Neptune's Lair (sensual paranormal romance) (The Protectors) (10 page)

“Damn you, old woman.” He ripped away from her. Her long nails slashed the skin across the back of his hand.

“
The darkness
hungers for you, Fish. There aren’t many of your kind born under the same star sign. It makes you more sensitive than most. Among other interesting traits, you possess a strong sense of empathy.” She paused and gave him a meaningful look. “Perhaps, too strong. If you don’t leave now,
the darkness
will get what it’s been craving all along. You are fated to be devoured by it. Tonight.”

“You lie.”

“Then why am I here? Why are you here?” She shook her head, sending her shaggy head of hair scattering from its haphazard styling. The silvery strands looked as if they’d taken a life of their own as she gave Brendan a piercing glare and pointed her craggy finger down the deserted alleyway.

“Why is
she
here?”

* * * * *

Dallas had curled up in a tight ball in the middle of her bed and cried and cried and cried some more over Brendan’s rejection. She had trusted him. She had thought she’d finally found someone who could love her. But like everyone else in her life, he didn’t love her. He’d just wanted to use her. She beat her fist against her pillow. Why? Why had he used her so...so...thoroughly? Was the story he’d told her about his sad childhood another one of his lies? Had he pretended to open up her so she’d cling to him?

He had never needed to lie. Not to her. Not when she was falling so hopelessly in love with him. The memory of what he’d done to her body and how he’d made her feel had seared itself into her soul. She could still feel where his hands had caressed her body. Still could taste his—

The handle to her bedroom rattled. She stilled and listened to the faint rustle someone walking around in her living room.

He’d followed her.

Dallas slipped out of bed. “If you think you can break into my house and charm your way back into my good graces—” she shouted as she flung open the bedroom door.

Her living room was empty.

“Great, just great. Now I’m hearing things and wishing he’d come running back to me.” Hot tears started to stream down her cheeks again.

Run!
A voice in her head shouted with a laugh.

It was that sticky voice that had lived with her in her mind for as long as she could remember.

Run, Dallas, run!

The hot breath belonging to the monster that had chased her through her childhood nightmares tickled her neck. “I’m not dreaming,” she whispered. And then she ran, taking the stairs two at a time.

The steady stomp of the monster’s footsteps followed her.

Her tears dried all sticky and cold on her cheeks as she burst out of her apartment building and onto the street. She picked up her speed, weaving around the people crowding the sidewalks. The haunting footsteps had remained right on her heels.

“
You’d better run faster. I’m going to get you
,” the sticky voice whispered in her ear.

It was getting closer. Dallas darted down the darkened alleyway, praying she would find a place to hide. She’d run for what felt like hours. Her body was aching and her lungs were on fire. And there was nowhere else to go. She had to hide. She prayed there would be a Dumpster or perhaps a discarded box she could crawl into. The thought of sharing a space with mice or rats didn’t bother her. Not at all. She would take vermin over whatever horror was coming after her.

She needed to find someplace, anyplace to hide. It was her only hope for surviving whatever was coming after her. She ran blindly into the shadowy alley.

“Brendan—”

The sight of him standing like an avenging angel at the end of the alleyway…glaring at her…stopped her dead in her tracks.

And suddenly she felt the need to run back the way she’d come...back toward the monster chasing her. It couldn’t be worse than the danger Brendan posed to both her heart and soul.

* * * * *

Despite the rage tearing up inside him, Brendan’s breath caught in his throat at the sight of her. He wanted to grab onto Dallas and bury himself in her hot, curvy body. It was as if Dallas brightened this corner of Chicago like a crisp, spring morning. And for a fleeting moment, he grabbed onto a morsel of hope.

Her round lips had called out his name. Unlike any woman he’d ever known, she had crawled into his heart. He didn’t just want to protect her—he wanted to have a future with her.

Which was impossible. He had learned time and again that life wasn’t like that. Whenever anything good came to him, he simply needed to hold onto it for as long as it lasted. And not hope for a lifetime.

Dallas wasn’t any different. She wasn’t his to keep…or to love. She’d shown him that only too painfully well this afternoon.
She’d run away from him
. Keeping her close would lead to not only his destruction, but hers as well.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded.

