Silvia Day (9 page)

“How can I trust you to tell me the truth?”

“How can I trust you not to kill me now that you know?”

There had been occasions when he’d had to act based on faulty or suspect intel, but Aidan never liked it. This time he hated it. If he was sent in the wrong direction…

He caught the Elder by the elbow. “You’re coming with me.”

“You can’t—”

“Yes. I can.” He dragged him out of the room and down
the hall, making a quick stop at the private Elder library.

“What are you doing?” Sheron snapped, when Aidan went straight to the historical volumes that were omitted from the entirely electronic public Hall of Knowledge.

“Taking answers with me.” His fingertips drifted over the spines until he reached the spot where he should have found the text chronicling the two years preceding and directly following their discovery of this conduit. “Where is it?”

“It was lost.”

“Bullshit.”

“It is lost to me,” Sheron said dryly. “I have no idea where it is.”

Aidan reached up, gripped the hilt of his sword, and withdrew it with quiet deliberation. “I need you alive, but I don’t need you healthy.”

“You throw aside centuries of living with Guardians who admire and respect you for a few hours spent with a Dreamer?”

“You allowed my discontent to fester with your secrets.” Aidan pressed the tip of his blade into Sheron’s chest. “Now tell me, Master, where did the Elders hide the volume I seek?”

“Never. You may have abandoned your people, but I will not.”

“As you wish.” Aidan grabbed Sheron, and dragged him out into the hall and back toward the control room.

“What are you doing?”

“We’re going to bang on the console a bit, get those lights flashing and alarms ringing. Then we’ll head toward the lake.”

“You cannot do that!” Sheron began to struggle, his eyes wide. “You will destroy everything.”

“Hey, you’re the one who said I abandoned my people. What do I care if you all blow up like a supernova or whatever the hell it is that’s going to happen? I’ll be on Earth with my Dreamer.”

“Damn you.”

Aidan’s brows rose. “What’ll it be?”

Sheron inhaled harshly, then he gestured back at the library with an impatient jerk of his hand. Once returned to the vast room, the Elder moved to a case of ancient medical texts and withdrew several, exposing a small door behind them, which, when opened, revealed the volume Aidan sought.

Collecting it from Sheron’s outstretched hand, Aidan slipped it into the pouch strapped to his thigh and sealed it. “Right. Let’s go.”

Together they walked out to the
haiden
, where he sent out a low whistle that rose and fell in deliberate rhythm. A moment later, the same sound was returned to him. Connor would follow at a discreet distance.

“There are more than one of you,” Sheron said flatly.

“Nope. Just me.” Aidan reached the outer courtyard and leaped into the upper Twilight, pulling the struggling Sheron behind him. Gliding rapidly through the mist, he put every ounce of power he had into achieving the fastest possible speed.

The sky was beginning to darken when they reached the lake. Aidan dived straight down, into the icy water that didn’t heat even though he wished it to. Beside him, Sheron stilled, allowing them to slice through like a blade. It
took a moment to find the grotto, and then they emerged, gasping.

Aidan’s first impression was of moss-covered black rock, but a closer inspection showed there was no subterfuge here. As he crawled up over a shallow ledge, he pulled Sheron out of the water after him, his gaze moving swiftly over the circular console manned by one very startled Elder-in-training. At a nearby desk, another trainee leaped to his feet. Above their heads, scenes flashed like movies, glimpses into the open minds of thousands of hypnotized people.

He stood, his hostage dripping, and moved to the other men with rapid, near running strides. Aidan shoved Sheron into the man at the desk, effectively knocking them out of the way, freeing his arm to swing forward with punishing force.

The sickening crack of his fist to the jaw of the trainee at the console was loud and echoed, causing the other to cry out and lunge at him. A quick crouch and upward thrust of his body threw the man back and into the rock wall, where he was rendered as unconscious as his partner.

Rolling his shoulders, Aidan straightened his tunic and caught Sheron with a steely glare. “Get to work.”

