Dreams’ Dark Kiss (8 page)

“They want to mate you.”

She huffed in annoyance. “I got that part. Why?”

Despite her tone, he gazed down at her tenderly. “I don’t know what it is about you, sweetheart, not fah dem anyways, but I’m about to make it clear. You already have a mate.”

Huh?

“Wait.” She ducked beneath one of his arms to look up at him as he prepared to reengage the enemy. “What?”

Mate? Had that been the big change in her life she’d sensed when she said yes to his help? These Somnians took rescuing a girl way too seriously. A toothless man had pulled her out of the path of a bus once. Was he her forever-and-for-always-snookums too?
The hell.

A sixteen-petal blossom of blue light radiated from the chakra at Keoni’s throat and manifested in the palm of his right hand. Designed for defense, it spiraled and spun itself into a ball of pale blue water. He didn’t bother looking down at it, not even when the sound of waves breaking on the shore emanated from his outstretched hand. Instead he smirked wickedly at his opponents, beckoning them with the other hand. Banes launched themselves at the pair in a barrage of claws and teeth.

Moving as one entity in two bodies, Ciaran and Keoni swayed, bent and twirled in a lethal dance, taking out masses of banes with lyrical precision. The monsters kept coming.

* * *

The Hawaiian sent great bursts of water at the beasts, ripping holes through them with bazooka blasts of water. He enjoyed the game of bane slaying, loved the sense of contentment in doing what he was born to do. Loved the feel of the woman at his back more. She moved as an extension of him, following his lead without hesitation. Damn, he was beginning to enjoy the sound of her frying pan as it smashed bane skulls and bones.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Ciaran yelled over the din of growls, splashes and clangs. “But I can’t wake up.” She kicked a beast beneath the chin, sending it flying back in the opposite direction.

“It’s the banes. They have dampener fields, an’ this many of them combined are strong enough to affect even my powers.”

He snatched a leaping bane out of the air, sent a mini-tsunami through its abdomen and used the corpse to beat back more beasts. Others he destroyed with water blasts before the first body faded in his grasp.

“We’ll be okay.” He said the words with his usual lightness. He didn’t want to upset her, but in truth he was beginning to worry. Greed and power thirst normally kept banes from forming pack bonds. Normally. Nothing about this sitch was normal.

He caught Ciaran’s hand, flicked her away from him, pulled forward and bent with her at the waist while two attackers sailed over their heads. Keoni glanced over his shoulder as the banes crisscrossed in midair.

What was going on? Howlers mated. Banes never did. So why were these nightmares so intent on his
manu li’i
? He hadn’t missed the physical signs of their eagerness. The idea of one of the beasts taking the woman at his back turned his stomach and brought him as close as he’d ever been to anger.

Shit. He dropped into a crouch, pivoted and swept Ciaran into his arms as he stood. Razor-sharp claws raked his left calf. Better him than her. He sent a wave crashing around his feet. The force caught several beasts and washed them away. As quickly as he and Ciaran cleared them, new banes arrived to fortify the ranks.

Keoni slowed, working hard to catch his breath. Every strike siphoned off more energy and he’d already gone astral on an empty stomach this morning. They needed backup. Clearing his mind as best he could, he sent a distress call to his brahs. He knew they were busy hunting ankou but he was just as sure they’d miss him if he died here. The signal bounced off the inside of his skull and flayed his psychic center. He went down in pain, somehow managing to hold on to Ciaran.

Ka-clang. Bong. Clang.
Ciaran’s skillet whirled through the air. Nice one. She did her best to fend off the creatures, but her fighting skills weren’t on his level.

“What happened?” she asked, concern lacing her voice.

He gritted his teeth against the pain and sent another wave flooding past them to take out several enemies. “Tried…” he heaved. “Tried to call…to…call my brahs. Something blocking…can’t project or get help…”

“Oh well. Pray,” Ciaran said with deceptive calm, but there was no mistaking her accelerated heartbeat thudding in his ears.

Sensing danger, the Hawaiian looked up to see nine sets of claws and teeth raining down on them…

Whoosh.

They lifted off the ground in a gentle, liquid rise. Ciaran’s anxiety invaded Keoni’s awareness with such force, he fought the instinct to slam his eyes shut as he watched hers squeeze closed. The world went soft. Sound muted. She opened her eyes and blinked. Keoni kept an eye on her while keeping track of their attackers through a blue lens.

