Dreams’ Dark Kiss (2 page)

Ciaran shivered. Her reaction as much from the danger she remained trapped beneath as from the sudden cold. An arctic breeze iced over her ears, drifting snowflakes caught on her eyelashes and she dislodged them in rapid blinks. Her hands and knees went numb, gravity forcing them to crunch through the icy layer of snow now covering what had been prairie moments before. Then he came, loping majestically across the tundra. A huge husky—he stood a full meter at the shoulders with a coat of luxuriant white and gray. The coloring matched the monster imprisoning her, but the husky—damn near a wolf—and the man it represented were the monster’s polar opposite. Her psychopomp abilities came in handy in the Dreaming, where she could read a soul on sight. Too bad she couldn’t do the same in real life.

Ciaran spared a quick glance over her shoulder and sighed. The nightmare creature remained frozen around her; its presence more malignant than any she’d ever encountered.

A heavy paw landed on her other shoulder, and she turned back to a wolfish grin. The husky seemed like an old friend. He must have agreed, because he nodded once, twice, then licked her face back to glowing warmth. Ciaran sighed, knowing he couldn’t be more than a friend, and for reasons she still couldn’t fathom, she couldn’t accept his help either.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, tilting her head back to gaze into cerulean eyes. “You’re not the one.” The big dog nodded again, licked her one last time and vanished into a torrent of wintry white.

Intuition served as the only evidence she hadn’t completely lost the plot. Refusing help while trapped in the doggy-style love grip of a mutated hyena said otherwise. Ciaran chose to trust herself and bore that in mind when the ground abruptly dropped away.

She had but hadn’t left the monster’s clutches. Her awareness split into two parts: one trapped beneath a nightmarish attack, the other floating above the Tower of London. She’d come home to England. Well, at least she’d come to a stop above it.

One look down cured her of doing so a second time. If she fell from this height, she’d go splat bye-bye. Dream or no. Fantastic. No matter what her intuition said about the next spirit animal to offer his aid, she was going to say, “Yes, thanks. I’ll have some of that.”

The raven’s caw interrupted her thoughts. He circled her several times, his wingspan nearly as wide as she was tall. Until then it had never occurred to her to call a raven beautiful, but he was and he knew it. Ciaran read the pride in his black-diamond eyes and the way the moon glinted off his dark, iridescent plumage validated his opinion of himself.

Her throat rebelled against the
no
rising from it. This time she really couldn’t afford to be picky. The monster had begun to move again, ever so slightly, at her back. Both her heart and body plummeted like stone.

She splash landed, and her surroundings shifted. Cool waters enveloped her, and old fears rushed forward to war with instinct. Ciaran hated the ocean. Any ocean. She also despised seas, lakes, rivers and kiddie pools. They freaked her out one and all, and she flailed. Her arms and legs pumped against the resistance of the undertow. Salt water filled her mouth on a gasp.

This nightmare just wouldn’t stop.

She whirled beneath the waves, discombobulated, but no bubbles escaped her lips to guide her to the surface. Which way was up? She couldn’t think, but she could…breathe. She could breathe? How? No answer came but intuition sang
safe
, and calm washed over her body.

The panic receded, and she studied the waters. The Dreaming had a way of hiding or revealing information depending on what you needed to know during the course of any given dream. Ciaran knew without a doubt she was in the Pacific Ocean—someplace tropical—because the Dreaming, much like fate, had deemed the knowledge useful. Just as easily she could have been left unaware and forced to figure it out.

Knowing where she’d landed helped, as did the clearness of the water; it allowed a sightline to infinity. Seeing her surroundings in such clarity comforted her, and a new reality dawned… She felt more at home beneath these waves than she had moments before in the skies above London. How could water ever feel like home?

The dolphin nudged her with his bottlelike snout. His sudden arrival should have come as a shock. Instead her intuition purred. In a matter of moments—transitioning seamlessly—his presence became as natural as inhabiting her own skin.

He whistled in greeting, burst into a downward spiral and paused beneath the waves, at her feet. A beat. Then looping between her legs, he swam upward until she straddled him.

“Whoa!” Ciaran giggled.

The rising dolphin fit himself snugly in the juncture of her thighs, lifting until her head broke water. Then moving away, he rose above the waves for a face-to-face.