Unfazed, the Elder moved to the console and sat in a metallic swiveling chair that was anchored to the stone floor. “We have to catch a Medium when they are at their deepest state. You will attach yourself to their subconscious, and ride the slipstream into their plane of existence. Once there, the temporal disturbance created by your appearance should cause a…hiccup in time. A brief pause that
will allow you to leave the area undetected. That is the theory, anyway.”

“The
theory
?” Aidan arched a brow. “That’s the best you can do?”

“It is not as if I have done it myself,” Sheron pointed out.

Nodding grimly, Aidan asked, “Is there any way to choose a Medium who is near to her?” If he arrived on the other side of her world, it could be days before he reached her. He would not get to her before she fell asleep again. The thought of Lyssa dealing with the banging at the door and sinister-minded cajoling infuriated him and aroused possessive feelings he never knew he was capable of.

“Where is your lauded patience, Captain?”

“Running out,” Aidan warned.

Sheron shook his head in silent chastisement. “Lucky for you, the Dreamer you want lives in an area of eccentrics. There is a high concentration of Mediums in California. Understand: once you go, there is no known way to return.”

“Quit talking, and do it.”

Aidan began to pace, his hands clasped at his lower back, his gaze wandering. Scattered across the nearby desktop were loose-leaf papers and open-faced books. He was about to turn away when an odd glare caught his eye. Wedged beneath the corner was a slim volume boasting a jeweled cover that betrayed its position. A quick glance at Sheron showed the Elder occupied and unaware.

Summoning the book, Aidan flipped through it silently,
recognizing the handwritten language of the Ancients. He was rusty, but was able to make out enough words to know the book was one he wanted to take with him. One page in particular gave him pause, the reference to “pausing abbreviated space” one of vast interest. Collecting a makeshift bookmark from the desk, Aidan saved the page and slipped the volume into his waistband where his tunic could hide it from view.

“Here,” Sheron murmured. “You can catch this stream.” He swiveled and set both hands on his knees. With his cowl thrown back, and his white hair wet and sticking out in all directions, he was an odd sight. But his facial features were familiar, despite their lack of coloring. The sight of them reminded Aidan of the time when they had been mentor and student, and he had been an idealistic youth with great hope for the future. That boy could never have foreseen this event.

“I beg you to reconsider, Captain. You are not the first Guardian to grow an unnatural attachment to a Dreamer. It can be resolved with time.”

For a moment Aidan paused, giving his heart and mind a last chance to object.

In the end, he knew he was making the right decision. He hoped he had in his possession the secrets he’d been searching for. Either he would discover that the Elders were correct and he could resume his fight with renewed determination, or he would find out they weren’t, in which case he could enlighten the others. He would be helping his people however he looked at it. He wanted to believe in the Elders, he truly did, but Aidan saw no reason for
them to hide information that wasn’t incriminating in some way.

And then there was Lyssa, a sweet, wonderful woman who didn’t deserve to be dragged into this struggle. A woman who’d already suffered a lifetime of sickness and discomfort because of her dreams.

But what would he find in her plane? A world he knew only from dreams and a lover who would not remember him.

But the possibilities…the chance to be with Lyssa and explore the tentative bond they shared…to touch her, kiss her, make love to her for real. Skin to skin. The thought was an oasis in an endless existence that had long been as barren as the desert.

“You do not have to do something so drastic,” Sheron said in a low, urgent tone.

“Yes,” Aidan said with a wry smile. “I do.”

Sheron watched Captain Cross move beyond the console to the various slipstreams that formed pillars of lights connecting the floor to the cavern roof. Without hesitation, Cross stepped into the stream he’d been directed to and vanished, gliding into the semidream state of the chosen Medium with an expertise born of eons of practice.

When Sheron was alone, he entered a series of keystrokes and reported, “Cross is gone.”

“You did well, Sheron,”
echoed the collective voice of the other Elders.
“Perfectly executed.”

Tilting his head in acknowledgment of the praise, he moved to assist the fallen trainees. As he lowered to a
crouch, his gaze moved to the nearby desk. “He took the book.”

The feeling of satisfaction was tangible.

“Excellent.”

He kept the knowledge about the other volume to himself.

