Dark Dream’s Temptation (The Children Of The Gods Paranormal Romance Series Book 26)

by I. T. Lucas

  Ella wanted it too.

  Could Julian be her Jackson?

  Although her situation was vastly different than Tessa’s had been, there were a lot of similarities between their stories too.

  Tessa had thought that she wasn’t good enough for Jackson, and Ella thought the same about Julian, but for different reasons. It wasn’t about her not being pretty enough, it was about being less in every other area. She wasn’t as smart, and she wasn’t as good, and she wasn’t as pure.

  She was contaminated by darkness.

  “Did you ever feel tainted?” Ella blurted out before thinking better of it. It was such an intrusive question.

  “Of course. How could I not have? I think every victim feels that way.”

  “Do you still feel it?”

  Tessa nodded. “I was touched by evil. I’ve seen it, I’ve tasted it, I’ve been immersed in it. I don’t think I’ll ever feel clean again. I envy those who have never been touched by it. Not because of the suffering that they’ve been spared, but because they can’t really internalize the evil that’s out there. I wish I never knew it existed.”

  37

  Julian

  Julian buttoned up his dress shirt and straightened the collar, which refused to stay put. Should he button the shirt all the way up?

  Nah, it made him look like a dork. It would've been okay with a tie, but that was too dressy for a family-style Friday night dinner. Magnus, who was a fancy dresser, hadn’t worn one the other Friday.

  Maybe two open buttons were better than one?

  He popped another button, but that revealed too much chest. Would Ella find it hot? Or would she think he was a slob?

  Probably the second one.

  It was back to where he’d started, with one button open and a collar that flopped on the right side.

  He could get another shirt or pull out the iron. If he could find it. Did he even own one? His dress shirts were the kind that supposedly didn’t need ironing because who had time for that?

  Right. He was obsessing over nothing. The shirt was fine. His beard was neatly trimmed, his hair was combed back but not slicked, and he was wearing his best-fitting pair of jeans.

  His looks had never been a problem. If Ella didn’t find him attractive, a straight collar was not going to change that.

  What did she find attractive?

  Grabbing a wine bottle, he headed out the door. He could think while walking to her house.

  Should he try to be more amusing? Maybe she appreciated humor?

  Or maybe the opposite was true, and she was attracted to the silent, brooding types?

  Except, Julian didn’t want to pretend to be someone he was not. She either liked him the way he was, or she didn’t.

  Perhaps the simple answer was that she found him too old for her, and he couldn’t really fault her for that. The eight-year difference would become a non-issue when they both got older, but at this time in their lives, it was huge. Especially since he’d spent most of those eight years furthering his education.

  That gap was probably bothering her too.

  In fact, he should be bothered by it as well, but he wasn’t. On the plane after her rescue, he’d done all the talking while Ella had tried to keep her eyes open, and the only time he’d actually had a conversation with her had been last Friday over dinner.

  He’d found her just as engaging if not more so than any of his fellow students at medical school. She was smart and eloquent, and her idea for the fundraiser demonstrated that she had the capacity to think outside the box.

  Fates, he wanted her.

  He wanted those beautiful big eyes of hers looking at him with more than just gratitude and friendship. He wanted her to gaze at him with adoration. Lust too, but that was too much to expect after what she’d been through.

  Stifling a sigh, he knocked on her front door.

  “Julian.” Vivian opened the way with a smile and pulled him into a quick one-armed hug. “Come on in. Dinner will be ready in a minute.”

  “Thank you for inviting me.” He handed her the wine bottle.

  “It’s our pleasure.”

  “Hi, Julian,” Parker said. “Do you want to play a bit before dinner?”

  “No time, buddy.” Magnus got up from the armchair. “Go wash up.” He offered Julian his hand. “I heard that you’ve found a place for the halfway house.”

  Shaking Magnus’s hand, Julian chuckled. “Not me. Kian. It was an old hotel that he bought with the intention of demolishing it and building a new one, but the city declared it as a historical building, so all he could do was remodel it, which wouldn’t have been profitable. Instead, he decided to donate it to the charity and take a tax write-off.”

  “Whatever works.” Magnus clapped him on the back. “Is it habitable?”

  “It needs some work.”

  As a door down the hallway opened, Julian turned his head in that direction. With the rest of the family all in the living room, it could only be Ella.

  His heart skipped a beat or two when she entered.

  “Hello, Julian.” She walked over to where he was standing next to Magnus and offered him a sweet smile. “I heard that you’ve been busy.”

  For a moment, he was too stunned to answer.

  Could it be that she’d dressed up and put makeup on for him?

  It was nothing fancy, just a long, curve-hugging skirt and a loose sweater that exposed one bare shoulder, but it was enough to cause his tongue to stick to the roof of his mouth.

  When he finally found his voice, it was to blurt, “Busy?”

  “Yeah, with the new place for the rescued girls.”

  “Oh, that.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “It needs a lot of work. Yamanu and I named it The Palms because we didn’t want to keep calling it the halfway house, and there were palm trees up front.”

  He was rambling like an idiot.

  She tilted her head. “Is the name still negotiable?”

