by Tina Donahue
Dizziness overwhelmed her. Her legs shook so badly, her knees gave out. She sank to the floor.
In an instant, Nikoli’s arm was around her waist, bringing Regina back to her feet, his strength solid, supportive, unreal. My dimension. Who was he? What was he?
Regina’s heart pounded out of control. She heard each beat clearly, wondering if he did. Was that a power he possessed?
He pulled a chair to her. Its three legs, made of a material that could have been metal, made a buzzing not a scraping sound across the floor. Constructed of a silvery, highly polished substance, it resembled stainless steel.
Breathing as hard as she did, Nikoli said, “Sit.”
Regina wanted to run but had no idea where she could possibly go. She sank to the chair. Immediately, the thing conformed to her body, holding her. Trapping her? God, no. Alarmed, she straightened and started to rise. The chair released her. Nikoli’s topcoat fell from her shoulders.
“Sit,” he repeated, then paused to swallow and panted out his next words. “The chair won’t harm you.” Gently, he replaced his coat on her shoulders and stepped back.
Again, Regina sat, her legs trembling, the sharp points of her heels tapping the floor. Pressing her hands on her knees, she tried to still them and keep quiet. She noticed the lone door in here was made of the same metallic material as the floor. It bore no handle, no lock.
What was this room?
“Will anyone come in here?” Regina asked, unable to speak above a whisper. She was too damned afraid. She had too many questions. Were there more monsters outside the door? Was that why it was metal, to keep them out? Were his people beyond it? Were they even people?
Nikoli didn’t answer.
With all of her being, Regina did not want to turn toward him, fearful of what she might see, what he may have become.
My dimension.
What did he look like now? Was he watching her? Was he still in the room? Was she alone? Had he abandoned her here? Overwhelmed by dread, she finally risked a peek and wished she had not.
Nikoli was sagged against one of the metal-like tables, his elbows and forearms bracing him from falling. A thin sheen of perspiration dampened his face. His broad chest rose and fell as he fought to pull in air, a struggle he seemed to be losing. Streaks of dried blood revealed where Sazaar had clawed his face and throat.
Was he going to pass out? Oh my God, was he going to die?
Forgetting any concerns she had for herself, Regina pushed from the chair. Its legs buzzed briefly as it slid across the floor, coming to a perfect stop against the wall. Shivering, she went to Nikoli, reaching for him but not touching. She didn’t know what to do, how to help.
She whispered, “Are you all right? What’s wrong?”
With great effort, he focused on her, though not for long. His lids slid down. Panting, he said, “I need a moment to readjust.”
She had no idea what he was talking about. Cautiously, Regina rested her hand on his coat sleeve, her attention moving to the small instrument he continued to hold. “Readjust to what?”
“The atmosphere on my side.”
She recalled how it had affected her upon entering this room. How thick the air seemed to be, though only for a few seconds. Why would he react so differently to it when it was his world, what he’d called his dimension?
“You can barely breathe,” she said, squeezing his arm gently, trying to control her alarm for them both. If anything happened to him, who would she call for help? If he didn’t survive, there was no way she would either. Not in this place, nor in her office if those things were still there. “Did Sazaar break one of your ribs? Are you experiencing pain?”
He spoke as quietly as she had. “It burns here.” He pointed the device at his chest. “What your people call lungs.”
It was burning? Why? Had one of his ribs pierced it? Is that why he was having such difficulty pulling in air? Once more, she asked, “Did Sazaar injure you?”
His hand fell back to the table. “Not tonight. Not in the way you fear.” He paused to swallow, then continued, his speech still halting. “Millennia before, my people altered the atmosphere on this side so that the vampires couldn’t return…and if they found a means to do so, they wouldn’t be able to breathe long enough to survive.”
His explanation, the ease with which he’d used the word vampires, sent a chill through Regina. It made what had happened in her office seem all too real, not something she’d hallucinated. “This can’t be happening,” she argued.
