I don’t know how I found my way home. I only knew I couldn’t stay a moment longer knowing my mere presence could be enough to slow her healing. It didn’t seem right to me, but Dr. Etterson had seen me in the hall on my way out and reminded me again to give Rose her rest with a rather stern look. I’d let my feet stumble me out of the hospital and to my truck where a damn parking ticket waited for me. I’d ripped it up and let it float into the snowstorm.

Why did this have to happen in the first place? Why couldn’t the four men who claimed to be warlocks have stopped Rose from getting hurt? If they were strong enough to stop two semi-trucks, why couldn’t they fix her? I conveniently let myself believe they were real long enough that I could build up some steam in my anger toward them.

“Why couldn’t you save her?” I screamed the words, slamming my hands against the flat of the granite island in the kitchen. The granite cracked and I backed away from it, breathing hard, fear dancing along my nerve endings. “Shoddy workmanship,” I muttered.

“Or maybe you aren’t as human as you think.”

I did not turn around; the man’s voice all too clear to me. “Go away, Pompous.”

“My name is Sterling, and I am not going away. At least, not until we understand what is going on.”

I closed my eyes. “Unless you can use your imaginary magic to heal Rose, go away. I don’t care what you want.”

Slowly I let myself slide to the floor as the exhaustion and fear for my best friend overwhelmed me. I could literally stand no longer. I just wanted to lie down and sleep. Yet, I knew if I slept, I would dream, and the dreams would keep me from true rest.

“I’m going crazy,” I whispered.

“You are not going crazy,” Sterling said as he wrapped his arms around me. I didn’t care in that moment if it was real or not. I did not want to be alone, despite me telling him to go away. I leaned into him, my head on his chest, just breathing in his strength, letting all my defenses down.

“I can’t even be with her. The doctors told me to leave her there. Alone. She hates being alone almost as much as I do.” I didn’t hold back, because I was honest enough with myself to know that even if by some chance this was real, I knew these four men better than I’d known my last two steady boyfriends.

“I know. We . . .we can see a little of what is coming for her, Dominique. This is a path chosen for her and it is not for us to take her from it, though we might not understand,” Sterling said softly.

I did look at him then and what I saw made me suck in a sharp breath. “You took your hood off.”

He smiled down at me, the sharp angles of his face like that of a carved statue, only very much alive. Assuming, again, he was real. Those eyes of his were as green as any jungle cat’s, just as I’d thought, and they stared down at me with open curiosity. Messy blond hair fell around the edges of his face softening the angles of his cheeks and jaw.

“We hide our faces in public so we can move quietly when we need to. Even the vampires and wolves we protect do not see our faces. It is best that way.” His voice was nice, an even tone that was soothing even as it seemed to be a bit pompous. Hence the nickname.

“Oh. Why are you showing me?” I blinked a few times. “Are you going to kill me?”

He laughed and I liked how the sound vibrated against my chest. “No. I’m not going to kill you. I want to talk to you. I want to see if we can figure out your hold on me and my Cabal.”

“Your what?” I let my fingers trail along the skin of his neck and back to the edges of his hair, wondering if it was as silky as I suspected.

“Like a band of brothers. Only we are not related. We came together to protect our part of the world, to keep the magic hidden. We have worked together for many, many years. That you have called all four of us is more than a little unusual. Occasionally, one of us is called to the human realm, but never all four.”

Yup, his hair was like spun silk, so soft I couldn’t be sure I was touching it. “I don’t even think you’re real. So . . .there is that. I’m probably curled up with some blanket and talking to the wall in an insane asylum.” I shrugged. “Which isn’t a bad thing because that means Rose is not in a hospital in a coma.”

He stared down at me. “We will wipe your memory once we figure this out. You will recall none of this and you will not feel crazy any longer. We won’t even come to you in your dreams then.”

I frowned. “But you just said you don’t think I’m human. If that’s the case, shouldn’t I be allowed to know whatever it is I know? I mean. I know about Ally and the Hive. I know about the werewolves. No rules there.”

His arm tightened around me, holding me to his side. “True, but you share blood with Allianna. Though, not completely, I don’t think.”

“Um. Excuse me?” I blinked several times, his words sinking into my brain in a way I did not like. “What did you just say?”

“It makes sense. You have the same mother, but we believe your father was not the same as Allianna’s.”

