Dream Lover (27 page)

She cried again, as hard as she had ever cried in her life, and could not answer him.

 

Time passed. The moon traveled across the sky, and finally the demon came.

Kieran had lapsed into sleep some while ago; now he did not wake, even as the thing jumped down onto the bed and sidled toward him, ignoring her.

Seeing it, Lele was afraid.

Fearing, Lele grew angry.

She screamed and caught up Kieran’s sword, as she had done once before, lunged forward, catching the demon in its ribs, pushing the sword through its body while it shrieked and flapped and tried to win free.

It was the size of a large dog, vaguely reptilian, but for all its
rot and terror, it didn’t look to be particularly fast, or ferocious, and with half its teeth gone, not even particularly deadly. Its best defense was probably the mere fact that, no matter how one chopped it up, it would just keep rebuilding itself.

She stood back, her breath coming hard, fury rising like a red mist in front of her eyes.

“I know I can’t kill you,” she hissed, watching its face twist, “but I’ll keep this up until my heart stops, I’ll keep hacking at you and cutting you until you’re so sick of being in pieces, you
will
leave him alone. I promise you, you son of a bitch, you’re starting a fight you’re not half mad enough to finish!”

She stared at it, and it stared back, laughing at her.

And then Kieran’s fingers opened. The pearl eye rolled off his chest and onto the floor, coming to rest near Lele’s foot.

For one frozen moment, the demon stared at the pearl almost under her feet, its deformed face a mask of panic and terror. Then it looked up at her, and Lele’s eyes narrowed.

It knew its mistake then, knew what it had betrayed.

She charged over the bed, swept the creature off and onto the floor on the other side; it snapped like a mad dog as she drove the sword through its body again, angled the blade down, drew it out, and brought it down once more with all her strength, burying the point in the floor.

The demon shrieked and twisted and screamed.

A moment was all she had, before it worked itself free.

A moment was all she needed.

She flew to the bed, searching under Kieran’s head for the dagger he had said he kept under his pillow, dragging it out triumphantly. The demon fought madly when it saw the blade, its screams rising. The sword began to work free of the floor.

Lele threw herself to her knees beside the pearl eye, reversed the dagger so the flat, square pommel faced down and
the blade pointed up, brought the dagger down as hard as she could over and over again, turning the malignant pearl into powder.

There was a silent moment of brilliant light as the pearl and the demon both incandesced, star-like, and then there was an
oomph
and a shock wave that threw her across the room.

The silence afterward was loudest of all.

 

Kieran opened his eyes slowly to the sunrise.

This was his house and his bed. He was alive in his house, waking up in his bed. How was that possible?

Suddenly terrified, he looked to his side…

And there was Lele, peacefully asleep, tucked into the shelter of his body, the only way she would sleep.

He looked up, raised himself as far as he could without disturbing her, and looked around.

There, on the floor beside the bed, was a pile of ash, vaguely demon-shaped, out of which his sword rose, embedded in the floor. On the other side of the bed, a much smaller pile of ash, quite possibly, he supposed, pearl-eye-shaped.

He looked back to find Lele awake, her eyes on him, her lips set into a smug little smile, a cat who had not only caught the canary, but thrashed it around the room before devouring it mercilessly.

“Told you,” she crowed. “Told you it would have to go through me first.”

He lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, his mouth open, no words coming out. Then, very slowly, he said, “You’re going to be insufferable about this, aren’t you?”

“Yup.”

“Gods… How could I not have seen? Of course it was the eye.” He rolled on his side, serious, and gathered her into his
arms, kissing her, holding her. “Warrior queen, unstoppable courage…”

Lele laughed when she felt his cock stir against her thigh. “Oh,
god
,” she said, half exasperated, half exalting, “you’re
not
serious?”

Then Kieran laughed and laughed, the sound rolling through the house. He kissed her, and his hand gently caught at her thigh, lifting her leg to rest over his hip, teasing her soft wetness with his fingers until she gasped, then pushing himself into her, as if there was no time at all to waste. “I think I will take up gardening,” he said, “Yes. I think I will plant a whole
garden
of lovely flowers….”