She stood in the middle of the alleyway. She was probably too frightened to come closer and too damned stubborn to run away. It was that stubborn streak that made him want to scream at her.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize the trouble I’d cause earlier when I carried you to your water world. I was trying to…trying to…” A delicate blush kissed her cheeks. She sighed. “I was trying to get your attention.”

“You’ve got it now. Here I am.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you plan to do with it?”

“Your voice is as hard as a wall,” she sobbed.

“Leave her to suffer her fate, Fish,” Lady Czarina urged. “She’s just another bitch in heat.”

“Fish?” Dallas choked. Her gaze bounced from Lady Czarina’s deeply lined, slightly gray face to Brendan. “You’re
the fish
?”

“It’s not a name I gladly answer to.” His chest ached from the anger he had wrapped against his heart. “I’ll thank you not to use it.”

“You!” She pointed at the old crone. “You’re the gypsy witch who took my money. What’s going on here? You told me to not fall in love with the fish. Why? What’s going on?”

“That’s not what I said.” Lady Czarina’s voice cracked. “Get out of here, Fish. There’s still time.”

“Time for what?” Dallas asked.

“For me to not get involved with you,” he bit off. “You’re a disaster. A fucking, walking disaster.”

A thundering boom-boom, sounding like a giant’s steady footsteps shook the ground. Terror flashed in Dallas’s eyes. “It’s coming.”

“What’s coming?” He couldn’t stop himself from asking, though he knew he should turn around and leave her to her fate.

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”
The darkness
was growing by leaps and bounds. Brendan could feel it swirling all around them. Whenever Dallas’s fear spiked, its strength flared.

“Fight it, Dallas. Don’t let
the darkness
push through you like this,” Brendan warned. “It’s playing with your fears.”

“How do I stop it?”

“Leave her,” Lady Czarina shouted. “She’s doomed.”

No, he wouldn’t leave Dallas, not when she needed him. Not when he—

Dallas pressed her fists to her ears and screamed.
The darkness
leapt with joy. It was winning and taking Dallas into its own personal hell.

“Stop it,” Brendan said, putting the full force of his power in his words. He hoped he could use his powers to chase
the darkness
away. Nothing happened. His powers weren’t nearly strong enough to battle the all-consuming invisible monster.

It licked at Brendan, teasing him and whispering promises in his ear, vowing to take him next.

“No!” he shouted as Dallas crumpled to the ground. Her chest was pressing in on itself. Her breaths turned short and erratic.
The darkness
was taking her apart from the inside out.

Brendan rushed forward to help her. Lady Czarina’s nails dug into his hands. “Save yourself. She’s not worth your life.”

Maybe not, but dammit, he couldn’t let Dallas die like this. He wouldn’t.

He loved her.

He pushed the old crone away and went down on one knee. Opening his arms, his heart overflowed with the emotions he’d fought so hard to keep at bay. Dallas deserved to live. Even if it meant sacrificing himself, at least he would die knowing that she’d finally be safe from the suffocating
darkness
that had lived with her nearly all her life. She deserved to experience some peace in her life.

“I love you, Dallas.”
And she deserved a chance to live.

Drawing in a deep breath, he lowered all his mental and physic shields, opening himself wide open.
The darkness
whooshed into him, slamming through his chest with the force of a leaden fist.

What he had done was going to kill him, and it still wasn’t enough to stop
the darkness
from devouring the woman he loved. He reached out with his mind and pulled the full power of the evil monster that hid in the shadows and under children’s bed
into his soul. It was the ultimate sacrifice—he was giving up his soul to save Dallas’s.

His past roared to life. He toppled over and huddled in on himself. All the ugly games and pain he had endured over the years rushed back to him. The loneliness. The tearing pain of rejection. The past tortured him with fresh anguish until he couldn’t make out the difference between the present and memories.

“Do something,” he heard Dallas cry as he stumbled to the asphalt. “Save him!”

“There’s nothing that can be done,” Stone said.

Brendan shook his head with fury. Stone wasn’t supposed to find Dallas. Stone would be forced to take her back to the council. She’d have to stand trial for pulling him out of his body. And she would be destroyed.

