by Anna, Vivi
Eden rushed across the rooftop to the door that led to the levels below. When she wrapped her hand around the metal handle and tugged, she realized that her injured hand didn’t hurt anymore. Her throat constricted as she stared down at her hand. Unraveling the cloth, Eden took in slow, measured breaths. She wasn’t prepared for what she saw. Or didn’t see.
The black burn had completely vanished. Her palm appeared pink like new skin.
Flexing her fingers, Eden recalled Lilith’s words on the phone. She had talked about demons and evil, but what she had failed to mention was the other side.
Chapter Six
Eden didn’t sleep much that night. Her dreams were filled with smoke-blowing demons and wolves with startling, pale eyes. And a man so perfect and pale she thought she’d go mad with wanting him.
Eden Swain.
Her name echoed between the buildings, joined by thousands of soft voices murmuring, as if every leaf on every tree was calling to her.
Eden Swain, Eden Swain. Over here, Eden Swain.
Eden looked around. She was no longer in the city but in a forest filled with towering trees and a heavy mist.
A shadow crossed her path.
“What do you want?” she called, spinning toward it, only to feel as if the shadow was behind her and not in front of her. “Where are you?”
I’m here. Come to me, Eden.
“Why should I listen to you?”
There is only one way to save your soul.
A white wolf appeared, the biggest wolf she’d ever seen. Its eyes glowed in the moonlight. Its teeth were bared but it wasn’t growling. No, an animal growled out of fear. This animal wasn’t fearful; it looked hungry, and if Eden wasn’t mistaken, she was going to be supper.
Eden’s hands flew to her waist where her gun should have been holstered. It wasn’t there. Looking down at herself, she saw that she wasn’t dressed in her usual street clothes—she was wearing some billowing white gown, the kind of thing a Victorian virgin would wear on her wedding night.
The kind of thing that was impossible to run in.
But Eden had no choice. Without a weapon her only chance for survival was to run. She turned and fled, racing through the forest, dodging trees and jumping over fallen logs. The stupid nightgown she wore got caught on bushes and branches that tugged on her like tiny malevolent hands, tearing the fabric, making her stumble.
At first she could hear the animal’s loping strides behind her, but panic and exertion deafened her senses so that the only sounds she heard were her own panting breath and the pounding of her heart. She dared to glance behind her—a mistake because she didn’t see the root until after her toe got caught. She fell so hard the air got knocked out of her and she writhed on the ground, gasping to get it back.
When she was able to breathe again, she jumped to her feet, crouching in a defensive position, prepared for the inevitable attack, but the animal was gone. There was nothing there. The forest was silent.
Eden turned three hundred and sixty degrees, searching and listening for any telltale sign. Thank God. She leaned against the nearest tree, closed her eyes, and focused on slowing her breathing and her heart rate.
When she opened her eyes, he was there. Not the wolf, no. The pale man. Naked and glorious. He approached her with silent footfalls, his pale eyes glowing in the dim light.
“Go away,” Eden shouted, feeling every bit the trapped prey and hating herself for it.
Do you fear me?
She laughed. “Not likely. I’m just not in the mood to be eaten.”
That’s a shame.
He came nearer still, close enough to touch, and the closer he came, the harder it was for Eden to breathe.
His pale-eyed gaze swept across her body and Eden shivered. She looked down. Her tattered gown lay in a puddle at her feet and she stood completely naked with nothing but her fists to protect her.
You nearly gave yourself to him, yet you stand in fear of me. Why?
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” She inched a teeny step to the right, hoping to distract him so she could make a break for it. “Do me a favor and open your mouth when you talk to me.”
Can’t you hear me?
“Of course I can hear you. I’m speaking to you, aren’t I?”
The man smiled and Eden expected to see fangs behind those sensuous lips, but she saw only the gleam of straight white teeth.
He leaned toward her and whispered, “Is this better?”
