Enslaved (The Inbetween Novels) (4 page)

* * * * *

“Dear God. They could tar the roof with this stuff.”

Shayla swirled her Snoopy mug full of the questionable liquid. The coffee clung to the sides of the ceramic and slowly crawled down. She had visions of it coming to life and engulfing her entire third-floor office. Sure, it’d mean no more boring meeting or angry client calls, but she liked a lot of her coworkers.

“Best to flush you where you can’t harm anyone. Except maybe a few fish.”

Mug in hand, she walked past the huge bank of windows at the front of the office. A little grove of greenery parked between her building and the strip mall next door made the view unusually pleasant considering they were smack dab in the middle of the financial district. Who wanted pretty trees when the main focus was money?

Down in the grove, a gorgeous man stood below one of Dogwood trees lining the miniature park. Red blossoms shook in the breeze and rained down on his hair. The man looked up at the tree. Confused? Annoyed? Shayla couldn’t tell, but damn he could fix her with a look any day.

“Please tell me you plan to set that thing free instead of drinking it.”

Confused, Shayla turned to ask her coworker, Kelly, how she’d drink the hunk down on the street. Sense stepped in and she held up the offensive mug of coffee. Her nose wrinkled at the smell wafting her way. Someone should sue. The stuff had to be a health hazard.

“Freeing Willy right now. I thought about braving it for a whole minute, but no matter how little sleep I got last night, I just couldn’t force myself. What if it made me grow another arm?”

Kelly laughed. They navigated around the cubicles cluttering the office and made their way toward the lunchroom. The small room held about as much appeal as the liquid sloshing around in Snoopy’s head. Shayla upended the mug over the sink. Coffee poured out at the speed of cold molasses. She doubted if the stuff in the pot had been made any time that week or if someone just kept turning the heating plate on the same coffee over and over again. Her stomach churned as she washed the mug and set it out to dry.

“Your bags have bags,” Kelly observed.

“That’s with makeup on. I looked like something from an old horror movie this morning.” Shayla propped a hip against the counter to keep herself upright. “Is there anything drinkable with caffeine in here?”

“Nope, but I’m authorizing a fifteen minute break so we can make a coffee run.” Kelly grinned. She enjoyed wielding her newfound office supervisor powers.

They took a swing around the cubicles to take coffee orders from the poor souls trapped at their desks. Half of them looked at Shayla and Kelly like they’d grown white wings and donned haloes. The others grunted orders and shoved money their direction.

“Maybe you should use your powers for even more good and hire a permanent coffee person,” Shayla suggested on their way down the elevator.

“Already tried that. Big Boss doesn’t see the use in a lot of caffeinated employees. I think he’s afraid that, when alert, they’ll notice he’s slowed down the internet speeds to save money.” After shrugging into her coat, Kelly buttoned it. Shayla felt a pang of jealousy. Kelly knew how to dress well, despite being two pant sizes bigger than the average.

“What a cheap bastard.”

“I assume Joel thinks he’s doing the right thing in the long run. All he sees is numbers, though. Getting him to see people is impossible.” Kelly held the front door open for Shayla.

“Good thing we’ve got you. You’re our champion, Kelly.”

Laughing, they walked down the sidewalk to the neighboring strip mall and its heavenly little coffee shop. Shayla felt a hundred times better. She’d almost forgotten her dream.

The Inbetween was a slice of endless possibility situated between what human’s consider reality and the lands beyond where the gods lived and watched their creations thrive. Only a handful of beings were capable of accessing the Inbetween at will. Incubi utilize it as neutral ground to bring the humans who summon them for a night of passion. Ages ago, they popped directly into the minds and dreams of those seeking untold pleasure, but the gods realized direct access gave the incubus access to the life force of their human lovers. They could be drained in as little as three sessions with an incubus. The corpses were found in the morning with wide smiles.

The gods put a stop to it, sacrificing—with great pomp and circumstance to garner pity over their loss—a portion of their gardens for the incubi and other dream-dwelling creatures to do their work. It was a system that worked for centuries.

So why the hell wasn’t Deryck standing in the Inbetween?

Loud noises drowned out the incubus’ thoughts. He grimaced, cupping his hands over his sensitive ears. Deryck dragged a deep breath into his lungs. Impurities in the air and the stench of something he could not place choked him.

His back caught the trunk of a large tree. Grateful for something natural he could rely on, Deryck leaned against the bloom-filled tree and practiced breathing the air available. When he was assured breathing wouldn’t kill him, he willed the volume of the world around him to dim. The roars separated into a cacophony of noise that astounded him. How did anyone find peace in all the racket?

“You okay, mister,” a young child asked. The toes of his grungy shoes stepped into view.

Deryck forced his spinning head up to meet the eyes of the boy. “I am well. Where is your mother?”