What the hell was happening? Every time I thought the day was done with the crazy, done with the unreal, something else happened. This was too far though, too much.

“Yeah, I heard that. Got it, but what do you mean by it? I am her sister, through and through and through.” But even as I spoke, there were pieces of my childhood that suddenly made sense. The distance of my dad. How he’d always favored Ally and I’d never understood why. Not that he’d been unkind, just . . .distant. No, no, it couldn’t be true. Ally was my sister.

“All of this is arguably the worst news you could give me on a day that has been far from easy,” I said barely holding back the tears. “And you have no proof of any of it. Just words to upset me, which makes me wonder if you are Cranky in disguise.”

His lips dipped downward. “I’m sorry if this upsets you, but it is part of the puzzle we are attempting to piece together.” He brushed his fingers along the sides of my face. “Your sense of humor will serve you well, I think.”

I gave a little hiccup sob that I almost held back. I slapped my hand over my mouth and shook my head. “I wish Ally was here.”

“But she’s not,” Sterling said.

“No, she’s in the damn Hive enjoying the hell out of her life,” I said, all the sadness I’d felt at losing her presence in my life bubbled up.

Sterling tipped his head. “You believe in the supernatural, which makes me wonder why you are fighting the belief that we could be warlocks, or spell casters if you prefer.”

I frowned, and shrugged, grateful for the distraction from Rose’s plight and the fact that my parentage might not be what I thought. “I guess … I always believed in magic when I was little, like so many kids. But it never was real. All the fairies I believed I saw, the glimpse of a unicorn that turned out to be the neighbor’s horse, all of it wasn’t real. Vampires and werewolves are real. I’ve met them. I’ve been hurt by them.”

“You’ve met us.” He arched an eyebrow.

“And you disappear at will, don’t show on a video of an accident I saw you at, no other person besides me sees you. That is like the postcard for hallucinations,” I pointed out. “So, as far as I can tell, only I perceive you, which means the only answer that works is that I’m going crazy.”

He grunted and his hand started to circle on my lower back, easing my tension. “Why do you call me pompous as a name?”

My lips twitched and I sagged against his hands, the soothing motion undoing what was left of my willpower. “You knew everything in my dreams. When I asked a question, you were allowed to answer—according to you—and did most of the talking. Not that you answered many of the good questions.”

“Are you saying I was the know it all?” He smiled and I thought for a moment I might stop breathing when he reached up and caught my chin in his hand and brushed his thumb over my lower lip.

“Well, you acted like it, all pompousy.”

His eyes flicked to my lips, his head lowered, and I blurted, “I have scars.”

He paused and his eyes lifted to mine. “We all do, Dominique. Let me kiss you. I want to see if this call to you can be banished through touch. Then I will be gone and you will never see me again.”

In that moment, I wasn’t sure I wanted whatever hold he had on me to be banished. In fact, the distinct sense of loss at the thought of him disappearing from my life was not unlike a stab of pain. But I didn’t stop him from leaning forward, because I’d been literally dreaming about his mouth on mine for the last year.

His lips pressed to mine and there was a tingle of energy between us like we’d touched the end of a battery to our lips. The zing on the sharp side of pleasure made my nipples tighten and my back arch. My knees took that moment to go out on me and as I slid to the floor, Sterling followed me.

He let out a groan as his hands swept around my waist and he carefully, slowly pulled me onto his lap so I straddled him. I dipped my tongue into his mouth, running it along the edge of his tongue, tasting him. God, he was like caramel, sweet and addictive, the perfect flavor. My libido nodded inside me, humming a not so quiet urge to keep going. To take this man to my bed and do terrible, naughty, dirty things with him.

His hands ran along the edge of my jeans and under the hem of my shirt, and I stiffened involuntarily and pulled back as far as I could despite my libido whimpering that my scars didn’t matter, my pussy did.

“I wasn’t kidding about the scars.”

His eyes were sad as if he felt badly that I was so sensitive about them. “Neither was I.”

I bit my lower lip, not wanting to tell him that I’d had another man turn from me. Actually, two men. “Sterling, they are so ugly. I don’t show them to anyone. My sister doesn’t even know I have them.”

His eyes narrowed. “Who said to you they were ugly? A man? What am I saying? Of course, it was a stupid man with less sense than a can of beans.”

