Firewalkers: Dreamer

by Shiloh Walker

  “A vampire is a predator,” Jax said, struggling to reign in his anger. “A hunter. But in order to live, we must control that. Do you know how humiliating it is to beg permission to buy your own home? If I had ever taken a mate, I would have had to plead my case before the King. I would never have been allowed to father a child. I cannot feed on a mortal without requesting permission, even from those who set themselves up merely for that trade. The blood-whores love nothing more than to find a wealthy vampire and cry he blood-raped her, when he courted and requested permission in truth. We are dominant creatures, but if we dare to allow that to show, we are put to death. They are destroying us. Within a few more millennia, we will all be gone.”

  “How sad,” Dustin mocked lightly. “The poor traumatized vampires are being hunted to extinction.”

  Jax flashed fang. “I’d be careful, mountain,” he whispered silkily. “What do you think your own people are doing to you? At least the people exterminating my kind are not my own blood.”

  Before Dustin could hurl himself at Miguel’s unbreakable barrier, Morgan stepped between them and said quietly, “He is right, Dustin. Damn it, why do you think they are killing the babies? Hunting down the kids? We are being exterminated. Hearing it put so bluntly doesn’t change anything.”

  “My kind at least have time on their side. They will fight back, eventually. They already know what is to come,” Jax said, shoving his own grief down. Faraman had spoken to him in quiet tones, in hushed voices, about the vampire revolts taking place throughout Oslina. But Jax had not wanted to stage one, lead one or participate in one. Faraman may have felt it was the only way, and Jax knew in his gut it was not right to cow a man so, be he mortal or vampire, but he would not harm his King. “But yours has not. You are divided, and poorly organized, and too full of anger.”

  “We have reason to be angry,” Morgan whispered roughly. “They kill us, in our cribs. Some of our brothers have died at the hands of their parents. They attack us in the night, shoot us in the back. We have every right to be angry.”

  “Your anger will not save you if you let it blind you,” Jax said softly. “When I was twenty, the King I serve tried to make me a eunuch. He tried to convince me that was for the good of the world. I could have fought and killed the men he sent for me, but where would my anger have gotten me? Dead. Thrown to the suns or beheaded. Anger does you little good if you cannot control it.”

  He felt the shudder that racked Caris and he held her tighter, stroking one hand up and down her arm as he stared into Morgan’s eyes. “I am no threat to you.”

  “You are too alien.” Morgan shook his head, his glistening hair flowing around his wide shoulders, his pale blue eyes troubled. “Caris, we need you, but I can’t have this man here.”

  “Then I’m not here either,” she said quietly. “I’ll try to help the boy Sage mentioned, but then I’ll have Sage take me home.” Reaching up, she closed her hand around the charm at her neck and started to tug.

  “Caris, no,” Anni said, a soft whimper in her throat. She turned tearful eyes to Morgan, her dark, stormy gray gaze glittering. “Why are you so willing to turn him aside? Damn it, it was just a few years ago that I killed men in cold blood when the hunger was on me. After I hit puberty, it took you months to bring me under control. I killed innocent men, and you still kept me on. Why me and not him?”

  “You were a child. And damn it, he’s not one of us,” Morgan snarled, flinging a hand in Jax’s direction. His hand struck Miguel’s barrier and he bellowed as the electrical shock tore through him. Cradling his injured hand to his chest, he fell away and brushed aside Dustin’s aid. “He’s not one of us.”

  “Hypocrite,” Sage said quietly. He ignored Morgan’s angry, outraged eyes and turned to Caris with a look she rarely saw. Compassion. He had so much rage inside him, compassion was something he just didn’t have much room for. “I’ll bring the boy out.” He was gone, and back within seconds, holding the child cuddled against his chest.

  The boy was pale, wide-eyed, the dark brown irises huge in his small face. Caris started to smile but an odd tingle raced down her spine as she stared at his sweet, young face. Foul…perverted…they should die… Not thoughts she was sensing from him, those were muffled, shielded.

  But emotions…foul, evil…

  Warily, she reached out but jerked her hand back. “Has any other empath been here to see him?”

