“Levet?”
She watched in disbelief as the miniature demon scrambled up the side of the wall, pushing his small body through a crack that hardly appeared large enough for a bat.
Well.
She did not expect Levet to grovel at her feet with gratitude at her heroic rescue, but to actually abandon her?
She had thought they were friends.
Thoroughly vexed by the unexpected betrayal, Juliet stomped down the tunnel, dangerously distracted by her flare of anger.
Not that being on guard would have prevented the wall of the passageway from suddenly exploding inward as a body was thrown through it. Or her scream of fear as she recognized her mate lying in a pool of blood at her feet.
Falling to her knees, she reached to brush the raven hair from Victor’s face, her heart contracting at the deep gash that marred the ivory skin of his forehead.
“Victor?”
His lashes slowly lifted to reveal remarkably clear silver eyes, his wounds already healing. She shook her head. Only a vampire could be shoved through four feet of pure rock and appear barely worse for the wear.
“I thought I told you to rescue the gargoyle and leave,” he growled, flowing to his feet.
She straightened, glancing toward the gaping hole in the wall. “And I thought you intended to rid us of the Jinn.”
There was a cloud of foreboding, then the booming voice of the Jinn echoed through the tunnel.
“Where is the gargoyle?”
Victor stepped in front of her as the Jinn slammed his way through the wall, the air crackling with electricity.
“If you have any other tricks, little one, now would be an appropriate moment to reveal them,” Victor rasped, pulling a large sword from the scabbard on his hip.
“What of your warriors?”
“Dead or wounded.”
Shaking off the clinging dust, the Jinn pointed a finger directly at Juliet, his eyes glowing with an eerie light and his hair floating as if caught on a breeze.
“Give me the gargoyle,” he roared.
Drowning in the potent presence of the Jinn, Juliet was caught off guard when Levet abruptly appeared on a rock above the Jinn’s head, his expression smug.
“I am here, you putrid saddlebag of rotting fungus,” Levet taunted, holding up his hand to reveal a wooden box ornately decorated with gold and precious jewels, including a ruby the size of Juliet’s fist. “And look what I discovered.”
Wondering if her friend had taken complete leave of his senses, Juliet shook her head.
“What the devil is that?”
Victor stiffened with a tension that Juliet did not need to be a mate to sense.
“The Jinn’s tiglia. It holds his anchor to this realm. Without it he will be forced to return to his own world,” he whispered softly.
The demon’s power surged through the tunnel, making the earth shake and the air so thick it was nearly impossible to breathe.
“Give that to me.”
Without warning, Levet launched the box over the head of the Jinn, directly at Juliet.
“Catch.”
Too stunned to think clearly, Juliet snatched the box from the air, her heart nearly halting at the malevolent magic that slammed into her.
Victor instinctively swept an arm around her, keeping her upright even as his wary gaze remained on the Jinn, who was already turning his fury toward Juliet.
“Can you destroy it?” he demanded.
Juliet’s first instinct was to deny the necessary skill for such a task. After all, she had never been properly trained in magic. How could she possibly destroy such a powerful object? And in truth, she simply wanted to drop the vile thing and run as far away as possible. The mere touch of it seemed to taint her.
But, drawing on the bond with her powerful mate, she steadied her nerves and forced herself to actually study the box with her innate talent.
The magic was unfamiliar, but she ignored the complex weave and instead concentrated on the odd tentacles she could sense flowing from the box to the demon. It was almost as if the very essence of the Jinn was in the box while the physical body was allowed to move around the world.
So what if she severed the connection?
She sucked in a deep breath, lifting her head to meet Victor’s steady gaze.
“I will need time.”
His smile was filled with a savage determination. “I can give you that.”
With a growl that made the hairs on her nape rise, Victor launched himself at the Jinn, the sword in his hand a blur of silver as he attacked. At the same moment, Levet jumped off the rock, directly onto the beast’s head.
Momentarily paralyzed, Juliet watched in horror as Victor ignored the massive blows from the Jinn, striking the demon with enough force to halt his desperate attempt to reach his tiglia. She had never witnessed a battle between two such mighty foes. It was . . . terrifyingly beautiful.
It was only when Levet sent a fireball over her head that she came to her senses.
“Sacre bleu, Juliet, you must do something.”
Juliet shook her head in sharp self-disgust, turning her rattled attention to the box she held in her hands.
She made no effort to destroy the actual tiglia. Such magic was beyond her skill. She doubted there was a witch in all of England who could perform such a spell. Instead she studied the tentacles that floated toward the Jinn like the strands of a web.
They were magical, but they did not draw their strength from the box or the demon. Instead she could feel the steady pull from their surroundings. The air. The earth. The water of the nearby river.
It was no wonder the Jinn could control lightning and earthquakes.
He was a creature of nature.
“Little one, you must hurry,” Victor rasped, the chill of his power making her shiver.
“Do you think I am not trying?” she gritted, keeping her attention on the tentacles as she summoned her mother’s magic.
She did not bother with a circle. She was not attempting to cast a spell, but rather to destroy an existing power. Ironically, it was a task that was easier for a half-breed than a full witch.
