He watched Asantra walk away with all the regal grace two thousand years in the ruling class of a god afforded. His gaze fell to the parchment lying on the table, and he reached for it.
The remaining passage was what consumed him.
Thus shall a mortal be bound to Grayel for all eternity, she with the elven skin and crimson mane who runs with him through dreams.
He sucked in a breath.
The dream bond with Lex Ann had been prophesied by the Fates themselves. His heart sped, and he strode to the fountain. Leaning over the bowl, he allowed a tight smile while he splashed crystal water on his face. They would be together. It was destined. No matter what family politics had bought, no matter how much his father bellowed, nothing could stand between the holy Grayel and she who ran with him through dreams.
Chapter Five
A mystery man came to Lexie’s dreams that night, but not the one she’d been hoping for.
She’d fallen into a troubled sleep after going through mindless motions like eating complimentary appetizers in the lobby, flipping television channels without paying the slightest attention, and pacing back and forth in her room. The shiny newness of her luxurious surroundings had worn off quickly, leaving her to contemplate just how freakishly stupid she’d been to come here. Her dream lover abandoned her the moment she’d left her apartment. Maybe even he saw how ridiculous she’d become. Still, the vision that came to her that night intrigued her.
Most believed dreams were just a manifestation of the subconscious, and people appearing in a dream were all just aspects of the dreamer’s personality. Lexie had truly believed the nights of passion she’d spent had been more than that, some sort of transcendental meditation that allowed her and her lover to find one another across the cosmos. If she’d been wrong, then the past six months had been nothing more than Lexie romancing herself into an island getaway. Weird, but possible.
The latest dream was equally weird.
Lexie was topless, lying on her stomach on a sensual black fur rug. She ran her hand through the thick pile over and over, enamored by the feel of it. A man sat cross-legged beside her, dressed in a fitted white shirt and tailored pants. He was barefoot, with beautiful ivory skin and blond, blue-eyed looks that were almost supernaturally sublime. While her mystery man had sometimes appeared to her with slightly different hair or obscure features, she knew this was not him. Yet this man felt as real to her as her lover did, as though she could reach her hand out and feel his bulk sitting on the mattress beside her.
Every now and then, the blond man would pluck off a piece of fruit and feed it to her. The grapes were huge, sweet beyond belief, and cold—nearly frozen. Frosted in grains of sugar, too. Heaven’s own bounty, they were so delectable. Yet, despite her full enjoyment of every bite and the contentment of stroking the black fur, Lexie’s dream self shed tears that fell onto the rug beneath her.
“I can’t keep on this way,” Lexie said to the man. “He left me, and the ocean is too big for me to swim in it alone.”
“Do not be afraid to follow your dreams,” he said. “You will find Love when you least expect to succeed.”
Her eyes popped open and focused on the bedside clock. Midnight. And she was wide awake.
With a quick stretch, she wandered to the bathroom and used the cut-glass drinking goblet to down two more allergy pills before checking out her reflection. The pills seemed to be helping quite a bit, though she wouldn’t be winning any modeling contracts for the effort. She snatched a hair pick off the marble vanity and plucked through the tumble of burgundy curls that had snarled rather unattractively in her sleep. She hadn’t bothered with makeup that day, so there’d been none to smear or take off. Her normally large cobalt blue eyes were squinting sleepily from amidst a pale, somewhat freckled complexion. Oh, well. It was what it was.
She wandered to her window, looking out into night. From this side of the hotel she couldn’t see the ocean. She had a cheaper “garden” view that was near nonexistent this hour of the night. Still, the moon was three-quarters bright and beckoned, and she suddenly wanted to be part of the beauty of the tropics. Though she’d wandered the magical grounds and sat by the front fountain for ages, Lex had been in paradise for over twenty-four hours without having truly lived any of it. And why not? So, her dream man hadn’t sailed up on his yacht to take her away. She only had two nights left. She could either sit in her room, pissed at herself for being chump enough to go bankrupt for nothing, or she could enjoy the living hell out of every moment. If nothing else, she would at least go back to her life with a bit of a tan and some good stories. The adventure started now. And who knew? Love will find you when you least expect to succeed.
Lexie glanced around the suite, wondering what she should do next. Her eyes fell on her bag and the several items poking out of it. Part of her swimsuit hung out of a zippered pocket, and a smile slid up the side of her face. The bikini had been bought just for the trip. It was dark brown with silver rings over the hips and beaded strings on the halter top. After trying on more than a dozen styles, this was the suit that had shown off her slim hips and large breasts to their best advantage.
She hadn’t nearly gotten her fill of the ocean since coming here, and the thought of eternal surf beneath the moonlight and sand between her toes sounded too good to be true.
She pulled a sundress on over the suit and grabbed one of the sheet-sized towels from the bathroom. Before heading out, she made sure her keycard was in her canvas tote. Despite the late hour, the resort was not devoid of activity. Several people passed by while she headed through the lobby and out the front doors. Once she’d crossed the lighted footbridge arched over a koi pond, she followed a winding path to the resort’s designated public beach. It hardly seemed public at the moment, since she was utterly alone. The rest of the guests were apparently more interested in the swimming pool on the other side of the hotel, the bars and restaurants, or their beds and private Jacuzzis. Sex and romance seemed to be the primary activities at this place, and anyone not seeking one or doing the other was just plain out of step with the line dance.
