Six

Zaire clenched the crutches in a wood-splitting grip, denying the tornado inside any release. He would have found a way to avoid Quinn’s questions, given her just enough truth to satisfy her curiosity without endangering her before taking his leave. Thanks to the imbecile V’alkara who sought to take her for himself, avoiding the most perilous truth was no longer an option. Primal fury boiled in his gut, burning with the territorial, intrinsic demand to protect his dreamcaster.

“Wild guess here, you’re not from Hot Guy for Hire, and you’ve never met Stephanie Miller.” Quinn still trembled from the attack.

“Alas, no.” He wished. Everything would be less complicated.

She opened her mouth, closed it, then lifted a finger in the air. “I need a drink. Then, you’re telling me everything.”

He shut his eyes as she slipped past him, wobbling only a little, a testament to her strength. A few more hours, and he could have returned to his dark world and left her happily ignorant of the V’alkara. The noose around his neck doubled and tightened, choking him.

Quinn’s gasp pierced his ears, and he winced. He hadn’t had time to remove the V’alkara he’d killed in her kitchen. Rather than wait, he clomped on crutches after her.

She crouched beside the fallen man sprawled on the tile, one fist clenched on her thigh, the other wrapped around her gun. He hadn’t realized she still carried the weapon. “Did you know him very well?”

“Well enough to realize he wanted to use you until there was nothing left.” He rubbed a hand over his face and let out a long breath. It was time to tell her the truth. Partially, at least. “He called me brother because he is V’alkara. As I am.”

“Is that some sort of no-gun hunting club?” She kept her gaze fixed on the V’alkara’s lifeless face, at the fork sunk deep into his eye. The utensil had been the handiest weapon, still on the kitchen table from breakfast. Not as accurate as his knives, but effective enough.

“We are men born without the ability to dream,” he said reluctantly. “Sleep does not bring us rest as it does to others. Our minds cannot process all the ideas and stimuli taken in during the day, cannot heal and recover. The only manner of maintaining sanity, any hope of survival, is through absorbing another’s dreams, preferably nightmares.”

“How is that possible?” She straightened, and the pistol in her hand shook. She didn’t point it at him, a small boon.

“Same as eye color or height, V’alkara are born with the defect and the accompanying abilities.” And curses. The genetics had much to do with the twisted man who’d intentionally fathered many of the V’alkara and kept them chained to his will while intensively searching out stragglers, the few born to normal parents outside his reach, and taking them by force. Another story for another time, and unless Quinn brought the subject up herself, he’d say nothing of dreamcasters.

Her eyes glittered with a thousand questions waiting to be asked, not a trace of disbelief. Unsurprising, considering what she was herself, and she seemed to have endured the mental burden of her nightmares unexpectedly well without him. He’d met other dreamcasters, and most of them were damaged. Quinn was smart, strong, and sane. She obviously didn’t need him to survive.

His chest ached, as if he’d lost something precious and irreplaceable.

“He changed from mist to a man,” she said, leaning against the kitchen counter. “He possessed me, and you exorcised him.”

He nodded.

“But he wasn’t a demon?” The question was laced with uncertainty and a strange element of hope. “And you’re like him?”

“The minor demon form he assumed was one he took from a dream. We’re alike in some ways, but not in others.” His self-description would be that he was a V’alkara on his way to becoming a demon from absorbing too many nightmares from his cache rather than harvesting new dreams. A man not quite a demon, but oh so close. One more Change—two, maybe three—and he might never return to Zaire the man, the sole reason he couldn’t claim her for his own. He cleared the regret from his throat. “We are men, but not. Not precisely, anyway.”

“You can change into mist? Shapeshift?” Her focus raked him from face to toes, leaving a burning trail. “Invade my head?”

“Some of my forms are mist-shaped,” he said, careful to be honest without too much detail. “And, yes, I could take you, use you.” Worship you. Destroy you.

“Oh. Brothers not by blood, but by nature.” Quinn kept his gaze so long he held his breath, waiting for her reaction once the information sank in. He wished he could kill the other V’alkara again. Her deep, knowing eyes saw everything, and there was no turning back now. Eventually, she nodded, but whatever assessment she made, she kept silent. “And there are more like him out there, more that wouldn’t hesitate to brain me, right?”

He ground his teeth together, hating that he had to be the one to ruin her sense of security. “Yes.”

Her mouth tightened. She stepped over the fallen V’alkara, opened the cupboard beneath the sink and rummaged around. Something scraped and plastic rustled. She straightened and held out his jacket. “You earned your knives back.”

Warmth laced through his ribs, so powerful he couldn’t move. After she’d been attacked, learned what he was, understood what he was capable of, she chose to return his weapons, decided to trust him. As much as he cherished her trust, as much as he wanted his blades back, he couldn’t allow her to rely on or relax with him. “Returning a killer’s weapons.” He added a barb to his tone. “Clever.”