Needing a tangible means to focus her vision, she jerked off her loose shirt and wrapped it around the box, at the same time imagining she was smothering the tentacles. If they could not draw on the powers around them, they would die. And with them, hopefully the connection to the Jinn.
In the distance she could hear the sound of the vicious battle, smell the fresh blood spilling around her, feel the promise of death in the air, but she refused to be distracted. Not even when the Jinn’s roar of agony sent a shower of stones falling on her head.
The end was close.
She could feel it.
Trembling from the effort of holding her vision in place, Juliet fell to her knees, her stomach heaving at the scent of burning flesh that suddenly filled the tunnel.
She had to persevere . . . she had to . . .
“Juliet.”
Wearily lifting her head, she watched as Victor lunged toward her, abruptly covering her with his much heavier body. It was not until the ceiling collapsed, however, that she realized the Jinn was now no more than a smoking pile of charred flesh and they were about to be buried alive.
Not precisely the honeymoon she had been hoping for.
One week later
Seated at the small table he had situated before the fire in his lair, Victor sipped his aged brandy and watched Juliet absently nibble a piece of marzipan candy.
A frown touched his brow. She looked delectable, of course. Wearing an emerald satin nightgown that perfectly matched her eyes, and her fiery curls left loose to spill over her shoulders, she was the perfect image of Eve.
Feminine temptation at its very best.
But it was her obvious lack of hunger that caused a familiar stab of alarm to clench his heart.
“Shall I have the chef replaced, my love?” he demanded, his tone revealing he would happily go in s
earch of a superior chef without hesitation.
“Good Lord, no. This food is heavenly.” Juliet dropped the candy on the tray as she regarded him with astonishment. “Why would you ask such a thing?”
He waved a hand toward the table that was laden with lobster in butter, braised ham, creamed potatoes, steamed asparagus, and fresh pears from the hothouse.
“You have not eaten more than a few bites.”
She gave a choked laugh. “Because I am still stuffed from the enormous meal you served when I first awoke. Are you attempting to fatten me like a Christmas goose?”
“You need food to regain your strength.”
Leaning forward, she offered a slow, wicked smile that sent a predictable flare of hunger blazing through him. Juliet had only to be near for him to be hard and aching to be buried deep inside her heat.
“I would say that I effectively proved that I have fully regained my strength,” she husked. “Or have you so easily forgotten?”
He reached to grasp her slender fingers, his gaze searing over her beautiful face.
“I will never forget a moment of our time together.”
“Me either,” she breathed, holding his gaze as she deliberately allowed him to sense her stirring arousal.
Over the past days they had rarely left the lair as they gloried in the explosive passion between them. Now he savored her ready response even as he glanced around the candlelit chamber, for the first time noting the hint of shabbiness.
“We shall need a larger bed,” he abruptly decided.
“It seems just the perfect size to me,” she murmured. “Besides, it is very old. You must have owned it for centuries.”
He shrugged. “I have no sentimental attachment to the furnishings. In truth, I prefer they be disposed of so you can choose what pleases you. We can begin tonight if you are feeling strong enough.”
Hoping to please his mate, Victor was disappointed when she pulled her fingers from his grasp and studied him with a wary expression.
“Victor, are you . . . perfectly well?”
“Why would I not be well?”
She shook her head in bewilderment. “Since we defeated the Jinn you have hovered and fluttered about as if I were as fragile as Venice glass. For God’s sake, you even allowed Levet to visit when I said I wanted to see him.”
He shuddered at the hideous memory. “Do not remind me.”
“Is there something you are not telling me?” Rising to her feet, she circled the table and settled her hands on his shoulders, covered by his brocade robe. “Did my spell to break the Jinn’s connection to this world do something horrible to me? Am I dying?”
He surged to his feet, shocked by her question. “No. You are perfect, Juliet.”
She tilted back her head to meet his narrowed gaze. “Then why are you behaving so oddly?”
With a grimace he accepted there was nothing to do but confess the truth. No matter how it might expose his vulnerable heart.
“I want you to be pleased with me and with this lair,” he confessed, his voice raw with need. “I want you to feel as if this is your home.”
Her eyes darkened with an unwavering love that instantly soothed his fears.
“Victor, this lair is merely a place where we are currently residing.” She pressed a hand to his chest, a smile of satisfaction curving her lips. “My home is here . . . in your heart. And nothing, absolutely nothing, could please me more.”
With a smooth motion, he swept her off her feet, headed for their bed. The cold emptiness that had claimed his soul centuries ago was melting beneath the tender heat of her gaze.
“You will never leave me?”
“I am yours, Marquis DeRosa,” she promised, “until the end of time.”
He tightened his arms around her. “Until the end of time and beyond.”
Immortal Dreams
KAITLIN O’RILEY
Chapter One
London, England
Fall, 1870
Grace opened her eyes with a strangled gasp, staring blankly into the murky darkness surrounding her. Fear gripped her entire body and she lay motionless for some minutes before realization dawned. Sweaty and shaking, she sat up in bed, wiping the tears that had spilled down her cheeks as her wild heart rate slowly returned to a more normal pace. With a trembling hand she lit the lamp on her bedside table, allowing the warm glow to comfort her, and sighed heavily.
