Darksider: Reveler Series 3 (3 page)

She wasn’t a clumsy woman, so there had to be more.

A quick flick of her gaze up at him, then she dabbed at her forehead with her shirtsleeve.

“It’s what I told people anyway. My restaurant is closed until next Thursday.”

Good. She’d need the time to heal. “What really happened?”

The knife slammed down onto the counter. She stepped back, expression flexing with extreme anxiety. He had the strangest impression of her backed into a corner in her own kitchen, where she was the undisputed ruler. She’d won awards since those early days they’d been together. Had little stars next to the name of the restaurant where she was executive chef. And she was still so young—twenty-seven, just beginning.

He did not like to see her blue eyes so dark.

“Started with nightmares,” she said. Once that much was out, her expression smoothed over. “Or something like nightmares.”

“Are you still lucid and in control?” Though she hated Rêve and everything that went with it—including him—she was skilled enough to be a Chimera if she wanted.

She shrugged and made a face. “Well, I did crash through a window, so I really don’t know.”

Sera
out of control? He didn’t believe it.

But he gave her time to expand. Didn’t push, which was what had broken them up. He’d pushed and pushed and pushed until she had nowhere else to go but away from him. He’d been young back then himself, inexperienced. Stupid. A little patience accomplished a lot more. Hard lesson to learn. Worst way to learn it.

“Started months ago. Last summer.” She returned to her salmon, lifted the knife. Sliced, slick and clean. “Dreams of pursuit and being trapped and nowhere to go. Always the same person pursuing.”

Some asshole had been invading her sleep state for almost a year. And she’d only called for help today? After going through a window?

He caught her quick upward glance, checking for his reaction. Her mouth made a hard, resolute line, ready for the same old argument.

“That’s a long time.” His voice was even. Inside, he was volcanic.

The point was she’d called. He was here now. They’d deal with the problem.

“I
was
in control.” Another slick cut. “Until I wasn’t.”

“I, of all people, know your control.” Stubborn, mule-headed, immovable.

She turned to the stove. The gas
click-clicked
under another burner, then lit. “I handled it. He went away.”

The predator was a
he
. It was something to go on. Narrowed the list by half.

Harlen would need a tracker, and Sera deserved the best, not some case-file Chimera who’d splash around her dreams, then examine his own waves and say he had nothing conclusive. Malcolm Rook, whatever crimes he’d committed, was the man. And how convenient that Harlen was meeting him tonight. If not for that, he’d have been dragging Sera into Chimera, kicking and screaming if need be.

“Every once in a while, the nightmares would start again, and every time,
I
was in charge and turned them around.”

Harlen didn’t doubt it. But she had also been alone.

Never in a million years would she have called the authorities and let a stranger into her dreams. She’d been anti-Rêve since college. For money, they’d participated in one of the early sleep studies. At first, they’d loved every minute. Lucid dreaming had made them all-powerful explorers of a whole new realm. But when a good friend of hers was lost Darkside, and then died in the waking world, Sera decided absolutely and emphatically against it.

“How frequent?”

“Not every night. Sometimes weeks would go by with nothing. I thought I was coping better with work stress.”

“Did you recognize the stalker?”

“No. He was the quintessential faceless man. Believe me, I looked. I changed the dream and had him on the run more than once.”

By herself. Sera was type A all the way. Ambitious. Assertive. Aggressive about what was important to her.
Only someone who worked her ass off could achieve what she had.

“So what happened?” Because if she’d gone several months, she could’ve gone several more.

Finally, she raised her eyes. Let him see her. The blood had drained from her face so that she was pale, as well as suddenly very calm. She’d grown up—no twenty-year-old girl about her now.

This composure from a woman of passion made him go cold. He gripped his thigh hard to keep the rest of his body at ease.

“This morning at the restaurant. I was heading to the front to meet some people, and I saw him outside the window. I saw his face. Don’t ask me how I knew it was him, but I did.” She lifted her injured wrist. “I dove for him rather dramatically—for a second I must have thought I was in a dream because
he
was there. I went through the window, and then I was a little too out of it afterward to see which way he went.”

She could’ve killed herself. How tired and distressed must she have been not be able to distinguish the waking world from a nightmare? Someone had been stalking her Darkside, and in real life, too. Sera.
His
Sera, even if she didn’t belong to him anymore.

Oddly, Harlen found himself calm, as well. He’d been a soldier once. He’d done and seen some things that still made his hands shake. But at the moment, he was so cold and sharp, he could rival any of Sera’s knives.

No wonder she’d held one in hand when she’d answered the door. She was afraid.

Harlen got up, crossed the sacred divide into the kitchen area, and took her by the shoulders. Her color was coming back up, but her gaze was so determined and steady that he wanted to kiss her. He used to be able to melt her.

He met that resolute gaze with one of his own. “We’ll find him.”

“And kill him.” Could’ve been the wine talking, or she could’ve been serious.

In fact, extended and excruciating pain would be involved. “He’ll pay.”

If possible, her expression got harder. “You still want the food I’m cooking? I’m self-medicating. Could be…compromised.”

There was only one answer. “Absolutely. And I’ll take a glass of wine now, too.”

She hesitated a terrible moment. Then she exhaled with relief.

That long slide of breath hit him like a slow-motion slug to the chest. In spite of their history, she trusted him. She’d called him.

Relief was good. He wanted more for her.

He gave her his best leer and lowered his voice to practiced smooth and sexy tones. “And then after what I am sure will be a very fine supper—”

One of her eyebrows lifted, a shadow of humor glinting in her troubled eyes.

“—Serafina Rochan, will you sleep with me?”

