Her jaw dropped. She snapped her mouth closed, but it fell open again. She searched his face, detected no sign of jest. “Impossible! Symbols aside, that’s a glass mirror!”
He laughed softly. “Not . . . quite. Nothing about an Unseelie piece is ever . . . quite what it seems.”
“ ‘An Unseelie piece’?” she echoed blankly. “I’m not familiar with that classification.” Her fingers curled, she braced herself to dive for the blade, doing a mental five-count . . . four . . . three . . .
“Not many are. It denotes relics few ever see and live to tell of. Ancient Hallows fashioned by those darkest among the Tuatha Dé Danaan.” He paused the space of a heartbeat. “Don’t worry, Jessica St. James—”
Oh, God, he knew her name. How did he know her name?
“—I’ll make it quick. You’ll hardly feel a thing.” His smile was terrifyingly gentle.
“Holy shit!” She lunged for the dirk at the same moment he lunged for her.
When one was afraid for one’s life, Jessi observed with almost serene, dreamlike detachment, events had a funny way of slowing down, even though one knew events were really rushing toward one with all the velocity and surety of a high-speed train wreck.
She noted every detail of his lunge, as if it unfolded in freeze-frames: his legs bent, his body drew in on itself, coiling to spring, one hand dipped into a pocket, withdrew a thin wire with leather-wrapped ends, his eyes went cold, his face hard, she even noticed the whitening around the edges of his nostrils as they flared with a terrifying, incongruous sexual excitement.
She was aware of her own body in a similar dichotomous fashion. Though her heart thundered and her breath came in fast and furious gasps, her legs felt made of lead, and the few steps she managed seemed to take a lifetime.
His lips curled mockingly and, in that sharp-edged smile, she saw the sudden stark certainty that even if she managed to arm herself with the small blade, it wouldn’t matter. Death waited in his smile. He’d done this before. Many, many times. And he was good at it. She had no idea how she knew, she just knew.
As he closed in on her, wrapping the leather-cased ends of the wire around his hands, the silvery glint of the minor, leaning against the bookshelves beyond the table, caught her eye.
Of course—the mirror!
She might not be able to best him in a physical struggle, but she just happened to be smack between him and what he wanted!
And what he wanted was highly breakable.
She practically fell on top of the curio table, shoved aside the dirk, and closed her hand instead around the heavy pewter base of the lamp next to it. She whirled to face him at dizzying speed, backed up against the mirror, and hefted the lamp like a baseball bat. “Stop right there!”
He stopped so abruptly that he should have fallen flat on his face, which spoke volumes about how much lethal muscle was under that suit—oh yes, she’d be dead if he got his hands on her.
“Take one more step and I’ll smash the mirror to smithereens.” She brandished the lamp threateningly.
Was that the sound of a sharply indrawn breath behind her? Followed by a muttered curse?
Impossible!
She dare not turn. Dare not take her eyes off her attacker for even a moment. Dare not give in to the sob of fear that was trying to claw its way up the back of her throat.
His gaze darted over her shoulder, his eyes flared, then his gaze latched back on her. “No, you won’t. You preserve history. You don’t destroy it. That thing is priceless. And it is as old as I said it was. It is conceivably the single most important relic any archaeologist has ever laid eyes on. It debunks thousands of years of your so-called ‘history.’ Think of the impact it could have on your world.”
“Mine personally? Gee, like, uh, none, if I’m dead. Back off, mister, if you want it in one piece. And I think you do. I think it’s not worth a thing to you broken.” If he was going to kill her, she had nothing to lose by smashing it into a gazillion silvery little pieces; no matter that her inner historian violently protested such sacrilege. If she was going down, she was taking whatever he wanted with her. If she was going to be dead, by God, he was going to be miserable too.
A muscle worked in his jaw. His gaze skidded between her and the mirror and back again. He tensed as if to take a step.
“Don’t do it,” she warned. “I’m serious.” She shifted her grip on the lamp, prepared to swing it into the mirror if he so much as breathed wrong. If nothing else, maybe they’d struggle atop the shards of glass; he’d slip, cut himself, and bleed to death. One never knew.