“What happened?”
Her thoughts stuttered inside his mind.

Banes leaped and bounced off the edges of the sphere, growling as they rebounded.

“What’s going on?”

Keoni floated up to her, giving her his best expression of reassurance as their eyes met, in hopes his calm would stem the insistent whine of her confusion. Ciaran opened her mouth to echo the questions he read in her mind, but her voice was lost to a trail of quickly rising bubbles. Sudden realization of what the sphere was transformed her face, ripping a scream from her throat.

Keoni sent calm directly into her brain without effect. He had submerged them in a huge swirling globe of water, his version of a force field. Judging by her screams, she was afraid of water. But, it made no sense. When their spirits had first met, she’d swum with him through a dreamscape Hanalei Bay. This was a bit different, sure. Earlier had been spiritual, an extension of Keoni’s mind and soul, but it hadn’t been different enough to cause this level of reaction. How could they grow together when she feared the very form of his power?

“Get me out!” she screamed, her voice a long gurgle as water poured down her throat. and she flailed with greater panic. Keoni reached out to hold her, but a burst of energy pitched him back. The force invaded his mind to such a degree it blended her feelings with his own. Thousands of tiny pinpricks stung her skin. He experienced the itch and burn along her hands, arms and back as it swept wildfire across his own. Her face stretched, and her fingers fused together as her fingernails grew by inches, curving toward her palms. Her body puffed and expanded.

Keoni floated inside his force field, the banes forgotten. The power emanating from Ciaran’s body left him awestruck. She’d transformed, not taken spirit form but become something else, and facilitated an exit along with it. But this wasn’t a normal pathway from the Dreaming to the Waking World. This was a gaping hole in the membrane between the two.

Through the haze obscuring her mind, Keoni read one thing clearly. She could not leave him behind. Ciaran grabbed him by the shoulders and raced away as fast as her arms would carry them.

* * *

Their powers were not enough. The Beast hungered for more and the Man did too. The first vestiges of anger assaulted them. They hated their anger. No. They despised it. Yes. There was no confusing the fact. The Man and the Beast preferred to laugh and dance and do nasty things to good people…while laughing or dancing. Or both. The Man shrugged, rolling the burden of his pique off his shoulders, and the Beast panted. Anger evaporated fun.

The pair lay on their backs, luxuriating in the plush comforter covering the hotel bed. Sunlight made the brocade fabric shimmer beneath them, highlighting the pattern of fleur-de-lis and ornate scrolls. After the disappointment they’d endured in losing the Delectable and many of their minions afterward, they deserved the comforts of the high-end suite. Mommy’s credit card had paid for it. Yay, Mommy. Membership seriously had its privileges, and the Man and Beast were worthy. Or they weren’t and they’d enjoy it anyway. No confusing that either or the thrill of driving the luxury car they’d stolen. But these thrills were only temporary. They desperately needed to be with the Delectable again.

Desperation did not sit well on the Man’s tongue. The Beast liked it even less. But what to do now the aloha bastard and his rainbow coalition of buttheads had killed every member of the Waking World horde but two and cut the Man and the Beast off from their goal?

The Man reached out to the Mommy to help her find the right rhythm in the bobbing of her head in his lap. She was a handy surrogate. He and the Beast relished the suckling noises she made. It calmed them and allowed them to think. The Man placed a finger to his chin and tapping lightly, struck a scholarly pose. The Beast, somehow, did the same. Everything they did they did with flourish. Otherwise what was the point?

What to do? What to do? It took so long to fill the ranks of a good horde and the ankou were not a species but a series of anomalies, psychic wounds turned to flesh. The pair recognized their problem. What they and their minions were could not be sustained. So much depended on corrupting human souls and avoiding being slain by dream guardians. So few ankou were made. They did not breed as the humans or manifest from the Dreaming as the howlers did. The ankou were body thieves. Not even the combined powers of the Man and the Beast could change their numbers in any truly significant way. Certainly they were strong enough to push any humans on the verge of turning into an ankou over the edge, but they could only push, not compel the transformation.

The problem had been insurmountable until they’d gotten a nose full of the Delectable in the Waking World. Relishing the scent-memory, the Man pushed Mommy’s head down as far as it would go and used pressure to slow its rise. Ahhh, so much better deep and slow.