His sleek body measured at least three meters with smooth, silvery gray skin she couldn’t resist touching. The man this animal represented had to be amazing.

“Hope you don’t mind,” she said, smoothing her palms over every bit of him within reach.

The dolphin’s hazel eyes smiled back into hers. She swore he laughed before diving back into the depths. Startled, she reached out for him. He returned in a graceful leap, filling her empty arms. Then, without warning, a lithe arch sent them hurtling across the ocean for the ride of her life.

Sea spray sparkled in the sunlight as though it were fairy dust made of salty, liquid enchantment. In this realm, sun and magic tasted as real as brine. Ciaran could see why people surfed. The thrill of uniting with a wave and riding it at breakneck speed was incomparable. She clung to the dolphin’s dorsal fin and breathed, “yes,” into his ears between peals of mirth.

The decision made, she accepted her choice changed things. Although she might not like what it meant when the—

Time lurched forward. The dolphin and the sea evaporated. Her awareness snapped back to the monster. Claws raked denim, dragging her kicking and screaming back into imminent danger. A sudden burst of anger burned behind her eyes. What about her made males of all species want to take advantage?

* * *

Keoni surfed the dreamscape with an urgency fueled by more than duty. Shooting through a barrel of illusion, he watched the wave curl over him. It broke in a frothy spray of fantasy, propelling the big Hawaiian at speeds impossible to reach in the Waking World.

Not fast enough. Not today. Other days he’d scoffed at his Somnian brothers and their less fun, more strenuous modes of transport. Today it’d be nice to perceive the dreamscape as Archer did. The leader of Keoni’s dream-guardian squad flew on air currents created from the world’s imaginings. They’d lift his human body high or bend to the demands of his raven’s wings.

Surfing: fast. Flight: faster.

Keoni needed speed; he had finally been chosen by a dream-guardian woman. She was only a fledgling of their kind and would need time to learn Somnian ways, but he’d be damned if he’d begin his new life nursing her through a major spirit wound. It took a long time to recover from that kind of injury, and his sparrow—such a beautiful spirit—was in too fragile a state. Previous hurts already weighed heavily on her soul. He couldn’t allow the
bane
to heap more pain on her. Keoni wasn’t sure how much more she could handle. He didn’t plan on finding out, and he definitely wasn’t fool enough to let the nightmarish creature destroy her.

A slow smile momentarily lit his face. His new woman had come to him that morning in her spirit-animal form, a beautiful sparrow. Sweet as sunrise. Unfazed, she’d perched on his shoulder and surfed an idealized Hanalei Bay at his side. The waves climbed as high as thirty feet, but his
manu li’i
, his little bird, hadn’t budged. Excited twittering and singing were the closest she’d gotten to complaint. Until she remembered the bane hunting her and the creature’s attack had shattered those delicate first moments of the meeting of their souls. He’d have to find her before the bane destroyed her mind or, worse, killed her.

The water roughened at the outskirts of the dreamscape, where imaginings thinned. Not far now.

He hadn’t expected her to be this near the border. She’d gotten stuck in the dark lands beneath yet in between. Bad trouble. The Wastelands were no place for a fledgling Somnian. Not even psychopomps, as she had been before today, were safe there. No wonder the bane had caught and pinned her. His little bird didn’t have the skill or the power she needed to survive the dreamscape. Not yet. He didn’t know how she’d made it this far. Psychopomps traveled across the dreamscape the way a plane flew over land—their destination the Otherside. Even as a fledgling Somnian—a neo dream guardian—she’d normally have passed the four trials: hear the call, manifest what is needed, transform your surroundings or yourself and create an untraceable exit, before the ability to walk the dreamscape and Wastelands kicked in.

When it came to the dreamscape, psychopomps were limited to the pathways of the souls they accompanied. Somnians didn’t have that problem and could also enter the Wastelands without restriction—if they were drunk, high, or seeking a preview of hell. They did not deal with the Otherside. Keoni shuddered. Death was not a dream guardian’s domain. His woman somehow had the run of all three realms. Highly improbable. Obviously she was special.

A wail for help ricocheted through his head, collapsing his thoughts. His
manu li’i
needed him. No time for thinking. He gave instinct total control.

