  Dominic growled deep in his throat. He wouldn’t put it past the old pirate to take advantage of his lingering confusion to make another attempt on Cassidy’s blood.

  Serge moved back half the distance he had advanced.

  “It doesn’t matter what I saw. What does it mean that she was aware of me? She saw me in her mind.” His voice dropped even lower. “She saw the beast in me.”

  Serge became still, a statue with curling hair drifting about his stony, pale face. The unblinking eyes cut straight through Dominic and into another reality.

  In spite of himself, Dominic felt a chill seep into his skin. “What do you know?”

  “You cannot compel her, can you? Not without her permission?” Serge read the answer in Dominic’s exasperated look. “No, no, of course you can’t.” Wringing his hands, he turned aside. “But of course. Of course. So clear now.”

  “The only thing clear is that you see nothing,” Dominic sneered. “Again.”

  He looked down at Cassidy. So vulnerable and yet so brave, her spirit was as gentle as it was hardened by fate and experience. Would his sister, Ana, have found such strength within her if he could have stopped her attackers in time? Could she have found it had she lived? The thought of her death didn’t overwhelm him with quite the ferocious power it usually did. That was past and done. This magical young woman whose very presence blunted so many horrors in his life, who was aware of his presence in her blood . . . she was the
present.

  He touched Cassidy’s forehead. A scene from her mind flickered through him with startling clarity. Snow under a deep blue sky. Wind whistling in jagged mountain peaks. Cassidy drudged through the drifts, anxious . . . calling his name.

  Ici, chèrie, he thought at her on impulse. Je suis ici. I am here.

  To his amazement, she calmed. Dominic always plundered the minds of those he killed. When he only sipped from the vein and the prey survived, he could still sense their thoughts and emotions afterward if he remained close, and he found them easier to compel then, too.

  Never had anyone heard his direct thoughts.

  Cassidy frowned. Her consciousness separated from the dream and wobbled toward the surface like a disoriented bubble.

  “I see it on your face, blood-child. She hears your thoughts,” Serge said in awed tones. “Rare that. Very, very rare.”

  “Speak sense.” Dominic’s frustrated hiss was obliterated by a rumble of thunder. “What does any of this mean?”

  Cassidy stirred. As her eyes fluttered open, Serge disappeared into the shadows blanketing the dune, but Dominic heard his delighted cackling—and the words that dropped a lump of ice into his gut.

  “It means what I told you from the beginning. She is your key. She unlocks you. She knows you.”

  Dominic tried to look casual and unconcerned as he gazed down at her, though his heart trembled at the notion that she would truly know what he had done.

  Cassidy blinked. “What . . . what happened?”

  What indeed? Keeping his face averted from the flashlight’s soft beam, he affected a cocky attitude. “I kissed you senseless, and you liked it.”

  The hoped-for retort didn’t materialize. She said nothing as she sat up. Confusion hovered around her like a shroud. “No. Not that.” Her eyes cast about, searching, and she whispered, “It felt so real.”

  “Ah, chérie. This is not the reaction I was trying for.”

  Cassidy gave a small, self-conscious laugh and gathered her hair back into a ponytail, refastening the tie with a twist of her wrist. “All right, all right, Casanova. I admit it. For a guy who doesn’t like girls that wasn’t—” She cleared her throat. Heat plumed in her cheeks. “Yeah, that wasn’t half bad.”

  “Only half?”

  Her reluctant smile was full of appreciation, melting the apprehension from his heart. But his hopes that the conversation would remain playful and flirty quickly faltered.

  “This is going to sound weird, but . . . I think I . . . dreamt something. Just now.” She paused, biting her lower lip in thought. “Was that just me? It felt like maybe . . . I don’t know.”

  The wise thing would have been to shrug and brush her questions aside. But the experience affected her deeply enough to risk mentioning it even though it was so improbable. In the perplexed hum of her mind, he sensed that if he dismissed her now, she would withdraw what little trust she granted him. And that, he knew, he could not endure.

  “What was this dream?”

  “That . . . I wasn’t alone.”

  Dominic sensed the gears of memory mesh behind her eyes. He watched and waited, tasting the ashes of death in his mouth.

  Encouraged by his silence, she added, “It was like being inside a cocoon of some sort. Very peaceful.”

  Small ripples of relief shivered through him. No, she wasn’t telling him everything, but there was no hint of fear. She knew him as no mortal ever had and lived to tell him so. And what would she recall later? How much of his true self had she seen or sensed? When would she know the first whispers of true terror of him? Not tonight. Please not tonight.

  Though he was going to tell her tonight—or at least some of where his journey into darkness began—but she had surprised him with her reaction, her own past, her request. She had surprised him with her kiss. She even surprised him when he fed.

  “You are a strange one,” he murmured. “I kiss you as you have never been kissed, and all you have to say about it is that it was . . . peaceful? I am eternally wounded.”