He searched the area for someone with similar features to the child, but found none. Nor did any of the passing adults seem startled by the appearance of an unattended child. What if he wandered into trouble? The idea of a child in harm’s way twisted Deryck’s gut into a hard knot. Children were treasures he could never possess.

“She’s at work.” A pink bubble grew in front of the boy’s face and popped. He sucked the substance back into his mouth. “If you’re okay, I’m going to go.”

Deryck waved goodbye. The child ran off in the direction of the street. Vehicles passed by far too fast for comfort, but it didn’t faze the boy. Humans were stranger than he’d ever considered.

All Deryck ever saw of human nature were women’s fantasies of how the world should be. There were no children. No extraneous noise. They preferred silk-draped bedrooms or wide stretches of green grass. Not this. When they came to him in the Inbetween, they shed everything resembling the real world.

He didn’t blame them for it.

A trio of humans passed by. The man looked Deryck over like he’d transformed into a tall glass of water and he hadn’t tasted a drop in a week. One of the women at his side laughed and playfully shoved the man his way. A pink blush colored his cheeks and they vanished behind a group of running teenagers.

Deryck stood beneath the tree and simply stared at the world around him. Wind caught the fragrant blooms in the branches above, dropping them on his head. The sight of nature in action stole his breath. He could not fathom why the women he serviced wanted to do away with something so simple and beautiful. A passing vehicle made an ungodly noise. That, he admitted, could be left in the real world.

Tingling on his wrists caught his attention. Deryck pulled the sleeves of his shirt up and tried in vain to decipher the shifting designs of his bands. A jolt of pain ran up his arms. The bands shrank down to an unobtrusive size.

He still had no clue who summoned him or how he’d come to be in the human realm.

To his right, a pair of women exited a large building. Their laughter rang through the open area before him. Side-by-side they stepped into the sunlight and walked with purpose to a nearby building.

Deryck couldn’t breathe.

He’d know that head of hair anywhere. Radiant red streaks playfully danced between strands of dark gold hair, bouncing with each step the woman took. Her body seemed to be different somehow, as though not properly fit to her clothing. Regardless, he knew who she was. His dream woman. The woman he shouldn’t have ever seen.

Acting on impulse, Deryck crossed the grass strip separating them and fell in behind the woman and her companion. Some miracle kept him from openly ogling the way her backside moved in the oversized knee-length skirt she wore. However, each time she laughed, he felt it in the marrow of his bones. The sensation was alien to him. No woman elicited that reaction from him before.

“Do they sell coffee in bathtub-sized cups here?” The woman asked.

Laughing, the redhead at her side said, “Not unless they added it since I came in yesterday. We’ll get you a couple extra shots to make up for lack of sleep.”

Warning bells went off in Deryck’s head as he followed them into another, extremely fragrant, building. If she didn’t sleep last night, then how did he connect with her in his dreams?

Shayla leaned over the counter and chewed on her bottom lip. Under the glass was a wonderland of fatty, delicious baked goods. She couldn’t decide between the cinnamon roll and the pumpkin scone. Both called to her with their deliciousness.

“Anytime this decade, Shayla. There’s a line behind us,” Kelly informed her.

“Okay, okay.” She tapped the counter. “I’ll have the pumpkin scone.” Shayla reached her hand back to Kelly. “Where’s the money everyone gave you?”

Cash exchanged hands. Shayla counted it and passed it to the young woman behind the counter.

Kelly grabbed her shoulder, damn near dislocating it. “Oh sweet baby Jesus.”

“Ease off, Kelly. What the hell is the matter? I got all of the orders right this time.”

Not amused in the least by Kelly’s sudden spazz-attack, she turned to glare at her friend . . . and promptly forgot how to speak. The man standing behind them in line could have stepped out of the pages of a magazine, or a history book. His classic, handsome face was pinched in concentration. His eyes fixed on hers. The man sized her up like she was a piece of steak and he’d been on a month-long hunger strike.

Uneasy with the amount of attention he gave her, Shayla spun back around. The barista held out the change from their order. Shayla grabbed for it and accidentally smacked the woman’s hand. Pennies and nickels clattered over the glass counter.

“I’m so sorry.” Shayla scooped up the change.

Head down, she shuffled down the counter to wait for the drinks to come out. If she didn’t seriously need the caffeine fix, she’d leave and let Kelly carry everyone else’s orders back to the office. Surely she could manage ten orders on her own.

“What is your problem?” Kelly shoved a small pastry bag in Shayla’s hands. “You forgot this.”

“Is the back of my skirt up or something? That guy won’t stop looking at me.”

They turned back toward the cash register. The man in question slid a sideways look their way, utterly oblivious to the young, perky thing trying to take his order. His eyes widened and shot back to the barista.

“Your order, sir?”

He paused. Dense black tattoos danced around his wrists as his fingertips tapped against the counter. “I’ll have whatever she ordered.”