He was within striking distance. “Yes,” she said through gritted teeth before driving her knee up, hard, and feeling a sense of satisfaction when it connected with something both soft and solid.
But it wasn’t the part of him she’d hoped to nail. He’d moved so quickly she’d missed her intended target and now her knee was firmly grasped in his huge hand while he regarded her with an unreadable expression.
“Let go of me.”
He shook his head and hoisted her leg up higher, driving it to the side and stepping up to the opening he’d created. With the weight of his body leaning into her, he no longer needed to hold on to her leg, and he grabbed her wrists and forced them high against the tree above her.
“What do you want from me?” she bit out.
“What do you think?”
“If I knew the answer, I wouldn’t have asked.”
He smiled slowly. “You, Eden. I want you.” To illustrate his point, he moved his hips, adjusting the point where his arousal pressed against her naked body.
She sucked in a breath, appalled by her unconscious response to this stranger. Her sex dripped for him, her heart pounded for him, yet her mind recoiled.
“You want me, too. Don’t fight it.”
Don’t fight it? If there was ever a phrase that made Eden want to fight, that was it. She writhed inside his embrace, trying to kick herself free, trying to wrench her hands out from his steely clasp. But it was no good. The bastard was too big, too strong.
His head ducked down until he was right beside her ear. “I won’t force you, Eden.” He lingered there, as if smelling her hair. “Tell me to let you go and I will.”
It was so distracting, his sweet breath against her cheek, his heart pounding against her breast, his cock wedged so close one little adjustment and he’d slide right inside her. She bit down on her lip intending to tell him to back off, but no words would come. The heat between them was too intense, too fierce. She didn’t want it to end. So, she moved ever so slightly, adjusting her leg up higher on his waist, and felt the head of his cock at her opening.
He needed no more encouragement. Grabbing onto her ass with one hand to hold her against the tree, he thrust inside her. She moaned as he filled her fully. It was more than just a physical sensation but a mental one as well. He filled her in places she’d forgotten were so empty.
Her hands streaked over his shoulders, digging her nails into the hard flesh of his back. She held on as he drove her hard, pushing her closer and closer to the edge of pleasure.
As he stroked hard between her legs, he nuzzled his face along her neck, licking and nipping his way up to her ear, then back down along her jawline. With each raze of his teeth on her skin, a twin sensation blossomed inside her. Heat, brutal and fierce, built like a wild fire deep within her sex. Her whole body flushed with the intensity of it.
He moved faster and harder, bucking against her. Every stroke of his cock sent a ripple of pleasure over her. She couldn’t stop the mewls escaping her lips. The intensity of what he was doing to her body was almost too much to bear.
The tree bark scratched at her flesh as he plunged into her again and again, cresting her body up and down. But the pain was nothing compared to the pure sweet agony deep inside her slick warmth. Eventually they became one thing and she couldn’t even form a rational thought.
“Oh God,” she panted, her heart racing so hard she could barely breath. “Harder.”
Wrapping his hand around her ass cheek, his fingers b
rushed against her sex and he pulled her to him just as he buried himself inside her. All her muscles twitched and seized as an orgasm nearly shattered her into pieces.
She cried out, clamping her eyes shut against the onslaught of pleasure that surged from inside and cascaded over every inch of her flesh. He kissed her then, swallowing each moan she made. It was hard and hot and wet and fierce and made her head swim even more. Then she felt him surge between her thighs.
When he was finished kissing her, he pulled back and looked her in the eyes. “He will try to have you, but know this. You are mine.”
* * *
She opened her eyes and expected to find herself staring into the man’s hungry eyes, but instead she was staring at the numbers on her clock radio. It was 6:00 a.m.
Eden rolled onto her back and blinked up at the ceiling of her bedroom. A dream. That’s all it was. Another crazy dream. She touched her lips. So why were her lips swollen as if she’d just been kissed within an inch of her life? And why did her thighs ache and her insides burn?
