Dark Stranger The Dream: New & Lengthened 2017 Edition (The Children Of The Gods Paranormal Romance Series)

by I. T. Lucas

  How the hell had they managed to achieve so much—stolen knowledge notwithstanding—when there couldn’t have been more than a few hundred of them?

  Making tracks in the luxurious Persian rug, his mind went back to the issue of Dormants. Apparently, the professor believed that finding mortals with special abilities, of the paranormal kind, would lead her to potential Dormants.

  Why?

  None of his brethren had any of the various traits she had mentioned in her notebook. And certainly none of the Dormants he had encountered as a child had exhibited anything out of the ordinary—not his mother and sister, nor any of the other women in Navuh’s “special harem.”

  Navuh’s powers were to be expected, after all, he was the son of a god, and so were his sons’ formidable abilities.

  The rest of the men could thrall most mortals to some extent, but not all—the weaker the mind, the less it resisted manipulation—but that was it.

  As to Dormants, they were a rare and precious commodity, guarded fiercely by Navuh for obvious reasons. And apparently, the despot was the only one to possess any.

  Dalhu closed his eyes as his thoughts drifted back to his mother and sister. His mother had been a whore, as all the other Dormant women in Navuh’s special harem—and the same fate had been awaiting his sister—he just hadn’t been around to witness it.

  After all this time, he had trouble remembering their features. The only clear memory that he still managed to hold on to was his mother’s voice. Some nights, he still heard her singing to him in his dreams.

  Dalhu had been taken away to the training camp and turned at thirteen, never to see his small family again. He hadn’t been allowed. The one time he’d tried, he’d gotten off easy with a severe beating as punishment, only because he’d been so young. An older male would’ve been beheaded.

  The group of Dormant women were Navuh’s secret broodmares. Selling their bodies to serve wealthy mortals provided him with a source of income and male children for his army of near-immortal mercenaries.

  The sons were activated and became soldiers, the daughters were not and were relegated to prostitution like their mothers before them. Neither were given a choice.

  Once the boys were turned, they were never allowed near the Dormants again. Fornicating with one carried the death penalty for both.

  The Dormants were to serve mortals only.

  In the past, Dalhu, like the rest of the soldiers, had assumed that the women weren’t turned because according to the teachings of Mortdh they were deemed inferior. It had taken him centuries to piece together the real reason behind the segregation. If turned by an immortal male’s venom, an immortal female’s chances of conceiving dropped to nearly nonexistent. And Navuh needed the women to bear as many children as possible, which they had, providing over the millennia thousands of warriors for his army.

  The special harem had always been heavily guarded—nowadays even more so as a fenced-off enclave of Passion Island.

  A selective breeding program was pairing Dormants with clients believed to possess the traits valuable to Navuh; mainly physical size and strength, with sociopathic tendencies a close second.

  Navuh needed his soldiers to be strong and ruthless—nothing more.

  Dalhu sat back at the desk and pulled out a quarter from his pocket. He tossed it up in the air and slammed it onto the desk when it came down. Repeating his experiment twenty times, he was assured of having no special precognition ability.

  As expected, his predictions came true roughly half of the time.

  “Edward!” he called his second.

  The soldier came rushing in. “Yes, sir.”

  “Take this coin and flip it ten times. I want to see how many you can guess correctly.”

  Edward looked puzzled, but he did as he was told with no questions asked. He guessed right four out the ten.

  “That will be all,” Dalhu dismissed him.

  Returning the quarter back to his pocket, he wondered if these abilities could be somehow developed, learned. He wouldn’t have put it past Navuh to conceal this kind of information from his troops. As power hungry as Navuh was, the despot would not have wanted his divine status undermined by his lowly soldiers exhibiting even a fraction of his abilities.

  Dalhu lifted the professor’s small red notebook off the desk and leaned back in the heavy executive swivel chair. Flipping through the pages, he reached the one containing the list of paranormal subjects.

