Sergius focused on his bowl and took a large bite. The flavors exploded onto his tongue, and he groaned in appreciation. When he looked up, she was grinning from ear-to-ear at him. He liked the sight.
“Do you like it?” she asked.
Sergius shook his head. “Like is an understatement,” he said. “This is fantastic.”
Jade quietly ate and would smile every so often when he gave a groan of appreciation. He’d never seen someone be so happy from watching someone else eat, but then, he didn’t really know much about the normal human world of dating.
“Where did you learn to cook like this?” he asked.
He set his empty bowl on the table and drank a bit of his beer while he watched her.
Jade shook her head.
He wanted to see some of the joy he had seen before, but it vanished. He suppressed a wince.
Had he said something wrong? He couldn’t figure out how she’d interpret it as anything but a compliment.
“I had to learn,” she said. “Someone had to cook in the house, and there is no way I was counting on my father for that.”
She sighed loudly and looked over to him. Her sad expression pained Sergius.
For all his differences from normal humans, her problem was something he could understand all too well. He and his fellow hybrids had been robbed of their childhood by the Horatius Group, but it seemed like they weren’t the only ones who missed out on a childhood.
“I just started buying things that were cheap and easy to cook,” she said. “The more I cooked, the better I got. It was the one thing I had no problem working towards. It’s nice to have a clear goal, you know?”
Sergius frowned. “What about your parents?”
Jade’s eyes glassed over slightly, and she looked up to the ceiling.
“My mom split when I was a kid, and my dad, well,” she said and shook her head. “My dad was never someone I could count on.”
He reached out and took hold of her hand. He had to do something to make her feel better.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to bring up something so painful.”
“No, it’s fine,” she said. “It was a long time ago.”
Sergius doubted she was actually fine, but he could tell she didn’t really want to pursue the conversation, and he didn’t want to make her more uncomfortable.
“I think I should probably go,” she said and stood. Without another word, she took several steps away from the couch.
He stood and moved toward her. “Why?”
She backed up to the door. “I just think it’s for the best. I don’t want to make the same mistake as last night.”
He frowned, not understanding what she was talking about.
“Last night?”
Her eyes flicked down to his lips and then back up to his eyes again.
“I almost crossed the line yesterday,” she said. “I shouldn’t have tried to kiss you. I… don’t even know why I did that. It was silly. I guess I was just overwhelmed by everything that happened yesterday.”
She thought he was mad at her. How could she ever think that? There was no way he could ever feel that way about her.
He stepped forward, pressed his body into hers, and leaned in.
“I’m sorry that you didn’t kiss me,” he rumbled against her ear.
His cheek barely scraped against her face, and he felt her shiver. Sergius brushed his lips against hers and listened to the short burst of air they came out.
His kiss was soft. He didn’t want to overwhelm her. But damn did he want to taste her.
Part of last night’s dream floated to his mind as he did. No matter how real it felt, it was no substitute for them actually sharing a bed together.
He bit back a growl, arousal flaring in him and his cock hardening.
No. This wasn’t a dream; this was real life, and he needed to be careful to not destroy his progress with Jade.
She moaned as he pressed in against her. She wound her arms around his neck.
Sergius didn’t want to intimidate her, especially now that she seemed willing to give into their attraction. Baby steps. That was what they should be taking: baby steps.
He pulled his mouth off of hers and stared down at her. Her glazed green eyes stared back up to him, and he smiled.
“Thank you for dinner, Jade,” he said softly.
She nodded and unwrapped her arms from behind his back. “You’re welcome, Sergius.”
Jade stepped out of his embrace and opened the door. She walked into the evening and smiled. It was a good baby step in his opinion.
Chapter Seven
Jade knew one thing about tonight. This was the best. Dream. Ever.
Sergius fingers thrust deep inside of Jade as she straddled his body.
She shook as he stroked her. His long, thick fingers reached points of her she never even knew existed. His hot mouth sucked on her nipples. She moaned loudly, the pleasure pulsing through her body.
Jade was a little surprised at herself, even if it was just a dream. She didn’t have much experience with men. She was surprised by the things she had thought of Sergius to do to her.
After all, that’s how dreams worked. They were supposed to be just reflections of your own mind, but, in this case, the figment of her imagination had a mind of his own, a mind filled with thoughts on how to make her scream in delight.
She’d thought that when you knew you were in a dream, you could control it directly, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Given how much she was enjoying herself, she didn’t really care.
She looked down at his hot body. Sweat glistened on his chest, and she ran her fingers over the hard muscles there.
With a man like that for inspiration, it wasn’t all that hard for her to think of things to do. Maybe just thinking about it would make her dream Sergius do it.
He wiggled his fingers inside of her, and she shivered again. Her orgasm was just moments away, the pressure building in her center.
“More,” she cried.
He stroked her faster. Her center throbbed as juices flowed out.
The muscles in her center began to tremble. She placed her hands on his chest and scraped her nailed along her. She brought her fingers up to his shoulders and dug her nails in.