Aidan pushed himself up from the coarse carpet where he sprawled, groaning in pain. Every part of his body ached something fierce, even the roots of his hair. As he lifted his head, his gaze searched the room, taking in the pale yellow walls and the two people who sat just a few feet away. They were frozen in place, trapped in a single moment of time.

There was a portly man with one ankle resting on the opposite knee and a notepad in his lap, and another lying on a chaise, eyes closed, his stream of consciousness the vehicle Aidan had used to arrive.

Wincing with every movement, Aidan couldn’t remember ever feeling this dreadful in his life. Lurching to his feet, he reached out and caught the edge of the nearby desk, sucking in deep breaths as the small room spun violently.

A slow, soft click sounded loudly in the room.

Aidan looked at the clock on the wall, understanding
that one second had passed since he’d arrived. Time was beginning to recover, which meant he didn’t have long. He knew a guy with a sword wasn’t going to go over well here.

Shoving his physical discomfort aside, he moved to the nearby closet, which was distinguished by its smaller door compared to the two that flanked it. Inside, he found several garments covered in dry-cleaning bags.

A quick glance over his shoulder confirmed that the hypnotist was about the same height, but while the man—at rough guess—weighed similarly, his body was mostly fat. Still, the extra large clothes looked as if they might fit, so Aidan grabbed a pale blue shirt, dark blue pants, and belt, then quickly left the room.

In the reception area, a young woman was paused in the process of stuffing envelopes. Looking over her shoulder, Aidan noted the return address—San Diego, California—and smiled. Sheron had done remarkably well considering how short a time the Elder had been given.

Reaching beneath the desk, Aidan caught up the burgundy leather purse there and rifled through it, withdrawing a hundred dollars’ worth of various denomination bills and a set of car keys. He wrote a simple “Thank you” on a piece of paper, slipped it into her wallet, and set the bag back where he’d found it.

Outside the office, in the nondescript hallway that led to the elevators, Aidan found a restroom, where he changed clothes. The overly large pants necessitated some alteration of the belt to secure them around his lean hips, but this took only a moment, and he was quickly on the move. He kept everything with him, refusing to be in a strange world
without his accoutrements of battle. The subsequent long trip down the stairs in his weakened state nearly did him in. He stopped often, holding the rail and gasping, while willing his uncooperative body to function properly.

Tick tock.
Time was still passing for him, despite what the clocks said, and he needed to reach Lyssa before nightfall.

By the time Aidan reached the lobby, time was advancing full speed ahead. The elevators were once again functional, and humans scurried industriously through the foyer that led to the outside. He wondered if anyone would stop him and question the scabbard he held at his side, but aside from blatantly appreciative female glances, no one paid any attention to his glaive. Clinging to the weapon with white-knuckled force, Aidan longed for the comfort the feel of the hilt normally imparted. While he wasn’t afraid, he felt very much alone.

Lyssa.

He was assaulted by a variety of smells, some pleasant, some not. In dreams, this plethora of sensory input was muted or overlooked. Not so in actuality. The sounds of this world were many, a cacophony of voices and machinery that increased his nausea. He stumbled out the front glass doors with a desperate need for circulating air.

Using trial-and-error in tandem with the alarm remote on the key chain, Aidan located the early-model white Toyota Corolla, the interior of which smelled like something stale and burnt. Once he realized the hideous odor came from the ashtray, Aidan tossed the entire thing out the window. He’d shared postcoital cigarettes in dreams, but never had the true rankness of the habit been revealed to him.

Altogether, his first impression of the new world was not a positive one, which only made him long for Lyssa with a biting hunger.

A torn map, endless one-way streets, and drivers who couldn’t stay in their lanes made getting to the freeway beyond frustrating, but Aidan was determined, and he used every bit of memory Dreamers had given him over the years to get on his way.

Toward the woman of his dreams.

“That sounds wonderful, Chad,” Lyssa murmured into the phone while absently drawing doodles on her puppy-shaped notepad. “Really. But I’m not up for it tonight. I’m wiped out.” Glancing up at the clock on the kitchen wall, she noted the time—six o’clock.

“Okay, forget the movie. I’ll cook.”