The surf hailed her as she stepped through the still-warm white sand that glittered with moonlight. Rolling and calling, pounding and pleading, the sea egged her on while she set down her towel and bag, then tugged the dress over her head and kicked off her flip-flops.
She’d only meant to have a walk along the shore, dipping her toes in the edge of the water while it flirted with her, then retreated. The water was so warm that she waded in ankle deep, then knee deep, and finally plunged under the white foam of rolling, chest-high waves. She’d grown up not far from the beach, and took to the ocean “like a fish to water,” her Gran used to say. She’d spent every summer ducking swells and bodysurfing from morning until dusk, and though this was an entirely different ocean, it still felt like a familiar old friend. Seawater this warm was a wonder to her, and it felt so good that the cares of the past few weeks seemed to slip under the waves, lost to the depths forever.
After what only seemed a short while of diving under incoming waves and bobbing gently up and down with the current, Lexie turned toward the shore and found it much smaller than she expected. How had she gotten this far out? Her eyes widened as she glanced around, twisting back to face the endless parade of incoming swells that required either floating over or swimming under. While she was a strong swimmer and not afraid of the sea, she clearly hadn’t been thinking about the big picture. It was now well after midnight, she was many yards out into an unfamiliar ocean, and she was completely alone. The torches and lighting on the shore were just dots from here, and if the moon weren’t so bright she’d be floating in total darkness right about now. In retrospect, this was probably not the wisest decision she could have made. Considering the growing number of unwise decisions forming ranks in her life over the past few months, that was saying something.
Fear swirled in her chest, pounding her pulse loud enough in her ears to hear even over the cons
tant grind of the surf. Stay calm, she told herself. She knew the drill. Aim for the shore, keep an eye on the waves behind, and let the swells push her in. Swim forward when they tried to suck her back. Yes. If she stayed calm and resorted to a lifetime of muscle memory, she’d be just fine.
Despite the warmth of the water she was treading, her teeth began to chatter in time to the shiver throughout her body. A swell came up and she relaxed into it, letting it push her closer to the beach where she would have stayed, had antihistamines and general insanity not short-circuited her brain. This wasn’t so bad. She would be back on land in a matter of minutes.
Just as the wave’s free ride ended and she was preparing to paddle closer to shore, something happened that threw her settling fear into a full, blind panic.
She felt something brush against her leg.
Not something small, like a piece of seaweed or some benign, multicolored tropical fish. This was big. And despite advice that always followed stories of these things happening, she did what she knew she shouldn’t do. She flailed and kicked out instinctively at whatever was trying to get her, then began screaming in bloodcurdling terror.
“Oh, God,” she shouted, crying over the surf and trying desperately to paddle over the next wave that came by. Parts of her would be all that was found, if she were lucky. She sucked in salt water and coughed, throwing her arms out in spasmodic jerks in front of her in a disjointed attempt to paddle away from certain death.
She was still flailing much too far from shore when the large something came back, this time tugging on her.
Her scream was drowned out by the wave that came down on top of her, but instead of being dragged under, she was raised up out of the surf as it bubbled chaotically past her toward the beach. The shark, sea monster, or whatever it was probably had her in its mouth and was breaching the surface one last time before plunging her to the inky depths forever. The odd thing was that it didn’t hurt. Yet.
She was still choking on seawater, her nose and eyes stinging from the salt burn, when the thing closed powerful jaws around her chest. She shriek-coughed, kicking out and trying to batter its jaws with her fists. It twisted around, taking her with it so she could no longer see the shoreline.
“Stop fighting me,” it said. The voice was a man’s.
Her coughing fit ended with a sharp gasp, and she glanced down to see that the jaws around her body were not jaws at all. They were arms. There was a momentary flood of the most indescribable relief, but the grateful sob bubbling up into her throat was immediately choked off by a new take on her situation. She was apparently not being eaten by a great white shark. She was being kidnapped by a strong, determined male.
The panicked screams and struggle began anew, only this time with her attempting to lean over and bite the forearms clamped across her chest. “Get off me,” she shouted. “Help!”
“I said stop fighting me.”
He let go enough to push her head underwater just as she was preparing to suck in a breath for another scream. She came up with a fresh round of coughing fits and burning eyes.
“You know,” he said, “you could show more gratitude when someone is trying to save you.”
“Save me?” she said, in between wet coughs. “You tried to drown me.”
“Just to stun you for a moment so you’d stop struggling. You’ll drag us both down.”
“Let go.”
She wrenched her body around and he released his grip. When she turned, the man regarding her with an almost amused expression nearly stole her breath. In fact, her as-yet-to-be-determined rescuer was ungodly gorgeous. His hair was dark enough to disappear into the backdrop of night, but equally dark eyes glimmered with some sort of burnished shine that glowed within their depths. It was an inhuman, unsettling glow that sent a shock of self-awareness through her. This man saw much, even while plunged into the sea in the middle of the night. The idea made her wish she were still alone. She’d rather take her chances with sea monsters.