I nodded, my lips twitching. I was caught between the humor and the truth. “Yes, a man said that to me, and he was right. They are awful. We are not talking small scars here, Sterling.”

His jaw ticked and danced as he clenched it closed. “Will you let me see them and judge for myself?”

I drew a breath in and out, thinking. “Okay, fine. But if I don’t get at least one orgasm out of this deal, I’m going to be pissed.”

He grunted as if I’d punched him in the guts. “You think it will take bedding you to banish this hold you have?”

I paused with my hands at the bottom of my shirt. “You don’t want to ... bed…” I smiled, “me?”

He spluttered, “Of course, I would, but I’m supposed to just break the connection and leave.”

“Rule follower,” I muttered as if it were a curse.

He frowned and I closed my eyes, then pulled the shirt off in a quick yank so I was in nothing but a bra. At least it was one of my good ones, lacy and a little bit see-through. Maybe he would be too busy staring at my boobs to notice the scars.

He was quiet long enough that I found myself talking yet again.

“There, see? Ugly as sin, worse than ugly as sin. They haven’t even fully healed, I don’t think, because they are still pink in places, and raised.” I was rambling and I knew it was a way to deal with the nerves. Because he was saying nothing. And that was almost as bad as if he’d gotten up and run from me. Was he so dumbstruck by the horror? God, what if he was trying not to be sick?

His hands came up along my arms to touch the scars across my collarbone and shoulders so gently as if he thought he would break me, as if the scars were still open wounds. “This was done by someone. A knife?” he asked quietly.

“Yes,” I said. “Or I should say, I assume so.”

“Who?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“Don’t hide from me now, Dominique.”

My eyes snapped open, anger pushing me forward. “I am not hiding. I don’t remember the night that it happened. Not one bit of it.”

His fingers trailed over my shoulders, tracing the scars, following them to my back. I shuddered, the anger fading into something else, something . . .better. Something hotter and curling in my center that wanted me to have him touch other parts of me.

Pleasure seemed to flow from his fingers to every piece of my skin that he touched. “Your scars are not ugly, Dominique. They show a past. They show a battle you survived even if you don’t recall it. That is valued in my world. They show you were strong enough to survive something terrible and come out the other side of it more than you were before.”

I arched an eyebrow. “You really believe that? The scars are a huge chunk what holds me back now, I know it. I can own it. They are why I hide. So maybe I’m not as strong as you think.”

He grinned at me and I found myself grinning back, which was ridiculous. “I doubt that very much. Wounds take time to heal. And these are fresh, only in the last year?”

I nodded, thinking suddenly that the wounds and the appearance of Sterling and the other three men in my dreams happened quite close together. Within days.

I felt the heat rising in my cheeks. “Thank you for your words. I . . .I will try to keep them in mind.” I reached for my shirt to pull it back on. Because no matter what he said, I knew there would be no going forward with this . . .whatever it was between us.

My libido groaned and begged me to throw myself at him. Whimpered, in reality. I sighed and tugged at the shirt. He held the other end. “Give it.”

“Kiss me.”

I stared at him. “But . . . you’ve seen the scars, right?”

“Yes,” he growled. “And it makes me want to strangle the man who did it, to snap his neck like the coward he obviously is.”

I bit my lower lip, thinking. “Your . . .the rest of your Cabal, where are they?”

His frown turned into a slow, sexy smile that was all predatory and I wanted nothing more than to feel it on my own lips. “You want them, too, yes?”

I couldn’t help the blush that rose from the top of my breasts and heated its way to the tip of my head. “You shouldn’t ask a girl that when she is sitting on your lap in nothing but a sexy lacy bra.”

A soft laugh escaped him. “We are not jealous. We are bound together as brothers in one cause, and that means we are more than capable of sharing.”

My jaw dropped and my libido did a victory dance because despite my next question, I already knew the answer. “I’m sorry, what exactly are you saying?”

His smiled slid. “I want to fuck you, Dominique. I want to be inside your body and see what this hold is that you have on me. To see if I can escape it. And my Cabal will all want that same chance. Though to be fair, we thought the bond would be dispelled with a touch, or a kiss. That does not seem to be the case.”