Sighing, Lyssa rolled her tense shoulders and dropped the pencil to rub the back of her neck. “Dinner sounds great, it really does, but it’s been such a long day, and—”

The ring of the doorbell interrupted her.

“You work too hard, babe,” Chad chastised softly. “You need to learn to say, ‘Come back tomorrow. I’ve got a man who wants to be with me.’”

She smiled. He was so patient with her, never pushing her to give more than she was ready for. There were a couple of times she had been really close to inviting him to spend the night, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was…
off
.

Had she now developed a fear of intimacy? Did the certainty that she wouldn’t live to a ripe old age make her wary and standoffish?

“The mailman’s at the door.” Sliding off the stool at her breakfast bar, Lyssa stretched weary muscles. She
was
going to let Chad get close to her. No matter what. “Tomorrow’s Friday. Wanna take a rain check for Saturday?”

Chad’s frustrated exhale sounded across the lines that connected them. “Yes. Saturday. For sure.”

“For sure. I promise. See you then.” She set the receiver back into the cradle and crossed her small living room to the front door. Jelly Bean fell into step beside her while rumbling a low warning.

“Kick back, attack cat,” Lyssa scolded, knowing that JB would ignore her and hiss with his usual grumpy fervor.

The bell buzzed again, and she jogged the last couple of steps. “I’m coming.” Lyssa turned the knob and pulled the door open. “Do you need me to sign or some…th-thing…?”

Her voice stuttered into silence as her gaze lifted and met eyes of deeply intense sapphire brilliance. Well over six feet of pure, unadulterated, gorgeous male stood on her porch step.

She gaped.

He was so tall, so broad of shoulder, so overwhelming that he filled every inch of her doorway. The scent of his skin, something exotic and spicy and scrumptious, hit her at the same moment as the wickedly provocative curving of his sensual lips.

JB’s grumbling came to an abrupt halt.

“Holy shit.” Her hand clutched the doorknob with white-knuckled strength. She had to force herself to breathe. In and out.

His gaze slid along the length of her body as a hot, tan
gible caress. Her knees went weak. She stumbled, and he stepped into her personal space, catching her elbow and anchoring her upright.

“Lyssa.”

She blinked, the shock of that low-timbered voice with its soft brogue flaring across her skin. She’d heard that voice before, had heard her name spoken by it, and the heated awareness of his touch was near painful in its acuteness.

The man on her doorstep was delicious. Impossibly so. Dark hair with silver-streaked temples, winged brows over eyes that devoured her, a firm jaw, and masterfully etched lips. A pale blue dress shirt was parted at the neck, revealing a light dusting of hair on a bronzed chest, and an opal-like stone hanging from a silver chain. Strong arms were revealed by rolled-up cuffs, arms that pulled her closer to that mesmerizing, erotically charged stare.

I’ve kissed him before.

No. She shook her head. She hadn’t. There was no way she could forget a man who looked as he did. He was almost otherworldly handsome, a man who was too hard, too chiseled, too dangerously male to be truly beautiful. But he was damn close.

Swallowing hard, she parted her lips to speak. Instead, he bent his head and took her mouth. Her legs gave out beneath her, causing her to sink a few inches before he caught her close and lifted her feet from the tiled entryway.

A deep, hungry growl rumbled up from the man’s chest, vibrating softly against her breasts, making her nipples ache. Dizzy and confused, she lifted her hands to push
him away, but the scent of his skin intoxicated her.
I know him.
Her fingers slipped into the silky hair at his nape.

The expert slanting of his lips across hers made her shiver. He hummed a soothing sound and stroked the length of her spine, gentling his kiss. The soft glide of his tongue, the deep licks, the gentle urging of his hips that rocked his erection against her…She moaned into his mouth, “
Aidan.
”

His name came out of nowhere, filled with yearning and heated demands.

“I’m here, Hot Stuff.” As if he knew her. As if he had come here for her. And that endearment…She felt as if she’d heard it before. In
his
voice.

Her chest heaving with panting breaths, Lyssa closed her eyes and rested her cheek on his shoulder. Her breath gusted across his exposed throat, making him shudder and hug her tighter.

“I—I don’t remember you,” she whispered, inwardly certain they must have met—no, been
intimate
—at some point in her life.

