Dark Stranger The Dream

by I. T. Lucas

  "Would you?" she asked.

  "I don't know how." He turned away from her.

  "Have you never done it before?" Syssi gasped, incredulous.

  "It was so long ago, I forgot how." He sounded dejected.

  "So, you've been celibate? Did you take some kind of a vow? Joined a monastery?" Syssi was really curious.

  But then, as she thought more about it—

  Wait! What if he can't? What if he has a condition, and I'm making it so much worse for him?

  She felt guilty.

  With a sinister smile on his beautiful face, he dipped his head to look into her eyes. "No, silly girl, I didn't abstain, I had plenty of sex, just not the kind that qualifies as lovemaking," he said sarcastically.

  "Oh..." What was she supposed to say to that? Suspecting she knew the answer, she asked anyway. "What's the difference?"

  The way his expression turned predatory seemed familiar for some reason. Had they met before? She would have remembered him. Really not the kind of guy she could've ever forgotten.

  "One is the gentle lovey-dovey kind a girl like you likes, the kind you have with someone you care about. The other is just a fuck, rough and intense, so much so that it sometimes hurts. But you don't give a damn because it hurts so good. Not something a good girl like you knows anything about or wants." He gave her a haughty, condescending look.

  Oh no, he didn't... Who did he think he was?

  "How would you know? You know nothing about me," she protested. "Don't presume what I know or what I want."

  "Fair enough, although I'm in your head, so I should know. But I'll ask anyway; what do you want, Syssi?"

  Now, wasn't that the million dollar question. What did she want?

  Thinking, she bit down on her bottom lip and looked down at her feet, when out of nowhere a memory surfaced, flooding her with intense desire. She remembered being pressed against a wall, a man's hand fisting her hair, pulling just hard enough to provide the smidgen of pain that drove her wild. He was kissing her and grinding himself against her frantically. She was wet and needy and urged him to do more. But he withdrew, leaving her unsatisfied.

  It had been him! The same guy...

  Why couldn't she remember his name?

  Was it Cain? Kaen?

  "I remember you. You kissed me... it was exactly like you said... rough, intense, a little painful... It was an amazing kiss and I was desperate for more. But you stopped and left me hanging. Except, you looked as if you regretted letting me go. And I know that you cared." Wow, who was that woman that possessed her and spoke out of her mouth so blatantly?

  Cain, or whatever his name was, eyed her like a tasty treat, smiling and flashing his fangs. "So, you like a little pain with your pleasure, don't you, naughty girl?"

  Syssi paused to think. "I guess it's like sprinkling spice on a dish that is otherwise bland... I don't like bland food."

  Okay... saved by a metaphor; there was just no way she would spell it out for him.

  "That is something we have in common. I don't like bland food either."

  Was he mocking her? He didn't look like that was his intention. If possible, he looked even hungrier for her. And his blatant lust ignited a fire within her.

  Syssi felt herself grow wet, and dizzy, dimly aware that she'd never understood what swooning was all about before experiencing it herself.

  As her legs nearly went out from under her, he grabbed and held her in a tight embrace, then kissed her as he had done before; hungrily, possessively, turning her into a puddle of need.

  "I'll better finish what I've started then. It’d be very ungentlemanly of me to leave a lady hanging, won't you agree?" he whispered as he lowered her to the ground... laying her... on a bed?

  Oh, the wonders of dreamscape.

  Propped on his elbow, he loomed above her, looking into her eyes as his hand snaked under her shirt, finding her achy nipple and circling it slowly with his thumb.

  Syssi arched her back, her shirt and bra performing a magical disappearing act as she offered him more.

  Holding his eyes locked on hers, he dipped his head and took the offering in his lips, suckling gently as he moved his thumb to rim her other nipple.

  It felt amazing.

  Syssi was panting, her hips undulating, her juices flowing. More, she begged soundlessly, I need more.