  Interesting stuff really. Telepathy, both sending and receiving, or only one-way transmission. Remote viewing, past viewing, precognition, influencing—emotional and otherwise. The ability to cast illusions. Communication with the dearly departed.

  Most of the test subjects exhibited dismal talent. Except two.

  Syssi, the professor’s assistant, was the sole recipient of the score of ten—the highest. Her talent was precognition. How ironic that he’d met the girl and hadn’t realized what a priceless treasure she was. A seer. What a powerful tool she could be. Dalhu wondered what kind of predictions she could make.

  The other interesting subject was a guy named Michael: a student on the same campus. His talent was telepathy—of the receiving kind—his ranking was eight. Not bad. Being able to read other people’s minds could be a great asset too, probably a more useful tool than that of the female’s.

  Soon, Dalhu would have both to do with as he pleased.

  The woman’s address had been easy to find in the university’s Human Resources database. The hacker he had hired hadn’t had much difficulty retrieving her record, especially with that weird spelling of her given name. He could’ve sent one of the men to the HR office for that, but hacking worked faster.

  The telepath posed a greater challenge, but it was nothing money couldn’t overcome. His cell phone number was listed to his parents’ account in Minnesota, so the phone bill was useless for finding his address. And there were five students named Michael Gross living on campus. He had to be located by his phone’s signal.

  The guy Dalhu had found to do it had been expensive but worth it. Unfortunately, he encountered some trouble, and had gotten the job done only late this evening, pinpointing the boy’s location to a popular student hangout, a club not far from the dorms, which was currently teeming with people.

  Dalhu had men in position at both locations.

  The team at the woman’s house was poised to snatch her as soon as she came home. Though if she didn’t show up soon, he planned to fork out the money for the guy to track her cell phone as well.

  The other team, dispatched to bring the telepath, was hanging outside the club. Without a picture to identify him by, they would wait for the boy to get out and separate from his friends. Regrettably, the acuity of the tracking device was limited to pinpointing the place, but not one individual out of a tightly packed crowd.

  It wouldn’t be much longer.

  Soon, Dalhu’s phone would be buzzing with the confirmations of their capture.

  This wasn't what excited him, though. Catching the two potential Dormants was almost inconsequential in comparison to getting his hands on the beautiful, immortal professor.

  Dalhu pulled out the auto repair shop's estimate he'd found tucked between the journal's pages. Apparently, the professor's Porsche was undergoing repairs at a Beverly Hills collision center specializing in luxury European automobiles, and it would be ready for pickup next Thursday. Luckily, the estimate included the car's license plate number.

  This time, he wasn't going to send any of his underlings. Dalhu was going to be there himself, waiting all day until someone came to pick it up. If it were the professor, he would snatch her from there. But even if someone else showed up in her place or the shop delivered the car, he would just follow the Porsche to the professor's actual residence.

  Next Thursday, the lovely Dr. Amanda Dokani would be his.

  “Finally, it’s done.” Kian put down the phone and leaned back in Shai’s chair. The deal had almost gone up in
smoke. Several times he’d been tempted to let it go to hell, but Onegus had kept things going. His chief Guardian and negotiator was in Spain, ironing out the last details on the beach property Kian was trying to snatch before it even went on the market. But as often happened, a competitor had also learned of the deal and offered a better price.

  Kian wondered who’d tipped them off. Perhaps his sniffer had double dipped, selling the information twice.

  Who else could’ve known that the owner of the shabby hotel had just lost his wife to heart failure and wished to get rid of the place they had run together for years? The guy had told his son, who had told his girlfriend, who had met the sniffer at a coffee shop and had told him about it during a random conversation.

  Unless the guy had also sold the information to Kian’s rival, no one could’ve known the place was on the market.

  With the bidding war getting out of hand, Kian had been about to give the thing up when the competitor bowed out. Not that he could blame the guy. With what he’d ended up agreeing to pay for the place, it would take much longer to realize profits, but Kian and the clan were in no hurry.

