Dying Dreams (Book 1 of Dying Dreams Trilogy) (25 page)

Sloane propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at her. “No you’re not, but I am sorry, and I’ll keep apologizing for as long as it takes.”

“So we’re jumping into this with both feet. There’s not going to be a getting to know you, let’s date, allow me to woo you period.”

He smiled. “I didn’t think I was far enough out of the dog house for that to be a possibility.”

She was so comfortable and happy in his glow, that she had to dig deep to find her anger and her fear. “I’m not sure you are either, but I don’t think we have any choice. I just… I think we should be careful. We can’t let ourselves get so caught up in each other that we don’t notice anything else.”

“I promise you, Liza, I won’t let that happen to you. I’m not sure I understand what you’re so afraid of, though. I mean isn’t the guy the one who’s supposed to be terrified of commitment?”

“Yeah, what about that? Frankie said you’re a huge commitment-phobe.”

He grinned. “I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate. I’m a work-aholic and my job usually… pretty much always comes first, but I… I really like you, Liza, and I’m not afraid of this commitment. If it means I get to be around you all the time, I’m for it.”

Liza was almost positive he was full of it, and likely blinded by lust and good sex, but she didn’t have a reason to argue with him. “Fine, so we’re doing this. I’m not afraid of commitment in the general sense, I just… I see obsessive love as a very bad and a very dangerous thing. It made my mother blind to my father’s faults and it made her ignore her own children.”

“I won’t let that happen to you, I promise,” he said.

“As an involved party, I don’t trust you. But I have Ellison’s promise to look out for me, too, so I guess that’s the best I can hope for.” She could no longer resist not touching Sloane and she snuggled down and laid her face on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. “I guess we have to get up and go to work now.”

He sighed. “Not yet. I want to show you how I de-stress.”

Sloane walked Beauty while Liza showered, but distance from him didn’t give her the perspective she was hoping for. She missed him and she wanted his body against hers in the shower. She felt a bit panicky and anxious without him. Marcy’s building had water heaters with solar panels, so her shower was nice and warm, but she turned the tap to cold to cool off her desire. She really needed help if she was going to have any kind of life outside of Sloane. Then his large shadow darkened the room as he stepped into the shower with her, already naked and hard, and she forgot what she was worried about.

“Were you actually gone long enough for Beauty to do his business and get some exercise?” She asked, but she had already wrapped her arms around his shoulders and had no intention of letting him go.

“Yes to the first, and no to the second. I’ll make it up to him when we get back and take our second showers.”

“Second showers?”

He kissed her and she forgot the question.

Liza looked around at the gym and then looked at Sloane, her eyes wide. It wasn’t much bigger than Marcy’s apartment and it was crammed with free weights and Smith machines. One lonely treadmill was shoved in a back corner, next to a rack holding jump ropes and medicine balls. “Um, Sloane, you know I’m not a bodybuilder, right?”

He faced her, his grin contagious. They’d stopped by his place on the way over and he was in shorts and a t-shirt. Liza had on yoga pants and a tank-top. “This is my favorite place in the whole world and I wanted to bring my favorite person in the whole world to experience it.”

Her heart swelled at the idea of being his favorite person, and she shoved it back into place. He barely knew her. He was exaggerating. “I thought the ocean was your favorite place.”

“The ocean is my home. This is my favorite place.”

She shrugged, not understanding, but willing to concede the point.

“Look, this place seems really nice, but I’ve been working out at SPA and I’ve got to work out again today, probably. Isn’t it bad for me to work out too much?”

His shoulders slumped just a bit. “Yeah, you’re right. You don’t have to stay.”

She felt awful. “I love seeing your favorite place in the world. I love knowing more about you. Maybe I could spot you?”

His expression lightened. “Great. That would be great. Thank you.”

So Liza did what she could to spot Sloane. She couldn’t lift as much as him, but she didn’t need to be able to, she really just needed to be able to lift the little bit he could no longer manage at the end of a set. He was still pushing most of the weight, but Liza was able to help him get over the hump.