  Answering her silent plea, his teeth closed on the bud he was suckling, and he applied gentle pressure while pinching the other between his thumb and forefinger. Looking at her with hooded eyes, he kept the pressure steady, then began gradually increasing it until it became too much...

  Syssi exploded, her climax rippling powerfully and shaking her whole body.

  Arching her hips up off the bed, she reached for Kian, trying to bring him down to cover her trembling body with his warmth and his strength, to connect.

  Kian, that was his name. She remembered it now.

  "Sh... it's okay." He resisted her pull, caressing and licking her tender nipples, easing the hurt away.

  As he lifted his head, the hard planes of his face looked softer, his gaze appreciative. Stroking her damp hair, he bent down and kissed her lips softly, sweetly. "You're a treasure, beautiful girl," he said, his features blurring, dissipating...

  "Wait! Don't go!" Syssi panicked. "Don't leave me alone... I want to give you pleasure too..."

  He was almost gone now...

  "You did give me pleasure, my Syssi..."

  Syssi woke up gasping, her face flushed, her body sweaty, her panties soaking wet...

  It had been just a dream.

  It hadn't been real.

  As a deep sense of loss and disappointment enveloped her, Syssi curled upon herself, hugging her knees. God, how she longed for her fantasy lover: The man from her dream.

  CHAPTER 23: KIAN

  Some time later, Kian woke up miserably cold and achingly hard. Apparently, he had fallen asleep on the lounger outside.

  It was one hell of a dream, he thought.

  The way she flew apart from so little...

  Only in your dreams, buddy... you're not that good, he chuckled.

  But it had felt so real...

  She had felt so real...

  So good.

  The girl was haunting him even in his dreams.

  He needed to get rid of this obsession with a girl he could never see again. If he wanted to retain a shred of self-respect and one untainted spot on his dark soul, he would stay away from her.

  Damn, sometimes it seemed that the cost of doing the right thing was too steep. Except, to succumb to his craving and take her would be the equivalent of a hit and run. Or rather a fuck and run.

  He had enough on his guilty conscience as it was.

  Hell, he had enough guilt to fill up a lake.

  Kian hung his head and let out a sigh, his breath misting in the cold air. If only Syssi weren't so sweet and naive, he would've taken her without a second thought and then forgotten about her the next day. But then, that sweetness and that naiveté were exactly what made her so irresistible to a man like him.

  A dark-souled killer.

  Heaven knew how many had breathed their last breath at his hands. And it didn't matter that he had killed only to protect his family. At first, he had nightmares, but with each kill part of his soul had shriveled and died, until ending a life left him indifferent.

  That dark void in his soul craved Syssi's light. Trouble was, the vacuum was so big it would devour her light and still hunger for more, long after depleting all she had to give and leaving her empty and broken.

  He couldn't do it.

  Syssi was a forbidden fruit.

  A fresh, sweet, succulent fruit.

  He'd better stick to the somewhat overripe, often even rotten variety he was used to. Not as tasty, but with less guilt attached.

  Except, a glance at his watch revealed it was four-twenty in the morning; too late to go prowling in bars or clubs.

  Resigned, he made his way inside, no
t looking forward to the cold shower he was about to take.

  CHAPTER 24: DALHU

  In the failed attempt to grab the professor, Dalhu had lost two out of the three men he had sent to retrieve her. And the worthless coward who had managed to escape the Guardians and come back to report the fiasco was still alive only because Dalhu was down to ten warriors including himself and couldn't afford to lose one more.

  He should've sent more men. Hell, he should've gone himself.

  If you want something done, do it yourself; as the saying went.

  Still, three men should've been more than enough to abduct one female.

  One very beautiful, immortal female...

  Dalhu lifted the framed article that his men had found at the programmer's home. Staring at the professor's stunning face, he commended the scientific journal's editor for choosing to dedicate most of the page to her beautiful image and only a few words to describe her research. Smart man.