She managed to say, “If you think I’m changing diapers all by myself, think again, bucko….”

And then there was no more time for words.

 

 

 

 

 

 

E
very night for months now, I awake to a man sitting at the end of my bed. I am not afraid of this stranger in my room in the middle of the night. In fact, I welcome him.

For a long time, I thought he was just a man—a beautiful muscular man wearing only a pair of light-colored pants that leave nothing to the imagination—but then one night I watched as he unfurled wings that stretched from one corner of my bedroom to the other, the tips reaching up to brush the ceiling. I will admit, that caught me off guard. I even put on my glasses to make sure I was seeing what I thought I saw. Indeed, there he was in the darkened room, moonlight slanting though the window blinds to cast an eerie shadow on the winged man sitting at the end of my bed.

As beautiful as he is, his wings are more magnificent, darker than the shadows that surround him, yet seeming to almost cast a glow around him, like one of those old gaslight streetlamps. Even though we never speak, he must have sensed my pleasure
in his wings that first time. Because every night since, I have woken to the slightest breeze lifting the hair from my face as he unfurls his wings for me. Then, he takes me in his arms and makes love to me gently, tenderly. A winged man and me in my king-sized bed, down feathers above me and…the feathers of whatever creature he is above me. My nights are filled with sweet passion with a man not of this world. It is wonderful, and yet it leaves me longing for more. Something…more.

Each morning I awaken and realize it was only a dream. An amazing dream of a man with magnificent wings, but a dream just the same, night after endless night. For a while, anyway.

 

Then the insomnia hit. Night after night, I lay awake in the darkness, tossing and turning with a hundred things going through my head. I’ve suffered insomnia off and on for years, but nothing could shake it this time. Warm bath: relaxing but not sleep inducing. Meditation: frustrating as I couldn’t quiet my mind enough to focus. Warm milk: gross. Over-the-counter sleep aids: ineffective. My doctor took one look at the dark circles under my eyes and prescribed something that did help me sleep but left me groggy and off kilter in the morning. I tossed it out and moved on to herbs, which made me smell like a fragrant garden but did nothing to help me sleep. I was exhausted and listless at work. Worse, I was beginning to feel ill, like a bone-deep sickness had taken root inside my body and refused to leave.

Then, finally, one night I slept. Or I thought I did, because I saw my winged man. I opened my eyes to that same familiar shape at the end of my bed and I knew I was finally dreaming. But instead of taking me into his arms and making love to me, he spoke.

“You’re not sleeping.”

I jolted back against the headboard, the metal rattling against the wall. I wasn’t convinced I was awake, not yet, so I reached over and turned on the bedside lamp. “Um, what?”

“You are not sleeping,” he said, spreading his arms out to take in the newly illuminated room. “You are not sleeping, and it’s killing me.” That seemed a bit dramatic, but given the fact that I did seem to be awake and there did seem to be a stranger—with wings—sitting at the end of my bed, a little drama seemed in order.

“You’re real.”

He shrugged, his broad bare shoulders rising and falling along with his furled wings. “As real as anything, I suppose.”

“I thought you were a dream.” It sounded like an accusation, even to my own ears. “I mean, I’ve always been sleeping before when I saw you. Right?”

“I’m supposed to stay in your dreams, yes. But you’re not sleeping, and therefore not dreaming,” he said, punctuating his statement with an accusatory look.

Winged-man was starting to freak me out a bit. Instead of dreaming, I was convinced I was going mad.

“Who are you?”

He pulled his knees up to his chest and looked at me from under long lashes. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“My name is Victor. I am an angel. Well, I was.” He shrugged those broad, elegant shoulders and his wings bobbed against his back. “I’ve fallen.”

I shook my head to clear the remains of the cobwebs and stared at his profile. “Victor. Angel. Fallen. Okay. Got it.”