Eden groaned and crawled out of bed, itching to fire up her laptop in order to do some research on The Gate nightclub. She wanted to know exactly who owned it and how long it’d been in business. Something was going on at that club and every instinct she had screamed that it had everything to do with the missing woman, Lilith Grae. Maybe even with the man she’d shot a year ago. Someone at the club knew Eden was looking for Lilith, and by the way Eden had been treated, it was obvious that person didn’t want the woman found.
And Eden needed to know if the man who’d taken her for a wild ride onto a roof of a building was connected to the club. She thought that he was for sure.
He knew her, that much was clear, but how and why?
After finding zero references to the club on the net, Eden closed the lid on her laptop and looked around her apartment. She had lots of time to kill. Several hours before she went back to the club to investigate further. Come hell or high water she was going to find out how that big-ass, fiery son of a bitch had disappeared through a solid wall.
Eden wasn’t operating under any assumptions that the bouncer was going to let her in through the front door. She had no doubt he’d recognize her even if she went in disguise. So she had to find another way in.
Every business had a back entrance. She’d learned that the hard way. She just had to find it and exploit it to her advantage.
By the time 2:00 a.m. came Eden was more than ready to go. She’d dressed all in black and had packed a blade in her ankle sheath. She needed to be prepared if big, bad and stinky attacked her. Because she had a strong feeling that if she came across him, he wasn’t going to give her a warning. He’d given that to her the first time. She didn’t believe in second chances.
Eden parked a couple blocks away from the club. Instead of heading down the main street, she took a detour down a side street, then crossed, intent on finding an alley behind the building. The kitchen staff had to have a way in and a way out, especially to take the garbage out.
After taking a wrong turn, she found the alleyway. As stealthily as she could, Eden walked down the lane, counting down the doors from the end of the street. She knew that the club’s main door was four businesses down from the main street, so it was logical that their back door would be four down, as well.
When she reached the fourth door, she pressed her ear to it. She could hear the telltale thump of techno music—she definitely had the right door.
Eden ran her hand down the door to the handle. She turned it—it was locked. She hadn’t expected anything different. Reaching around to her back, she slid out her lock-picking kit from her rear pocket. She unrolled it and plucked out the tools she needed.
It took her about five minutes to pick the lock. It was something she’d learned during her short-lived career as a cop. Sometimes to catch a criminal a cop had to think like one, and sometimes even act like one.
Putting her tools away, Eden slid her pack into the small of her back, then carefully opened the door. There was no one in the immediate area. She crept inside, hoping no kitchen help decided right there and then to toss out any trash. She was in a small corridor and she walked it pressed against the wall, mindful of any noise that she made.
The corridor opened up into a storage room. This was where all the extra napkins and straws and little pink umbrellas were kept until they were needed. She crossed the floor to the door and peered through the small window into the kitchen.
There were two people manning the grills and deep fryers. Eden slowly pushed open the door and walked in. Their backs were to her and she quickly moved across the kitchen to the swinging door. She’d just touched the door to push through when a voice sounded behind her.
“What are you doing back here?”
She turned and, feigning ignorance, looked around. “I was looking for the bathroom.”
“Well, this ain’t it.”
“I noticed. Sorry to disturb you. I’ll just go out and find it.”
That made the little kitchen man grin and he shook his head as she pushed the door open and went through.
Now she was in another short hallway, and Eden walked it quickly, hoping not to come across any waitstaff along the way. At the end of the corridor, she could see club-goers milling about the hall in front of the washrooms. She recognized the scene from the other night. She stepped out and pretended to be part of the crowd. No one noticed her as she sidled up to a group of three women insistently chatting about some guy who’d bumped into them on the dance floor.
One of the girls glanced at her. Eden gave her a quick smile, then passed them to near the men’s washroom. She stopped before the door, looked around to make sure no one was paying much attention to her. With her blond curls tucked up into her black wool hat maybe she’d be mistaken for a guy. She could only hope as she took a deep breath and pushed open the door to enter.