It wasn’t such a bad job, watching his muscles flex and pull and seeing his complete concentration. He really did lose himself and become more relaxed than she’d seen him before. She wondered why she didn’t have the same effect on him and then figured maybe it was because he was waiting for her to get mad and knee him in the balls again.

When he didn’t need her to spot him anymore, she just watched him, but after fifteen minutes, she got bored and walked on the treadmill. It was shiny and new and she suspected it didn’t get a whole lot of use.

“Don’t you ever do cardio?” she asked Sloane when he finally walked over.

He shrugged and smiled a lazy, easy smile. God, she could fall in love with laid-back Sloane. “That’s what circuit training is for.”

Liza scrunched up her nose in her “what?” expression, but his grin just widened.

“I jog sometimes. On the beach.”

And she pictured him shirtless, his sculpted calves kicking up sand. “Hmmm,” she said, like she didn’t care. “Ready to go?”

He nodded. “Wanna grab some lunch first? I told Reynolds we’d be in this afternoon.”

She gave him a long, slow up and down look. “Uh-huh, but I’d rather grab something else first.”

He laughed and followed her out of the gym.

*SLOANE*

Fulsom glared at Sloane when he walked in. “What the hell are you so happy about?” He grumbled.

Sloane couldn’t stop smiling. He’d had a day of great sex, a good workout, and the best lunch date ever. He’d found himself wishing he could just stay with her like that forever. Reality sunk in, eventually, though, and Liza insisted they get back to work. As soon as they’d split, her to Reynolds and him to his desk, he’d felt the bond trying to pull him back to her. He fought it. If he followed her around like a puppy dog, she’d really freak out and she was already freaked enough. “It’s a beautiful day.”

“Maybe for those of us who take the morning off,” Fulsom said. “For me, it’s been a dark, dreary day.”

“My heart aches for you.”

“Yeah, asshole, well it’s going to be aching for yourself soon enough. Reynolds won’t let me drop the case on the wolves. Says it’s important to maintain appearances. We got another wolf sighting this morning. Moon isn’t taking care of it.”

Sloane slumped into his desk chair, his good mood fading. “Shit.”

“Yeah, my sentiments exactly. I’m considering burying the information, but even if I do someone else will pick up on it and then it’s our asses in the fire for missing it.”

Sloane nodded. “So I guess we’re heading back to the pack house.”

Fulsom groaned. “That’s what I was afraid of, but you and I both know that’s a lost cause. Moon will take care of it in his own sweet time. It just isn’t like him to let it go on so long.”

“You think he’s up to something.”

Fulsom nodded. “I think he’s just trying to see how far he can push us. Testing his limits. You know how he hates limits.”

Sloane nodded and picked up the phone. Gabriel answered on the second ring.

“Moon, listen, we got another wolf sighting call this morning.”

“Don’t worry about it. The case is closed.”

“So we can trust there will be no–”

“This is wolf business now. Stay out of it.” And Gabriel hung up on him. It warmed Sloane’s heart the way the supernatural community appreciated the work he did.

*LIZA*

Liza sat across from Reynolds and tried to focus on what she’d come there to do. Her mind kept flashing back to Sloane. Her body still ached for him and her mind was telling her to forget everything else and just go be with him. She pushed all of that down and looked up to see Reynolds staring at her, her eyes wide in question.

“I’m sorry. I’m a little distracted this morning.”

“I understand you’ve bonded with Rice,” Reynolds said, her smile predatory.

“What?” How did Reynolds know about that? How did she even know what it meant? Sloane had to ask his grandmother.

“We have a very talented river nymph, who is also an empath, on staff here and she told me all about it. She also told me that you will be more focused and efficient if you and Rice are permitted to be together at all times. I questioned the sense of you two being partners. What if one of you is in danger? But she said you would make excellent partners, because you two are highly compatible. I have no choice but to take her word for it. Would it make you feel better if I called Rice in here now?”

“What? No, I’m fine,” Liza said. She lied because she didn’t want to admit, even to herself, how much she needed and wanted him there. “I can do this.”

