Dreams’ Dark Kiss (9 page)

“I’m not a were!” Ciaran hurled at Keoni while scrambling eggs as though they’d done her wrong.

“I didn’t say you were.” Keoni laid the phone down on the quartz countertop. He’d just finished a call to Archer requesting tickets for two back to Kauai, and had also explained about Ciaran, the banes’ focus on her and her newly discovered abilities. Archer in turn informed him they’d lost the all-too-powerful ankou pack leader and the two females with it. The banes’ strange behavior towards Ciaran had to be linked to the sudden rise in ankou numbers. Banes and ankou were linked by nature, and neither Keoni nor his squad leader believed in coincidence. Archer’s final assessment had been a warning. “Guard your woman and watch your back.”

Keoni checked his concern. They’d be headed to his home soon and from there to the guild where he and the brahs could protect her.

He regarded Ciaran in the third such thorough examination. The bruising and cuts were completely gone. Healed during their lovemaking. He knew he was good, but wow, sexing his woman’s injuries away was one for the record books.

“You’re a shape-shifter.” A sly eyebrow lift. “Totally different animal.”

“Oh ha. Yeah, you’re hilarious.”

He exhaled good-naturedly. “Fo’ shua.”

Ciaran mouthed
for sure
, mocking him. He ignored her, shaking his head at how quickly her mood could swing from wind to gale. It pissed her off their minds were still connected. His laid-back mood pissed her off. Everything pissed her off.

He kinda liked it.

“There aren’t supposed to be any of you left. Shifters died out centuries ago, and if not, you shouldn’t be a Brit. Shifters were from South American, Asian, Africa—”

“Hullo, brilliant boy. I’m British, but of Caribbean descent,” she said, holding her hands out to either side. “Ta-da.”

Keoni snorted in reply.

“My family hails from Dominica. Where the moon turns Cheshire cat and grins.” Ciaran said the last with great pride.

“Thought you said you weren’t a shifter,” he said, turning on the charm of his killer smile.

Ciaran busied herself scooping ham from the skillet and onto a plate. “Don’t go into the light,” she mumbled.

“Wha—”

“I said I’m not, but I can follow the flow of logic, and I’ve obviously got African heritage.”

She sure did. He tilted his head to regard her in appreciation. The heritage she spoke of gave her skin the most amazing pecan bronze color he’d ever seen. He considered himself a lucky, lucky man—even though she was mean as hell.

He smirked, leaning back on the stool across the island from her.
My bronze bundle of fury.
If she didn’t watch it he would start calling her
tita
, the Hawaiian slang for
tough girl
.

Ciaran slapped his plate down in front of him and turned to grab the coffeepot. Keoni managed an amused “mahalo,” while she filled his cup and gave him the glare. “You’re welcome.” A beat. “Don’t call me
tita
.”

He lifted an eyebrow, amused.

She returned to cooking, apparently forgetting he could pick off her thoughts as easily as she had his.
“Smile #234 of the Keo Arsenal, codename ‘Boyish Charm,’ locked and loaded,”
she mused while he eavesdropped. As if worried he would completely disarm her, she turned her attention to finding a weapon.

If
manu
planned on going toe to toe with him he’d be happy to oblige her. A sparring match was a perfect ploy for Keoni to continue her training.

The door to the mudroom stood open, just off the kitchen. A complete array of gardening tools waited at the ready.
“I could hit him with the spade?”
she thought. “
But you spay or neuter animals.”

Keoni blanched, she continued.
“Jesus! Neutering him would be a crime against all things good and holy. X.”
She mentally crossed the spade off the list of possibilities and Keoni gave silent thanks for small favors.

Moving on, Ciaran considered the Cape Cod weeder. Her jaw worked with the effort and Keoni couldn’t determine whether or not to run while she weighed the efficacy of each gardening tool. He caught his lips between his teeth to keep from laughing out loud at her plans to do him harm. He wouldn’t let it go too far, but once again he found himself enjoying the workings of her mind.

Ciaran’s forehead furrowed and smoothed.
“Wait a minute. The weed whacker.”
A fiendish glee lit her eyes.
“Score.”

