The uplands were cool and moist, strange to her. Trees grew straight out of the cliffs so thick that the rocks could barely be seen. Even in her sturdy hunting boots and leggings, Natalia slipped and slid, cut her hands through her gloves. Exercises that kept a lady trim were not good training for climbing through mountains. The gamekeeper, Bahl, was patient with her, but she could see he worried.
Ahead of her Bahl stopped suddenly. The trail he’d been breaking the last day or so ceased abruptly at the edge of a gorge. The gorge spanned at least 1,000 feet and dropped to a misty river far below.
Bahl wiped his forehead. “We’ll have to turn back, my lady. We don’t have enough supplies to go much further, only enough to get back to our transport.”
“You can go,” Natalia said, sitting on a boulder. “Leave me here.”
He looked alarmed. “No, my lady. Your mother would kill me.”
Natalia sighed. “I suppose she would. And it would be my fault. The gods save me from my keen sense of responsibility.”
Bahl patted her shoulder in compassion. “Not everyone’s path is easy.”
“Especially a gamekeeper’s whose mistress wants to go on damn fool expeditions.” She gave Bahl a tired smile. She wondered why she thought she could find Ochen. It had taken Delia’s two hunters years to find him, and he’d be doubly careful now.
“Don’t worry,” she said, an emptiness inside her. “We’ll go back.”
She stood up to turn around, and slipped on mud that sent her plunging to the edge of the gorge. Bahl grabbed at her and missed, his face terrified. Natalia scrambled for a hold then felt herself being lifted in strong, bare arms.
Her feet left the ground and she rose, high, higher still, to the very tops of the trees. Bahl grabbed a rifle and pointed it skywards, but didn’t fire.
Ochen deposited Natalia on a huge platform in the trees, held by strong boughs around a mighty trunk. She whirled around and stared at him, shocked and out of breath.
Ochen’s face and body were completely healed. He looked as gorgeous and whole as he had when he lay on top of her in her dream, and he was wearing just as little. The dream had been but a taste of the real Ochen. This was his solid, beautiful flesh.
But he was glaring at her, not looking pleased to see her. “What are you doing here? Having a society outing?”
“Not . . . Not exactly.”
“You were hunting a Dream Catcher.”
“I was looking for you.”
Ochen stopped. He studied her, his silver eyes regarding her in suspicion. It unnerved her.
“I didn’t know you could fly,” she said.
“I can do many things.” He looked her up and down, and she knew she didn’t look half as good as he did. She was sunburned, bug-bitten, scratched, sweat-stained and worn out.
“Were you looking to relive your fantasy?” he asked.
“No,” she said tartly. “I came to ask why you haven’t come back. I remember you promising you’d come to me.”
“I did,” he said. He folded his arms, which did nice things to his shoulders and biceps. “I went to you, and you weren’t there.”
“Because I was here. Didn’t you know?”
“You didn’t leave a note.”
“But I thought...” She stopped and rubbed a hand through her dirt-streaked hair. “You would know where I was.”
“It doesn’t work that way, Natalia. I read your fantasies and your dreams, yes, but I have to be within a certain range. I knew where you lived, but didn’t know where you’d gone.”
“Well, I’m here now.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to be with you.” She got to her feet, trying to adjust to the fact that she was hundreds of feet off the ground-in a tree. “I got tired of waiting.”
“You didn’t wait very long.”
Natalia jabbed her finger into his chest. “That’s not true. I’ve waited all my life. I’ve waited for someone who saw me, the real me, and didn’t find me disgusting.”
He stared at her. “How could anyone find you disgusting?”
“They do, my love. They think of you as a wild animal with no soul, but they see me as little better. I like emotion and feeling and desire. Ergo, there must be something wrong with me.”
“No, there is something wrong with them.”
Natalia brushed herself off and looked around the platform which, she realized, was built of woven, living tree limbs. For someone raised in the dead desert, the idea of plants having this much strength was decidedly odd.
“Well, I didn’t come here to fall at your feet and beg you to take me in,” Natalia said. “I just wanted to see you. To find out if you’d healed. To properly say goodbye.”
He closed his large hand around her arm. He didn’t hurt her, but the grip was so firm she knew she’d never break it. “Why should we say goodbye?”
“You’re a Dream Catcher, I’m a city woman.” She tried to sound uncaring. “Although all this is beautiful.”
“And it’s mine.”
“You own the tree?”
He laughed, his velvety, throaty laugh. He released her and gestured to the end of the platform. “Everything you see from here is mine. This is my realm.”
Natalia peeped over the edge, dizzy from the height. She noted that no railing ran around the platform. No need, for a being who could fly. Between the boughs, she saw a carpet of forest that ran on endlessly. Mist from the gorge rose in the middle of it.
“My family lives here too,” he said, his warmth at her back. “Sisters, brothers, cousins.”
“Do they fly, too?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter.” Ochen closed his arms around her waist. “I will hold you and not let you fall.”
Natalia looked into his silver eyes. She felt herself caught, as she had in Delia’s ballroom, as though his eyes swallowed her. She blinked. “No. I don’t want the fantasy. I want you.” She had a panicked thought. “This isn’t a dream, is it? I’m not hanging on the edge of the gorge unconscious, am I?”
Ochen flicked his fingers over her cheek. “You’d be cleaner in a fantasy.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“But I like you this way.” Ochen kissed the end of her nose. “Stay with me, Natalia.” His expression darkened. “Please.”
“For now,” she whispered.