  “It is. Until we officially open.”

  “I’ll think of something more original. By the way, I would love to see it. Is there a chance you can take me there?”

  Julian wasn’t the only one surprised.

  Parker gaped, Vivian grinned and nodded enthusiastically, and Magnus regarded Ella with narrowed eyes.

  “I would love to.”

  She put a hand on his arm and smiled. “Thank you. When can we go?”

  Up close, Ella’s feminine scent was doing all kinds of things to him, none of which were okay given present company. And that was without her emitting even a whiff of arousal.

  “Whenever you want.” He forced a smile. “If you’ll excuse me, I should wash my hands before dinner.”

  Ducking into the powder room, Julian closed the door behind him and ran a frustrated hand over his face as he leaned against the wall.

  He hadn’t imagined it. Ella had been coming on to him. She was subtle, but he had enough experience with girls wanting to start something to recognize it for what it was.

  Usually, though, he was much better at controlling his reactions. A hand on the arm shouldn’t have given his dick and fangs ideas.

  Yeah, he’d been as smooth as a porcupine in a balloon shop.

  Lifting his head, he glanced at the mirror. Not surprisingly, his eyes were glowing.

  The long abstinence must have been the culprit. Julian wasn’t as sexually driven as some of the older immortals, and he could go for prolonged periods without, but this had been a really long stretch.

  In fact, he hadn’t been with anyone ever since he’d met Vivian and had gotten obsessed with Ella’s picture. It hadn’t even been a conscious decision on his part. He just hadn’t been in the mood for hunting, which was understandable given how worried he’d been for her.

  Still was.

  Nothing in his life could’ve prepared him for handling that kind of stress. Up until Ella, the only times Julian had felt anxious were during finals. Unlike Kian or Turner or even his mother, Ju
lian hadn’t accumulated the set of tools necessary to deal with catastrophes.

  But now that it was all over, and Ella was safely home, Julian’s sex drive had not only returned, but it was demanding compensation for missed time.

  38

  Ella

  At the dinner table, Ella had chosen to sit next to Julian, which had turned out to be a smart decision. If she were sitting across from him, she would have to keep up the façade of confidence, which was really tough to maintain since he was not responding the way she’d thought he would.

  And besides, looking at his gorgeous face throughout the evening would have been too distracting for her to carry on an intelligent conversation.

  Tessa’s words were playing on a loop in her head. So much of it had been a mirror reflection of her own feelings, but Tessa had added a new dimension that Ella hadn’t thought of before.

  What if Julian lost interest?

  What if he decided that she was a lost cause?

  What if he wasn’t as patient as Jackson?

  What if he found another Dormant and decided that she was the one for him?

  Losing her chance with him, probably forever, because she was a scaredy-cat would be a big-time win for the dark side, and she wasn’t going to allow it to happen.

  Romeo, Stefano, and Gorchenco had cost her her innocence and her positive outlook on life. Ella wasn’t going to let them rob her of her future as well.

  Having time to heal was an illusion.

  A wounded soldier wouldn’t opt to stay in the trenches to regain his strength if the chopper that could take him home was only a few feet away. He would crawl, dragging his mangled body by his fingertips over shrapnel, if that was what it took. Because if he didn’t, that chopper would lift off, never to return, and he would die in that trench.

  Ella’s wounds would have to heal on that helicopter because missing the ride could mean that her only chance of recovery was gone.

  The problem was that her chopper was missing all the signals she was sending his way. Or at least it seemed like it.

  It should not come as a big surprise, though. Ella’s flirting skills were nonexistent. She knew how to fend off over-eager guys, but not how to lure them to her.

  Not them.

  Him.

  The only one she wanted to lure was Julian, and he was supposed to be an easy target. According to her mother, he believed that Ella was the one for him.

  Had her mother misinterpreted Julian’s interest?

  He seemed more interested in her little brother than in her.

  Apparently, Parker had much more in common with Julian than she had. The two were fascinated by aliens and UFOs and conspiracy theories.

  “There are rumors that the government is hiding alien bodies and crashed aircraft in a secret military base called Area 51. Some claim that there is also something going on in a hidden complex built under the decommissioned Montauk Air Force Station.”

  Parker’s eyes were sparkling with excitement. “I heard about Area 51. Everyone did. But not the air force station.”

  “Did you ever watch Ancient Aliens on the History Channel?” Julian asked.

  “Dude, I love that show. In our old house, I had all the episodes recorded.”

  “It’s obviously overdramatized, and some of the claims they make are absurd, but among all the rubbish there are kernels of truth. Before going to medical school, I took several months off and went exploring. Those sites are just as fascinating and inexplicable as they claim on the show.”

  “I don’t know about inexplicable,” Magnus said. “Our people could’ve been behind those building projects.”

  Julian shook his head. “As far as I know, the gods didn’t have settlements on the American continent.”

  “They didn’t have to if they had air travel capabilities. Some could’ve visited and left building instructions for the primitive locals. That would explain the level of complexity and precision of those ancient masons’ work. You said that the technology to duplicate it didn’t exist until recently.”

  Vivian smiled. “You didn't tell me that you’re into that stuff too.”