The Delectable’s scent had let the Man and Beast understand what she was. And now they would acquire her and become a race. The ankou would become more than anomalies with her beneath them. Sweet Delectable. She would be their means, the back on which the Man and the Beast built an empire. The Beast agreed, and the satisfaction of the decision climaxed within the warmth of the mouth encasing the Man.

He moaned. The Beast’s tail thumped happily as it struck the comforter. Sweet satisfaction. They’d just need to go back to the Delectable’s hideout, defile her sanctuary, kill her Somnian and claim their prize. The idea tasted good. Murder and mayhem would be fun again. They liked that. No. They loved it.

“Wings? Dear God, why do I have wings?”

Keoni woke with Ciaran’s thoughts reverberating through his head. She perched on the glass partition separating the shower from the rest of the bathroom and flapped her wings maniacally.

He yawned, pushing himself off the tiles on the foreign bathroom floor. Thick, fragrant steam enveloped him. His little bird broke through the mango-scented cloud, zipped past his head and circled the room in crazed loops.

Wow, she’d come back from the Dreaming in sparrow form.
Aznuts! She’s come back from the Dreaming in sparrow form?
He jumped to his feet.

Shape-shifting in the dreamscape, fueled by the power of the Dreaming, was one thing. Dreams were easy to transform. With a little imagination anything was possible in the dreamscape, but physical metamorphosis was something far more. A lost power. He’d never heard of a psychopomp who could shape-shift and the Somnians didn’t have the ability either. Keoni didn’t even want to deal with how she’d ripped a hole in the dreamscape and transported his physical form from Hawaii to wherever the hell they were now.

Worse, she’d mostly closed the tear behind them but hadn’t completed the task—likely because she’d been terrified. Freaked out or not, no telling what kind of shenanigans would ensue if they left a gaping hole between the two worlds.

Keoni reached for the rip where it floated, framed in the opening of the shower, and laid his splayed hand against it. The pale blue of his Somnian ability shot out from his fingertips and lifeline. Securing the frayed edges of the breach by digging in with his nails, he rotated his hand to the left until the pathway between worlds closed completely.

Ciaran returned to her perch on the shower’s enclosing glass to stare down at him.

“Ridiculous.”
Manu
was a shape-shifter, and he couldn’t guess what else. He laughed. No wonder he and his brahs found her irresistible: power fed power.

Ciaran clearly took exception to his amusement. She flew at his face, batting him with her wings and twittering in anger. Feathers filled the air. Her frantically whirring brain was nearly impossible to read.

“Easy,
ipo,
” he sighed and took a deep breath. Perhaps what she’d call the queen’s English would be a better way to go. “Sweetheart, you’ve got to calm down, or we won’t be able to figure this out.”

She continued to fly agitated circuits around his head. He extended a finger and commanded, “Come to me.” She squawked, balking at the demand. “Yeah, yeah. I know. Come to me anyway.” She flew several more loops in defiance before landing on the finger he offered.

Lifting his hand, he brought her to eye level. Ciaran blinked, inclining her head from side to side. One. Two. Three. She unleashed a stream of indignant twittering, reflecting the stream of expletives in her mind.

“I got that part too,” Keoni said, “but you chose me, so you get the Brahma bull and the horns.” Her answering chirp said
bullshit
.

He chuckled while checking her out. Pretty little thing. Bronze feathers and a fluffy white breast complemented bright eyes—eyes that indicated he wasn’t going to get away with his chauvinist antics. He gazed back into that brilliant stare. “Breathe, ipo, sweetheart.”

After a few moments, Ciaran’s tiny chest puffed and deflated slowly as she brought her breathing under control.

“Remember who you are,” he said, his voice steady. “Your human form is your most natural state, so it should be easy to return to it. You just have to remember who you are and your body will follow suit.”

At least returning to his body after going astral worked that way. His voice sounded sure. He wasn’t. She’d kick his ass if she figured it out. But he hoped reclaiming her human shape would be the same for her as returning to his body was for him.

Ciaran slowly opened herself more fully to reveal the doubt.
“I feel like half the girl I used to be. And I don’t want to—I won’t go back to hiding out in someone else’s mansion.”
Her wings fluttered as if an outward sign of internal conflict, but then… He allowed her to see herself through his mind’s eye. To feel the beauty he saw in her, things she had never seen in or believed about herself—and suddenly she longed to become the woman whose image she saw reflected in his eyes.