“Impasse,” he murmured. “Interesting. You’ve more spirit than I’d thought.”
“If you are wishing to live, lass,” came the deep, rich purr of a brogue behind her, “best summon me out now.”
A chill shuddered through her entire body, and the baby-fine hair at the nape of her neck stood up, quivering on end. Just like on Friday, the room felt suddenly . . . wrong. Not quite the size and shape it was supposed to be. As if a door that by all conventions of reality couldn’t possibly be there had suddenly opened, skewing the known dimensions of her world.
“Shut the hell up,” her assailant clipped, his gaze fixed over her shoulder, “or I’ll smash you myself.”
Dark, mocking laughter rolled behind her. It made her shiver. “You wouldn’t dare and well you ken it. ’Tis why you’ve not rushed her. Lucan sent you with precise instructions. Bring it back intact, nay? The mere possibility that the mirror might be shattered makes your blood ice. You know what he’d do to you. You’d be begging for death.”
“Huh-uh, no way,” Jessi whispered, eyes going wide. She could feel the blood draining from her face, knew she’d gone white as snow. “Not believing this.” She took a shaky little breath. “Any of this.”
Logic insisted there couldn’t possibly be anyone behind her. And certainly not anyone inside a mirror, for heaven’s sake!
But her gut was of a different opinion.
Her gut sensed “Man” with a capital “M” behind her, and he was throwing off all the heat of a small, fiery forge at her back. Enough that it made the sides and front of her feel abruptly cold. Made her neck ache with the effort of keeping her gaze fixed firmly on her would-be murderer, and not turning to gape at the looking glass. She could feel him behind her. Something. Someone. Caged power. Caged sexuality. Whatever was behind her was formidable.
“Doona turn, woman,” he—it—whatever it was—counseled. “Keep your eyes on him and speak after me—”
“I’d advise against that,” the blond man warned, locking gazes with her. “You’ve no idea what you’d be letting out of that mirror.”
Jessi took another shallow breath. She could sense the blond man’s tightly leashed fury, knew if he thought, for even a split second, that she might not actually break the mirror, she was dead. She was afraid to so much as blink, afraid he would lunge during that brief moment of vulnerability. And there was something behind her that couldn’t possibly be there, at least not according to any laws of physics she understood. Admittedly, there were many laws of physics she didn’t understand, but she felt confident enough of those she did to protest faintly, “This is crazy.”
“ ‘Crazy’ would be letting him out,” the blond man said. “Step away from the mirror. Do as I say and I’ll see to it he doesn’t harm you.”
“Oh, like I’m believing that. Now you’re my protector?”
“Summon me out, woman. I am your protector,” came the command at her back.
“This isn’t happening.” It couldn’t be. None of it. Her mind was incapable of processing it, and the sensation of dreamlike detachment was increasing exponentially. She felt as if she were standing, bewildered, on a stage set, as actors played their parts around her, and if somebody had a playbill with one of those helpful little plot synopsis thingies, she sure hadn’t gotten to see it.
“He will kill you, lass,” rolled the deep Scots burr behind her, “and you know it.
You doona ken the same of me. Sure death or a mayhap death, ’tis a simple choice.”
“And that’s supposed to be reassuring?” she snapped over her shoulder, to whatever it was that was there that couldn’t really be there.
The blond man smiled coldly. “Oh, he’ll kill you, and far more brutally than I. Step aside and I’ll let you live. I’ll collect the mirror and leave. I give you my word.”
Jessi shook her head from side to side, once. “Leave. Now. And I won’t smash the mirror.”
“He won’t leave, lass, ’til you’re dead. He cannot. He is bound to serve one who would punish him were he to leave you alive now that you’ve seen the Dark Glass. I’ve no means to convince you to trust me. You must hang your bonnet on faith. Him. Or me. Choose. Now.”