  Angrily, across the barrier, Morgan snarled, “No. I wanted you here for him. None of the others are like you. Even Ari and Kelly can’t touch your skill, though I tried to summon a healer as well as you. I wanted the best I had for a child. But you don’t have a care for us any longer.”

  She ignored him. Morgan would not stay so angry with her for long. He needed her too much. His temper ran as hot as his gifts did, and tended to burn out just as quickly. Flatly, she said, “The boy isn’t in here, Morgan. The boy isn’t inside this body. And you all need to get out of here. Now. Sage.”

  Sage didn’t question. Miguel remained holding the barrier, but Sage crossed it, grabbed Anni and they were gone.

  “What?” Morgan asked, pacing, his entire being wanted to be by the child. And his anger kept him away. Miguel wouldn’t drop the barrier while Dustin was there, reacting to every little nuance from his leader.

  Miguel, the stubborn bastard, took his responsibilities seriously, and had decided that he’d be on Caris’ side. Flinging himself into a chair, he brooded.

  Jax knelt beside her and studied the boy. “Father of us all,” he whispered under his breath. “How is that possible?” He could see the face inside the body. It was not that of a child. It was watching and listening. “Could he hear us from where he was?”

  “No. Morgan keeps the children in an old room in the basement. It was built hundreds of years ago, called a bomb shelter. But him hearing us doesn’t matter. They are tracking him somehow. Using him as a beacon. They are on their way here now.”

  Morgan had risen and was watching them through the barrier. “What’s going on?” he asked as he picked up on the nuances he saw on Caris’ face.

  “No time,” Sage said as he exploded back into the room. “Something bad is coming. I feel it now.” His tanned face was lined from weariness as he strode to Dustin, looped his arms as best he could around the man’s massive girth, and they were gone.

  “Damn it, Caris.”

  “No questions, Morgan, it’s not safe.” She closed her hands around the tiny face that looked so innocent. The soul inside it was not. It was full of malice and evil and cunning. It was so certain it had won. “Not so easy, bastard,” she snarled into his face.

  “Let me,” Jax murmured. “I think I can do something about this.”

  He laid his long fingered hands along the back of hers as Sage exploded, with a little less oomph into the room, and strode to Morgan. Morgan shook his head. “I’m last,” he said. “My agents go first. Their safety first.”

  Miguel cocked a black brow. His Hispanic features softened with a smile as he asked, “Amigo, you going to play nice?”

  “I’ll play nice, Miguel,” Morgan said flatly, his blue eyes gleaming.

  The barrier fell, Sage gripped Miguel and then there were four, Morgan, Caris, the boy and the vampire. “He’s trying to track Sage. I can place a mental block,” Jax murmured, weaving it as he spoke. He opened his eyes as he spoke and purred into the watcher’s mind, You chose a bad time to come. A mental predator is in the midst and I am so much harder to fool than they are. So much older.

  What are you doing? Get out get out get out get out get out get out! the shrill voice echoed throughout the room and even Morgan heard it.

  Slowly he said, “That is no child.”

  Sage stumbled into the room this time. “Come on, Morgan.” There was none of his characteristic cockiness, none of his natural grace, just an obvious weariness.

  “Caris, first.”

  “No, man. She won’t go without the vampire and he has to go last
. He’s keeping that boy from tracking, so he stays until I’m done. No arguing, I ain’t got the energy,” Sage said. He looped his arms over Morgan.

  Within seconds, he was back again and drawing her against him, a reassuring smile on his face. “Come on, Sugar. Let’s go,” he said, nodding at the vampire. “I’ll be back.”

  Caris knew it would be bad. The jaunt with Sage was beyond bad. Her belly was roiling with it. But she stumbled and fell and managed to keep from hitting her head just barely. She stumbled out of the way just as Sage reappeared with the boy who wasn’t a boy. She jerked her feet away from him, not wanting to touch him. She needed another teleporter—Sage’s weariness was far too great and he was pushing himself too hard.

  But there was not enough time.