“You killed this guy with a freakin’ fork.” She lifted her eyebrows in a gesture he already recognized as her are-you-an-imbecile look. “If you wanted to hurt me, you would’ve done it already. I’m pretty sure we’re on the same team. Besides, you promised.”

Ah, so she trusted her compulsion more than him. He wouldn’t be the one to disillusion her of that small comfort. And while his promise to her was the main cord binding him, he couldn’t deny that the desire to answer her truthfully held more power than a simple vow to keep his word, which was both fascinating and disturbing. V’alkara were immune to dreamcasters’ compulsion—or so he’d thought. He took his coat with a shrug.

“Your injury.” She rubbed her arms as though fighting a chill. “It’s because of what you are, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” It was unfortunate how much he longed at that moment to be a normal man with a bum leg and no past chaining him down or darkness staining his soul. Then again, if that were true, he wouldn’t belong to her. And he’d never regret that.

Quinn poured them both glasses of water, handed one to him, and drained hers in one long draught. She swiped her sleeve across her mouth and met his gaze. “I want to know everything.”

***

After a few minutes of listening to Zaire’s hypnotic voice murmuring things that should be impossible, Quinn slouched in her chair and studied his harshly handsome face. “Let me get this straight. You guys, the V’alkara, are like your own secret culture, your own species, staying mostly off society’s radar because you don’t want to be science experiments. You don’t sleep, so you have to take terrifying dreams from snoozing people, and then you can transform into creatures from those dreams whenever you want.”

“Essentially. The nightmare forms we absorb, once used, must be replaced,” Zaire said calmly, as if it were completely normal to be talking about shapeshifters and people who didn’t sleep. Then again, there was a dead man on the floor only feet away who had turned to mist before her eyes and invaded her head. So he hadn’t mentioned infiltrating her childhood nightmares yet. Once she processed everything he’d told her, she would ask. She wasn’t ready to detail her own issues or hear him say he didn’t remember her.

“That’s…” She mentally thumbed through her vocabulary, unable to choose a winner. “Incredible.”

His eyebrows shot up and slashed down just as fast. Holy crap, he went from threatening to scary in a snap. “How do you feel after a sleepless night, Quinn?” He didn’t wait for her answer. “Try living that for years.”

“I get it, believe me.” She wasn’t sure how much to reveal about herself, not yet. He’d probably believe whatever she told him, too, but she didn’t want to change how he looked at her, like she was some sort of miracle. “My nights aren’t always easy, but that doesn’t mean I’m an open café for dream snatchers.” She looked at the corpse in her kitchen. “Big mistake on his part.”

“Indeed.” One side of Zaire’s mouth twitched, an almost smile. “You should return to your home as soon as possible. It’s not safe for you here.”

“Even with you?”

“Especially with me.” He gave her his menacing frown, but the thrill that moved through her had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with him breathing the same air as she did. The boy from her dreams…real, alive, and she was dancing around all the questions she wanted answered most, afraid to know if her long-term fantasies matched reality.

“What happened to the person who sliced up your leg?” She glanced at the dead guy again, relatively certain she knew the answer. “Why were you attacked?”

“My enemies fared worse.” His ebony eyes gleamed, definitely a spark of satisfaction. “The snow should hide the evidence for now. As for the why, I believe a clue is in the pocket of my ruined jeans.”

“Oh. I forgot to check those pockets.” At his scandalized expression, she grinned. “A girl can’t be too careful. Hang on, I’ll get them.” She went to the cupboard beneath the kitchen sink and dug out the trash bag holding his unsalvageable jeans. She looked away fast from the bloody smears showing through.

Quinn handed the bag to him and sat sideways in her chair, facing the window while he opened it. The gravity of the entire situation suddenly weighed on her. What if she hadn’t opened the door when Zaire had knocked? What if he hadn’t gotten the best of his enemies? If he’d died… Her throat tightened. While she suspected her life was about to turn on its head, she’d trade it all just to know he was real and alive.

“They stabbed me with this.” At Zaire’s voice, she turned. He held up a capped syringe. “Whatever was in it paralyzed my leg and blocked my V’alkara nature. Until it wears off, I am basically, completely human.”

“Completely human? Shudder.” Her grin faded at the flash of longing that crossed his face, there and gone so fast, she would’ve missed it if she hadn’t been staring. He wanted to be normal. That, she understood. “So these people who attacked you, when they don’t come back, others will come looking, won’t they?”

His face went grim. Well, grimmer than usual. “Another reason for you to leave here as soon as possible.”

Her breath caught at the implication. He intended to ditch her. “What about you?”

“I’m not your concern.” The chill in his tone sparked in his eyes, icy and distant as winter starlight.