  Magnus shrugged. “I’m not. It just makes sense.”

  “I love the part about alien bases hidden under the oceans,” Parker said. “I think Atlantis was such a base, and that it was submerged to hide it from humans.” He looked at Julian hopefully, waiting for him to acknowledge the possibility.

  “That’s a question to address to the goddess. But frankly, I don’t think so. From the little information I was able to gather, the gods brought with them technology from wherever they’d originally come, but something happened, and contact with their home world was severed. After that, their equipment slowly fell apart, and they didn’t have the means to repair it. A floating city is not mentioned anywhere.”

  “Eva talks about Atlantis in her book,” Vivian said. “But that’s fiction. She’s writing a romance. I don’t think she has any secret information about it.”

  That was news to Ella. “Eva wrote a book? I didn’t know that.”

  Vivian waved a dismissive hand. “She is in the process of writing it. I’ve read several chapters.”

  “Is it any good?” Julian asked.

  “Let’s say it’s a work in progress.”

  Parker snorted. “That’s Mom’s polite way to say that it sucks.”

  “No, it doesn’t suck, Parker. But this is something new for Eva, and like every new skill, it requires endless hours of practice to get good at. Her ideas are great, though, very imaginative, but there’s too much blood and gore for my taste. It’s supposed to be a romance geared towards attracting Dormants, and not a murder mystery with horror elements. Eventually, I hope she’ll get it done.”

  Ella frowned. “How is a book going to attract Dormants?”

  “The idea was to write a story of a Dormant’s life and how she felt different than other people. In Eva’s story, she’s a lie-detector like Andrew and works as a police detective. During a murder investigation, she meets an immortal who suspects what she is, and the adventure starts from there. Eva’s idea was to create a social media group for people who loved the book and who felt different themselves. She hopes it will attract real Dormants.”

  Ella crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s not the craziest idea I’ve heard lately. It may actually work if she ever gets to finish that book.”

  Her comment must’ve intrigued Julian. Turning toward her, he arched a brow. “What other crazy ideas are you referring to?”

  Crap. She’d been thinking about Carol infiltrating the Doomers’ island and starting a revolution, but she wasn’t supposed to talk about it. Julian might know because he was Bridget’s son, and maybe even Magnus knew because he was a Guardian, but her mom and Parker didn’t and shouldn’t.

  Waving a dismissive hand, Ella snorted. “Where do I start? The government hiding debris from alien spaceships and alien bodies in Area 51. Hidden alien bases under the ocean floor. Atlantis submerged but still functioning. Should I go on?”

  39

  Julian

  Once coffee had been served and dessert eaten, there was no more reason for Julian to stay.

  He was about to thank his hosts and leave, when Parker asked, “How about a game now?”

  “Sure.”

  Thank you, Parker.

  The good news was that he’d gotten to talk some more with Ella. The bad news was that he’d either misunderstood her friendliness as flirtation or had blown his chances by not responding to it right away.

  After those initial coy smiles and resting her hand on his arm, Ella hadn’t done anything to indicate her interest. But maybe if he stayed a little longer, he’d have a chance to correct his mistake.

  If he’d made one.

  Julian still wasn’t sure that he hadn’t imagined Ella’s subtle come-on.

  “After I’m done with the dishes, I’ll come to watch you.” Ella got up and started clearing the table.

 
; Damn it, he should’ve offered to do that.

  “Let me help.” Julian picked up the largest serving platter and followed Ella to the kitchen.

  She waved him away. “Go play with Parker. I’ll be done in a few minutes.”

  “Can’t do that.” He winked. “My mother would box my ears if I don’t help.”

  That got a laugh out of her. “I don’t think Bridget can reach your ears, let alone box them.” She looked him up and down. “Your father must’ve been tall.”

  The compliment combined with the appreciative once over had Julian’s ears heat up for the first time in forever.

  He cleared his throat. “I’ve never met him, but my mom used to have a thing for tall guys.” He chuckled. “And then she fell for Turner. Go figure.”

  A thoughtful look in her eyes, Ella nodded. “Turner is very handsome. And he has those incredible pale blue eyes that make him look so intense. I can totally understand what she sees in him. He’s a born leader.”

  Why the hell had her appreciation of Turner made him so jealous?

  Maybe Ella was into short, intense guys?

  The leader types.

  Was he a leader?

  Julian wasn’t sure. He was competitive, and excelling at school had been important to him, but he’d never felt the need to lead anyone.

  Deciding it was best not to respond with something that would make him sound defensive or worse, arrogant, Julian opted to make a quick exit. “I’ll get the rest of the dishes while you load the dishwasher.”

  “Thanks.”

  Magnus stopped him. “I’ll help Ella finish up. Parker has been waiting all day to play with you.”

  “He has? Then I guess I should go.”

  It would give him time to calm down from the unexpected jealousy spike over Turner of all people.

  “Ready to play?” He sat on the bed since Parker occupied the only chair in the room.

  “Here.” The kid thrust a controller into his hands. “It’s the same game we played with Jackson.”

  “You played with Jackson and then with me. Jackson and I never played against each other.”