She looked to Keoni, caught his expression and reassessed.
“Smile #234 powered up to level two.”
A pause.
“Has he…?”

He gifted her with a wink.

“Yeah. He’s read my mind.”
She scowled. “Shut it. You’re oversmiling.”

He conceded her point but then again. “Things are starting to make sense.”

The scent of the pineapple-glazed ham steak drew his attention. She might eventually kill him, but thank the creator for a woman this badass who could cook too. Keoni turned his plate to take the feast in from various angles. He’d disregard the baked beans and eggs to focus on the ham, slices of tangy mango, home fries, buttery biscuits and peach butter she’d placed before him. He shrugged. He guessed beans with breakfast was a British thing, but he’d be damned if he’d eat an egg. Yeech. Whoever came up with that shit should be shark bait. Especially when there was fruit and pig to enjoy.

Silence broke him out of his food stupor. Ciaran glared at him with one hand on her hip and an impatient turn to her lips.

“How? How does any of this make sense?”

He dug in to his food, answering between swallows and sounds of appreciation.

“K’den, okay, you know how the banes work. Right?”

“I picked it up from your mind. They’re nightmares gone bad who become something worse if they make it into the Waking World?”

“Ankou.” Keoni nodded, popping a piece of biscuit slathered with peach butter into his mouth. He took a minute to relish the flavors, eyes closed. “
Ipo
, you got good grinds. That brok’ da mout!”

“What?” she said, barely concealing a blush.

He tilted his head in a you-know-what-I’m-saying gesture. He was sure she knew exactly what he meant. Why she continued to feign ignorance was beyond him. “I called you sweetheart, said you cook well, and it was delicious,” he said drily.

“Good sex, kind and appreciates my cooking… I’ve got to put an end to this.”

Keoni lowered his head to hide a flash of disappointment. She’d almost realized she could get used to him, and it scared her.

“Once the banes eat their way through the human heart and into the Waking World, they become ankou—a bane in a human host body—and way more powerful.”

Ciaran brought her plate around to his side of the counter as he explained. “The ankou feed on unresolved psychological issues, fears, doubts, but lucky for us they’re cut off from the Dreaming once they’re here. You get me?”

The curve of his jaw tightened into a firm straight line. He turned his face away from her and stared out at nothing…yet he’d finally begun to see clearly. Speaking the words aloud made several things evident. One ankou, the one he’d encountered at the suburban family home, appeared to have developed the ability to strike both here and in the Dreaming using the banes remaining there. Understanding hit and hit hard. If his suspicions held true, things would get real bad, real fast. The need to protect his family, both by blood and through the bonds of love, welled up in his chest. Unconsciously he reached out to the guild, the source of Somnian power, seeking to bolster his strength through the connection.

Keoni had hoped to spend a few quiet days with his life mate. He’d planned to train her to use her new Somnian powers. It wouldn’t take much energy, as advanced as she’d shown herself to be and he badly needed to recuperate from all they’d been through. Weariness eroded his few remaining reserves. Thank God she’d fed the never-ending gullet or he would be useless right now.

He studied Ciaran’s face again. She deserved the full truth. He sighed.

“Ankou consume things we normally overcome without nightmares. Momentary fears. Like, ‘Whew, I almost got hit by that car!’ or ‘What if something happens to my kid?’ or an array of buried issues the howlers haunt us until we work through: the cruel mother, the better-than-us brother, insecurities, rejection…abuse.”

Keoni absently picked up his plate and utensils and took them around to the sink. He paused for a long beat before turning to her with the most serious expression he’d ever worn. “They already bend human minds through the use of fear, but if the ankou steal your genes by mating with you they could create a Waking World bloodline, and I suspect they could do a lot more.”

“Why haven’t they become a species before?”

“Probably because they’re greedy loner bastards and territorial too. It never would’ve occurred to them to mate and establish themselves as a legit species…before. Which is why I’m sure they’ve evolved. We raided a house earlier this morning where they’d begun to amass as a pack. The guild had sensed a change in the banes, and there were ankou we weren’t able to track, but today it became clear they have a leader. They—” He paused. “Shit.”

She stared at him questioningly.

