Dreams’ Dark Kiss (3 page)

The slow smile returned, the scar slashing across his chin enhancing it somehow.

Ciaran hid her embarrassment by letting her sightline drop to his big, bare feet, then let it travel up his lovely calves. Baggy board shorts cut off the view from there, picking up again at his sculpted belly. Shirtless, long and lean with broad shoulders, a swimmer’s waist, and toffee-hued skin—Keoni was truly the stuff of dreams.

A riotous mane of sable waves—sun-bleached near golden at the ends—crowned his dark head and shaded hazel eyes. Eyes that held the glow of good humor within their depths.

Dead sexy. Target locked. Boom ting! He had her. How apropos he pronounced his nickname KO.

He’s seriously a knockout punch.

Undaunted by her silence, Keoni lifted her hand, turning the palm sideways to wrap her arm around his neck. A feat he had to bend to accomplish. He repeated the motion with her other arm, then slid his calloused hands around her waist.

“You like,
manu li’i?
”

Before she could answer, he lifted her off her feet, leaned in and stole a kiss. A deep one. The kind of mind-blowing, body-blazing lip-lock she’d have to call and tell her Mum all about when she woke up in the morning. So good, so perfect…so hot, it…it…it annoyed the hell out of her. On the verge of spitting fire for reasons she didn’t want to face, she yanked free. Dropping to the ground, she shoved him with all the strength in her diminutive body.

Clearly dazed, Keoni toppled right over, sending a cloud of blood-colored dust shooting into the air, blanketing them both. Ciaran set her shoulders for a fight, but Keoni’s apparent surprise at crash landing in the dirt wrought a chuckle from deep within his chest.

Ciaran expected anything but laughter in response to the shove. Yelling, an answering shove, perhaps a smack to the cheek; those she could deal with and remain righteously angry. His amusement shamed her. Keoni had been wrong to kiss her without permission but she’d been wrong not to tell him so rather than pushing him down. Flashing a contrite expression she held out a hand to help him up. He reached out to accept without comment.

Her personality had begun to change in some very nasty ways recently. Ciaran knew she needed to get a handle on her volatile emotions before she no longer recognized herself and others stopped wanting to be around her.

“I apologize,” she whispered as Keoni’s fingers clasped her own. Once again the touch of his skin to hers caused a reaction. The Wastelands shifted beneath them, red dirt giving way to the ephemeral fluff of unformed dreamscape. Ciaran tried to pull back but the weight of the big Hawaiian yanked her down. The pair sunk quickly through whorls of dust and dreamscape mist until they were falling against the backdrop of sunset skies.

Ciaran freaked out with all the effects: screaming, clutching his hand in hers while the other hand flailed, cutting deals with God. On the flipside, Keoni looked peaceful. Too peaceful for a man falling fast enough to blur the skies. That’s what tipped her off: he was having a laugh.

A sharp upward tug and the
shoop
of a parachute being deployed drew Ciaran’s gaze overhead. There was no visible sign of a chute but they’d slowed considerably. While she and Keoni were still headed down, they weren’t in any danger and the landmass below hadn’t gotten any closer during the ride.

Funny boy.

Her gaze landed on Keoni’s smiling lips and she quickly sought diversion from the memory the sight of his mouth called to mind. Glancing downward she was met with pure comedy. Keoni had donned a ridiculously huge pair of parachute pants. Fully rounded like some great white blimp, the pants made him look like a fantastical crossbreed of MC Hammer and a genie.
Can’t touch this.
Ciaran goggled at the absurdity of the scene. Keoni lifted one eyebrow, then the other and repeated—waggling them in an imitation of misplaced arrogance.

She couldn’t help but giggle before she realized the pull of gravity should mean she’d be hanging by his hand, not dropping at the same rate he was.

“You didn’t?” she said, suspecting he had made an equally silly spectacle of her. She wasn’t wrong. Keoni had dressed her in a skirt voluminous enough to match his pants, the bell of the garment billowing to form her parachute. He was totally mad and the look on his face said he relished his insanity.

Ciaran relaxed and shyly let go of his hand. He released hers slowly, tipping his head to one side as he pointed to their surroundings. New wonders awaited her. Keoni had filled the sky with all manner of flying sea life: softly fluorescent jellyfish, Japanese koi with wings of streaming ribbon, purple whales puffing golden clouds through their blowholes and iridescent manta ray in flocks like geese. Ciaran marveled at it all.

“You’ve never explored the dreamscape?” he asked.

“No, I’m confined to the path the soul I’m escorting has chosen. We call it the Last Hurrah and that’s all I’ve known until today.”

“It’s different for you now.”

“Why now?”

“You’re becoming a Somnian.”

“Not sure what that is but I assure you I’m a psychopomp.”