“Get her away from here,” Brendan managed to grind out before the pain and rage consumed him. He swelled with hatred. Murderous impulses screamed through his thoughts.

It was done.

Destroy
.

The lonely thought pushed to the forefront. Destruction was a task
the darkness
relished. And if Brendan wanted to destroy himself, he felt confident
the darkness
would help him do the deed. Soon, the all-consuming rage and loathing was chewing at his soul. Devouring him.

With his last ounce of strength, he raised all his mental and physic shields that he’d once used to keep
the darkness
out. The monster immediately sensed the trap. It bucked against the barriers. Barriers that once had kept it from stealing Brendan’s soul were now holding it inside a doomed body.

Brendan knew at that moment that he’d won. Though his soul was going to be obliterated into nothingness, the monster that had been hunting him all his life
was good and trapped. With his destruction,
the darkness
would also be destroyed.

* * * * *

Blood trickled from the corner of Brendan’s mouth. Dallas stuffed her fist in her mouth to hold back a scream. She had to get to him. She had to do whatever she could to help him, but Frank Stone had wrapped his arms around her waist and was pulling her away.

“It’s too late,” Stone was saying. “Too late.” She shook her head, not wanting to listen. Not wanting to believe.

In her heart though, she feared Stone spoke the truth. Brendan’s eyes had turned as dark as ink. Even the whites of his eyes were as black as the monster who was devouring him. His face twisted with pain as he stared sightlessly at the sky. He’d curled himself into a fetal position, hugging his legs to his chest as if struggling to keep from blowing apart.

He’d taken
the darkness
from her. She felt lighter.

“I didn’t want this,” she whispered. “The cost is too high.”

She wanted Brendan, not this. Her heart was being torn to pieces as she lost the only man she’d ever let herself love.

“I love you, dammit! Don’t you dare die! Do you hear me? I won’t let you die!”

“It’s too late,” Stone said again. His arms slipped away from her waist and she flung herself to Brendan’s side.

She brushed her hand over his cheek. The skin under her fingers felt cold. He wasn’t struggling anymore.

It was too late.

Brendan was dead.

Dallas screamed at him to wake up.

Brendan didn’t respond. She closed her eyes and reached out into the universe, hoping to find some remnant of his spirit, a lingering sliver of his soul, but there was nothing to be found. The bond between them had been severed. Like Stone had said—it was too late. Brendan was gone.

Forever.

Chapter Seven

Dallas curled up on Brendan’s bed and breathed in the faint scent of him that was already fading from his rumpled sheets. Brendan was dead. Gone. Two days had passed since his death, and yet it all still felt like a bad dream. She kept expecting him to come through the door wearing nothing more than a wicked grin and dangling a blindfold from his fingers.

Everything since his death in the alleyway had moved in a blur. It was as if time was flowing around her, but she was no longer part of the timeline.

Time! That’s it. She could turn back the clock and save his life. She could let
the darkness
take her instead. She could be the one who died. No, no, no. She couldn’t do that...even if she could figure out how to control that power, she wouldn’t throw Brendan’s gift back in his face. He’d wanted Dallas to live.

But there must be some way...

Just yesterday she had coolly faced down the council. The crusty old men and women who presided over her hearing were scarier than the nun’s at the orphanage. They’d scolded her for breaking their laws. “What you’ve done—taking a soul from a body without their permission—carries a steep price,” a silver-haired woman had leaned forward in her seat as she spoke. The council had convened in the Oblique Café. Twelve chairs set up in a semi-circle around where Dallas had been directed to stand. Stone stood with her. He flinched when the elder woman’s voice crackled in the air, “You must pay for your crime with your life.”

A small man in the corner started to sharpen a blade.

Dallas shrugged. Their threats couldn’t penetrate the numbing grief that had filled her all the way down to her toes. All she wanted to do was to find a place where she could be alone with her memories of Brendan.

Stone held up his hands. His voice boomed with power as he defended Dallas’s actions. “She was under the power of
the darkness
. One of our best men sacrificed his life to pull the evil monster from her mind. Look at her now. She is as pure as a newborn. No trace of the cloying black cloud remains within her.” He gazed thoughtfully at the council. “Can anyone of you make the same claim?”