He nuzzled his cheek against the top of her head and breathed deeply. “Don’t you?”

“I don’t…” The last time she had felt this disoriented was when she’d polished off a bottle of Captain Morgan with her best friend.

“I’ll make the introductions, then.” His voice was a rough caress. “You’re Lyssa Bates. I’m Aidan Cross.”

“You’re Aidan…I’m crazy.”

His chuckle rumbled upward and made her toes curl. Then he stepped into her house as if he had every right to, and kicked the door closed behind him.

Strangely secure in his embrace, Lyssa leaned back to look at him, which was a mistake. The look he gave her was richly sexual and warmly amused. It was affectionate and appreciative—a lover’s look. He wrapped his fist in her hair and tugged her head back to lick and nibble at her throat. Overpowering her with the pure erotic heat he exuded.

She was not as surprised by his actions as she should have been. The gesture was deeply comforting, the touch of his lips to her skin as natural as breathing. He was so arrogantly assured, so confident of his right to touch her as he desired.

“I’ve lost my mind,” she said with a sigh of defeat. “Finally.”

“Hmm?” He nipped her earlobe.

“Or maybe I fell asleep and this is my dream? It would be totally okay to make out with hot strangers in dreams.”

Aidan paused. “Totally okay to make out with
this
stranger.”

“I’ve been reading too many romance novels with alpha males,” she muttered. Then her tummy growled. Loudly. At first she thought it was JB, but no, he was rubbing up against Aidan Cross’s legs and purring like a kitten. Which Jelly Bean had
never
done even when he
was
a kitten. The darn cat had been born grumpy.

They’d both gone crazy, which was oddly comforting.

“You didn’t eat all day again?” Aidan chastised, scowling down at her.

“Uh, dream guys don’t scold.” As he set her away from him, Lyssa clung to his rock-hard forearms for balance. “I get enough of that from my mother.”

“You need scolding to get you to eat regularly. You’re
going to need your strength.” He stepped back and then teetered. “Whoa!”

“Are you okay?” She steadied his significant weight with great difficulty.

“I’ve got jet lag. I think.”

She sighed loudly. Fantasies weren’t supposed to get jet lag, so either this was real and she had just made out with a stranger, or this was the oddest dream ever. Of course, she’d only recently started remembering vague pieces of dreams, so maybe all the ones she couldn’t recall had been a bit wacky, too. How depressing.

Pushing him toward the sofa, she went along with the weirdness and asked, “Where are you from?”

Aidan smiled, and her heart did a little flip. “San Diego.”

“Right. You flew up from San Diego.”

“No. I
drove
up from San Diego.” He sat, settling into the down cushions with an appreciative sigh. “It’s less than an hour’s drive, you know. When there aren’t so many cars in the way.”

“Traffic. Yes, I know. So how’d you get the jet lag?”

“On the way to San Diego.”

“Okay.” Lyssa stepped back and crossed her arms. “Where did you come from
before
San Diego? Ireland? I admit I suck at pinning down accents. And yours is unusually luscious.”

Struck by sudden déjà vu at her own words, Lyssa stared, arrested, as Aidan’s smile widened, making him even more gorgeous.
Why do I feel as if I know him so well? As if we’ve had this conversation before?

It was surreal to be hovering over a stranger who’d just kissed her senseless. But no matter what she told herself,
she couldn’t convince herself that she had done something wrong.

“You’re very sexy when you’re grumpy,” he said.

“Yeah? Well, you’re very sexy when you’re grinning like an idiot. And I’m
not
grumpy. Now, where did you come from?”

“Your dreams.”

“Okay. Now I know I’m asleep. Real-life hot guys don’t say corny shit like that.” It hadn’t really sounded corny, though. It had sounded sweet, kind of breathless, as if he was really happy to see her.

He caught her hand and tugged her into his lap. She considered a token protest, then thought,
Screw it.
He was hot and nice, and she was insane.

“Did we date in kindergarten or something?” she asked, studying his features with a frown.

“Or something,” he replied evasively. “As a doctor, you’re trained to look for specific signs and then, based on those, you narrow it down to a diagnosis.”