  Sage appeared with Jax and collapsed against the vampire, gray, his eyes rolling upward until only the whites showed. Jax caught him and held him easily, gently. “As he came back the last time, something was surrounding the house. Very loud. Very fast. I hope nothing of importance was there,” Jax murmured as he eased him onto the couch so she could look at him.

  Caris heard and felt the broadcast call from another agent go up thirty minutes later as she watched Jax slip Sage’s limp body into her bed. The vampire had stripped him down and she had examined him, pressing the pads of her fingers to his brow and tunneling into his mind.

  “Exhaustion, overuse. He’s going to have the granddaddy of all headaches. And he most likely will be earthbound and walking where he wants to go for a week, at least,” she told Morgan who stood silently in the doorway, watching them with grim eyes. “You’re gonna hate that, aren’t you, babe?” she murmured, stroking his black hair back from his face.

  The boy was still where they’d left him. Jax checked on him periodically.

  MORGAN!!!! The sheer panicked pain in that voice was unrecognizable. Not a voice she could ever remember hearing. But when it calmed a few heartbeats later and touched her again, it sounded more familiar. Vaguely.

  Caris? Caris! Of course, calm was a relative term. The powerful voice was still enough to shatter, or at least feel like it was shattering, her eardrums.

  She clapped her hands instinctively over her ears, even though the sound didn’t come from outside her head, but from within.

  Pipe down. I’m here. Who is this?

  Where’s Morgan? His house is gone, totally. Where is he?

  With me. We got out. Who is this?

  Oh, sorry. Ari Rayborne. Where is Morgan, damn it? Where is here?

  Rayborne. That explained the powerful call.

  He is here. He’s fine.

  She lifted her eyes and stared at Morgan in the doorway. “The house is gone.”

  Call everybody you can find. We need to meet, but no teleporting. They may have found a way to track us.

  She had no more than relayed the message to the powerful telepath Ari when she felt another prodding at her shields. But this wasn’t a telepath trying to get in. It was an empath–and if Caris didn’t let her in, the empath would simply force her way inside. Caris knew who this was.

  When Caris lowered her shields, the questions didn’t come in words, but in emotions and feelings, pictures, not thoughts.

  But Kelly Maguire’s questions were clear enough. She wanted, needed, to know how Sage was.

  Kelly, love, he is fine.

  A more powerful urge overtook Caris’ being, and she felt her throat tighten at the depth of the emotion. Tears stung her eyes and she had to take a deep, shaky breath before she could answer forcefully, Kelly, throttle down…you’re leaking all over me. And he is going to be fine. I know you can’t feel him. He’s out, unconscious. But he isn’t dead. I swear it.

  The cloak of misery lifted slightly and Caris could breathe. Honey, I know we haven’t always gotten along well. We both are too close to Sage for that, but I don’t lie. You know me. I don’t lie.

  After long moments, a wave of relief passed and Caris wished she could just hug the younger woman. Kelly transmitted the feeling that she would be making her way to Montana as quickly as she could.

  Go safely…

  But the healer had already broken the link.

  It figured. Nothing would keep Maguire from getting to the side of her beloved Sage.

  Later that night, Caris lay her head on Jax’s naked shoulder. The gel mat underneath them padded the floor and absorbed the cool from the early spring night so they were nearly as comfortable as they would have been in the bed.

  She hadn’t wanted to leave Sage alone just yet and all the guest suites were on the opposite side of the house. She had two spare rooms left, and the couch folded out into a bed. Right now, it housed Miguel. He was taking watchdog duty on their little POW who was ensconced in what had once been a wine cellar. At Morgan’s request, several years ago, she had revamped it with a steel reinforced door, soundproofed it, fireproofed it, and basically “proofed” it against everything short of a laser-bomb.

  Periodically, she sensed Miguel up and moving around down in the basement as he went to check on the not-child but other than that it was quiet.

  They were expecting company, and lots of it, within the next few days.

  They needed to find a new headquarters.

  Her house was big, but not big enough for several hundred agents.

  Hell, Morgan’s house hadn’t been big enough for that.

  When will he wake?

  When he wants to, Caris replied. He just wore himself out, stretched himself too thin. He was teleporting us over a distance of nearly five hundred miles, one way. Other ‘porters would never have been able to do that more than once. Sage is pretty powerful. We’re lucky he didn’t wipe himself out.