His hard cock twitched against the inside of her thigh. The feel of him there, so close to where she wanted him to be, made her ache for him to be inside.
She wanted him, not just in a dream, but also in real life. She was still uncertain about everything, but he seemed to be interested.
She wanted a lot more than a little kissing. A hell of a lot more.
Right now though, the dream was all she had to keep her going.
His thumb ground against her clit. Her insides unraveled at his ministrations. She clenched hard against his fingers and shouted as she came.
She grunted in annoyance as he pulled his fingers out. She wanted to feel him inside her as she let the waves of her orgasm ride out.
Jade gasped as he slammed his cock into her, his thick shaft pushing deep inside. She shuddered over him and pushed herself down on him until she’d taken all of him inside her and rhythmically clenched him.
Dream? She’d never felt this good in real life having sex. She’d never even had a dream that felt and seemed as real as the one she was having, nor one where she’d been so aware.
There was no strangeness, no bizarre backgrounds. The sensations she felt from the smell of his musk to the mixture of pain and pleasure in her center felt as real as anything she’d ever experienced awake.
She wanted to laugh. Even in a dream, she realized a man like Sergius wouldn’t be small. Nothing about him was normal, even compared to other hybrids. Extra-large defined him.
His fingers gripped her hips as he moved her slowly up and down. Jade moaned as he reached deep inside her.
Uninhibited by the embarrassment that came with reality, she leaned forward and placed her mouth against his ear.
“I’ve ached for you,” she said against his ear. His fingers tightened on her waist, and she liked knowing that he wanted to hear what she said.
She nibbled on his ear and was rewarded with a deep, hard thrust.
“Everything about you excites me,” she whispered again. Her tongue twirled along the edge of his ear. “There’s something about you, Sergius. Something that makes me want you.”
He hammered into her now, his hips slapping hard against her. She wound her arms around his neck and held on as he pumped into her again and again.
She loved the feel of their hot sticky bodies pressed against one another, and even more when his arms came up and wrapped around her back to press them even closer together.
He was so deep inside of her she could feel him push against her cervix as he pushed all the way in. The tremble of another release overtook her. Her toes curled as she crested over the edge of ecstasy.
With one forceful thrust, he came deep inside of her, drawing out her own orgasm. Waves upon waves rolled over her as she came down from the bliss.
“I wish I could say all this to you in real life,” she said and laid her head against his chest. Her fingers trailed along his chest as she spoke. “I wish I could tell you just how much I want to be with you.”
His arms stiffened around her, and she sat up to look down on him. Sergius stared up at her. His face was covered with both confusion and surprise.
Jade shook her head. She didn’t really understand what was going on in the dream. She rolled off him and onto the bed, not certain she really wanted to know what the dream was trying to tell her.
Sometimes the fantasy just had to remain a fantasy, no matter how much you wanted it otherwise.
“Jade?” Sergius said.
She glanced over her shoulder at Sergius and frowned.
A smoky haze drifted between them. She wrinkled her nose at the sight of it. More smoke filled the room around them, black and thick. The surroundings disappeared around them.
She jumped when Sergius tried to reach through the gray haze to her. His hand missed her. He leapt forward, panic on his face.
“Jade!” he shouted.
His shout seemed to come from the end of a great hallway. The more smoke that filled the room, the farther away he got.
She didn’t know what was happening, but the dark black smoke continued to fill the room until it was just her standing in the darkness.
So much for sexy dreams.
She looked down and found she was wearing the same flower pink pajamas she had been wearing before when she went to bed. All signs of Sergius were now gone.
She’d never been to this place before, in her dreams or awake, this dark black smoke-filled room. It definitely didn’t seem like it was going to provide the same fun she’d just been experiencing.
Something moved to the side of her. Her heart pounded.
She turned and peered into the darkness, hoping that it might be Sergius. Maybe she’d conjured him to help her through whatever this was. Something moved on the other side.
This room was trying to freak her out. Whatever was in there didn’t make her feel safe or calm. She swallowed, and her heart raced.
Whatever was moving in the room rushed by her. She peered into the darkness but couldn’t make anything out.
Pain zipped through her arm, and Jade looked down to find blood running from a deep scratch there. The metallic scent of her blood permeated the smoky room. She choked on the strong smell.
Something laughed from the other side of the room; a deep, booming painful sort of laugh. It made her ears ring at the evil sound.
Damn it. Why was she being forced through this in a dream?
Jade shook; something evil was in the room with her. She was trapped in a smoky room from hell, and she had no way out of it. No one would even know that she was trapped in the cell.
The world around her shifted, and the black smoke began to clear slightly. An opening formed in the black haze, and she could make out colors in the distance, as if she were looking through a Coke bottle.
The hole began to focus, and she could make out an old chicken coop the hybrid community used. She saw Dea standing among the chickens, the very woman who had spent the past few weeks giving her a hard time and whispering to anyone that would listen that she didn’t want Jade there.
