Darksider: Reveler Series 3 (4 page)

They moved to the sofa when he asked about her rise in the culinary world. It wasn’t bragging with him, and there were some moments,
delicious
moments of success that she could tell only a rare few, and even after all this time, he was one of them.

Like when
she
was asked over Drake, this cocky bastard with whom she’d been competing, to run the Blue Grille kitchen, her first big break. Of course, she’d been graceful accepting and had gone out of her way to be friendly to him—burn no bridges, small world, etc.—but inside she’d been whooping and jigging.

And then there was the day her parents had come to surprise her when Marina de Sel opened, flying in from Florida without her even knowing, then asking to speak to the chef. She teared up when she told Harlen, but really, it had been a moment for bawling. Which is exactly what she’d done that night in the dining room of the restaurant.

“I’m happy for you, Sera.” His voice had deepened over the evening. “You’ve worked hard. You deserve everything you’ve achieved.”

She waved the memory away, trying not to look too long into his steady eyes. He smelled good, too, and she had a discerning nose. He gave off the perfect combo of male body and warmed soap, underscored by leather. The man was the whole package, and damn if he didn’t know it.

He was waiting for her to come around. The Harlen Fawkes from college hadn’t had that much patience, not one for much foreplay. It wasn’t like she was a virgin at this; she’d shared dreams with him before.

“I’m nervous,” she finally admitted.

The outer corners of his eyes wrinkled. “I got that.”

He leaned forward, lifted a brow. “I should fess up and let you know that there might be a residual impression of you in my dreams. I’m attracted—no helping that. And you’ll remember that it’s near impossible to hide strong emotion in the waters. But I want you to know that I won’t try anything.”

This
was why she’d held out calling him. He made her feel beautiful. He made all the girls feel beautiful. But attracted was better than the alternative. “What if there’s a residual
you
in mine?”

He shook his head. “Good or bad, I won’t act on it, no matter how much I might want to. I’m concerned about this predator.”

Good or bad.
Yeah, there was room for both.

“So I just go to sleep?”

“And I’ll join you there,” he answered. No flirting, just calm assurance.

A cold trickle of helplessness dripped into her belly. She hated feeling this way. She was not a helpless person.

“It’s my job,” Harlen said. “I’m good at working Darkside. Your job is taking over the culinary world. Let’s do this so you can get back to kicking ass.”

She swallowed hard and nodded. He was being so…easy on her edges. When had he learned that? It made him more dangerous, not less.

“You’re staying the night?”

“I am.” His tone dared her to dispute it, a hint of the stubborn blockhead he could be when he wanted to. Then he added, lighter, “You still make those super thin pancakes that roll up?”

“Crepes. Yes.”

“Then, yeah, not leaving. At least not until after breakfast.”

“
Please
don’t try anything.” This was not the time for him to go overboard. To seduce. He was too close already.

“Not even when you beg me. My word on it.”

She laughed out loud. God. She hadn’t thought it was possible. Everything might just be okay after all.

“I’ll go change.” She started to turn, then made a skeptical face at his jeans and shirt. He probably hadn’t considered sleeping here when she’d left her message asking him to come over. “You want me to try to find something for you?”

He was huge. That chest and his quite-impressive arms. Nothing in her closet would fit him. Might be fun to see him try, though.

“I sleep in street clothes all the time.”

Right. It was a hazard of his job.

She went into her bedroom and grabbed the faded yoga pants off the end of her bed and a T-shirt from a drawer. It was a drab, used-to-be blue, but she wasn’t going to pull out anything special and send the wrong message. In college, they’d sneaked into the sleep lab to go under nude, limbs tangled, dreams tangled, too. More than once they ran out of there naked, almost caught, clothes in their arms and laughing like a couple of maniacs.

In the bathroom, she sat on the edge of the tub and put her face in her hands.

Silently, she laughed at her stupidity. Harlen Fawkes. If he touched her—and, oh God, wouldn’t that feel good?—she knew she’d give in.

But her
future
was at stake here, the one she’d built herself, hour by hour, slice by slice, perfecting her craft. Thank God she’d have the new restaurant to distract her when he left her life again.

At least she’d sleep well tonight.

She brushed her teeth. Opened the door. Smiled brightly. “I’m ready when you are.”

***

“Frankly, Harlen Fawkes is the only one I trust,” Malcolm Rook said. “And he has to know his way here to safety if he’s going to help us.”

Rook, Jordan, Coll, and Maisie had met in the back room of a brownstone down a dark street in Maze City, which was built on Maisie’s elaborate and magnificent dreamscape. As they were Darkside, they didn’t need to sit, but she had outfitted the room with two big velvet sofas of the deep and comfortable variety and a couple of high-backed armchairs. She could’ve dreamed up anything, but these looked like vintage, garage sale finds.

Jordan shook her head. “
All
Chimera can’t be corrupt.”

“Sure, they can,” Maisie put in. “I’ve had a bad feeling about Chimera ever since I met Steve.”

Steve Coll, who clearly loved her, restrained a smile.

Maisie was joking, but Rook was still unnerved by the fact that Coll had deceived him for so long. Coll had created a waking dream for years so that no one could see what he really was: part nightmare. Apparently, he’d been born that way. But was he even human?

Even worse, Coll wasn’t the only one of his kind. The one other person they knew about was Didier Lambert, who had won a Nobel Prize for his discovery and work in the field of shared dreaming, which is why everyone used the French word for dreams when referring to Rêves. No one, except the four of them, knew that Lambert had been simultaneously committing horrendous crimes.

What to do? How could they go about exposing him?

They’d decided to begin by gathering allies, and Harlen Fawkes had been at the top of the list, so they’d risked calling him first. When he descended into the waters that night, Rook would track him down. The question was where the meeting would take place. Maze City was the obvious choice.