Nikoli’s silence told her it was.
Again, she wanted to run, but couldn’t move. Millennia, he’d said. Did that mean what she thought it did? Those things had existed all this time, moving unnoticed among her and others like virulent bacteria poised to kill? Images flooded Regina’s mind of fingers piercing the once-solid wall, trying to get at her and Nikoli—skin turning red, flesh exploding into flames.
She trembled. “Your altered atmosphere, is that why they—those things—caught fire in that silvery area?”
“The void between your dimension and mine,” Nikoli said, his words strained, his lids opening to mere slits. “They can survive there, but only if one of my people invites them inside.”
Regina recalled Sazaar’s enticing demand, Invite them in. “The same as my office?”
“Your atmosphere is conducive to their needs,” Nikoli said, huffing his words, “except when a human is in the room. Then they must ask permission to enter, or seduce someone into giving it.”
Regina recalled how tempting Sazaar had sounded. How easily she’d succumbed to it. Fighting alarm, she asked, “What about here? If they’re not invited in, will they burn as they did in the void?”
“No.” He paused to pull in more air, his breaths deeper now, starting to slow, though not enough to be considered normal. “It’s impossible for anyone from here to invite the vampires in, a precaution my people took when they banished the monsters to your side, long before your civilization formed. Those in power at the time never thought that your plane would evolve as it had. Otherwise they wouldn’t have unleashed such a scourge. Since then, Andris and his kind have been trying to find a way back. They sensed Sazaar’s presence when she crossed over. They intend to use her as a means of reentry.”
Regina frowned. “Use her how?”
Nikoli swallowed with difficulty and continued. “Only someone newly turned like Sazaar can tolerate this side for brief periods, giving her a small window to recalculate and modify the atmosphere, bringing it to what it had once been, allowing the vampires to return. Once here, they’ll destroy the government for having banished them. They’ll grow and harvest our citizens for their blood…as their food.”
Regina stepped back, not wanting to face the horror of what Nikoli was revealing—what she was now thinking. Pictures flashed in her mind of Sazaar’s attack, the force of her body knocking Nikoli’s into the wall. His reddened face, his hands around Sazaar’s throat as he attempted to keep her from biting him.
She couldn’t have. Regina would have seen—
Her thoughts halted as she recalled how she’d wanted to find a weapon, settling on her desk lamp. While she’d pulled its cord from the wall, she’d had her back to Sazaar and Nikoli. Only a few seconds had transpired before she’d turned to face them again. Moments in which anything might have occurred.
Regina noted Nikoli’s pasty complexion, the scratches on his cheeks and throat. Were the wounds from a vampire’s claws any different than those they made with their fangs? Could both injuries result in the same outcome? “If Sazaar hadn’t become one of them, would she have been able to move freely from my side to yours?”
He nodded.
Her chest tightened. “She would have only been affected briefly by the air in here as I was? Within seconds, she would have adjusted to the atmosphere?”
“Yes.”
Regina blurted, “Then why are you still struggling to breathe, Nikoli? Why are you perspiring? Did Sazaar
bite you? Are you going to—” Her words trailed off to a faint moan.
He regarded her for a long moment, then spoke quietly, “I’m not becoming one of them, Regina. You have no need to fear me. Can you believe that?”
“Save yourself,” he’d said in her office. “I don’t matter.”
He’d been willing to die for her then. Regina sensed he still was. Out of a male’s sense of duty or something more? Not knowing what to think about his motives, she knew he was telling her the truth about this. “Yes.”
He lifted his hand, hesitating for a moment as though he expected her to retreat. When she did not, he rested his palm on the side of her face. “Never would I harm you.”
Despite what they’d just been through, what they surely faced, intense warmth suffused Regina, along with longing so fierce her entire body ached, just as it had earlier today when she’d awakened…alone as always, yet not alone.
Had Nikoli been there?