“He was imprisoned in such a fashion because he is a ruthless killer that couldn’t be contained any other way. He was locked away for the safety of the world. It took the power of formidable Druids—”
“Woman, choose! Repeat this: Lialth bree che bree, Cian MacKeltar, drachme se-sidh!”
Jessi echoed the strange words without missing a beat the moment she heard them.
Because she finally understood what was going on.
She was right—none of this was happening.
What was happening was that she’d let herself in Professor Keene’s office and, rather than going to the bookshelf as she’d thought, she’d sat down for a moment on the plush leather Chesterfield sofa to rest her eyes. But she’d ended up getting too horizontal. And she was currently snoozing soundly away, having the most bizarre of dreams.
And everyone knew nothing mattered in dreams. One always woke up. Always. So why not let the man out of the mirror? Who cared?
She echoed the odd incantation twice, for good measure. Brilliant golden light flashed, the heat behind her increased markedly, and the room suddenly seemed too small for all that was in it. The sensation of spatial distortion increased almost unbearably.
The lamp was plucked from her limp grasp and placed elsewhere. Strong hands closed on her waist from behind. Lifted her from the floor and swept her aside. Deposited her behind him, sheltering her with his body.
She caught scent of him then—God, had she ever smelled such a scent? The female muscles deep in her lower belly clenched. He bore no chemical traces of aftershave or deodorant. Nothing artificial. Just pure man: a blend of sun-warmed leather on skin, a kiss of something spicy like clove, a touch of sweat, and the raw, unspoken promise of sex. If male sexual dominion had a scent, he reeked of it, and it worked on her like the ultimate pheromone, bringing her nipples and groin to intense, painful sexual awareness.
She glanced up. And up.
It was the same towering, gorgeous, muscle-ripped man from her Friday-night fantasy, his long dark hair a tangle of dozens of braids bound with gold, silver, and copper beads, falling halfway down his back. His bare, oh-so-beautiful, velvet-skinned back.
“Whuh,” she breathed. In all her voyeuristic forays, she’d never seen a man so savagely, splendidly masculine. Figured he existed only in her subconscious.
It occurred to her then that since it was her subconscious at work, it was high time she transformed her id’s twisted little everyone’s-trying-to-kill-Jessi-today dream into something more to her liking: one toe-curling, scorchingly hot sex-dream.
Usually even the most intractable of bad dreams needed only a tiny nudge.
Nudge she would. With this fantasy man? Happily. Blissfully, even. She slid her palms up that perfect, powerful back, gliding over the ridges of muscle.
Fisted her hands in all that magnificent dark hair. Rubbed up against him, molding herself like Saran Wrap to his muscular, deliciously tight ass.
And licked him.
Slipped her tongue right up his spine. Tasted the salt and man and heat of him.
His entire body jerked with a violence that she would have found frightening, were she awake and any of it real. He sucked in a sharp breath between his teeth, a long, tight indrawn hiss, as if he were in exquisite pain. He went completely still, and made a guttural sound deep in his throat.
“You try me, woman,” he hissed.
He tossed his head—hard—yanking his braids free of her hands. In two strides he was through the door, slamming it behind him.
Only then did Jessi realize her assailant, too, was gone. He must have fled the moment she’d freed the man from the mirror.
With a gusty sigh, she went and slumped down on the couch. After a moment, she lay down, stretched out, and folded her arms behind her head.
She crossed her legs. Uncrossed them. Rubbed her eyes. Pinched herself experimentally a time or two.
God, she was horny. She couldn’t remember ever being so horny. The instant she’d pressed up against him she’d felt the strangest . . . well . . . jolt, for lack of a better word, sizzle through her entire body, and she’d gotten instantly ready. Panties-slick, ready-for-sex, no-foreplay-necessary ready.
So this is a wet dream, she thought with a little snort of amusement.
A worrisomely vivid, detailed wet dream, but a dream nonetheless.
She was going to wake up any minute now.
Yup. Any minute now.
* * *
3
Jessi awakened stiff, cold, and with the beginnings of what promised to be a perfectly vicious headache.
