Shadow's Pleasure: The Shadow Warder Series, Book Two (A Paranormal/Urban Fantasy Romance Series) (24 page)

He hadn’t worried about coming too fast since he was a teenager. A long time. A lot of women. None of them had been Sorcha.

Gathering what he could of his brain, Kiernan unwrapped her arms from around his neck and slid his hands over hers, palm to palm, their fingers laced. She gripped him, her moans rising as he fucked her faster, pressing the backs of her hands into the mattress. Kiernan buried his head in her neck, nuzzling the soft skin behind her ear. She smelled so good. Sweet and ever so slightly like smoke. Their skin was so hot, sweat evaporated the instant it left their pores. He was inside her, not just his cock, but
him
. His spirit, his soul. Everything that made him who he was spread into Sorcha, bonding them as surely as the flickers of blue and orange flame rising from their skin. Before, in the club, he’d thought the heat was all hers. His last coherent thought was that the flames were his as well.

Sorcha’s legs around his hips tightened hard enough to bruise. A keening cry broke from her lips and her fingers gripped his. Her body clamped down so hard when the orgasm hit her, Kiernan couldn’t move. A beat later, he caught the flicker of blue flame rising around them as her pussy pulsed in release, dragging him along with her. It struck in a bladed edge of ecstasy, slicing through him, dividing him into the man he’d been before he’d fucked Sorcha, and the man he was now.

Nothing, no woman, no orgasm, would ever feel like this. No pleasure could ever be so sharp, so full. So complete. He moved inside her, riding the waves of his release as he prolonged hers until she fell limp, wisps of gray smoke drifting from their bodies. The sheets appeared intact, but a haze of smoke hung in the air around the bed. Good thing he hadn’t replaced the batteries in the smoke detector.

He’d get a washcloth in a minute. Rolling to his back, Kiernan pulled Sorcha’s half-conscious form against him, settling her head on his chest. She fit there perfectly, her heart beating a tattoo against his rib cage, the sweet, smoky scent of her tickling his lungs. Sorcha didn’t know it yet, but there was no way he was ever going to let her go.

Chapter Thirteen

Sorcha was in the dark. The air on her skin was damp, reeking of mildew. Sorcha wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but this wasn’t it. Trying to force some clarity, she looked around.

“Caerwyn?” she whispered. No answer.

Dream walking was not an exact science. As far as Shadow skills went, it was uncommon, appearing only in a few empathic Shadows. And for those Shadows, there needed to be a connection to the other party in the dream walk. At her strongest, Sorcha couldn’t just go to sleep and waltz into the dreams of anyone she thought of. She and Caerwyn had played this game before, however. Not in years, but when they’d been children they’d thought it was fun to meet in secret while they were supposed to be asleep. A type of lucid dreaming, dreaming with a walker could be an adventure. They could have another if Sorcha could figure out where they were. She’d fallen asleep and gone searching for Caerwyn. This dark, damp place was not what she’d imagined she’d find.

“Caerwyn,” she whispered again. “Can you hear me?” Still nothing. Giving up on talking to Caerwyn for the moment, Sorcha tried to manufacture some light. It was usually easy to change surroundings in a dream walk, but this place had to be rooted strongly in Caerwyn’s mind, because it resisted alteration. She tried a ceiling light. Then a lamp. A flashlight. Finally, she got lucky with an image of the camping lantern they’d used in the little tent they’d set up in Caerwyn’s backyard when they were children. It was dim and small, but it was light.

Holding it up in front of her, Sorcha looked around. A cell. She was in a crude cell, with a rough dirt floor, stone walls on two sides, iron bars on the other sides. Moisture gathered on the stone, weeping down the rough surface to seep into the dirt floor. That explained the mildewy smell. Spinning a slow circle, she found what she was looking for on a narrow camping cot in the corner of the cell. Caerwyn, curled into a tight ball, clothed in a thin hospital gown like the one Hannah had described wearing.

Leading with the lantern, Sorcha rushed to Caerwyn. Her friend was asleep, eyes squeezed tightly shut. Too tight. Was she asleep or faking it? Did Caerwyn think this was a nightmare? A delusion? Sorcha reached for her friend’s head and stroked one hand down Caerwyn’s long, matted hair. In the weak light of the lantern, Sorcha could see that Caerwyn’s once gleaming, sunlit blond hair was lank and darkened with grease or dirt. One cheekbone was bruised. Allowing Caerwyn her illusion of sleep, Sorcha petted her, soothing. Occasionally, she touched Caerwyn’s temple, smoothed her thumb over Caerwyn’s wrinkled forehead.