Regina’s words raced out before she could stop them. “This morning, when I was in my bedroom, it felt as though someone was there. Was it you, Nikoli? Were you watching me?”
A moment passed in silence. When he spoke, embarrassment colored his response. “Yes.”
Then why hadn’t she been afraid when she should have been? In the coffee shop, she’d been drawn to Nikoli immediately, unlike any man she’d known. Was that a power he had, to make a woman want him, no different than his ability to open a portal?
Or was it something more? Something deeper? One heart touching another?
Regina recalled the first moment they’d seen each other in the coffee shop, wonder flooding his features, as though they’d always known each other and their forced separation had finally come to an end. She hadn’t imagined his response. And he certainly hadn’t faked it.
He wanted her. He seemed as lonely as she had always been.
Covering his hand with hers, she said, “You’ve been watching me for some time. You knew about Sazaar coming to me for help. You saw her through the opening between our worlds.”
“She shouldn’t have exposed you.” He frowned. “She had no right.”
“Is she your wife?”
He brought back his hand. With a soft grunt, he pushed away from the table and straightened.
So, he was married. It shouldn’t have surprised Regina or disappointed her, but it did. She stated the obvious. “I saw how desperate she is to return to you and this side. I saw how much she loves you.”
“No,” he countered immediately. “It was the sickness inside her talking, encouraging her to help Andris, not to return to me. Until she crossed over and fell into his hands, she was my mate. We lived and worked together. What you call love didn’t exist. We had mutual respect, nothing more.”
That didn’t make sense. “Then why were you together?”
“Respect, not love, is prized in this realm, Regina.”
“Why?”
“It’s easier to maintain control.”
His explanation was so direct, so devastating, all Regina could do was stare.
He spoke on a sigh. “You can’t desire what you don’t know exists. I saw it with Sazaar. She was like everyone else on this plane, until she allowed herself a glimpse of your side, even though it’s forbidden. We’re to close the portals immediately. We’re not to observe your people. She did, and they fascinated her. She craved their passion, what my government trains its citizens to resist. Here, we worship order, not the chaos that feelings create. I warned Sazaar not to let them tempt her, not to cross over, but her curiosity was too great. Within a day of her arrival on your side, Andris had found and seduced her. Until then, she wanted only to experience what those in your dimension did—the intense emotions, the joy. She didn’t understand that sorrow would accompany it.”
Followed by horror.
Regina remembered the barely contained panic on Sazaar’s face during each of her appointments, her guilt and sadness at betraying her world, her devastation at Andris’s indifference.
“All I wanted was his love.”
And some measure of peace, perhaps redemption, by coming for therapy. It all made sense now. “She hoped I would understand what she’d done and that I’d somehow help her to endure it.”
“She would have forced you to endure,” Nikoli warned. “Her sickness compels her to use her victims, to destroy them. Eventually, Andris and the others would have discovered what she’d told you about them. They would have fed on you as they do any other human, turning you into what Sazaar is now.”
An image of her elongated canines played in Regina’s mind. A wave of dizziness followed, making the room lurch as she thought of Sazaar attacking Nikoli, her strength unbelievable, inhuman.
Forcing the memories away, Regina met Nikoli’s beautifully dark eyes. Seemingly fathomless. Filled with a man’s lust and the capacity to love that he’d been denied. In a whisper, she asked, “How long have you been watching me?”
He glanced away, clearly shamed at his actions. “For weeks. I sensed tonight Sazaar would finally tell you the truth. I feared she’d feed on you, then—” He stopped.
Regina slid her hand over his, squeezing his fingers. “I felt you earlier in my office. You were the one who took my purse out of the drawer and the bills from my wallet. You heard me telling Carly I was going to the coffee shop. You followed me there, pretending to be a customer because you wanted to warn me.”
“No. You wouldn’t have believed me if I had.”
“Then why?” she pressed.
Yearning swept over his ruggedly masculine features. Just as quickly, he pushed it aside, his expression becoming distant. “What does it matter?”