He snatched her up in his arms and leaped from the platform. A wash of cold air robbed her of a scream, and then they were on another platform, smaller and higher, again made of living branches. This one had a bed, or at least a pallet of fresh leaves. The garlands Delia had brought in for her soiree paled in comparison to this living bed. Ochen laid her down on it.
“What am I, Queen of the forest?” she asked.
In answer, he pulled off her boots, unlaced her leggings and tunic and tugged them off. Natalia instinctively grabbed at the fabric. She shouldn’t be unclothed outdoors. She shouldn’t be unclothed in front of another person. High-born ladies were never naked in front of anyone from two seconds after they were born until . . . well, never. Even bathing was done in absolute, strict privacy.
Ochen plucked a leaf from a nearby branch, held it between his hands, then rubbed it over her skin. She started to ask what he was doing, but she saw that her scratches, her insect bites and the swelling in her hands faded and disappeared. He was healing her.
“Is this how you healed yourself?” she asked.
He nodded. “My brother had to charge the leaves for me, but yes.”
“I’m surprised Dream Catchers aren’t captured for that skill instead.”
“It only works with the leaves from one of the Dream Catcher’s own trees. How long do you think it would be before the trees were harvested and the Dream Catchers imprisoned?”
“Not long.”
“Your kind has their medicines of their own making. We have our leaves.”
“I’m just surprised no one know
s about it.”
“They only see us as bringing their fantasies to life,” Ochen said. “They’ve so closed themselves off to joy and pleasure that they can only see us as a way to live their dreams. That is more important than healing to them.”
Natalia looked at her clean skin. “Thank you.”
Ochen pushed her back into the pallet. The leaves were soft, fragrant, embracing. Ochen nuzzled her, his kisses lazy.
Natalia moved one bare foot along his leg, loving the sensation of his firm muscles. His kisses turned intense, bruising.
“Please stay with me,” he whispered.
“You are very demanding. My guide must be worried about what happened to me.”
“I sent one of my brothers to explain and make him comfortable.”
“Very civil of you.”
His smile returned. “Do you want more persuasion?”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
Fire shot up and down her limbs as he dropped kisses onto her mouth, her throat, her breasts. She moaned, arching to him, wanting him.
He pulled off his loincloth, and now there was nothing between them. Skin met skin, body met body, for the first time in Natalia’s life.
Ochen’s silver eyes were intense, watching her. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t.” Natalia had been to the clinic, had her maidenhead removed when she went through her coming of age ceremony. Not that anyone ever expected her to actually have intercourse.
“I don’t ever want to hurt you.” Ochen closed his beautiful eyes, and suddenly, she was filled with him, his large arousal spreading her wide, making her catch her breath.
“All right?” he murmured.
“Very, very all right,” Natalie tried to say. It came out garbled.
He still looked concerned, so she grabbed his face between her hands and kissed him hard. His face relaxed in passion, and he began to move, slowly, inside her.
This was desire. This was lovemaking. At last, at long last.
Natalia drew a breath, then her body went tight and hot, his hard, blunt arousal pressing inside her. “Ochen. I’m going to ... I don’t know. Fly apart.”
“Let it happen.” His eyelids were heavy. “Let it happen, my love.”
Natalia wasn’t sure what would happen, but black waves of sensation suddenly swamped her. She twisted and writhed, sobbing his name, her nails scrabbling for purchase on his back.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Yes, love.”
They climaxed together. She’d read of climax, but the scientific description fell flat. This was joy, love, power, strength. Ecstasy. It was better than she’d ever imagined it could be.
She landed on her back, Ochen heavy on top of her. His laughing mouth met hers, and they kissed and rocked and laughed some more.
“Stay with me,” Ochen said when they quieted again. “I love you, Natalia.”
“Yes.” Natalia smiled up at him, the man who had showed her passion without judging her. He’d seen her innermost fantasies, her hopes and dreams, and they pleased him. “Do you know what my fantasy is now?”
Ochen let his gaze bore into hers. Natalia felt herself spinning, but she knew she lay under him safe and sound.
“You are naughty,” he said, his smile wicked.
“Only with you.”
“Yes, I know. Your fantasy is to stay with me and make love with me always.”
“Pretty much.”
“Then stay. Do not go back to that empty world.”
Natalia looked around at the strange, green, living place that seemed to match Ochen. “I’ll have to tell my mother, and pack a few things. But yes, I’ll stay.”
He nuzzled her neck. “What changed your mind? Our love-making?”
“My mother always told me that, when I found my heart’s desire, I should hold it with both hands.” Natalia gripped Ochen’s shoulders. “So I am.”
Ochen took her hand in his and kissed it. “Your mother is very wise.”
“She is.” Natalia gave him a lazy smile. “I always listen to her.”
Author Biographies
Allyson James
Author of the Dragon series and erotic romances, she writes as USA Today bestselling and RITA award-winning author Jennifer Ashley.
allysonjames.com
Constable & Robinson Ltd
3 The Lanchesters 162 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 9ER www.constablerobinson.com
First published in the UK by Robinson, an imprint of Constable & Robinson, 2009
“The Dream Catcher” © by Jennifer Ashley. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.
The right of Trisha Telep to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
UK ISBN 978-1-84529-941-5
First published in the United States in 2009 by Running Press Book Publishers
All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher.
US Library of Congress number: 2008942197 US ISBN 978-7624-3651-4
Running Press Book Publishers
2300 Chestnut Street Philadelphia, PA 19103-4371
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