I didn’t know if I should be flattered or offended. I stared at him, thinking about the last year. The back and forth in my dreams, the brief touches here and there on his bare chest, and on the bare chests of his Cabal. I swallowed hard, my mouth dry as I considered just what I was signing up for.

Fucking four men? One after the other, until they were satisfied they were free of me.

My libido giggled and nodded, urging me forward.

I stared at him and let my hands wander on his upper body. The strength I’d felt in him and the tingling of our lips as we’d kissed was enough to make my pussy clench involuntarily, to make my thighs tighten. I was completely bonkers. I’d lost my mind. Maybe I’d hit my head in the accident and this was my reality now. Which meant what? That I was stuck with four men, one, at least, who wanted me like I’d never been wanted and whose touch was setting my libido into overdrive. One that saw past my scars and believed me desirable still.

What was I waiting for, an engraved invitation to crazy town?

“Fuck it all,” I whispered.

“That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck and tugged him to me, our mouths tangling once more, back and forth, our tongues darting in and out as his hands went to the closure of my bra. With a deft twist, he popped it off and slid me out of the straps one arm at a time.

I think he groaned my name but wasn’t sure why until I adjusted my position on his lap and felt his cock pressing against the ache between my legs. Far bigger than I was expecting and I squirmed again, my jeans and his pants far too much of a barrier between us. The kitchen floor was hard, and I was not about to have sex on it. Not when there were perfectly good beds elsewhere. I pulled back.

A wash of fatigue hit me so hard, it was like a hammer slammed me between my eyes. I swayed in his arms, tiny sparkling lights dancing in front of my eyes.

My tongue felt thick like I’d been drinking all night and it was the morning after. “Sterling, I need—”

“Yes?” His eyes were intense and I wanted more than anything to take him up on the offer, but my body was so heavy, I knew there was no way we could go forward. Not right then.

“I need to sleep.” I shook my head and swayed again. I had to fight to keep the words coming out. “No matter how much I want this, I am exhausted. Unless you have some magic drink like Ally got in the Hive to keep her awake, I need to rest.” I put my head against his. “Sorry.”

He sighed softly. “Where do you want to sleep?”

“Not on the kitchen floor. Despite the Roomba, I’ve seen the edges under the counter and they are nasty.” I managed a smile but it wobbled because my whole life felt wobbly. Like the edges were fraying and I wasn’t seeing anything correctly anymore.

“There is a bedroom, second door to the left down the hall,” I said. “I can sleep there—”

Before I even finished speaking, he was up and had me in his arms, striding through the kitchen to the door. I couldn’t help but laugh softly like I was some lady in a medieval tale. He carried me easily, adjusting me so he could open the door and walk through. I was topless, my scars and breasts on display and I wasn’t even trying to cover up. Which was a damn miracle as far as I was concerned. Or maybe I was just too tired.

Sterling laid me on the bed, pulled my socks off and made a motion at my pants. “You want help with those?”

“No, I’ve got it.” I sat up and he took a step back, then another, then he turned away. I held a hand out to him. “Wait.”

He went still and looked over his shoulder at me, his green eyes full of uncertainty. It was a good look on him. “What is it?”

“Stay. Please.”

“I thought you wanted to sleep?” He frowned.

I shimmied out of my jeans and kicked them off, then slid my legs under the blankets, the cool sheets giving me a tingle on my bare skin. I let out a sigh and closed my eyes.

“I do want to sleep, but not alone. Please, I just . . . I don’t want to be alone tonight; will you stay with me?” I swallowed hard and found myself looking up at him from under my eyelashes in a move I’d seen Rose perfect over the years.

Apparently, I should have been using it more often because Sterling’s chest rose and fell rapidly as if he were struggling to breathe normally.

My lips danced on the edge of a smile but I managed to keep it back. “I promise not to molest you while you sleep.”

Sterling grunted and moved toward the bed. “What fun is there in that?”

I moved over as he slid onto the bed, but not under the covers. “Won’t you get cold?”

He shook his head. “No, warlocks like all supernaturals run on the hotter side.”

I shivered. “I’m always cold.”

He shrugged and slid an arm around my shoulders, tugging me toward him. “Besides, if I were under the covers, I couldn’t guarantee that I won’t--what was the word you used?”

“Molest?”

“Yeah, that sounds dirty.” He spoke against my hair, his lips moving through the strands.