“Think about it,
ipo
. If the ankou are organized enough to have chosen a leader, you’d make a perfect queen bee. The last shifter, who’s also a psychopomp? If an ankou powerful enough to reign over the others—one who can also trap and kill a Somnian as strong as me—mates with you and produces shape-shifting offspring, their gratification would double.”

Keoni shared with Ciaran what he’d experienced earlier in the day—unleashing the memory of the red-cloaked ankou and the hulking monster a little girl named Emma had become.

He could tell the horror facing them had begun to dawn on her.

“Imagine Jack the Ripper, Manson, the BTK Killer created from old magicks, unleashed on the streets wielding custom-made psychic tortures, not just generic fears, and able to take any form. They’d flay minds while ripping bodies to shreds. And they’d breed.”

* * *

Ciaran shut her eyes.

Demons do not dream, my chile…

The Letang women, her family, passed down a rhyme from mother to daughter.

…but dare not close your eyes.

A warning turned heritage. It had lost its urgency, but blood knew value, thus it survived.

For while they do not tarry sleep…

Her cousins knew nothing about it. They shared a grandfather, but her grandmother belonged only to her.

…from dreams…

She bore the name of her first ancestor. As did her mother, her grandmother and each woman in their line. A name passed down with the rhyme so they would never forget, be ever vigilant, always ready.

…they may yet rise.

She bore the blood and the name. Ciaran Cora’Delieye Letang.

Keoni spoke in an awed rasp. “You are the scion of Cora’Delieye, Mad Mother of Shifting Magicks. The progenitor of shape-shifters. Wow.”

“Don’t call her that,” she snapped. “She wasn’t mad. You should know now.”

How could he still think her ancestor had been insane now they both understood what she had been and what Ciaran was as a result?
Men. Damn them.

She couldn’t think. Cora’Delieye had never been real to her. Just family lore. Her heart stilled and plummeted to her feet. She moved around the counter in a daze. Each step an ordeal until she stopped short of bumping into Keoni’s chest.

He placed the flat of his right palm on her head. The weight and the warmth of it radiated into her. In many cultures, the gesture was a pledge of protection. She couldn’t be bothered with whether it meant the same to him. It didn’t matter. She didn’t want a man’s hands on her. She wanted to strike first—before being struck…

Keoni moved his left hand in gentle circles at the small of her back.

“If they get you,
ipo
, forget vampires, werewolves, and all the fairy-tale bullshit we’ve ever heard. We’re talking real demons walking the earth, and I don’t know what could stop them.”

Oh God.

Terror coiled within Ciaran’s womb. Keoni was right. They were talking real end-of-days type beasts walking the earth with her cast in the role of Lilith, mother of demons.

Horror intermingled with the anger hidden in the pit of her stomach. The volatile cocktail of emotions bubbled, and she bit her lip to hold back quickly rising bile. Again and again it happened. Once more she’d been used with prejudice to be broken and discarded. Where were her choices?

Keoni pulled her into the circle of his arms and laid his cheek where his palm had been, atop the crown of her head. Concern laced his voice. “We’ll go straight back to Kauai and I’ll call the brahs in to help protect you while I train you…”

A familiar melody played in Ciaran’s head, the same tainted love song she’d heard outside the house when she’d gone for the morning paper. It drowned Keoni’s voice in icy notes. His words made no sense. His voice fell short of the distant place inside her mind where she had retreated.

“I’m not going with you.” The words cut through whatever he’d been saying.

He paused. The warmth of his cheek lifted from her head, and more cold seeped in.

“You have to. It’s not safe for you here. You’re half-Somnian, half-psychopomp and real vulnerable. They could come for you at any time. When you brought us here from the Dreaming, you didn’t completely seal the path behind you. I know you were scared but you can’t make those kinds of mistakes with what we’re facing.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Her voice sounded flat and devoid of feeling even to her own ears. She was sick of being a puppet to the whims of this man or the other. No matter the species, they all wanted something, and she was just a tool to be utilized. No one loved a hammer. No one cared for a screwdriver. When the job was done they were tossed aside until needed again.

Flares of fury boiled in her stomach while the sinister melody threatened to drive her mad. She pulled away from Keoni and covered her ears against the tumult.