Before either knew it, he held her naked body cradled against his chest, their thoughts and gazes still entwined. Keoni’s line of vision swept her face finding the bruises. The features of his face turned fierce.

“Who hurt you?” The placid tone belied the violence vibrating beneath the surface of his skin.

“My ex.”

He lowered his forehead to rest against hers. “Show me.”

She squirmed in his arms, resisting the imperative in his voice.

Keoni refused to be denied. “Show me.”

Giving in, she opened her mind to his, allowing him full access to the memory of her last night with Raphael. The argument. The surprise of the first punch, disbelief at the second, and anger when the third opened her lip. Keoni witnessed it all, relived the ensuing fight, the pain of each blow, and the cold reality: Raphael didn’t love her.

His pretty bird was a fighter. She’d scratched the guy’s face raw, bit and slapped, kicked him in the balls, but she had been no match for the stocky man—wider at the chest than Keoni. Raphael had tossed her around her apartment with as much regard as yesterday’s trash. And soon the only question had been whether she’d still be breathing when he left her.

Their foreheads parted, and Keoni slid his face across her cheek. Continuing the motion, he nuzzled her neck soothingly. Ciaran breathed slowly, reveling in the feeling of his arms around her, his skin on hers, and the care he sent flooding into her senses. The shock of his tenderness overwhelmed her. Keoni hurt more for her than she hurt for herself. She cried out, touching her cheeks. The pain he’d absorbed on her behalf wounded her so deeply she’d begun to cry.

“Look at me,” she whispered.

Her eyes searched his, and she saw the same things she always saw within them, his perennial joie de vivre, pride and honesty. Instant heat flooded her body. Without considering consequences, she grabbed his face in both hands. Her tongue licked along the scar on his chin and up to taste his lower lip. Hesitating only to wonder at how the imperfection enhanced his beauty, she kissed him with everything in her.

Mmmmm. She leaned back to look at him. He grinned. Gorgeous bastard. He had an arsenal of smiles, each one designed for a different kind of damage. This particular expression promised body-rocking sex. It shattered her resolve to stay away from men. She heard it crumble as she devoured him lips, tongue and all.

Keoni carried her to the shower, returning every hungry kiss along the way. Before stepping inside, he dropped her legs but kept one arm around her waist. The contact of their bodies remained unbroken while he chucked off his baggies. She sighed into his mouth as the swim trunks slid to the floor.

Ooooh sweet damn, the man had his entire hard length pressed against her stomach, raw silk and sculptured stone. It could have been another delusion—she couldn’t actually hear her resolve crumbling—but she’d swear he spanned the space from bikini wax to belly button and she loved it. So much so, she swore when he lifted his head to look at her.

Nooo,
her mind wailed.
Don’t give me time to think.
If she pondered where his kisses led she’d kick him in the short and curlies and run screaming.

“I don’t want to hurt you, manu.”

Keoni licked the curve of his lower lip, his breathing harsh and deep.

“In my state of mind, I could sex you black and blue.”

All right, then.
Her heart rate sped up with excitement Apparently she’d be on the receiving end of a good, hard tumble. Clever boy, she didn’t mind at all. Ciaran pressed her lips to his throat, making sexy little noises to fuel his passion. When his erection jumped against her belly she knew she’d taken away his self-control, and mentally crossed it off the list of options available to him.

He gently placed her on her feet. “Can you take it rough,
manu?
”

“Oh hells yes,” she said, grabbing his face and pulling him down for more snogging.

Keoni groaned into her lips, his expression strained. “Easy,” he muttered as much to himself as to her. “Keep pressing me and I’ll flip you over and our first time will end before either of us gets to enjoy it.” He caressed her cheek with the back of one hand. “And, ipo, I really want to savor this.”

Ciaran flashed him a naughty look and nipped the tip of his nose.
“Dammit, woman. I’ve got to get you ready before…”
His train of thought ended in another groan.

Taking each of her hands, he eased them from his face, sliding them down to rest on his chest. Ciaran opened her mouth to protest the break in kissing, but Keoni placed one finger to her lips. His eyes promised more and better.
“Mo’bettah.”
Without breaking their locked gazes, he reached for the scented body wash she favored. Soaping his hands, he nipped playfully at her lips and earlobes.