  A shy smile curved her full, soft mouth, and he ached to kiss her again. Just a kiss, just a touch, just a moment of that indescribable peace. He didn’t dare act on the impulse though. One near disaster was enough for tonight.

  “Um, yeah. About that.” She scrunched up her face. “Hate to tell you . . . friend . . . that didn’t feel all that platonic.”

  “It wasn’t,” he purred, throwing himself into this far safer topic with abandon.

  “So . . . you changed your mind about trying to seduce me then? But I thought . . . well, this would be so much easier if you were gay,” she finished, visibly deflating and radiating a confused mixture of disappointment and desire.

  “I appreciate beauty in all its forms,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “I take my pleasure where I find it.” This had been true of his life before, and it was true still. Only now his pleasures tended to cost lives.

  “You’re a strange man, Dominic,” she mused.

  “The strangest, ma amie.”

  Lightning split the roiling darkness, washing the beach in a series of blinding flashes. Cassidy leapt to her feet. “The storm. We need to get inside. C’mon.”

  Dominic’s eyes watered with pain from the momentary glare. By the time he regained his vision, she stood over him with the flashlight. “Any day now, Casanova.”

  Still preoccupied, Dominic let her lead the way back to the cottage. Serge trailed behind them, humming sea shanties. Fierce wind gusts barreled off the heaving water, carrying clouds of salty spray, moaning in the Australian pine and thrashing the seagrape shrubs. The storm promised to be powerful, a fair match to the turmoil in his heart and soul.

  But nothing compared to what waited for them back at the cottage.

  A small, white sports car sat in the crumbling driveway. A man in khaki shorts and a yellow polo shirt paced beside it, a cell phone pressed to his ear.

  Cassidy stopped in her tracks. “Oh, my God. Jackson.”

  Chapter 16

  This Dream

  The temptation to walk up to Jackson with an obscenely good-looking, scantily attired Frenchman in tow was almost more than Cassidy could resist. Much less enticing was the prospect of having to deal with Jackson’s inevitable reaction, whatever it might be. The less she had to discuss with him, the faster he would leave. She hoped.

  “Please stay out of sight and let me handle this. He’d never understand.”

  Dominic laughed quietly. “Ah chère, you wound me again.”

  “I couldn’t explain you if I talked all night.” Not to Jackson. Not with Dominic wearing nothing but a pair of gym pants, which left nothing to the imagination above the waist and mighty little below. Hell, right now she couldn’t even explain him to herself.

  “Cassidy? Is that you?” Jackson shouted over the rising wind. He sounded a shade away from outright panic.

  “Do me this favor, Dominic. As a friend,” she said. “I’ll send him away as quickly as I can.”

  Without waiting for a response, she jogged toward the cottage.

  “Cassidy. Thank God.” Jackson scooped her up, smothering the breath out of her with a massive hug, oblivious to the fact that she went stick stiff in his arms. “I was about to call 911.”

  “What are you doing here?” she squeaked, pushing at his chest until he let her go.

  “They upgraded this thing to a tropical storm an hour ago. You didn’t answer your phone or my texts. I had to make sure you’re all right.”

  His worry struck a small, guilty chord in her. Still furious with him for spying on her, she had not only ignored his calls and messages all day, she had turned off her ringer altogether. Plus there was the added preoccupation of learning self-defense skills from a half-naked, maybe-not-gay man . . .
who then kissed her senseless.

  “Right. Sorry,” she muttered. “I guess I didn’t hear my phone over all the noise on the beach.”

  Jackson glanced around. “What the hell are you doing out here anyway?”

  She cleared her throat. “Watching the storm come in over the ocean.”

  “What? Alone? At night?” He looked incredulous.

  “Yes. What of it?”

  “This is serious weather, Cass,” he said, tone terse. “You don’t go out for a stroll in it. Especially not by yourself in the middle of the night twenty fucking miles from nowhere.”

  “And surprise, surprise I’m perfectly fine anyway.” Physically anyway, she amended. “I’m going inside now to avoid getting hit by lightning. You should go.”

  When she tried to pass him, he grabbed her arm. “No, you’re obviously not fine. I know you, babe. This isn’t you. You’re not this stupid.”

  “Are you seriously calling me stupid now?” she flared.

  “What? No.” He let go of her and made a calming gesture that even in this low light looked forced. “Honestly, I’m only here because I was worried sick about you.”

  Thunder rumbled, rising over the roar of the surf like a mountain on the move. The low sound vibrated through her.

  “Well, you can stop worrying. As you can see, I survived my very dangerous nighttime expedition to the beach. Now you better go before this storm really hits.” And who knew what the hell else.

  Jackson scratched the back of his neck. “Actually, I think it’s time for you to come home with me. This storm’s building faster than they predicted. There’s no telling what it’ll be when it gets here. And this—” He indicated the cottage. “This may not . . .” He trailed off.