“Okay,” Rook conceded, “Harlen Fawkes is the only one I trust
to keep his mouth shut
about this place.”

Coll twitched. “To keep his mouth shut
until he makes up his own mind
.
He’ll turn us in if he thinks he should.”

“Even if you do bring him here, he’ll never believe what’s happened,” Jordan said. “
I
still don’t.” Her gaze lingered a little on Coll, too. Rook knew she liked Coll, in general, but wasn’t crazy about her sister shacking up with someone of such disturbing, mysterious origins.

Maisie shrugged. “I say bring him here so we can all meet him. If I don’t like him, I can keep him running the city streets like a lab rat.”

Coll shook his head. “Don’t underestimate Fawkes. He was a Rêve soldier during the war. What kinds of things do you think he did?”

Maisie shrugged. “I dunno. What did he do?”

“I don’t know either,” Coll said. “Which is the point.”

“So we agree then?” Rook looked at each of their faces for a trace of dissent. Finding none, he sighed. “I’ll bring him
here
.”

The labyrinthine way Maisie had created the city made it nearly impregnable, which is why Lambert had wanted her for his own. And the Agora was not an option. If any of the four of them crossed inside, Chimera would know.

Jordan didn’t look happy about Rook going out in the dreamwaters. “What if Lambert, or one of those
nightmare things
, finds you first?”

Rook gazed at her. So tough. So smart. So pretty. How’d he get so lucky?

“They won’t,” Steve said. “I’ll have his back.”

CHAPTER THREE

“Go climb into bed.” Harlen’s throat went dry. Did she have to look so…soft and…touchable? She was dead sexy without even trying, especially now, with her hair down around her shoulders, wispy curls around her face. Just
her
, no bells and whistles. “Start counting sheep.”

She stood awkwardly at the doorway. “Where will you be?”

He put one foot up on her coffee table, then the other. And then he winked at her.

When in doubt with a woman, wink. It was friendly and it said myriad things without really saying anything at all. In Sera’s case, he meant,
you’re the most beautiful woman ever
. And,
there’s no one like you
.

She didn’t understand that, of course, but the wink did its work, anyway. He’d been battling her anxiety all evening, and the nearer the moment came to going Darkside with him, her tension had started ratcheting back up. But now, she rolled her eyes at him as she turned to go into her bedroom, saying in singsong, “Same old Harlen.”

Yeah, some things were the same: the need to follow her was almost painful. But some things were different, too: he stayed where he was. This was not the time. After, though, if he wasn’t in prison for murder one, he’d damned well remind her how good it had felt between them.

She’d trusted him enough to call him, and that was a start.

It might take them a little time to get to her dreamscape. Some Chimera agents could help revelers fall asleep quickly. He’d been told a little nudge was all it took, but for all his trying, he could never get the knack for it. Without a headset for her, Harlen had to wait for sleep to occur naturally. Sera seemed exhausted, but she was nervous enough to also fight it. Might be a half hour. Might be two. She was the most stubborn person in the world.

But he’d wait for her as long as she needed, even though Rook and Coll intended to meet him Darkside. They could wait, too.

The smells of dinner had faded, leaving behind the sweet scent of Sera. Each lungful made Harlen feel even more raw inside. His gaze shifted when the light in her room went off, her shadow folding itself into bed. The memory of her skin, her fit, her taste, the way she’d used his arm for a pillow—every minor recollection was rough on his nerves and made him hard as stone.

Someone had been messing with her? Yeah, he’d fucking kill him.

After a while, Harlen got up to check on her. When she didn’t answer his soft knock, he let himself inside. His girl was on her belly, one knee up as if horizontally climbing the mattress, and breathing deep. She must’ve been so tired.

He wanted to slide in with her, but he sat on the floor and leaned back against her mattress instead. She could be angry with him when she found him there in the morning. Angry he could take; the shadows under her eyes were unacceptable.

Dropping his head back, he let himself go.

Sleep had its own gravitational pull, and yet, as he fell, he grew lighter, stronger, and more aware until he submerged completely Darkside. The first time it’d happened, back in the brand-new sleep center at UCSD, he’d thought he was high. But then he’d understood: the dreamwaters were a buoyant medium, enhancing every feeling, thought, movement—one step became a stride, a leap was flight. Attraction was teeth-grinding lust.

He hovered in darkness, but with a familiar seek and reach—time hadn’t diluted his ability to locate her—he descended into Sera’s dreamscape.

It took a sec to get his bearings, but then he realized that the setting itself had been blurred, as if a harsh wind had scrubbed away anything recognizable. The colors were also muted, as if a light had been turned off. The floor was patchy—something indoors—but here and there were black pools of condensed dreamwater.

“Get the hell out!” Sera stood braced, hands fisted at her sides, ready to fight. Her face shined with fury. The waters were a conductive medium, and within her dream, the old terror lingered, gone sour with time. Her anger was bitter. Her fear burned. But she was still fighting.

“It’s just me.” Gently—
easy now
—Harlen slipped in beside her. His arm went around her before he could stop it. But that was what happened Darkside: intentions and emotion ruled. It was hard to hide them, almost impossible to lie.

She shivered against him. “Sorry. Habit.”

“Sera, I’m bigger and meaner than he is.”

She looked up at him, he down at her. Intense longing—
kiss her, inhale her, become one, like they used to
—had him tensing every muscle to hold back against his impulses. His body remembered what it was like to crush her to him, to bury himself inside her, and let the sensations sweep them away. The waters flowed around them, urging them closer.

“You’re not mean,” she said.

She had no idea. The stale panic in the air made him angrier than he could ever remember being in his life. “You don’t sense it from me?” She would in a second. He was angry with her, too, for waiting this long.