“Wrong answer.” She snorted and barred her arms across her chest. “As you said, you’re a human weakling right now. When you still had all your V’alkara mojo going on, they managed to cripple you and cut you off from any extra-special skills, right?”

His jaw clenched, but he held her gaze, his eyes burning.

“You don’t know how long the effects will last. If they came for you now, you’d be toast. Don’t bother pretending it’s not true. You can’t walk. There’s no cell service, so you can’t call anyone to come and get you.” She sat up halfway and leaned toward him, her palms planted on the table. “When I go, you’re going with me. We’ll figure out the rest.”

“I won’t go with you for a hundred different reasons.” His voice whispered of midnights and graveyards. “You’re fortunate I haven’t killed you, too.”

Never breaking his gaze, she circled the table and gave him an Isaac lawyer loom. Not that it was much of one. Sitting, he was nearly her height. “Are you saying the only reason you didn’t do the brain-scramble on me like your brother from another mother tried to do is because you’re temporarily disabled?”

He glared, fighting against her superpower.

“Confirm or deny, Zaire.”

“Yes.” The word was sharp as a whip-snap.

She stared into his black pit eyes, unwilling to believe that he meant it, but she hadn’t released him from his promise. Maybe he simply believed it was true. Her mouth went desert sand dry. Perhaps he wasn’t the same boy from years ago, gravely protective of her. “So you’re saying, normally, you’d kill me, but you claim you won’t go with me because you’re afraid you might hurt me?”

His brow furrowed, but he didn’t blink. “Which question do you wish me to answer?”

So close, his breath brushed her throat, and his eyes chained her in place. His full, sensual mouth was only inches away, and it would be so easy to lean forward and touch her lips to his. “I feel like I know you.” She whispered, afraid the wrong word might break whatever spell had brought him to her, and he’d disappear. “You’re fueled by nightmares, I believe that, but you don’t scare me.” She grinned a little. “At least not very much.”

“Then you’re a fool,” he said, matching her gentle tone and somehow making it alarming. “Simply speaking with me is a death wish. The V’alkara who invaded your head is nothing compared to me.”

“I’m a survivor.” Not touching him was a challenge, but she wasn’t about to give him any reason to distance himself.

His mouth curved up, just at the corners, and it was all sorts of evil. “So am I.”

Wolfgang jumped for Zaire’s lap, and he jerked, lifting his hand as if to strike. He caught the reaction just in time. Wolfgang landed on his thigh, purring. Quinn shuddered. A survivor’s instinctive move to protect himself, a killer’s defense and counter-attack. She didn’t doubt for a second that he’d survived some terrible things, done some horrible things himself.

“I’ll spell this out for you.” She plopped back into the empty chair. Wolfgang had disrupted the magical moment, anyway. No kitty treats for him. “You’re hurt. You’re alone. Bad people will eventually come for you, and you don’t know if you’ll be recovered in time to defend yourself. Besides, there’s not enough food here to last you more than a day.”

He glowered but petted Wolfgang gently.

“Isaac will be here soon.” She drummed her fingers on the table, denying the need to touch him the way he was caressing her cat. “You’re going with us.”

“Who is Isaac?” A hint of venom entered his voice. Emotion fluttered in his eyes, there and gone too fast to decipher, but dark. Definitely dark.

She stopped her tabletop beat, the sudden tension an electrical buzz in her nerves. “My brother.”

His features relaxed, and the oxygen returned to the room. “Brother. Family. Good.”

Something fluttered behind her heart, hot and wild. Had he thought Isaac was something more significant? More intimate than her brother? Dang, she hoped so. But what if he were involved with someone else? That fluttering stilled. She went for casual. “What about you? No brothers, obviously, but sisters? Parents?” Girlfriend, lover, wife?

He shook his head, his mouth tight.

“No family at all?”

He hesitated so long she thought he might not respond. At last, he met her gaze, and the shadows in his eyes killed her. “A nephew, but we’re not in contact.”

“Look, I won’t leave you here and wonder for the rest of my life if you survived or not.” It was the best excuse at hand, but she’d chain herself to him like a protesting hippie to a tree before letting him go. Especially since there was still so much she needed to ask, needed to know. “It’s not like you have other options.”

Zaire lifted Wolfgang from his lap and set the cat down. He grabbed his jacket and shrugged it on. Using the crutches for balance, he unfolded to his full height, his black gaze burning. “Thank you for your aid, Quinn. Once your brother arrives, don’t linger. And don’t remove your necklace. Ever.”

Quinn twisted in her chair, tracking him as he hobbled past her, opened the back door, and swung out into the snow. The door shut behind him.

He left her, just like that. As if he hadn’t shielded her from her nightmares so long ago. As if he could care less.