  The fact that she'd autographed her picture with 'To my darling Mark', had tipped Dalhu that Dr. Dokani might be another immortal. A quick Internet search yielded only a few references to the little-known scientist and her specialized and not that popular field of study, proving that Dr. Amanda Dokani wasn't some famous celebrity. Which led Dalhu to believe that the woman must've been someone important to the guy. Otherwise, it made no sense that the programmer had valued the autographed article enough to frame it and place it on his desk, where he would have been staring at it whenever he'd sat down to work. And as the bastard had been gay, it sure as shit hadn't been his girlfriend or a case of infatuation with a pretty face.

  The professor had been family.

  And although the presence of Guardians at her lab had been a nasty surprise, it had served as proof positive that his hunch had been right. Dr. Dokani was an immortal female of Annani's clan.

  Fuck! He should have gone himself.

  As the bitter taste of failure soured his exuberant mood over yesterday's victory, Dalhu's face contorted in a nasty grimace. If he had better fighters at his disposal, she would have been in his possession now. But the inferior stock he had to work with had been no match for the superior warriors protecting her.

  Well, fuck it.

  It wasn't as if anyone else had ever succeeded in snatching one of the clan's females. Being such a priceless commodity, they were fiercely guarded by their males, and as they were also almost impossible to detect, none had ever been captured by the Order.

  Nonetheless, it felt like such a failure. A once in a lifetime opportunity squandered.

  Absconding with the professor would've been the ultimate coup...

  Fuck!

  Dalhu felt his anger gain momentum, bubbling up from the churning fire always on a low simmer in his gut. Damn it, he had to douse it before it exploded into a full-out rage, pushing logic and reason out, turning him into a mindless beast.

  With a curse, he slammed the seat cushion beside him, his fist tearing into the fabric. Taking several deep breaths, he fought the overwhelming urge to strike again.

  Breathe in through the nose, breathe out through the mouth, in and out… he counted to ten, focusing on his breathing as he made a deliberate effort to unclench his fists.

  Calm down, identify the problem, think of a solution. As he recited the three steps of anger management that he had learned from an Internet course, the red haze of rage began to recede and a semblance of logic returned. His mind was taking the slow road back to sanity.

  It didn't matter.

  As it was, this mission had turned out to be far more successful than he had expected it to be. What had begun as a simple retaliation strike, designed to cripple the Americans' progress in their war on weapons-of-mass-destruction in the hands of Navuh's protégés, had given the Order their first clan hit in centuries.

  Taking that immortal programmer out had been a sheer stroke of luck.

  It was Dalhu's triumph.

  His kill.

  It had happened on his watch.

  Dalhu's position in the Brotherhood of the Devout Order of Mortdh was about to get a serious boost.

  With smug satisfaction, he reclined on the elaborately carved sofa and propped his booted feet on the dainty coffee table. He could already taste Navuh's praise, even though it irked him that he was craving it from the lying, manipulative, son-of-a-bitch.

  Stretching his arms and lacing his fingers behind his head, Dalhu pushed out his chest, filling it with so much air it was a wonder his shirt buttons didn't pop. With the pendulum of his emotions back on the upswing, he was once again soaring on the wings of his success.

  Man, it felt good to be top dog.

  Taking a satisfied look at the elegant room he was in, Dalhu no longer felt like an interloper in all that opulence. The Beverly Hills mansion he had rented for this mission was spectacularly plush; Persian rugs in every room, impressive reproductions of famous art, and fake, dainty French antiques that were covered in miscellaneous shit. Definitely not the right scale for his massive body. But he liked it nonetheless. He could get used to that; a king of his own castle.

  It was a nice change from the training facilities and battlefields he was accustomed to. Regrettably, though, the lavish accommodations were temporary.

  Not that their current home-base was lacking in any way... If he could disregard the fucking lack of privacy, and that besides his clothes and his weapons nothing really belonged to him...