Her neck was crinked from sleeping funny and she must have pushed her pillow off the bed in the middle of the night, because there was nothing remotely downy beneath her head. She opened her eyes and pushed herself up, intending to take some Advil, retrieve her pillow, and lie back down for a few minutes, but the moment she opened her eyes, she had to add utterly-perplexed-as-to-her-current-location-in-the-universe to her list of complaints.
Unfortunately, her cranky, sleep-muddled respite from reality was far too brief. As soon as she sat up, she discovered she was not in her bed as she’d thought, but on the sofa in Professor Keene’s office, and the events of last night sledgehammered back into her brain.
Groaning, she dropped her head forward and clutched it with both hands.
Impossible events: a stranger in the office who’d tried to kill her; an absurd tale that the mirror was Old Stone Age; a man inside the mirror whom she’d freed—allegedly a ruthless killer.
Insane events.
Face buried in her palms, she whimpered, “What’s happening to me?”
But she knew what was happening to her; it was painfully obvious. She was losing it, that was what. And she wouldn’t be the first graduate student to crack under the strain of an overly ambitious load. Hardly a term passed without one or two dropping out of the program. The survivors always shook their heads and gossiped mercilessly about how so-and-so “just couldn’t take the pressure.” She knew; she’d been among them.
But I can take the pressure! I’m doing great; look at my GPA! she protested inwardly.
Right. Uh-huh, logic countered flatly, so what other explanation is there for the crazy hallucinations—or dreams—or whatever they are—that you’ve been suffering for the past few days?
She sighed. There was no denying it; in the past few days she’d had two distinct bouts of . . . well, something . . . during which she’d not only been incapable of distinguishing reality from fantasy, she’d not even been in charge of her own fantasy.
Which hardly seemed fair, she thought, biting back a bubble of near-hysterical laughter. If a girl was going to lose her mind, shouldn’t she at least get to enjoy it? Why on earth would she conjure the perfect male specimen, the most incendiary of hotties, then make herself the hapless victim of some bizarre murder plot?
“I just don’t get it.” Gingerly, she rubbed the pads of her index fingers in small circles on her throbbing temples.
Unless it had actually happened.
“Right. Uh-huh.” A man in a mirror. Sure.
Still holding her temples, she raised her head, peering about the dimly lit office, seeking clues. The
re was no indication that anyone but she had ever been there. Oh, the lamp was on the floor, rather than in its usual perch on the table, and a book was lying on the rug near the wall, but neither of those things could be construed as conclusive evidence that someone else had been in the office with her last night. People were known to sleepwalk in the midst of highly vivid dreams.
She forced herself to look in the mirror. Directly into it.
Hard silvered glass. Nothing more.
Forced herself to stand up. Walk over to it. Place her cold palms against the colder glass.
Hard silvered glass. Nothing more. No way anything had come out of that.
Squaring her shoulders, she turned her back on the relic.
Moving stiffly, she retrieved her backpack from the floor, scooped up the books the professor wanted, stuffed them into her bag, let herself out, and locked up the office.
For the first time in the entire history of her academic career, Jessi did the unthinkable: She ditched classes, went home, took some aspirin, tugged on her favorite Godsmack T-shirt, crawled into bed, pulled the covers up over her head.
And hid.
She never gave up. Never abandoned her plans and schedule. Never failed to meet things head-on. As tight as her schedule was, if she let a single thing slip or fall behind, a dozen others were affected. One tiny lapse could initiate a wildly entropic downward spiral. Ergo, everything had to be tackled and completed as planned.
Last winter, she’d trudged to class in the middle of one of Chicago’s most brutal snowstorms, trembling from head to toe with violent flu-chills, so sick that all the millions of tiny pores in her skin stung like little needle pricks. She’d lectured on more than one occasion while bordering on laryngitis, forcing her voice only with the aid of a disgustingly vile tea of orange peel, olive oil, and varied unmentionables she still shuddered to think about. She’d graded papers with a fever of a hundred and two.
But craziness wasn’t something one could tackle and complete, moving on to the next project.
And she had no clue how to deal with it.
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