The dreams. Another of those haunting dreams had awakened her.
Now that her bedroom was lit, she instinctively glanced at the small ormolu clock resting on the fireplace mantel, not that she needed to look. She knew exactly what time it was. As expected, the elegant hands indicated a quarter past five o’clock in the morning. She always awakened from these strange dreams close to dawn.
Knowing she would not fall back to sleep now, she rose from her four-poster bed and padded across the room to the large window. Lately she had been compelled to look out her window after one of those dreams, but she did not know why. Except she felt the answers to her questions lay somewhere beyond these walls. She pulled back the pretty rose toile curtains that reached to the polished wood floor.
The backyard of her London townhouse was shrouded in dark shadows, but she knew the grass was immaculately trimmed and the rose bushes and flower garden carefully tended. Her eyes scanned the lawn and moved upward above the trees. The last of the night stars were fading as soft fingers of light caressed the early morning sky. The world always seemed desolate and lonely to her at this hour, when the city was not yet awake and all was hushed and still. A sense of expectancy clung to her as she searched through the dimness, looking for a sign of movement. A sign of anything. She held her breath in anticipation. The eerie predawn light still held shadows but she could distinguish nothing out of the ordinary.
“Where is he?” she whispered impatiently to herself.
The question startled her, not only because she had said it aloud but also because of what it meant. She shook herself at her odd query, for she did not know whom she was looking for, but she could not get over the feeling that she was waiting for someone. A man. A certain man. The same man who haunted her strange recurring dreams. Who was he? She was quite positive she did not know anyone remotely like him. In her dreams she loved him. Even when she was married she had not loved Henry with the same passion with which she loved the stranger in her dreams. This love was magical, intense, and wildly passionate.
Afterward the dreams always left her in a melancholy mood, and this one in particular had been more vivid and detailed than usual, and filled her with a sense of anguish and sorrow.
She had had the dreams for as long as she could remember, all her life, although they had occurred with more frequency in the past year. While they always left her with an overwhelming sense of loss and sadness, she could not deny the indescribable joy and deep love she experienced within the dreams. Nor the aching loneliness she felt when she awoke and faced her real life.
Grace shivered and dropped the rose toile curtain back into place. Moving back to her bed, she gathered her soft robe around her and donned her slippers. It was too early to ring for a servant, but she desperately wanted the warmth of the fireplace, for the first days of autumn chilled the air.
Grace walked to her elegant writing desk, unlocked a small drawer, and retrieved a familiar book, indulging in the memory of her dream for just a few more moments. She curled up on the overstuffed rose chintz armchair with her journal. Flipping through the pages, she noted that her last entry was dated less than a week earlier. The dreams were becoming more frequent, more intense. It was after Henry died that she first began recording in a journal the recollections of the strange dreams that had haunted her life. Never had she spoken to a soul about these dreams, not even to her husband.
For these dreams were special and quite unlike ordinary dreams. She had often tried to find words to describe them and could only come up with “lifelike.” These dreams were not flights of fancy, nor
the vague processing of the daily events. These dreams did not fade as the day wore on. They did not become wisps of memory or flashing impressions of feelings as her other, more ordinary dreams did.
These dreams of him were lasting and vivid, as real as if the events happened while she was awake and living them in reality. In truth it was as if she were visiting another person’s life during another era, yet somehow they were about her.
She had begun transcribing her dreams to keep track of them and over the years she had discovered that she lived another life when she slept. She could not shake the suspicion that it had been her life, if such a thing were possible. For the details were too intimate, too private, and too intense to belong to anyone but her.
Last night’s dream in particular.
She had been naked with him in this dream last night again. Her cheeks growing warm, Grace closed her eyes, remembering the deliciously sensuous and passionate nature of the dream.
In the dreams she called him Phillip. He was tall with black, wavy hair, very fair skin, and deep dark brown eyes. His face was beautifully sculpted, his handsomeness almost startling in its perfection. He possessed a seductive voice, smooth and cultured. And he loved her. Or at least he loved the woman she was in the dreams. He called her by a strange name. Gráinne. His love for her was evident in every word he whispered to her, in the way he caressed her cheek, in the way he gazed adoringly at her. In the way he kissed her lips. Oh, the way he kissed her! The emotion and intensity between them was overpowering, all-consuming.
Never in her own life had Grace experienced anything like it.
Henry had kissed her, of course. Yet Henry’s kisses never left her feeling the way she felt after Phillip kissed her.
A sharp rap on the bedroom door startled her, causing her to drop her journal on the floor. Before Grace could rise from her chair, the door opened and Mary Sutton stormed in.
“What in God’s name are you doing up at this hour?” her sharp voice snapped.
“I . . . I couldn’t sleep,” Grace began to explain to her mother-in-law, her heartbeat increasing. With a furtive glance at her dream journal lying on the floor, she frantically wished she had had a chance to tuck her journal behind her before Mary entered.
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