Completely mesmerized by the depth of his hazel gaze, Ciaran lost track of the big Hawaiian’s hands…until the sudden, soapy heat of him working magic between her legs made her back arch. She grasped his arm and shoulder to keep from falling.

Keoni was quicker and moved his free hand to the small of her back. There was no need to worry about falling with him around. He pressed his lips to her forehead and chuckled in affirmation. She didn’t need to worry about anything with him around. She pulled back, gave him a wide-eyed look of warning and burst into giggles.

Something in her smile must have struck Keoni. A shudder passed over him, his gaze trained on her mouth. Ciaran studied his face. Her laughter had disrupted the rhythm he’d found in teasing her bud with his fingers. Lovely. She relished her ability to ruffle him.

Tightening one arm around her waist, he lifted her into position. Then used the other to guide her legs to hang straight down. Her instincts spurred her to wrap her legs around his waist, but it wasn’t what he wanted.

“Not yet, manu.”

He slowly slipped himself straight through the V of her legs, sending hot shock waves through her folds. The soap lubricated the skin of her thighs, allowing him to glide back and forth in sweet torture. As each stroke parted her, his tip hit her bud and made it sing. The veins in his shaft rippled past, continuing the delirium. Ciaran vibrated as the friction forward and back brought her to the edge.

Keoni eased her grip on his hair and pressed her arm to the tile behind her. Letting go, he ran his fingers up her arm, stopping to intertwine them with hers. He sighed into another deep kiss and shifted his arm, arching her back more to give him easy access to her breasts.

“Damn you’ve got the perfect surfer-girl body.”
He dipped his head to swirl his tongue over her breasts and teased the tips with his teeth, all the while sending her mental images of how badly he wanted to take her out on his surfboard. To show her his world—for real this time.

Ciaran had to work hard to keep from wrapping her legs around his hips. Any change in position would end the delicious motion between her folds and over her pleasure center and she didn’t want it to stop. His free hand slid down her hip to keep her legs closed tight, increasing the pressure and friction to the point of overload. She came in waves of pleasure so intense, they wiped her mind blank.

Disentangling his fingers from hers, Keoni used both hands to lift and wrap her legs around him. Ciaran’s body kept convulsing in pleasure as he entered her in one thrust.

“Ahhh.” He groaned deep in his throat.

His thumbs rested on her stomach while his fingers wrapped her waist and spanned her back. He controlled her rhythm with the placement of his hands. Matching her pace to his, he brought her near abandon every time his balls bounced against her backside.

Ciaran cried out with each thrust. They sent sparks through her, the force and pressure almost too much. Too good. She was the anvil, molten metal to Keoni’s skilled blacksmith, and he worked her well.

She claimed him as her own, transforming him as much as he did her. Every stroke molded them both into something new, entirely of their own making. The light of their joining enveloped them; emotions and pleasure pulsated around them. Her hand shot out to grasp the uppermost showerhead while the fingernails of the other scraped the tiles, seeking purchase.

They came simultaneously, her muscles convulsing and releasing to take every ounce he had to give. He gave willingly and took masterfully. He bit her shoulder as throes of passion washed over them, then laid his forehead against her chest, neither able to catch their breath, barely able to move.

“Uh-oh,” he said, panting, “look what you did.”

Sighing softly, Ciaran turned in the direction of his gaze. Why had the top showerhead stopped working? She opened her hand and groaned. The metal was mangled, pressed into the shape of her clasped fingers like silly putty.

“How’d I do that?”

He smirked.

“We’re strong together, but you’re stronger than you should be. Guess it’s the shape-shifter in you.” She waved him off, her focus elsewhere.

“Ohhhh,” she groaned, “I can’t afford to replace anything in this house!”

“I can. So you can… Somnians are real good at playing the stock market.”

Both her brows lifted. “Insider trading?”

“Yeah.” He chuckled, his finger tapping third-eye territory. “Deep inside.”

The movement of his body incited hers to resume its convulsive rhythm. Keoni’s head dropped back to her breasts.

“Oh shit,
ipo
,” he ground out. His hands gripped her shoulders to still her, and she bit her bottom lip to conceal her glee, high on power and pleasure.