***

Oh hell yes.

To get her life back? “Yes. Thank you.”

He was back on the stool, this time with his long leather trench coat off and draped over the back of the sofa, his tie loosened. He was a big man, tall and broad, so he filled her eyes when she looked at him this close. Well, he’d always filled her eyes when she’d looked at him. His dark hair was cut short, yet still rakish. His hazel eyes were the same, too, devilish and watchful. Flirty. The man couldn’t help it.

He probably had a string of women smiling at him as usual. Well, good for him. He wasn’t a bad guy. Even back when they were breaking up she could’ve admitted that.

She lifted the skillet from the stove and plated the salmon. Drizzled the sauce over and around the fillet. Low and high notes in the aroma sparked her senses and told her it was perfect. For the hell of it, she positioned the roasted baby corn in a fan, balancing the composition that was her canvas. The mellow yellow, rich pink, and bright carrot orange—offset by a green sprig of parsley—looked pretty, though she doubted Harlen would notice those details. She noticed them, and that’s what mattered.

He was glaring at the plate she was preparing.

She chuckled in spite of the circumstances. “Hungry?”

“Starved, woman,” he said. “I’ve consumed a lot of basic sustenance in my life, but yours is the only
food
I’ve ever really known. And you know how long it’s been.”

The compliment, as well as the food-lust in his tone, told her he meant it. He had no idea what that did to her.

“I cook six nights a week at Marina de Sel. No need to be deprived.”

“I’ll come by.”

“Do.”

“Count on it.”

God. The man still had the power to ruin her. All dark and sexy, and then sweet? Jerk. He’d been hot at twenty-one. Age him like fine wine and he was…irresistible. Was breaking her heart over Harlen—again—worth catching the creeper who’d infiltrated her dreams?

She had a second restaurant to open. Yes, she’d risk ruining herself over him if she could achieve her other,
better
dream.

She set the plate in front of him.
Beat that.

Flirting felt good. It meant nothing, and it kept things light when the reality still made her shiver, even though she’d been working over a hot stove. Some guy had been shadowing her for
months
. “So what’s the protocol? You bring me in?”

It’d been a while since she’d had a Rêve induced, but she still remembered the free-fall into sleep, the rush of the waters around her, sensation after sensation crashing over her—most of them erotic. But then she’d been
with him,
in love. Crazy.

Harlen was brooding. “If it’s okay, I’d like to see what I can find out tonight. But don’t worry, I won’t let him get close to you again. You won’t be sleeping alone for the foreseeable future.”

The whole situation made her feel weak, which she hated.

“I’m not a victim.” Harlen hadn’t touched his food, but she took the plate from him anyway to make him acknowledge her point. “He’s
my
victim, as soon as I get my hands on him.”

“Noted.” His fork hovered in the air, suspended mid-plunge. He looked pointedly at the plate.

She huffed. Replaced it. She took a dishtowel from the tuck at her waist and wiped away an errant drizzle of sauce from the edge. “Sorry. I’m angry.”

She could blame Harlen for many things, but not for this.

He wrapped an arm around the outside edge of the plate and hunkered over it to protect his food. Glanced up at her, wary, to let her know he’d fight if she tried take it from him a second time.

“Your food is safe, I promise. But I don’t think I want to go anywhere tonight.” This was enough for her. She was so tired. She’d meet him at his office or whatever tomorrow.

He smiled with a full mouth and then swallowed. “We don’t have to. Sweetheart, I’ve got
skills
you’ve never seen before.”

She didn’t doubt it. He was trying to relax her. Joke. It was working; she felt better. Distracted. “Is that so?”

“We can do it right here since the security on your building is top of the line and will keep your stalker away.”

Security was one of the reasons she’d taken the apartment. She liked to feel safe. “He can’t get in here without clearance from the desk and a code for the elevator.”

“Then you simply go to sleep,” he said, “and I’ll find you in your dreamspace. You don’t have to do a thing. I’m the Dream—”

“—Master,” she finished for him. “I remember.”

Their first day in the sleep study, first induced sleep, first fall, first lucid moment, he’d taken to Rêve like he was born to breathe dreamwater. The next day he’d dropped his engineering courses and had gone fully into the Rêve program.

“What about the caps?” Wait, people wore crowns now, narrow ones that lightly banded the head. That’s what she saw in commercials anyway. Back in college they’d had to wear these ridiculous netted caps over their heads to stimulate the right frequency for shared dreaming.

“I don’t need one anymore. Gifted is what I am.”

“So you’ve said.”

“It bears repeating.”

Rolling her eyes, she chuckled. “Okay, tonight. In the meantime, eat. Tell me about your life.”

The man talked—he’d always had a way of making friends and putting people at ease. He did a four-star job helping her procrastinate the moment she’d have to close her eyes and let him into her dreams. After all but licking his plate clean, he offered to do the dishes, which involved using an end of bread to sop up the rest of her sauce from the pan, then frowning like a little boy when it was all gone.

It was like old times, but not really. He was as familiar as her own self, but he was also a total stranger.

He told her how his ma was on his case to settle down and had started taking matters into her own hands. She’d also started an online jewelry business that was doing well. Pop had retired and was miserable with excess energy. His sister Jessica, in addition to the ten-year-old, now had twins, and he even expanded a bit about the kids’ antics. His brother Jake had opened his own medical practice. Absent was any mention of a woman in his life, so his mother had yet to be successful on that front.

He didn’t talk about his work, but then he probably had some kind of security clearance stopping him. Way back when the Army had offered him a package deal, he hadn’t been able to discuss the details, either. That was one reason they’d broken up: she couldn’t tolerate secrets.