Caerwyn was steeped in depression, the emotion a sticky, heavy layer over her skin. Sorcha had always thought of depression as gray snot. To an empath, that’s what it looked and felt like. All over yuck. Clinging. Stinking of sadness. Hopelessness. Dimming the light in everything it touched. Pretending it didn’t disgust her, Sorcha continued to ease Caerwyn with gentle strokes. It took time. Far more time than Sorcha wanted to spend in the dream. If Kiernan tried to wake her while she was here, Sorcha would appear unresponsive. She didn’t want to scare him like that. But it was clear that Caerwyn couldn’t be rushed.

In gradual increments, Caerwyn relaxed. After what felt like hours, her eyes slit open and stared at Sorcha in disbelief. Then in dawning horror.

“No, no, no,” Caerwyn whispered, then said aloud, her voice gaining in volume. “No, Sorcha. No. No, Sorcha.”

“Shh. Shh,” Sorcha said, catching Caerwyn’s suddenly flailing hand in her own. “It’s okay, Caerwyn. It’s okay. Shhh.”

“Why are you here? How did they get you?” Caerwyn wailed, shaking her head.

Sorcha realized her friend didn’t know they were dreaming. “They didn’t get me. Caerwyn, I’m not really here. This is a dream. A dream, honey. Look at me,” Sorcha said, a command in her voice.

At the tone, Caerwyn’s attention snapped from her anguish to Sorcha’s face. “Not really here?”

“It’s a dream,” Sorcha repeated. “Remember, like we used to play when we were kids?”

“A dream.” Dawning understanding was replaced with suspicion. “Your dream or mine?” Caerwyn asked. She didn’t sound like herself. Her words were halting, the cadence more like her childish self.

“My dream,” Sorcha reassured her. “I’m trying to find you, but I’m having some trouble. I just needed to see you, to make the tracking easier.”

“Oh. Okay.” Caerwyn relaxed back onto her narrow camp cot, turning on her side to meet Sorcha’s eyes. Sorcha fought to hide her fear at Caerwyn’s response. Did Caerwyn not understand that they were looking for her? That they were going to save her? Sorcha had imagined her friend was disconnected and damaged. It would explain some of the difficulty she was having in tracking Caerwyn. But this was terrifying.

“Is this where they’re keeping you?” Sorcha asked. She didn’t want to push, but she’d been in the dream too long already. She needed to get as much information as she could and get out.

“It’s new,” Caerwyn said, looking around the cell, barely illuminated by the phantom lantern. “I was in another place. It was clean. White. With Lissa and Sara. Different rooms. But they were there. I could hear them. I used to talk to them.” Caerwyn’s voice dropped off, lost and unbearably sad.

Sorcha’s stomach pitched. Were the younger girls dead? She couldn’t see them here. Outside the circle of light cast by the lantern, she didn’t see another cell. But this was a dream, built from the fragments in Caerwyn’s mind. And Sorcha was sorry to admit it, but it didn’t seem like Caerwyn’s subconscious was a reliable source.

“Where are they, Caer? Have you seen them?” Sorcha held Caerwyn’s hand tightly in hers, her thumb stroking over Caerwyn’s rough, dry skin.

“Don’t know,” Caerwyn said. “I haven’t seen them since he moved me.”

“When did he move you?”

“Few days. I think.”

“And the girls were—” Sorcha had been about to say ‘alive.’ But that implied they might be dead. And she didn’t need to freak Caerwyn out any more than she already was. “You talked to the girls back in the other place? The lab?”

“I heard Lissa. Before he moved me. Don’t know where she is.”

“It’s okay, Caerwyn. I’m going to find you. I’ll find Lissa too. Do you know where you are?”

Caerwyn looked around the bare cell, then back at Sorcha as if to say, “Duh. I’m right here.”

Sorcha shook her head. “I mean, where is this building? Are you in a house? A neighborhood?” Sorcha was aware she’d started to sound desperate. But time was running out and she didn’t know enough. She couldn’t hold herself in the dream much longer. Not with Caerwyn’s mind as fragmented as it was.

