Day Into Night (The Firsts Book 16)

by C. L. Quinn

  Torin was quiet for a moment before he cleared his throat.

  “Will, what is this doing to you? I mean, what does the planet, those crystals, this cave, want with you?”

  Another long pause later, Will answered. “I think that it’s changing my power. In my body, I feel surges, a desire to run, full out, across the land, crawl against the grass, lie under the sky.”

  He lifted his downcast eyes to meet Torin’s. “Honestly, I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

  “Then you have to stop. Stay away from this hole. Get well again. I’ve noticed you’ve dropped some weight these past few weeks. When you feel up to it, I’ll help you climb the ladder and then we don’t come back.”

  “No, Tor, I can’t do that. Look, I know things are strange, I feel weird in ways I can’t describe, but I trust what is happening. It’s for the greater good, of that I’m certain. In the end, we’ll know and I’ll be fine.”

  Torin didn’t buy it. When he started to protest, he felt Will’s hand on his chest.

  “Tor, you’ve been there with me, you know there is no malevolence.”

  “I don’t know what I believe right now, except that my friend looks like he’s been dropped from a lift-car. You know I’ll be with you no matter what, but I think you need to get far away from here for a while. Get well again, anyway. Get some good nutrition. Let that vampiress reenergize you.”

  “I like the last part. Tor, for now, just help me get up the ladder.”

  That he could do. Torin used all his strength to lift Will from the floor and help him through the access corridor to the ladder. Standing at the first rung, Will groaned.

  “Fuck, this is gonna hurt.”

  “I’ll be right behind you every step in case you need support.”

  “Let’s do this.”

  It had taken twenty minutes, but the two men made it up to surface level where, thankfully, Will’s strength increased enough to make it over the landscape easily to Torin’s jet-bike.

  Now, entering the compound, Torin tried to supply support without being obvious, but everyone who worked with them was sharp-eyed and intuitive.

  “Will, you look like doggy-doo. What happened?”

  Dani and her southern U.S. vernacular. She may have phrased her inquiry with humor, but she looked at them with a deadly serious gaze. “You are involved with something we have no clue as to what it is or what it can do. When you look like that, we’re going to ask. And you’re going to answer.”

  Ife walked in on the last part of Dani’s comment, her eyes moving immediately to Will. Wordlessly, she walked over to place a hand on his forehead and lean in. The room froze as Ife tried to move deeper into Will’s spirit realm but she was pushed out again as she had the last few times she’d tried to do so. Pulling away, she stepped back.

  “Will, I can’t get in, but I can feel your weakness. Are the crystals draining you?”

  “No, Ife. Until tonight, I never felt anything less than a euphoric merge. Even today, it was fine, I felt cradled and safe, but later, I don’t notice time when I’m merged, I began to feel worse, I can’t describe it, but I don’t believe it is intended to harm me. Perhaps I’ll get more clarity in my next session.”

  “Which I believe he shouldn’t do.”

  Ife turned to face Torin after that statement. “I’m not sure I disagree. Will…”

  “Stop. You brought me down here to help protect this region and what I am doing with the crystal cave may be exactly what you need. The crystals are here for a reason, and there’s a sentience attached to them somehow. Not the crystals, I don’t mean that, but someone has put them here for us and it is my job to find out why. So, thank you all for you concern, but I’m going into my room to sleep, undisturbed, for the entire night. You go ahead with first meal, I’m not hungry. I’ll eat when I wake later. Goodnight, everyone.”

  Striding with as much purpose as he could, Will crossed the room, aware that everyone’s eyes were on him, and gratefully closed the door to his room behind him. It was uncommon to lock doors in the compound, trust in their companions high, but this time, he did so.

  Moving into the bathroom carefully, his balance still suspect, Will stopped in front of a wide well-lit mirror and stared at his image.

  They were right. He looked bad. His eyes were bloodshot and appeared to be sunken in, his skin tone sallow, and he noticed that his shirt did fit looser.