Thanks to Stone’s arguments on her behalf, the council had ultimately decided to blame her actions on
the darkness
that had infected her. Since she was no longer tainted, they overruled the mandatory death penalty. For Brendan’s sake, Dallas was pleased. He had given up his life to save hers.

No one had ever loved her so thoroughly. That was why she had gone to Brendan’s apartment as soon as she was able to get away from the café and was there now. She’d gone searching desperately for a piece of him that she could cling to, something that might make living bearable. For Brendan, Dallas vowed to move on with her life. She would live, even if every hour that passed without him felt like a lifetime in hell. She owed Brendan that much.

Tears ran down her cheeks as grief once again overwhelmed her. She was drowning in it as surely as if she were being pulled under the water in a raging river. Or perhaps it was more like a waterfall, a luscious, sapphire blue waterfall that dropped from an azure sky that she might find in
his world
.

Dammit, she’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry anymore. But how could she possibly keep the tears at bay when she’d lost the only man she’d ever love?

Because it would kill him to know she was so miserable, she reminded herself. He’d given his life because he’d wanted her to live. Choking on her grief, she heaved a deep breath...and caught a whiff of the sweet aqua aroma she’d only experienced in one place…a place that no longer existed.

But the sweet scent seemed so real.

Rubbing the salty tears that had clouded her eyes, she gasped when she saw that she was no longer lying on his bed but was now in a grassy field beside an indigo-tinted reflecting pool. The cool spray from the waterfall tickled her face.

This was his world. His sanctuary. How had it managed to survive?

She pushed herself up to her knees. Her gaze tripped over the landscape, searching. Hoping. Praying.

Then she spotted him. Wearing an old pair of cut-offs and nothing else, he was walking across the sandy beach at the shore of a Caribbean blue sea.

Dallas sprang to her feet and ran to him. He folded her into his embrace and kissed her forehead. She snuggled into his heat. “It’s you. It’s you.”

He nibbled her lips, kissing and licking, while his hands explored her body. Her heart turned a flip when he touched her breast. She found herself getting lost in the sensations filling her. It was easier to forget all about her grief and pretend they could be together forever. In his world.

But this wasn’t her reality. It couldn’t be. Brendan was gone, and she was dreaming.

“Please don’t let me wake up,” she groaned as his hand caressed higher and higher up her thigh.

“This isn’t a dream,” his seductive voice whispered in her ear.

“That’s impossible,” she said with a nervous laugh and sank into his kisses. “I mean, isn’t it...impossible? What are you doing here?”

He furrowed his brows and considered the question for a long moment. “I...I don’t know,” he said, sounding completely baffled.

“Are-aren’t you…” She gathered all her courage to finish the question she really didn’t want to know the answer to. “Aren’t you
dead
?”

He glanced down at his arms and then wiggled his toes, half-burying them in the sand. “I don’t think so,” he said, carefully. “You didn’t let me go, remember?” He shook his head with amazement. “I knew you were powerful, but your power even scares the angel of death.”

“But your body…it’s…it’s dead.”

A playful smile brightened his expression. He placed a quick kiss on her nose. “You keep forgetting something important, love of my life. We’re not human.”

“And I keep telling you, I could really use a handbook.”

“Did the humans give you one?”

“Of course not. But your body. What are we going to do?”

“Don’t worry, tender one,” he said with such confidence, she couldn’t help but believe him. “I’ve left my body for days at a time before. As long as I have a body to return to, I should be okay.”

She bit her lip.

“I do have a body to return to, don’t I?”

She closed her eyes, trying to remember what Stone had told her. It had something to do with the county coroner’s office.

He grabbed her shoulders. “This is important, Dallas. What did they do with my body?”

“The coroner has it. There was some question about cause of death and—” She swallowed down a sob. “They’re going to perform an autopsy today.”

“Okay,” he said. “This isn’t a problem. I’d be in cold storage. That’s good. The cold will preserve the organs. I simply have to get back into my body before some technician starts pulling the important parts out.”

He went very still. His smile faded.