Thankfully there was no one at the urinals. She couldn’t be as sure about the three stalls. Leaning over, she looked for feet under the doors. She found none, and, taking a final big breath, she pushed open the last cubicle door and went in, shutting and locking it behind her. Now she had the privacy she needed to really inspect the wall.
On first look, she couldn’t see any indication of a trapdoor or slide-away. She ran her hands over the whitewashed brick, searching for anything out of the ordinary. She didn’t find anything. No latches or buttons or cracks in the mortar. Nothing to show that the wall would or could move at all. It seemed 100 percent solid, so how had the bastard gone through it?
Eden leaned against the cubicle side and stared hard at the wall. She was missing something. But as she stared, something happened. Her visions wavered in and out as if looking through a wave of extreme heat. The solid bricks didn’t appear so solid anymore—they looked languid, viscous like a thick white fluid. It had to be a trick of the fluorescent light in the bathroom, but she dared to hope otherwise.
Tentatively, she reached out with her hand and pressed her fingers to the wall right were she could see it shimmer. Her fingers didn’t hit anything solid, but something gushy and malleable. She kept pushing and her fingers went through the material and disappeared from view.
Panicked, she pulled her hand back and looked down at it. It was still solid; her fingers were still there. But they glimmered with what looked like something shiny and wet. She rubbed it between her fingers—it was like liquid silk.
Taking a deep breath, Eden stepped forward and pushed both hands to the wall—they sunk into the impossibly mysterious substance. She followed it through, unsure if she was delirious or if this was truly real.
As she walked through the gelatinous wall, her body tingled. It was as if a thousand pins had pricked her flesh, from the top of her head to the bottoms of her feet. There wasn’t exactly pain, but it wasn’t a pleasant feeling either.
The sensation lasted only a few seconds, and then she was through the barrier. Blinking, Eden looked around. She was no lon
ger in a cubicle in the men’s washroom but in a back alley someplace else. She whipped around and stared at the brick wall behind her, the wall she’d just come through. It looked solid, formidable even. She placed her hands against the brick and pushed. Nothing happened. It was as unyielding as it appeared.
She glanced down at her hands and her body and noticed the same type of glimmer from before. It clung to her skin and her clothing. She ran a finger over the back of her hand—it came away damp with a glittery substance that reminded her of gelatin.
Eden turned back around to face the alley she was in. It didn’t appear to be the same one she’d come down to get into the club. She didn’t recognize it offhand, but then again, most alleys looked the same.
Filled with trepidation, she walked down the lane. Every now and then, she stopped and listened. There were sounds in the vicinity. Most were ordinary city noises—cars whizzing by, ladies in high heels clicking down the sidewalk, the bark of a dog—but there were also other sounds. Ones she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Odd noises like the clacking of something heavy, and shuffling as if someone was dragging something big behind them as they walked.
Before she even stepped out onto the main street, Eden knew she wasn’t in the city she lived in any longer.
Chapter Seven
It was the smell that alerted Eden to the danger long before she saw it lumbering down the street toward her.
A combination of musk and mothballs, the smell reminded her of wet, dirty dog. Which, by the size and shape of the creature walking toward her, might not have been such a bad description.
Eyes wide, heart pounding, Eden watched pressed up against the brick wall as a dog, upright on two feet, with a very scruffy muzzle but bright green eyes, strode on by her as if on his way to an important meeting, or date by the swagger in his back end. He glanced briefly at her as he passed and gave her a derisive sniff, then continued on as if nothing was amiss.
Eden stayed pressed against the wall for another ten minutes, trying to get her bearings. She was also struggling for breath because she swore she saw a half man-half snake slither down the center line of the road. It almost got sideswiped by a horse and buggy going the opposite way. Thankfully, the horse yelled “move it” at the last minute and the snake creature slithered off to the right.