“You called for us and we heard you. You can’t still be a psychopomp.”

“Why?”

He was clearly taken aback. Apparently he expected her to take his word for why she was no longer a soul conductor but hadn’t considered his reasoning himself. Brilliant.

“Becoming a dream guardian is a step up. It doesn’t make sense you’d still be stuck in psychopomp mode,” he said.

“Stuck?”

Ciaran narrowed her eyes.
Here’s another man who thinks he’s the great authority
. Keoni must have sensed her mood because he threw up his hands in surrender.

“K’den, you’re a psychopomp,” he said, yet didn’t bother pretending he believed it. “You’ve never seen a creature like the one that attacked you then, yeah?”

She wanted to focus on the conversation. She really did, especially with her safety in the balance, but it was hard to concentrate with the wind roaring past her ears louder than a toddler’s whisper and the imagined threat of the ground rising up to break her limbs.

“Maybe we could stop the steady plummet?” She pointed down. “I appreciate learning from falling but it’s a bit scary.”

“Falling’s not so bad,” he said, stacking the words with a wealth of meaning completely unrelated to the effects of gravity. His tone and expression suggested a whole other kind of falling.

The world flip-flopped, the land below them snapping into place above their heads and the sunset sky turning wrong side up below them.

“Amazing,” she said.

“Now touch your toes.”

Ciaran shot him a questioning squint of the eyes. What would she want to touch her toes for?

“What,” Keoni said, “you scared touching your toes will add extra plummet?”

Shaking her head Ciaran obliged him and bent to touch her fingertips to her feet. He did the same. Nothing happened. After several seconds—more than a sufficient show of patience, she figured—Ciaran looked askance at Keoni, her fingers still wrapped around her toes.

“Let your legs fall,” he said.

“What? That’s just silly. How can I let—” Ciaran unwittingly released the position so she could tease him. Whoa. Rather than her upper body rising up, her legs dropped below setting things to right side up and leaving her to drift on air currents. Keoni followed suit. “Floating is okay?” he asked.

“Floating is good.”

He nodded in response and the man looked entirely too good to keep staring at. She needed something else to think about or, better, an exit. Ciaran reached out to her body hoping she’d wake up. She didn’t. Once again something, perhaps the power of the Dreaming itself, cut her off from returning to consciousness in the Waking World—the same as it had been with the monster. Before she could follow her musings to a conclusion she grasped something else.

“You asked if I’d seen the monster before. I didn’t think I had but now I’m thinking it’s possible. At the least I’ve seen something like it.”

“Before today?”

“Yeah, pale flickers in vague predator shapes. They always appear at the corner of my vision and bring on a sense of being hunted. Not a comfortable sensation at all.” Ciaran wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the sense of foreboding dallying with her. “Had the same feeling right before the beast struck. At first I thought it was the black dog—”

“Black dog?” Keoni perked at the mention.

“Yes, but he’s my friend. He frightened me at first but I’m certain he’s not the problem.”

“How can you be?”

“The black dog showed up after the flickers, by a week or so, and he always lets me see him.”

Keoni reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder, rubbing her arm. “How long have these pale flickers been stalking you?”

She laughed nervously, seeking levity. “You make it sound like they’re homicidal fans and I’m the celebrity in question.”

“I misled you,
manu.
They’re worse than stalkers and you were the object of one’s lust. No doubt you noticed what the bane was trying to do to you.” He didn’t say it with any cruelty, more like he wanted to make sure she understood the dangers.

She’d noticed. She couldn’t help but be aware when the thing had a plonker the size of a wooly mammoth’s. Ick. Perhaps she should cut back on watching the National Geographic Channel. The images in her head weren’t pleasant and brought out the sarcasm in her reply—a defense against mounting fear.

“Didn’t notice at all. I only go for pork daggers twice the size of that monster’s.”

Keoni rolled his eyes in unleashed amusement.

In truth, Ciaran was more grateful to Keoni then he knew. Had he come to the rescue any later the creature would have laid her bare and, well, she refused to think past that point…

“How long?” he asked again.

“Two weeks. You think the monster and these flickers I’ve been seeing are related as well, don’t you?”

“Banes. The creature that attacked you is called a bane. Yeah, I do think they’re related.” He stroked his chin. “Two weeks is about the time period it takes to transition from human, psychopomp or whatever into a fledgling Somnian.”

A huff drew his attention to her face and he amended his statement. “I know you don’t think you’re a Somnian but I’ve got to tell you—”

“Where do you get off telling me anything about myself? You don’t know me.”

“No, but I want to. You gonna let me?”

She swung herself roundabout to face away from him. Not easy to do while floating on air—which added to her annoyance. “I only want to wake up.”