Calling on Somnian vision, he reached out to harness several speed fantasies drifting through the dreamscape: the teenager skimming the clouds in a fighter jet, the middle-aged housewife driving her way to NASCAR glory, the seven-year-old girl one stroke from Olympic gold. Each imagining yielded to his will. Reforming, they melded into a burst of pure liquid velocity.

The resulting surge crested in a tidal wave of dream, the force so great, a lesser surfer would have broken beneath it. Keoni merely shifted his center of gravity. Moving with it, he waited until he reached the point where the dreamscape met the outskirts of the Wastelands, and executed a forward aerial flip. He broke through the barrier between living hopes and fears of death, landed and glided along the dust on bare feet before coming to a graceful stop.

Not wasting a moment, he approached the bane from behind. His senses seized each detail of the predicament his little bird had gotten into. Realization of the creature’s intent caused his lip to curl in a disgusted snarl.

“Wat doing?” he growled, his Hawaiian pidgin accent thick in outrage.

* * *

Ciaran sensed her hero’s arrival a millisecond before his snarl split the air. A corded band of steel slipped between her and the monster and ripped the nightmare away. She gasped, falling forward, dust mixing with saliva to muddy her face. Twisting at the waist, she watched the man lock with the nightmare in mortal combat.

He wrangled one well-muscled arm around the monster’s neck; the other arm he held firmly pressed to his side. Locking one hand onto the opposite wrist, he created a choking vise. The monster reared back on its hind legs in an attempt to flip the man over onto his back. He dug in his heels. The monster matched his strength. The combatants contorted into half-crouching, half-standing positions, fighting to attain the upper hand. Each yanked the other forward and back.

Ciaran froze, gobsmacked. Her eyes widened, and she lost all cognitive ability. To her credit, she didn’t gape until her hero caught her eye and threw her a wink-smile combo. Wow. Her cheeks warmed. Truly cinematic.

Was she actually blushing? He shouldn’t be flirting while battling a thing right out of the worst nightmare she’d never been crazy enough to have. But he was, and he was good at it.

Wrenching his body sideways, he snapped the monster’s neck with a mighty crack. Ciaran winced.

Cocksure he’d finished the creature off, the man tossed the body away—like so much rubbish for the heap. His gaze, however, never left her. The corpse became a prism of light and faded, reabsorbed by the Dreaming. The smile remained. It brightened moments later when he held out his hand to help her up. She took it hesitantly.

An electric jolt shot from each of their bodies and met in the middle, exploding in their own big bang—pure creation energy. Breathless, they gawked at one another. His eyes warmed, and his mouth turned sensual before his sweeping gaze set her body ablaze.

“Damn. You feel that?” he asked in a rolling baritone.

Something in his heavily accented voice enveloped her heart in a soothing balm. Ciaran swallowed.

Bowing in gentlemanly fashion, her hero helped her to her feet, his fingers lingering over hers in a caress. Never one to back down, she returned his steamy look.

Sudden recognition dawned. His eyes remained the same as they’d been in his spirit-animal form.

“Dolphin,” she said, speaking for the first time. “You’re my dolphin.”

“Keo.”

His voice lilted through her.

“No.” Not quite right. She searched her mind for the name she somehow knew to be more authentically his. It came to her as though a memory.
Keh-oh-nee.
“Your name is Keoni.”

His gaze focused on her mouth, and he swayed almost imperceptibly.

“Keoni”—a beat—“Keoni?” Ciaran reached out and laid her fingertips on his upper arm. The warm, solid flesh beneath them made her fingers tingle.

Dear Lord, her mind had run amok tonight—from the worst of nightmares to the deluxe suite of dreams. Hot, steamy deluxe suite—

“Tell me again,” he said, his gaze still on her mouth, his expression fast approaching dreamy.

“Your name is Keoni. I’m
KEER-en
.”

The big man’s entire body shuddered as though he shook free of whatever hold her voice had over him. Spooked by the heat he sparked within her, Ciaran snatched her hand back. He laid his fingers over the spot where hers had been.

He regarded her, the skin around his eyes crinkling at the corners.

“The brahs, my friends, call me Keo. For family it’s Keoni. So yeah, you’re right. And I like how you already call me
yours
.”