  He’d felt the draw as soon as it had begun, a subtle invasion that slowly increased until something inside of him rebelled. It was at that point he’d called out to Torin to help him. All of his actions were clear, he wasn’t confused about anything, but why it all happened like that tonight, he did not know.

  “Shower and bed,” he whispered to the somewhat scary-looking image in the mirror. Peeling his clothes off to step into the shower, Will put his head under the pulsing hot water as it pounded against his skin. Heat and the water massage made him feel better right away, relaxing tight muscles. He knew he would sleep now and heavily. After drying off quickly, he wandered into his room and dropped naked onto his bed. Moments later, sleep took him away from his corporeal needs into a dreamscape built from his own hidden desires.

  There, amongst wild flowers on a summer morning, the sun rising in the sky, stood Olivia in a yellow sundress and nothing else. The fabric nearly sheer, he could see her perfect body well outlined and he couldn’t look away.

  Yes, my own hidden desires, he thought, and walked toward his dream woman.

  AT DEZ’S COMPOUND

  “I’m not in much of a mood tonight, Dez. Will you forgive me? I need to catch up on lost sleep. Torin has been with me almost every night for several weeks. He called to say he wasn’t going to make it tonight, so I think I’ll head back to my room.”

  Olivia really was exhausted, Dez could see it in her movements and eyes. It wasn’t just marathon sex, though, that made her granddaughter so tired. Emotional distress could do more than anything to mess someone up, which is what she saw and felt when she looked at Olivia.

  “Go, sweetheart, get some rest. I’ve got plans for Zach anyway.”

  Olivia rolled her eyes along with a dismissive hand gesture. “All right, no details! I’ll see you at first meal.”

  Hurried, she was in her room in minutes, undressed, and collapsed on her bed. She’d been serious that she was in need of sleep, but there had been a second reason she wanted to retire to this room tonight, perhaps more important than time in bed.

  Whispering to herself on the way down the steps, she’d shaken her head at her folly.

  “Social animal Olivia isn’t feeling social.”

  Right now, she didn’t want to spend an evening laughing, drinking, dancing, with Dez and her guests. While her time recently with Torin had been stimulating and enjoyable, an unexpected sadness had been creeping in and no matter how hard she tried to get her old mojo back, she hadn’t been successful.

  Many of the evenings with Torin had started in the company of Will and Brigitte, and although she’d accepted the fact that the two were a couple, it still stung to spend time with them. Brigitte, highly affectionate, spent a lot of moments wrapped around Will.

  Lying alone on her bed with only dim candlelight-style bulbs illuminating the edge of the room, Olivia felt awful to admit to herself, “I don’t want to see them together.”

  Finally, she gave in to her need to sleep.

  It was rare that she dreamt, but this night, she found herself in a meadow filled with bright yellow wildflowers. A sun partway up a bright blue cloudless sky warmed her skin through a light sundress. Even in the dream, she was aware that the sun was a forbidden gift, and lifted her face to the brightness. She stayed that way for endless moments as distant memories of joy returned.

  “A beautiful vampire in sunlight, that’s quite a sight.”

  Will? The voice travelled from her left, and she whirled toward it. And just as he should be in a dream, Will stood mere feet away, shirtless in the
morning warmth, lightweight shorts his only attire. His smile showed he was as delighted as she to be here.

  “Biker.” Softly spoken, the nickname slipped from her tongue before she stepped toward him.

  Expectant moments filled the time before he dropped into the flowers and wrapped his arms around her belly, his face pressed into her just below her breasts. Beneath the thin fabric of her dress, Olivia’s dream-self felt his hot breath glide across her moist skin.

  “I’ve wanted to do this since that first night you showed up.”

  “You couldn’t.”

  “No, but it didn’t stop me wanting to.”

  Her hands buried in dream-Will’s thick dark hair, dream-Olivia threw her head back to glance toward the sun. No, it didn’t.

  “Dreams mean something,” she commented to the dream-lover holding her. She remembered her great-grandmother’s love affair on the dream-realm with her mate. It had been sensuous and beautiful, long before they were together.