Her heart thumped hard in her chest. She might not like Dea, but she didn’t want to see anything happen to her, even in a dream.
That’s what it had to be. Just a dream. At least, that’s what Jade kept telling herself, but it seemed so real, felt so real.
Darkness moved in the forest beyond Dea. Jade called out to her hoping that she might be able to do something.
Dea looked around, and Jade wondered if she might’ve heard her.
The darkness in the forest moved closer and closer. Jade cried out again.
The hybrid woman gasped and breathed in deeply. She frowned a little as she picked up a scent.
Jade knew that she was looking for her, but instead she’d found something different something much worse.
“Leave her alone!” Jade shouted at the dark shadow.
The image broke up in front of her as she tried to step forward to do something.
Dea let out a piercing scream. The scream went on and on. It took a moment before Jade realized that the scream was her own.
She jerked away and sat up in her sheets, covered in sweat and breathing hard, her throat sore from screaming.
Whatever that was had gone for Dea.
She took a deep breath. Just a dream, she reminded herself. It was just a dream.
She looked over to her right arm and gasped.
A jagged gash ran down her arm, just like in the dream. Blood drenched her sheets.
What the hell? Was it a dream or reality? Both?
She jumped when Sergius burst into her bedroom, his blue eyes blazing and cutting through the darkness
“Are you okay?” he asked in a hurry.
Jade didn’t know why he was there but was glad to see him. She threw the covers off her body and stepped out of the bed.
She didn’t completely know what was going on, but after the earlier vision, she could no longer ignore the truth.
“Dea is in trouble,” she said quickly. “We need to get to the chicken coop.”
Chapter Eight
His heart hammered in his chest as they ran to the chicken coop.
There was so much he didn’t understand. He’d thought he’d just been having a dream, but it was clear to him now that he’d been in Jade’s dream, or maybe she’d been in his. He couldn’t be sure.
Sergius didn’t know what had happened or why he had been in her dream, but he did know that whatever darkness had over taken them was now stalking Dea. If that was the case, then they had a lot to worry about.
The scent of blood filled the air the closer they got. It was hard to tell if the creature was still around, but the smell made him gag.
They rounded the corner. Splatters of blood covered the chicken coop.
“Oh God,” Jade said quietly, holding a hand over his mouth.
He sniffed the air and shook his head. “It’s not hers.” He moved forward.
Jade found Dea lying among the dead chickens on the ground, her body limp and slightly bruised.
Sergius watched Jade from the corner of his eye, and he knelt next to Julia. In the dream, Jade hadn’t known what the evil was now surrounding them.
He could see the fear in her face as she looked into the darkened tree line, and he knew that she was just as worried as he was.
He scooped Dea into his arms, and they made their way to the meeting house. Rem, along with Magnus and Marcus, met them just as they were stepping up to the house.
“What the hell happened to her?” Rem said, a faint frown on his face.
Marcus looked between Dea and Jade suspiciously.
Jade glanced over at Sergius, her face pale.
“It’s difficult to explain,” Sergius offered.
“Let’s get them inside,” Rem said quietly. He looked around into the darkness and then back at their group. Sergius wondered if Rem was more in the know than he had thought. “I think we better look at doing doubles for patrol from now on.” He turned to Magnus. “Sweep the perimeter, just to be sure.”
Magnus nodded and hurried off.
“There’s an odd smell to her,” Marcus said. He nodded to Dea.
Sergius had been so distracted by the scent of blood that he hadn’t even noticed the odd scent coming off Dea.
They placed her on one of the couches in the meeting room. Jenna raced in then with a glass of water.
“How is she?”
Jenna squatted down beside the woman on the couch and placed her fingers to the other woman’s face. She shifted after a second, possibly to relieve some pressure off her pregnancy bump.
“Looks like she just passed out,” Rem said. He looked over to Jade. “Did you see what happened?”
Sergius watched as Jade opened her mouth to speak but stopped as she stared down at Dea. He turned and watched as the woman’s eyes shot open, and she stared at them wide-eyed.
“He’s here,” she said and struggled to sit up. Jenna placed a hand on her arm to hold her down.
Jenna leaned in a little and spoke softly so the other woman would feel comfortable. “Who’s here?”
“I don’t know. But he wanted her.” Dea pointed over at Jade. Her hands trembled.
All eyes turned to Jade.
“But, I don’t—” she began.
“He wants you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Dea burst into loud, harsh sobs.
Rem glanced over at Sergius, who offered Rem a nod but otherwise kept his attention focused on Jade and Dea.
Jade stepped over to where she was in front of the woman.
“It’s okay,” Jade said softly. She ran her hand soothingly across Dea’s forehead until the woman closed her eyes.
She stood back up. Sergius stepped forward and was glad when she used his weight to steady her own tired body.
Sergius: #4 (Luna Lodge: Hunters of Atlas) Page 4