  Still, Navuh provided for his army of mercenaries well. They were well paid, well housed, well fed, and well fucked.

  The small tropical island, indistinct from the many other tiny land pieces scattered throughout the Indian Ocean, provided them with a perfect setup. Its thick jungle canopy hid the training grounds from view of passing aircrafts and satellites, and with their quarters as well as the rest of their facilities built underground, no one suspected that thousands of immortal warriors called it their home.

  Steep, rocky cliffs prevented approaching their side of the island by boat, and the jungle made landing an aircraft there near impossible. The only way in or out of their base was a secret tunnel road connecting it to the island's other side.

  The underground passage terminated in a small airport that was operated by mortals and served the men leaving for or returning from missions, as well as the oblivious tourists visiting the other side.

  Of course, for obvious reasons the mortal pilots were thralled within an inch of their lives, and Dalhu often wondered how safe flying with them really was.

  The planes shuttling people and cargo on and off the island had no windows, and apart from the pilots flying them, no one besides Navuh and his sons knew the island's exact location. The secret was safe with the flyers, though. The compulsion they were under was so strong that there was no chance in hell they would talk. No matter what was done to them.

  It was just the way it needed to be. For the island to serve its dual purposes, its location had to be extremely well guarded.

  Known to the select few as Passion-Island, the other side was home to a very exclusive and luxurious brothel. Young and beautiful prostitutes, junkies, and runaways were abducted from all over the world and brought to serve the rich, famous, and depraved… as well as Navuh's men.

  It was pure genius.

  Navuh made shitloads of money on the girls while providing an in-house brothel for his army's needs.

  Dalhu hated to admit it, but the-son-of-a-god was a brilliant businessman.

  To make the place the success it was, its money-generating assets were well taken care of. Good food, good medical care, supervised drug and alcohol use, plus careful monitoring, in all likelihood prolonged the girls' otherwise compromised life expectancy.

  But it was slavery nonetheless.

  The only alternative the girls had to prostitution was to serve as maids, waitresses, or cooks. The only way off the island was a one-way ticket to either heaven or hell, leaving their corporal bodies behind.

  Given the cho
ice between manual work and prostitution, most opted to work on their backs; lured by the nice private rooms and the patron gifts that paid for their drugs and their drinks and other small luxuries.

  The service personnel, on the other hand, got only the basics, worked twelve-hour shifts, six days a week, and slept four to a room.

  Between the illusion of having a choice, the promise of rewards, and the fear of punishment, the girls did their best to provide outstanding service, earning them a reputation for being the best money could buy.

  Navuh was a master at the art of motivation, or rather... manipulation.

  Come to think, the soldiers didn't fare much better than the whores. Probably worse, as their servitude was indefinite. The only way out was the same as the girls'. Except, final exit options for immortals were limited by the nature of their near indestructibility.

  The fastest way for a Doomer to die was to get blacklisted by Navuh and executed, either fighting to the death gladiator style, with a lethal dose of venom, or a beheading.

  Dalhu couldn't remember anyone actually choosing to end things that way. Although, over the years, he had witnessed enough pitiful bastards succumb to that fate.

  Hell, they all knew they lived or died at their Exalted Leader's whim.

  It was what it was. As long as they served Navuh well and kept their heads down, the soldiers had nothing to worry about. And nothing to show for it either...

  Looking back to his own nearly eight hundred years of service, it had been mainly room and board and the use of prostitutes that summed up the extent of his compensation.

  As he saw it, his rewards were the ones he had given himself. The things he had accomplished. The things he had learned. He had done it all without any guidance or help. Even literacy had been something he had accomplished on his own, teaching himself to read and write not that long ago.

  For most of his life, Dalhu had lived in ignorance.

  But not anymore.

  To most Doomers, the money they were paid for their services seemed great, but Dalhu was smarter than that. Although his account in the Order's bank held millions, he knew the amount was meaningless. He could never take it out.