I laid my face against his chest, my nose in the crook of his neck. “My ex-boyfriend used the word. It stuck in my brain as a silly thing to say about . . .sex.” I shivered, thinking of Terrence, Ter to his friends, my boyfriend before I got the unexplainable scars.

“He scares you?” Sterling ran his hands over my body, and even though they were on top of the covers, the heat from them flowed through.

“Yes.”

“He hurt you like this, with the scarring?”

I shook my head. “No. He was a dick, but he would never do this to me. He was abusive in other ways. In his words. In how he tried to control me. I almost married him, that’s the crazy part,” I yawned, fighting the fast-growing fatigue and losing badly.

Sterling pulled me a little closer. “Are you sure you don’t want us to do something about him—”

“No.” The word was sharp on my tongue. “Just let it go. You are my figment, so I’m in charge here. Stop being bossy or I’ll call you Pompous again.”

I rubbed my face against his skin, breathing in the clean strong scent that was all him, and maybe a hint of laundry soap from the sheets. Clean, safe.

Home.

The word bonged through my head. I squeezed my eyes shut, deliberately ignoring the strange feeling that bubbled up in my belly. There was no place like home, right? Even if it was just a figment of my imagination.

* * *

My eyes were still closed, and I was sure I was dreaming, so I burrowed in deeper against Sterling to block out the soft voices that rolled around me.

Only they didn’t go away, if anything, they were louder, arguing.

“You have to tell her what is really going on,” Cranky Pants said, his voice urgent. “I might not like it, but we need her. We all need her if we are going to survive this, which means sleeping with her is a bad idea.”

“I think it’s a great idea,” Chuckles said. “She’ll be more likely to help if she’s in love with one of us.”

“It’s not going to be that simple. I’m not even sure she’s like us. If she is, where are her abilities? Where are the signs that she is more than human?” Sterling’s voice rumbled gently under my chest. “We have deliberately invaded her dreams for the last year. We have gotten to know her; we have watched over her from a distance looking for a chance to intervene, to see if she is the one we need.”

A sigh from someone else. Spanish, I thought, from the husky tone. “If her abilities were going to come on line, they would have at the accident. Her closest friend was in trouble, that should have shocked her power into displaying itself. That’s how it works, if you recall?”

There was more than a little sarcasm within the last word. He didn’t like whatever it was Sterling was doing.

Sterling gave a low growl. “There are other ways to shock ability into displaying itself. And I am not the only one trying to figure out how to make this work or who made that accident happen because we all know it wasn’t just an accident. You are my Cabal, some help you’ve been.”

“You just want a reason to fuck her,” Chuckles said and for the first time there was no humor in his voice. “I do to. She’s amazing and beautiful and funny as hell, not to mention intelligent and determined. All qualities we love, but she is a human, Sterling. She’d die if she came to our realm. She’ll age and fall apart within years. No relationship is worth that heart ache.”

“Then why could she even see us in her dreams?” Sterling countered. I lay there quietly, fully awake but with my eyes closed because I didn’t want them to know I was hearing this. And maybe they would be too distracted to realize my breathing rate had changed, or that I’d tensed up with each subsequent word.

“I don’t know,” Chuckles said. “That’s why we are here. Because while we were directed to her by the oracle, even the oracle didn’t know why. She just said to go to Dominique. We did, so we are here and we need to figure this out. It may be as simple as her connection to the vampire queen.”

Sterling sighed and his arm tightened around me. “I care for her, and if I am right, I am not the only one.”

“You are correct. She has grown on all of us,” Spanish said softly. “We all have seen the strength in her, her loyalty to her friends, and her compassionate heart. She won’t tell you who hurt her, will she?”

“No. She says she doesn’t know who did it,” Sterling said.

That was enough of that. I shifted and stretched, yawning wide as I let my eyelids flutter open, once, twice, three times before I tried to burrow back under the covers. “Is it morning?”

An act, but one they wouldn’t know seeing as none of them had ever been in bed with me before and know that when I woke up it was instant, no groggy stretching and yawning garbage.

“It is,” Sterling’s lips were against my ear, tickling my skin. I opened my eyes and made myself look at him. But the other men were not there; they were not in the room at all. I blinked a couple of times. His grin was a wry twist. “Looking for someone? Or should I say, more than one someone?”