“I want to know.”
“It changes nothing.”
“Dammit, tell me.”
“I wanted to be near you,” he admitted. “To feel the warmth of your hand.” He glanced down at her fingers embracing his. “To hear you without the barrier of the portal. To experience your scent.”
“We lived and worked together,” he’d said about Sazaar. “What you call love didn’t exist.”
Regina tightened her fingers around his.
With what appeared to be resignation, Nikoli pulled his hand from hers and stepped back.
Frustrated by his reaction, defiant, she asked, “Why are you pulling away from me when it’s obvious you don’t want to?”
At her candor, surprise registered on his face. Not allowing it to change his mind, he concentrated on the portable instrument he held. Regina noticed how his hand trembled.
“We have to leave,” he said. “We can’t stay in here much longer.”
Her caution returned. “Why? What is this room?”
“It’s where Sazaar and I worked together.”
“On what?”
He shoved his fingers through his hair, dragging it off his forehead. “Detecting the portals, protecting our people from what’s on the other side. I’m what those in your dimension would call a quantum physicist. Sazaar’s a theoretical physicist. This is our lab.”
Regina glanced around the spacious area, noticing it fully for the first time. On one wall hung a large circular item—what appeared to be a clock. The twelve circles on its face represented what she suspected were the hours. A faint silver light shone from behind the seventh and third orbs. Seven fifteen. She glanced at her watch. It read seven thirty—fifteen minutes difference. Glancing up, she saw a flash of light moving in a very slow circle around the clock’s face. Regina suspected it was the second hand.
She watched it for a long moment, then started counting. It remained in the same position for fifteen seconds before it moved again, telling her what seemed to be impossible. Time moved more slowly here than it did on what Nikoli had called her dimension.
Torn between needing to know the truth and wanting to flee it, she asked, “Are we still on earth?”
“Yes.” He kept his attention on his handheld device, observing or reading the symbols that scroll
ed by.
“How is that possible?” Regina asked.
“Your plane is above mine and closest to what you call the sun. There are five dimensions on this planet.”
Unable to imagine such a thing, she blurted, “Do people—beings—live on the others?”
“Each is populated, though time between them is distorted, not allowing the inhabitants to know of the others’ existence. Millennia before, my people discovered a means to open the portals between your realm and mine. They learned too late that what they’d done caused gateways to open spontaneously from one dimension to the other. Since then, my government has trained physicists to monitor the fissures, to close them as they occur so those like Andris and Sazaar will never compromise security or find a means to invade E2’s borders.”
E2? The second dimension on earth?
Not asking, Regina saw what appeared to be a hologram of the globe. Five lines circled it. Beneath each were symbols she couldn’t read. On the continents, white lights flickered, while brown ones burned steadily.
Indicating what? Portals opening? Closing? Breaches in this dimension’s security?
In the subdued light, she noticed the drab green monitors of what appeared to be computers, though the screens were circular, not square, and there were no keyboards or wires connecting them to a power source. She glanced at the walls, the floors, the furniture. Everything had the same drab, washed out appearance, the colors not vivid as they were on her side.
“She wanted only to experience what those in your dimension did,” Nikoli had said about Sazaar, “the intense emotions, the joy.”
The vibrancy of an imperfect world.
Regina glanced at Nikoli. He pressed his fingers to his forehead, his swarthy complexion still too sallow.
Because of her.
He’d risked everything to leave his dimension, not only to save her, not only for honor, but because he craved the comfort of her touch, words exchanged in pleasure, not duty, a man and a woman experiencing the delight of their first conversation because they were attracted to each other. What had always been denied him.
What she’d never experienced.
Acting impulsively, Regina took his hand, bringing it to her lips. She wanted to offer some measure of intimacy neither of them had known, to ask if he was still all right. The words didn’t come. She stared at what she hadn’t noticed before. There were no lines on his palm. Unlike hers, his fingerprints were no more than a single round circle at the tip of each digit.