He let out a sharp bark of laughter that shattered any possible illusion that this might still be a dream. “Is it that easy for you? This is no dream, Michelle.” He emphasized the first
syllable of my name, saying it with a French lilt.

“I am a reproductive endocrinologist, Victor. I create
life
in a petri dish,” I said, wincing at the arrogance in my voice. “Believing in an angel is easy.”

“I see. Then perhaps you can tell me why you aren’t sleeping?”

I shrugged. What could I say that would make any sense? “I’m lonely.”

He nodded. “I know. Your dreams…you are always alone, always searching. I don’t know what you’re searching for.”

“Why are you in my dreams? Why are you here?”

His immobile face, as immobile as any sculpture, softened and he looked sheepish. “I live in your dreams. Until I’m—” he flung his arms out, as if searching for the right word, “reinstated, so to speak, I am confined to your dreams.”

I frowned. “But I rarely dream. Or I rarely remember my dreams.”

“That’s my fault. I—steal them, for lack of a better word. They sustain me in this world.”

I pulled my legs up, unconsciously mirroring his position. “You’re not only in my dreams, you
steal
them? But, why?”

He let out a long, breathy sigh, as if he were tired of dealing with me. “To survive. For now, I exist only in your dreams, in that shadowy space between reality and fantasy. When I’m where I belong—” he looked toward the ceiling, “My purpose is to watch over you.”

A lightbulb went off over my head. “You’re my guardian angel?”

“Yes.” He clasped his hands together, long fingers weaving in and out of each other in a way that made me shiver. “My purpose is to protect you from danger. But now we are both in danger because I can’t survive unless you sleep and dream and
you can’t survive if I don’t keep watch over you.”

“That’s a conundrum.”

“You still think you’re dreaming,” he said, anger lacing his voice the way his fingers were laced over one bronzed knee.

“Oh, no, this conversation makes complete sense,” I said, breezily. “I’ve been feeling a little lonely and conjured up my guardian angel to take care of my needs. Though, I must say, talking isn’t one of my needs. So, if you could just get to it—”

He surged toward me with a predatory snarl. I pressed my back to the headboard reflexively, but my body was responding to the dangerous, untamed look in his dark eyes. I was becoming aroused. That thought was even more shocking than the idea that there was an angel in my bedroom.

“I know you,” he said, crowding me against the headboard. Long slender fingers closed around my wrists as he pinned my hands above my head. “I have walked through your dreams, I have tasted your very soul.”

He licked my bottom lip for emphasis, his tongue warm and wet. I caught my breath, time standing still as he nipped my lip between his teeth. I winced in pain, tasted the metallic tang of blood. My blood.

“Yes,” I breathed against his cheek.

“But something isn’t right,” he sighed, releasing my wrists. I felt a sharp pang of disappointment. “Something is missing.”

The ache between my thighs told me what was missing, but I couldn’t voice it. Instead, I watched him watching me.

“What do you want, Michelle?” His voice still held a note of predatory threat, as if I should be careful what I asked for, because I just might get it. “You are lonely. I see it in your dreams. But you are also needy in a way that goes beyond loneliness.”

“Needy. Thanks,” I muttered, though I didn’t deny it.

He grabbed my wrists again, but instead of pinning them
over my head, he put them against his muscular chest. He felt warm and real, solid.

“I don’t think you understand,” he said, a hint of desperation in his growly voice. “If we don’t resolve this problem, I will die. Or at least cease to exist in the way that you understand life. And if I die—”

Something in his expression made me swallow hard. “What?” I whispered, my voice as raspy as parchment.

“Then you will die,” he said hollowly. “I cannot exist without you and you cannot exist without me to protect you.”

I snatched my hands from him. “Just wait a minute, wait a minute!”

He stared at me patiently while I gathered my thoughts.

“I didn’t sign up for this,” I said. “I didn’t ask for the guardian angel who’d screw up and get tossed out of—wherever.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’re bound by things greater than your will. Or mine.”