  The consequences of that tightened her throat and stung her eyes. Desperate to think of something else, Caris slid her hand down and closed it over his cock. Think you could be quiet if I…? She sent him a mental picture that had him arching off the gel mat, his body vibrating with a suppressed moan. A thrill of delight raced through her, and the lust and need chased away her grim thoughts as he wrapped one hand in her hair and urged her down.

  Sliding under the thin sheet, she closed her mouth over the fat head of his cock and sucked on it like a lollipop, as his fingers tightened in her hair. His taste, damn, it was addictive. She curled her tongue around the plum-shaped head, sucking it hard and humming with pleasure as he groaned. He arched up against her mouth, taking the cue from her mind.

  She could feel a battle waging inside him, the battle to be and act as he truly was, tempered with the self-imposed, rigid control he had always been forced to maintain.

  His hands held her head, but almost tentatively, and she could feel the way he battled down the desire to grip her tightly, to drive roughly into her mouth until he exploded.

  You’re a dominant creature…I’m not submissive, but I don’t mind being dominated every once in a while, she thought. She could never have said the words, or even thought the words outside of sex.

  But she might have worked up the courage if she had realized just how badly he needed to hear them. She felt something inside him break, the final chains he had been keeping in place after so many years of suppressing his own nature. He pulled away from her, rolled to his knees and pulled her to hers before grabbing her head and twining her long hair around his fingers, urging her mouth to his rampant erection. The need for silence made it all the more erotic as he thrust his thick length past the barrier of her lips and teeth, the glans of his cock bumping the back of her throat. As he slid down and down while he meshed with her mind, he whispered, relax, relax, relax, and she actually felt him take over her body, forcing the muscles to relax until she had taken as much of his length inside her throat as she could, and still be able to breathe.

  He wrapped one hand around his length to mark her limit and started to shuttle back and forth, ordering her silently, Hold still, when she started to draw back. Ah, damn it, you have no idea how sweet you look. Her jaws ached, her mo
uth actually felt bruised from his width as he drove his cock back inside, a muffled groan falling from his lips this time.

  Caris felt his grip in her hair fall away as he trailed his hand down her back. He gripped her ass, stroking the firm round curve, tracing his finger down the crevice there and asking, Has this tiny little hole ever taken a man’s cock?

  No, she thought in shock at the foreign caress. Hot little jolts of sensation coursed through her at the thought.

  “Good,” Jax purred out loud, keeping his voice quiet. He brought one hand to his mouth and licked his fingers until they gleamed. Then he started to press against that rosy, puckered hole, smiling as she whimpered around his cock. He pushed a little harder into her mouth and shuddered when the muscles in her throat closed silkily over him as they tried instinctively to reject him.

  The little rosette was tiny, virgin and tight. He bore down relentlessly until, with a sob, she opened around him and he worked his finger inside. Once in to the knuckle, he held still and reached up with his other hand to support her head, thrusting deeply inside her mouth, staring down at her. With his acute vision, he could see easily.

  He also knew Sage had been awake for the past several minutes, and the mortal was watching them, with sleep-heavy, hungry eyes. Jax did not particularly care. His heart was racing and the scent of the man’s arousal was filling the air, mingling with their own as he stared, watching Caris deep-throat Jax’s cock, a hungry little moan falling from her. Watching Jax finger-fuck Caris’ virgin ass.

  Never would he let her be with another man, alone. But if Jax let another man share in her sweetness, the pleasure she could derive from that…

  With a hoarse groan, he shuddered as the tight muscles in her ass clamped around his finger and he pulled it out slightly before working it back in. Her sweet, hot mouth slid back down on his cock and then she closed a firm, gentle hand over his sac, pressing the pads of her fingers against the sensitive patch of flesh right behind his balls.

  Her hot, silky-wet tongue stroked over the rigid erection and Jax’s breath left him in a rush as he pushed his cock deeper into her mouth, feeling her throat close over him, resisting, the muscles caressing the head of his shaft teasingly.