“I don’t think so.” Even if he didn’t remember her, didn’t feel anything for her, she needed more answers, and nothing would stop her from getting them. She stood so fast, her chair crashed to the floor, sending Wolfgang skidding across the tile. She jerked the back door open and blinked against the sudden bright of a winter wonderland, three-feet deep. A few yards away, Zaire struggled through the snow, getting nowhere fast. She stepped into his trail, wide enough to follow without any trouble, and ignored the cold seeping into her slippers.

“Just wondering,” she asked in her sweet and innocent voice, clasping her hands behind her back as though she were simply out for a quick breath of lung-freezing air. “Where do you plan to lurch to before night falls and frost bites your butt? Quick geography lesson: there’s no shelter within walking distance, and you won’t make it to civilization on crutches.”

“I’ll be fine.” The words were tight, strained. Good. Maybe he’d be reasonable and realize she was right. One crutch slipped, nearly toppling him, but he caught his balance in time. “Go back inside and wait for your brother.”

She kicked at some snow. “I’d rather not.”

He stopped and spun so suddenly, she almost smacked into his chest, an impressive move, especially with crutches. A sheen of perspiration layered his scary face. His black eyes gleamed, bottomless in the brilliant light. He radiated dark menace, so powerful, she could’ve sworn shadows skirted the edge of her vision.

“Leave me be.” Even his voice was from her worst nightmare, like bones scraping together. “The V’alkara have been called the Dreamless, the Soulless, the Darkness in the Night. We are the choking vines from every nightmare root. You’ve experienced what one V’alkara can do to you, and he was weak. If you wish to remain alive, return to your career quest, avoid Stephanie Miller’s schemes, and forget you ever met me.”

Lifting her chin, Quinn held his gaze and shut out the goosebumps sliding down her back. “I’d rather not.”

He loomed over her. His looming skills exceeded hers by a long shot. Not even Isaac had such an impact. It was the same sensation as watching a tidal wave rise up, up, up, and crest, darkening the skyline. The crash was coming any second and nothing she did could stop it.

“I have a quest, as well, Quinn, a deadly one.” While his voice was silky soft, he looked ready to kill something. Oh, right. That something was probably her. “I will not be going with you.”

She slouched, putting on a sad face to distract him, and waited until his features had relaxed a degree. Before he realized he’d been duped, she kicked his good leg out from under him and swiped one crutch. He toppled sideways in the snow and flailed on his back, his raven eyes wide. She did some looming of her own, but with a grin instead of a glower.

“See how easy it is to take you down? And I don’t have any special powers.” At least none that were useful. Nightmares and delusions weren’t exactly the stuff of superheroes. She brushed some snow from his dark hair and wished she had an excuse to keep touching him—his hair, his face, anything Zaire.

He manacled her wrist with one large hand and held her still with a grip verging on painful. His callused palm was enticingly rough on her skin, but something in his face had changed. Just beneath the surface, the frame of a devilish mask danced, barely contained. Cold splintered into her bones. No way was that a delusion.

“The last person who risked knocking me down,” he murmured with lethal seduction, “is lifeless a few miles from here, buried under snow.”

Her heart flickered on and off. She’d seen enough death in her nightmares to recognize when it stared back at her. Just because he’d appeared in her childhood nightmares didn’t mean he was the same person now, the same boy who’d protected her from his hiding spot in the shadows, kept her company in the long, dark nights. It took a couple of swallows to speak. “You want to kill me, too?”

“Any connection to me is the fastest way to be ripped apart. If I don’t do it, there are a hundred others who will.” He stared up at her, unblinking. “Death would be a far better fate than if the organization that directs me ever learned—” His teeth snapped together as if he’d said more than he intended. “My future must be faced alone.”

A lightbulb flicked on in her head. “If they ever learned about me. That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? But why would I matter to them?”

“You don’t matter.” Growling, he dropped her hand and swiped the crutch from her grip.

Another lightbulb joined the first, illuminating one dark corner of questions. “You think the best way to protect me is by leaving me behind.”

He struggled to his feet, breathing hard. “Why would I waste any energy protecting you when you clearly have no sense of self-preservation?” His words were snarls, angry and vicious. “I’m weary of your interference and want only to return to my mission, where others, happily, value their lives enough to leave me mostly in peace.”

Well, that stung. She had half a mind to kick his leg out from under him again, but from his narrowed gaze and tight grip on the crutches, he probably wouldn’t fall for the same trick twice.

He set his gaze into the distant trees, as though he’d already passed through them, moved beyond her reach. “Let me go, Quinn.”

The dreadful way he said her name slithered down her neck and coiled around her thrashing heart, fear at its finest. Yet, beneath the foreboding, deeper than the promise of endless suffering she’d face upon disobedience, shards of a hidden pain slipped free, erasing every wrinkle of doubt or hurt. Even as she breathed ice splinters into her failing lungs, she refused to bend to his demand, not when everything she longed for was so close.

For the second time that day—for the second time ever—she used her special voice and whispered, “I’d rather not.”