  Time was on their side.

  “You want to drink to that?” Shai opened his mini fridge and pulled out two Snake Venom beers—the world’s strongest at almost seventy percent alcohol by volume, and the only beer immortals could get drunk on.

  “Sure, why not.” Kian accepted the bottle.

  He needed something to take the edge off. Not an easygoing guy on a good day, which this one certainly wasn’t, Kian was nearing melting point. It had started with Amanda’s ultimatum, then continued with a deal that turned out to be not as sweet as he’d hoped, and now he had no more excuses and needed to decide what to do about Syssi.

  “It’s not such a bad deal. We’ll still make good money.” Shai mistook his grimace.

  Kian wasn’t going to correct him. Let the guy think he was disappointed with the numbers, not with his sister and her cavalier attitude, and not with himself and his crumbling resistance.

  “Good job, Shai.” He clapped his secretary on the back. “Let’s call it a day. I’m out of here.”

  “Thanks. But I’m just the pencil pusher. You and Onegus have done all the work.”

  Yeah, right. That was Shai’s favorite expression, when in fact he was indispensable. The guy could’ve taken on more, but he didn’t want to. He was comfortable with his position and didn’t strive for anything more. Something Kian couldn’t for the life of him relate to. He always pushed himself to the limit, expected more of himself than others, and was incapable of giving up.

  Except, it seemed that he was capable of giving in.

  As he mulled over the situation in between the phone calls and the e-mails and the general hysteria that erupted around this fucking deal, he realized that he was being a hypocrite.

  He hadn’t forbidden Amanda from using another male to try to activate Syssi. Did he count himself above the other males of his clan? Was it okay for another to act immorally while Kian prided himself on taking the higher ground?

  The answer was obviously no. But the last straw that had done it for him, was thinking of some other male touching his Syssi. As soon as Amanda would realize he was not going to do it no matter what, she would rope another male in. None of the others would refuse her, not unless Kian issued an order prohibiting it.

  He could still do it, but Amanda must’ve anticipated this move before he even thought of it and threatened him with involving their mother. There was no doubt in his mind that Annani would side with Amanda. The future of her clan was at stake, and she had no problem bending the rules when it suited her.

  They had him cornered, which was a huge relief. Having no choice felt a lot better than admitting he couldn’t control his craving for the girl.

  Except, when he finally made it back to the penthouse, ready to pick up where he had left things off with Syssi, she wasn’t there.

  Searching, he poked his head into every room, checking even out on the terrace, but she was nowhere to be found.

  Where the hell can she be?

  He pulled out his phone and rang Amanda. “Is Syssi with you?” he asked without preamble.

  “No, did you manage to scare her off already?” Amanda taunted.

  With a grunt, he ended the call and shoved the phone back in his pocket.

  The obvious conclusion was that she had left. Though, how she had managed to do that without a thumbprint access to the elevators, or security letting him know, baffled him.

  Maybe Okidu had helped her, taking her down in the elevator. With that main obstacle out of the way, there would have been nothing preventing her from waltzing away.

  And as the guys in security were more concerned with people coming into the building than leaving it, they would have thought nothing of her casually strolling out the front door.

  With a vile curse, Kian kicked a planter, wincing as the thing toppled.

  He had no one to blame but himself.

  After all, he hadn’t specifically forbidden her to leave, or informed security to detain her if she tried.

  Walking back inside, Kian pulled out his phone ready to call Okidu when he heard a distant hum.

  Jets.

  Whirlpool tub’s jets.

  So that’s where she is…

  Relieved, he shoved the phone back into his pocket and followed the sound.

  When he reached the room she was in, Kian shook his head. Syssi had chosen the smallest, most plainly furnished suite in the penthouse. It was so like her. Though how he knew that about her puzzled him. He just did.

  With a sigh, he kicked off his boots and plopped down on the bed. It seemed that despite the long hours it had taken him to get back to her, his wait wasn’t over yet.