Her teeth still chattered, and she had to force words past them. “I was perfectly fine. You might want to consider asking someone whether they need saving next time.”
The smile he flashed brought an automatic jump to her already erratic heartbeat. “Truly? You might want to consider asking why I felt you needed saving.”
Before she could reply, the ebony water around them shimmered, then illuminated with a crystalline clarity. She gaped at the spotlighted depths where sea life moved and churned just beneath them. There, moving in sleek circles, were two distinct, large shadows. Man-sized, shark-shaped shadows.
She cried out and flung herself back at the stranger, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Turn the light off. I don’t want to see.” She paused. “Wait. Maybe I do.” Her gaze flew back and forth, watching the two sharks make lazy passes around them from a mere half dozen feet away. “God, what are we going to do?”
“They keep their distance because of my presence. They will not harm you if you stay near me.”
The light extinguished, and she gasped. “Your light.”
She desperately did not want to see what was swirling around her long, very vulnerable legs, but she couldn’t stand not knowing where the creatures were, either. How could a resort charge as much as this place did and not have nets and full-time shark hunters keeping the beach from eating its guests?
She looked at the shore, and realized they were moving closer to it without him using his arms to paddle. They were locked around her waist. Waves no longer crashed over them, but swelled to their right and left. He’d found a spot between the crests, somehow, and they were moving smoothly through the surf. What an odd sensation.
Even with her limbs wrapped around the man, she’d feel better right now knowing that Jaws wasn’t tailing them to shore and possibly sprouting land legs on the way. “Can I use your flashlight thing?” she said.
“Flashlight?”
“Whatever that was that you shined in the water.” She thought about it for a moment, though her brainpower wasn’t exactly in full gear at the moment. “How did you make the water so clear for so far around us?”
“Special trick of the trade.”
She was still clinging to him when she felt his movements become erratic, bumpy. Glancing down, she saw he was upright and walking only shin-deep in water. She sucked in a deep breath.
“Oh, thank god.”
He smiled. “You’re welcome.”
Once he brought her out of the shark-infested waters, she noticed that the man’s body felt hot and his muscles rock-hard. She suddenly became aware of their close contact and minimal clothing, and felt far less grateful about being carried in his arms. “Okay. Put me down.”
He ignored her, and she kept shivering despite the warmth of the evening and his feverish skin. She wriggled in his arms. “Please. I am perfectly fine.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
With no courtesy whatsoever, he dropped her legs down. When she stood upright she took two steps, lost control of her rubbery legs, and stumbled backwards into her savior.
He growled into her ear. “You were saying about fine?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” She turned and grabbed hold of his shoulders for support.
“You expended a great deal of energy and adrenaline out there. Your limbs will need a short rest to adjust.”
She let out a little yelp when he plucked her up again and carried her to where her belongings still sat. Lexie had to admit his strength was impressive. He swam out to her, fought her resistance, pulled both of them through the surf, and now still carried her as though her weight was of no consequence.
He crouched and laid her down on the large towel she’d spread out before taking her incredibly stupid swim. Long strands of his jet-black hair dripped water onto her face and chest while he pulled his arms out from beneath her. He lingered there, hovering with the turbulent flame in his eyes searing through her. His very skin seemed to radiate
sexuality, as though every bead of salt water rippling down his bronzed flesh were in fact a potent aphrodisiac. The energy she felt from him flooded her with thoughts having nothing to do with her near-death experience.
She swallowed, casting her eyes downward to where his electric stare was raking over her. She glimpsed her inconveniently erect nipples and the bikini bottom that had slid down far enough to barely expose the top of her reddish curls. At least his bulky upper chest blocked enough moonlight to help obscure the view. With her luck, he could have had his blaring spotlight trained on her erogenous zones.
She glanced around him at the thought. Where was that thing, anyway? Then it dawned on her. He must have had to sacrifice it to get her to shore.
“Oh! You lost your underwater light. I’m so sorry.”
“I have more.”
“Are you some sort of explorer, then? Working the resort?”
He seemed to consider this for a moment and flashed another five-alarm grin. “Most definitely.”
“What kind of light was it? I should offer to replace it, at least, since you lost it while saving me.”
He shook his head and moved back to kneel on the sand beside her. She felt an odd flicker of disappointment that he had put distance between them. “I’ve lost nothing.”
“How did you happen to be out there, anyway?” She strained to remember, but she was certain she hadn’t seen anyone. Certainly not someone carrying a blinding beacon of light. “You weren’t out for a swim, too, were you?”
He shook his head. “I saw your peril and came to help. Though you seemed to misread my motives.”
The eyes glittered, and his expression read amusement. She scowled. How nice that her almost-fatal swim was proving to be so entertaining for him. And she’d had peril? Who the hell talked like that?
Allister, J. Rose - Immortal Menage [Immortal Paradise 4] (Siren Publishing PolyAmour) Page 4