  But this wasn’t a connection in the dream realm like Tamesine and Marc’s. This was her own mind wishing that Will still wanted her, and that they could be together. It wasn’t true. Still, there were no limits to what they could do while she was dreaming. This couldn’t hurt anyone.

  The dream-Will seemed to agree. His hands had moved from her waist, and when he tugged at the neckline of her dress, the spaghetti straps slipped off her shoulders and the top of the dress slid down to her waist.

  Dream-Olivia lowered her eyes to watch as his lips moved to one exposed nipple, the hot tongue sliding over it, then around in a circle, back and forth until she nearly dropped onto the ground with him. He held her steady on her feet, though, as he shifted to the other nipple and repeated the sensuous pattern and pulled back to survey the results of his work. He lifted his gaze back to hers.

  “Huh. It appears I’ve started something.”

  Both nipples erect, dream-Will tugged at each with his fingertips, fully aware than when his hands moved from her waist, the dress would fall, and once it did, his eyes went to the area between Olivia’s legs, no underwear hiding it.

  “And more work to be done.”

  Yes! Before dream-Olivia could push him down and straddle him, dream-Will surged upright and lifted her into his arms.

  “You refused me last year in the Arizona desert. Will you refuse me again?”

  “No. I refused you for a reason that makes no difference now. It no longer applies and this isn’t real anyway. What you do to me is exactly what I, as the architect of this dream, wish you to do. Fuck me, Will, and don’t hold back. Use your strength and make me scream.”

  “Architect? I don’t feel like I’m being directed, but I like the prescribed action.”

  “Shut up and fuck me.”

  Lowering her into the grass, dream-Will lifted her legs to let them rest on his back. The sun brilliant now, he ran his fingertips over the inside of her thighs, touching, absorbing her, before he lowered his head to touch his tongue to the same places, nipping as he went. A finger moved to the rigid clitoris waiting for attention, curving around it over and over before he slid it along the entire moist slit.

  “Bite.”

  Dream-Will glanced up at Olivia’s face. “Harder?”

  “Harder.”

  It made sense to him that biting would be sexy to a vampire, but he didn’t want to hurt her. Still, he moved back down her inner thigh again, traveling back up and just before he reached her core, he bit, hard enough to break the skin, blood seeping from a small tear.

  “Too hard?”

  Looking back up into her face, he smiled. Olivia’s arms were over her head, her eyes closed, lips curled up in erotic pleasure. No, not too hard.

  No more playing around, Will went right to the center, his tongue moving deep into her sex, pulling back to capture the clit in his teeth before he pummeled it with his tongue.

  Dream-Olivia sighed deeply as waves of pleasure overtook her. Her Will making love to her…glorious…as she’d hoped…

  Her eyes opened for a split second, and, in her orgasmic state, barely understood the strange movement overhead at first. Whirling white clouds sped in to replace the sky, the flowers, the sun. Within the dreamscape, Olivia sat up, joy ripped from her. The dream was ending, and Will was gone.

  Wakefulness came easy, her eyes opened, and, unmoving, slid across the rainbow lit walls. Moments later, a groan came as she remembered the illicit dream, intimate touches from Will, gone now as dreams would do.

  But memory remained, and for the moment, having just awakened, it was sharp and caused a reciprocal twitch between her legs. She was wet there from her body’s reaction to her mind’s construct.

  Dreams could be beautiful…or nightmares. This one was both. It wasn’t real and never would be. She could still feel the connection she’d created between them in the dreamworld, the feelings of love she’d never get to share with him, his touch she would never really feel.

  Nightmare. Not real. Sleep came again, but a full hour later with no remaining memory of dreams again.

  Good. Great. Fine.

  It was time to go home. Dear friends and family waited for her in Vegas, missed her, always holding the door open for her. This journey to seek some part of a universal destiny meant for her had failed. Staying here watching Will make love to another woman hurt. Olivia had always been a take-charge, take-no-prisoners type of woman, so it was time to go home, find a big vampire and fuck him until neither he or she could move.