  Closing his eyes, Kian made a go at some shut-eye, but it was no use. Problem was, he kept imagining Syssi’s gorgeous body soaking naked in that tub, the tips of her perfect breasts peeking above the soapy water…

  Oh, hell. With that scenario doing all kinds of things to his male anatomy, he itched to barge in there and…

  Yeah, as if that would end well…

  “Not!” he muttered as he reached inside his pants, adjusting himself. But his damned cock was so distended that it jutted above his waistband.

  Cursing, he covered it with his shirttails.

  With all that had been going on lately, he hadn’t had the time or the inclination to go prowling for sex. And the long stretch of abstinence was taking its toll.

  His biology was demanding its pound of flesh.

  Except, the thought of slaking his need with some cheapie he picked up at a bar, suddenly felt repugnant to him.

  He craved Syssi. Her fresh, sweet innocence was calling to his tainted soul.

  Soon.

  She would get out from that bathroom and find him waiting for her like some creepy stalker, and realize that her time was up.

  What the hell is taking her so damn long?

  Kian was losing his patience. Now that the decision had been made, he could wait no longer.

  As the tub began draining, his pulse sped up. Any moment now, she’d get out…

  No such luck.

  He growled deep in his throat. Then he heard her applying lotion. And more lotion. And just as his agitation was gaining critical velocity, he heard what sounded suspiciously like a moan.

  What the hell?

  Had the little minx rebuffed him just to go ahead and pleasure herself without him?

  Oh, no, she didn’t!

  With a surge, Kian shot out of bed and was about to barge in on her, when he heard the hairdryer turn on. His palm a fraction of an inch away from the door handle, he barely managed to stop in time.

  His body bursting with barely contained aggression, he plopped back down on the bed, crossed his arms over his chest, and ordered himself to calm the fuck down!

  One deep breath after another, he kept talking himself down from the high tree branch onto which he had
climbed.

  Take it easy, moron. She has no idea you’re lying in wait for her like a fucking perv.

  He kept telling himself he needed to be patient, romantic, go slow…

  Except, how the hell would he manage that when he was strung up tighter than a bow string?

  Exasperated, Kian banged his head against the headboard.

  Syssi’s fingertips were starting to prune.

  As fun as the spa was, it was time to get out. Turning the whirlpool off, she stepped out of the tub and wrapped herself in one of the plush towels stacked by its side.

  All during her soak, Kian’s words from earlier had been playing over and over in her mind, providing a background soundtrack to the vivid images they were painting.

  On one hand, all these new and intense sensations electrified her. It was like discovering a whole new world of pleasure she had never known existed. It was exhilarating. On the other hand, she was afraid that once she had gotten a taste for how it could be, she would do just about anything to get more of it.

  Before, she had never understood what drove people to indulge in careless sex, despite the potential utter devastation it entailed. Unwelcome pregnancies, ruined marriages, family feuds, wars… Literature painted an abundance of catastrophic scenarios Syssi had used to believe were mostly fictional. After all, what was so difficult about keeping your pants on?

  But now, as need gnawed at her like a hungry beast, she understood.

  Standing on the cold marble and looking out the window at the dark sky, she grew nervous. Kian would be back soon. And then what? Was she strong enough to say no to him, or at least not yet? Or was she going to surrender to her longing and have reckless sex with a man she barely knew but wanted desperately?

  Toweling the moisture off with the excessive vigor of her rising frustration, she questioned her indecision. What was really the point of delaying the inevitable? If not tonight, then the next, or the one after that. If Kian still wanted her, that is. He might have concluded that she was too much trouble, and go for the easy and available.

  Everyone around her was talking about hookups and booty calls, instead of dates and relationships. People treated sex as casually as going to the movies or out for a drink. In this uninspiring, emotionally disconnected landscape, the pursuit of sexual gratification was the norm, and the rare relationship an exception. An oddity.