“What? What is it?” Dallas asked.

“I don’t know how to get back. In fact, I don’t know where I am right now.” Pain tightened his expression. “I’m lost.”

Dallas kissed him. Heat swirled between them like a living breeze. “No, not lost. You’re with me. Let me be your guide.”

“Not quite yet. If I’m to follow you, we need to forge a strong connection.” He pushed her down to the sand and followed to cover her with his muscular weight. Oh, how she’d missed this. With his thigh he nudged her legs apart. Time seemed to stand still as they made love on his beach. He worshiped her body with his hands and his mouth until she didn’t think she’d ever be able to move again.

* * * * *

But Dallas didn’t have time to rest. She’d never driven more recklessly in her life. After following his directions and used her fledgling powers to send Brendan’s spirit back to his body—condition unknown—she tore off down the road in Brendan’s fast, sporty Audi TT. With her hand on the horn, she ran red lights, cut tight corners, and weaved around slow cars as she sped toward the city morgue. On the way, she’d called Stone to let him know what was happening.

The guards at the door were no match for her determination. She blasted past the front counter and charged down the halls. A piece of her heart, the piece that was connected to Brendan again, knew exactly where to go.

There was a small, cold room at the end of the hall where two rows of naked bodies were lying out on metal tables. She ran past the pasty dead bodies until she found Brendan.

He wasn’t moving. His lips were blue and silent.

“I dreamed it.” Her heart sank to her toes. “I wanted him so badly that I dreamed it.”

His skin felt as hard as marble.

She slipped her hand into his and gave it a squeeze. “Oh, my love,” she choked out, “goodbye.”

Fresh grief stabbed through her as she turned away. But before she could take a step his marble-hard hand closed over hers.

“Don’t go.”

“Brendan?” She spun back around. Her blood pounded through her veins. She held her breath, too afraid to hope. But as impossible as it seemed, his cold, cold hand was still clutching hers. Her mouth dropped open as his stiff eyelids opened one at a time. Ice crystals covered his once beautiful chocolate brown eyes.

“
Get me out of here
.” The words were spoken not from his lips, but in her head. This wasn’t good. Stress and grief had made her lose her mind. She was hearing voices while grasping a dead man’s hand. If they found her like this, they’d have no choice but to lock her up.

Let them lock her up. She wasn’t going to leave Brendan behind. He’d taught her to never run from her impulses. And she had a strong desire to get him off that damned metal table. Her hands trembled as she reached under his shoulders and used all her strength to lift his upper body.

“It hurts like hell,” he groaned as she helped him sit up.

She kissed his icy, blue lips. “I’m glad it hurts, baby. It means you’re coming back to me, and I’m not crazy.”

The door swung open. Frank Stone rushed into the room and tossed a heavy blanket over Brendan’s legs. “We’ll take over from here.” Stone nudged her out of the way so the men in white coats who had followed him into the room could examine and take care of Brendan.

“She’s not going anywhere.” Brendan looped his frigid arm over her shoulder and pulled her back to his side. “We’re in this together for the long-haul.”

She stroked his bare chest, unable to keep herself from touching him. She had to assure herself that this was real. He was alive. And hers.

“Does this mean I get the associate position at Hamlet, Hamlet, and Golf?” she teased.

“Hmmm…That depends.” The teasing spark in his eyes warmed Dallas’s heart. He loved her. He really loved her. “You won’t have any trouble working for your husband, will you?”

“My husband?” she breathed.

She’d expected he might want to date. Or, if she was lucky, she’d thought he might ask her to move in with him.

“I mean…” His courage seemed to falter. “That is, if you’re willing to put up with a somewhat crusty, overly possessive lover.”

She was speechless. Utterly speechless. Perhaps
she
was the one who’d died. And she was now in Heaven.

“Oh, this is too much. I don’t mean to pressure you,” he was saying. “We can talk about it later.”

“Oh shut up already, Brendan,” Stone said. He was grinning from ear-to-ear like a proud father. “Dallas? What are you thinking?”

She gave Brendan one of her best calculating glares, “Fish, you’d better grab onto something. You marry me, and I’ll make sure you get one hell of a ride.”