Ciaran tried once more but failed to awaken. Something still had her blocked from consciousness. She closed her eyes for a few moments, working to behave a bit more like an adult. No luck of that with Keoni around. He floated past her in a reclining position, his head propped up by a bent arm—her own personal Cheshire cat.

“Until you’re able to wake up, let me show you the dreamscape. Just in case you ever fall off the psychopomp path again and I’m not around.”

She folded her arms tightly across her chest, closed her eyes once more and took a deep breath.

The whisper of his suddenly thickened accent tickled her earlobe. “What else you gonna do,
manu?
”

She whipped around to find the big Hawaiian floating beside her. In his reclined pose their mouths were only two fingers from one another’s. Her lips parted and his curved into a half smile. She took two more deep breaths and leaned in, stopping short of contact but close enough to lick his bottom lip if she extended her tongue. “What am I going to do?” She paused and answered her own question. “Kick your ass.”

He laughed, flipped and jogged back six paces. Ciaran hadn’t noticed they’d touched down. The dreamscape was truly phenomenal. Or perhaps it was the man who was amazing. One side of her wanted to find out; the other really didn’t want to know.

Around them a verdant tropical jungle, replete with looming palm trees, sprang into life.

“You want my ass? Come get it.” Keoni’s voice retreated through the fat green leaves, almost lost to the calls of birds. She shouldn’t chase him. Ciaran knew it but she couldn’t help herself. With all the emotions wearing her down tonight, a romp through the jungle seemed just the respite she needed.

“You must be worried,” she said to the flora and fauna because the Hawaiian was no longer in sight. “You landed so you could run.”

He chuckled from somewhere to her right. “I had to.” Keoni’s voice teased her from the left this time. “I can float but I can’t fly.”

Ciaran turned. “You’re going to learn not to mess me about,” she said to what she figured was his general direction. Somehow he’d already gotten behind her.

“
Bumbye
. Bye.” The sound of his footsteps went crashing through the trees.

Ciaran spun and yelled after him. “What does bumbye mean?” No answer came. “Bugger!” The chase had begun.

She tracked him through ever-changing terrain. Pitfalls popped up without warning: mudslides, quicksand, a barrel of monkeys. He was truly having a laugh but no matter what trail he dreamed up she never got hurt or even dirty—just annoyed. It wasn’t long before she stopped beneath a vine-covered tree to plan a new strategy.

Sudden silence enveloped the clearing. Mere seconds passed before a mounting buzz shattered the stillness. Lush greenery parted and what had to be a prehistoric wasp zigged toward her. Ciaran froze, hypnotized by the sword-sized stinger the massive insect pivoted to impale her on. She must have blacked out…or something. Her awareness returned to a resounding metallic
clang!
Ciaran opened one eye and dropped her arms from the criss-cross she’d thrown up in front of her body and opened the other eye. The bong sound continued to resound through the jungle and the wasp lay at her feet having fallen on its back, its stinger broken off at an angle perpendicular to its black and yellow body. As she watched its legs spasmed in time with stuttering wings.

Keoni stepped out from behind a wide tree trunk across the clearing. “Nicely done.”

“Thank you once again.” Ciaran bent over to catch her breath.

“Wasn’t me. You defended yourself.” He made his way over to her, coming to a stop beside the downed wasp. The insect blurred and dissipated. “I just didn’t see what weapon you used.”

“I didn’t.”

Keoni sighed pleasantly. “You did and whatever the weapon was it was big, black and made of metal. Like a shield.”

“I didn’t realize I could create things out of the dreamscape.” A thought occurred to Ciaran. “If you can kill predators this easily why didn’t you get rid of the bane the same way?”

“I dreamed the wasp up, manifested it, but the banes exist of their own accord.”

“Oh,” she said, then balked. “This entire business was a training exercise, wasn’t it?”

He had the nerve to chuckle. “Yeah. I’m proud of you.”

She crossed the meter or so between them and gave him her most menacing glare. The effect was likely lost on him. She’d need a chair to stand on if she were going to curse at him eye to eye.

“You don’t get to be proud of me. You, great hulking—”

“Idjit,” said a male voice behind her.

“Yes, idiot,” she said to Keoni. Turning she got a look at their visitor. Well, now it was certainly becoming obvious why “man of my dreams” was a cliché in the Waking World. The new guy sported a buzz cut and wore a cinnamon-hued motorcycle jacket over a white T-shirt. If the barbwire tattoo wrapping around his neck didn’t warn you to pump your brakes and dodge the bad boy, the sardonic set to his rugged First Nations features certainly did. “Thank you…”

“Jay,” he said, and as though an afterthought added, “The palomino. We’ve met.”

Ciaran shaped her mouth into a silent O.

“Howzit brah, why are you here?” Keoni said with exasperated pleasure.