  She’d enjoy one more night with Dez and Zach, say goodbye and thank you to Torin, and head home after first meal tomorrow night.

  In his own bed, at precisely the same time that Olivia slowly woke in hers, Will shot awake, startled, alert, his hand moving down to a hard-on.

  What a dream!

  Olivia, under his fingers, beneath his mouth…

  Sitting up, he reached for a glass half full of Scotch that had been there for two days and downed it. If dreams were a manifestation of desires, this one didn’t surprise him, and although he knew, knew, that it wasn’t real, every second felt seared into his mind, like a memory instead of a dream. The moment he’d fallen onto his knees to hold her, then reached up to drop her dress, his mouth on her nipples, and later, lower, to lick, to nip, to bite, felt as real as the Scotch now burning his throat. Her face lying back, arms over her head, her expression of erotic immersion, then the moment it all faded and he woke violently as he lost the chance to see her orgasm.

  Feet on the floor, he palmed the rigid cock that had nowhere to go. A man’s mind could be cruel.

  Time for a cold shower.

  Five

  Ife walked around the dining room table, her eyes on him, assessing, using her limited empathic sense to read his mood, his mind, his physical health.

  “Would you stop that?” Will barked, a spoon halfway to his mouth. “I’m fucking fine, Ife. Go bug someone who needs a vampire babysitter.”

  Taking a seat across from him, Ife reached out and snagged his left hand. “You’re not. You look sick, Will. I should have stopped this weeks ago. Whatever this bond is, it’s hurting you.”

  As he placed the spoon back into his bowl, Will took Ife’s other hand in his right. “What you see is simply a very exhausted man who is catching up on his rest. Is the merge draining me? Yeah, a little. Is it dangerous? No. Ife, don’t you think I would know if it were hurting me?”

  “I think you wouldn’t tell me if it were. I think you feel like you need to do this. Will, I’m shutting it all down until we have a better understanding of what it is. You forget that I can tell what’s going on in your mind, and you’ve lost focus. You’re not yourself anymore.”

  “I’m completely myself. You know as well as I do that we earth warriors have to go on faith. I’m doing that, Ife. I’m following my path. I can’t let you stop me.”

  “It’s my project, my territory, and you will comply with my directives. Will, I’ll let you back in, but not until we gain m
ore insight as to what this thing means, if it means anything at all, and what it wants, if it’s seeking something from us. Until then, you are to relax, rest, eat, and recover. Tonight, Zia is coming to your room to use her power with you. It will make you feel better, Will.”

  Ife watched Will’s expression go from smiling to fuming. That expression told her that she had been right. For whatever reason, he was addicted to this strange power merge with the cave, the crystals, Mother Earth, whatever the hell he was doing down there all this time. It had seemed manageable, harmless at least, at first, but now she had reason to believe the exact opposite was true. Her instincts told her that Will wouldn’t pull away regardless of the potential for damage, so it was her duty to protect him.

  Brigitte had agreed when they spoke about him two nights ago. If anyone understood the changes in Will’s personality of recent, it was the woman he slept with. Her intimate contact showed her more than anyone else might see.

  “He’s detached, distracted, less interested in being with me. It’s like someone blew out his light,” she’d told Ife.

  “So I’ll end this for now.” Her response had been predicated on her own observations about Will’s state of being. Then there was her question to Torin last week.

  “So what does Will tell you about what he’s doing while under?”

  Torin’s eyes had been guarded and he’d looked away while he answered her. “Not very much. He’s going to reveal more once he is finished, which he says will be soon.”

  The demeanor and body language had worried Ife. Tonight, though, he’d come to her and explained that he thought Will was sick. That he’d barely emerged from the bond this time. That Ife had better be worried…

  She pushed away from the table. “Will, take care of yourself. That’s your only job now. In fact, after Crezia checks you over, why don’t you join her and Scottie in the fields. It’s what I wanted you to come down to Brazil for in the first place. I think your skills are exactly what they need.”