“A house?” Caerwyn said. “I can hear him walking above me sometimes. And cars driving by. Not a lot. Sometimes.”

“Is ‘he’ Michael? Does he come here a lot? Is he here now?”

“Michael.” Caerwyn shuddered. “Used to hurt me. Not since we moved. Scares me, Sorcha. If he stopped hurting me, why does he want me?”

“Is he here now? What about the Voratus?” Sorcha asked, trying to pull more detail.

“Haven’t seen Druj in a while. Not since I came here.”

“Is Druj the Voratus?”

“Mmm hmm.” Caerwyn nodded.

Sorcha was learning it was better to ask her one question at a time.
Patience
, she told herself. “And is Michael here now, while you’re sleeping?”

“Don’t think so.” Caerwyn rubbed her cheek against her arm, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes so slowly Sorcha hadn’t seen them at first. “I hear a car. Then the door shuts. Feet above me, dust falls on my head. When he leaves me, it’s the other way. Feet. Dust. Door shuts. Car.”

“Okay, honey.” Sorcha stroked Caerwyn’s dirty hair again, mind racing. What else could she ask? “Do you know how long it took to get here from the other place? The white lab?”

“Uhh uhh. Needle. Sleep. Woke up here.”

“Fuck,” Sorcha swore under her breath. That told her almost nothing. She knew Caerwyn had to be closer to her than the Sanctuary because Sorcha could reach her in dreams when she couldn’t from the Sanctuary in Tennessee. While that narrowed the geography down from almost anywhere to the area surrounding Charlotte, it was still a very tiny needle in a huge haystack.

She’d run out of things to ask. Caerwyn didn’t know anything. And Sorcha could hear her name being called in the distance. Time to go.

Leaning in to press a kiss to Caerwyn’s forehead. Sorcha whispered in her ear, “I’m going to find you. I promise. Just hang in there.”

Sitting back, she left the lantern on the floor beside the camping cot. Without her mind to support the illusion, it would likely collapse the moment she dropped from the dream. Sorcha wished there was a way to leave the light for Caerwyn. The idea of her friend alone in that dark, dank cell, her mind so fragile, made Sorcha sick.

She let her eyes drift shut, releasing her hold on Caerwyn’s sleeping mind. The transition came in a jolt of hard hands and a rough shaking that rattled her back teeth together.

“Sorcha,” she heard shouted above her. “Sorcha! Wake up. Fuck. Sorcha!”

Her eyes snapped open to meet Kiernan’s. His golden skin had drained to sheet-white, his eyes wide with fear and panic.
Shit
. Slowly, Sorcha sat up. Kneeling beside her, Kiernan let go of her shoulders and rocked back on his heels. He ran his hands over her body, as if searching for injuries.

“Are you okay? What the fuck happened?” he asked.

Sorcha blinked, clearing her eyes as she grounded herself in the new reality. Coming out of a dream walk that fast was disorienting. “Sorry. I didn’t intend to scare you,” she said.

His hands dropped to his sides. “What do you mean you didn’t intend to scare me? What did you do?” His voice was low, eyes intent on hers. Echoes of his panic flashed in his eyes.

“I—” Now that she was at the point of confession, the words stuck in Sorcha’s throat. He wasn’t supposed to wake up while she was still in the dream. She’d known it might scare him, but she hadn’t really thought through what it would be like for him to wake beside her lifeless body, unable to rouse her. She’d been so focused on getting through to Caerwyn. Seeing Kiernan’s hands at his sides, still trembling in the aftermath of shock and fear, Sorcha knew she’d fucked up. Badly.

“What did you do?” Kiernan roared at her. “What the fuck did you do, Sorcha? I couldn’t wake you up. You were just lying there. Barely breathing. I thought you were dying.”

“I dream walked,” she confessed in a rush. “I connected with Caerwyn in a dream. I talked to her.”

“You did what?” Kiernan was out of the bed in a flash, glaring down at her. “I’ve heard stories. I know what can happen if a dream walk goes bad.” He was naked, all six-feet plus of lean, muscled, furious Warder, looming over her.

She was still naked as well. They’d both passed out after they’d had sex, and neither of them had moved to clean up, much less put clothes on. Sorcha was aware of the moisture between her legs, the damp spot on the sheet beneath her. The scent of smoke still lingered in the air. Assailed by doubt and sudden shyness, Sorcha pulled the sheet up to cover herself.