“You’re lying. You’re a good liar, but I’m highly trained to recognize liars. Just a moment.” She picked up the phone and spoke into it before Liza could argue. She hung up and smiled. “He’ll be right here. So,” she leaned back in her chair and laced her fingers together over her stomach. “How is he in bed? I’ve always found him a bit too well-muscled, if you know what I mean, but all of that power in the bed. I’m curious. Is it good? Or is he a bit rough?”

“Um, I don’t really think—”

“Is everything okay?” Sloane burst into the office, a wild look in his eyes, but he calmed when he focused on Liza staring at him.

“Everything’s fine,” Reynolds said, frowning. She was probably upset not to get an answer about Sloane’s sexual prowess. “Sit down. Mimi told me that you two are bonded and I understand you both will work better if you’re together. Liza seemed distracted so I thought it might help her to have you here.”

Sloane took Liza’s hand and squeezed it, but he didn’t look at her. “I’d like that information to be kept secret. If anyone ever discovers –”

Reynolds waved a hand. “Yes, yes. Of course I won’t tell anyone. We wouldn’t want someone to use it against you or us.”

Liza imagined how someone could hurt them with that knowledge and shuddered. Sloane let go of her hand and rubbed her arm.

“Okay, Liza, please tell me about your dream.”

Liza hated the word dream. It came nowhere near describing the reality of what she’d experienced. Nightmare wasn’t even a harsh enough word. “This dream was similar to the last. He took her, kept her blindfolded, and asked her questions while he hurt her. This time, though, I could hear more of the questions.”

“Why couldn’t you hear them last time?”

“I don’t know. This is only the fourth human death I’ve dreamed. If I had to guess I’d say the questions were more important to…”

“Lara.”

“The questions were more important to Lara. The other girl…” Liza couldn’t remember her name. She’d dreamed her death, and she couldn’t even remember her name. She panicked and then Sloane squeezed her arm and brought her back down. “She was focused on how much she would miss her boyfriend and on how sad he’d be.”

“Can you tell me the questions? Do you remember them?”

“Yes, but they don’t make any sense. He asked what she was, and why she wasn’t registered, and then he asked what she was looking for. He wanted to know about some kind of rock called a carraig.”

“A rock?”

“Yes, that’s all he said. Lara shut down. She didn’t even think the answers to his questions. But it doesn’t make sense. All the girls were registered. Right?”

Reynolds looked down at her desk. “Were there any other questions?”

Liza knew better than to push for an answer from Reynolds when she could probably get one from Sloane as soon as they were alone. “No. Just those same questions over and over… Wait, he did ask one more. Right before he k-killed her. He asked her why she hated humans.”

“And what did she say?”

“She said she loved humans, except the ones who were trying to control and kill her. She said humans preached peace, but too many were murderers like him. That made him really angry and he killed her. He strangled her. As she was dying, she was happy because he’d killed her before he’d gotten any answers from her.”

“Any more physical clues?”

“None. He knocked her out and when she came to, she was blindfolded under the bag. She couldn’t see anything.” Liza swallowed and tried to shake the woman’s death from her mind. “Can I ask? What kind of fae was she?”

Reynolds shuffled papers around on her desk. “That’s classified.”

Sloane sighed next to her. “Come on, Reynolds. After everything Liza’s gone through you can at least tell her about the woman she died with.”

“And what if that information influences the next dream?” Reynolds asked, glaring at Sloane. “No. If she wants to know after we’ve caught the killer I’ll give her access to the complete file, but not now.” Liza saw something in Reynolds’ eyes she never expected to see: genuine concern. Reynolds cared about the dead women, or she at least cared about catching their killer. Liza doubted she’d ever like Reynolds, but for the first time, she respected her.

“I don’t see how–” Sloane started.

“It’s fine,” Liza said. “I think she’s right. It’s better if I don’t know.”

Sloane’s sea-colored eyes met hers and she stopped breathing for a moment. With one look he conveyed trust and understanding and respect for her opinion. She had to look away to keep from throwing her arms around him in gratitude.

That gratitude vanished when they left Reynolds’ office and he strode down the hall next to her. “Where are you going?”

“Wherever you’re going. You heard Reynolds.”