Pleasures of the Night(24)
Author: Sylvia Day

"You do." His voice was rough, scratchy like sandpaper.

"I don’t want to stop doing those things. You need someone to take care of you."

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "What a pair we are. You need looking after, too, Hot Stuff. You and I spend so much time taking care of everyone else, we neglect ourselves. You’re the only thing I’ve ever wanted just for me. Selfishly."

What he wouldn’t give to spend his life with her, grow old with her, die beside her. Far better for life to be short and sweet, than eternal and empty. But the most he could do for her was ensure her the longest life possible. So she could marry. Have children and grandchildren. Another man’s children and grandchildren.

The images in his mind were like a knife thrust deep in his heart. Turning, gouging, killing him slowly and without mercy. He crushed her to him, but she didn’t complain.

"Can we stay here like this forever?" she asked with a mournful sigh.

He took a moment to control his voice and then spoke as lightly as he could manage. "I think the bed would be more comfortable."

She gave a quiet laugh. It wasn’t the full-bodied merri-ment he loved, but it was much better for his sanity than her grieved tone.

"How about a shower?" he suggested.

"Together?"

"I would love to, but I should clean up the dining room and get breakfast started."

She leaned back enough to look up at him with those big, dark eyes, and he cupped her shoulder blades to keep her from falling. The silent trust she had that he would support her made his smile genuine. Yes, she’d had her doubts about him, but despite them, she had always gone with her instincts, and they’d always ruled in his favor.

"What are you planning to make up for breakfast?"

She’d laughed until she cried when he came upstairs at three A.M. bearing a plate of Chips Ahoy! cookies with gobs of peanut butter smeared on the tops. "What?" he’d asked, grinning. "Peanut butter has protein."

That reply had her falling over with mirth, her lithe body rolling amid the tangled blue sheets. He’d set the plate down on the nightstand and joined her, eventually sitting back against the headboard and pulling her into his lap. She had straddled his thighs while facing him, his c*ck hard and throbbing inside her. They’d smeared peanut butter on each other’s lips and licked it off, making love with cookies and laughter.

He kissed the tip of her nose. "I’ll figure out something."

"Okay. I trust you." Her low, fervent tone touched him as few things ever had. With all that he’d told her yesterday, her belief in him said so much.

They separated reluctantly and rose from the sofa. Once they were standing, Aidan pulled his pendant over his head, tugged her closer, and slipped it around her neck. It settled between her br**sts and glowed with an inner fire, an anomaly he’d assumed was attributed to either the journey here or a reaction to this world. It had never crossed his mind that the stone might be reacting to Lyssa.

He pressed his palm over both it and her heart.

"I can’t take this," she breathed, setting her hand over his. "It’s precious to you."

He shook his head. "You are precious to me. Promise me you’ll always wear it. I’ve never removed it. I shower with it, bathe with it. There’s no reason for you to take it off. It can’t be damaged, and it won’t tarnish like Earth metals do. I need to know that this will never lose contact with your skin."

"Aidan?" Her dark eyes were wary and capped with a frown.

"Just promise me. For my peace of mind."

"Of course." She lifted the stone to her lips and kissed it, then rose on her tiptoes and kissed him. "I will treasure it always. Thank you."

"Thank you." He held her tightly to him, his lips pressed hard to her forehead. Inhaling deeply, he tried to imprint the smell and feel of her into his memory so that he would never forget it.

"We’ll find a way to be together, Aidan." Her small hands stroked down his back. "I refuse to think that it can’t be done."

Aidan knew she felt that way. She survived because she refused to give up hope. That was why he couldn’t tell her anything until after he was gone. She would try to stop him from going if she knew he wasn’t coming back.

"Get ready to eat," he said, stepping back and releasing her, keeping the careless smile on his face by sheer willpower alone.

Their fingers stayed laced together until the last possible moment, then she took the stairs, and he went to the dining room. Aidan arranged the books in such a way that his purpose and motivations were clear. He couldn’t let her think he’d left or was taken. He needed her to know why he was leaving, so that she could live with it. Accept it. Move past it.

She wouldn’t notice anything amiss at first, but later, when she looked closely, she would understand.

He saved the note for last, pulling out a chair and taking a deep breath before writing his good-bye.

He couldn’t do it face to face. It would be far too painful. Folding the paper, he lifted it to his lips and kissed it, then set it above the open pages of the book he’d stolen from Sheron.

The second book, the jeweled one with the references to Stonehenge and star alignment, seemed to have little or no relationship to the one the Elders kept hidden. If there were answers to be found in that, he couldn’t find them. It appeared to present more problems than solutions, like a puzzle that became more complicated the further into it he got.

Without conscious thought, his fingertips drifted over the text he’d translated.

"Beware of the Key that turns the Lock and reveals the Truth."

The words struck him hard, each one an individual blow.

He sat tmmoving, his breath whistling in and out between clenched teeth.

The Key wasn’t going to open the Gateway to the Nightmares. The Key was going to reveal something the Elders didn’t want revealed. That was why they were hunting for it. That was why they wanted it destroyed.

But why the Key was a Dreamer and why the traits attributed to it were so important, he didn’t know. And the pendant…

His eyes closed on a shudder. There, in the ancient text, he’d found a drawing of the pendant Sheron had given him so long ago. A relic of the old world. A part of the prophecy the Elders had never shared with anyone. The stone would protect her, the glowing reaction it had to her proximity enhancing her abilities in the Twilight. She’d been able to create the door without it. With it, he imagined she would be able to keep Guardians and Nightmares away from the portal altogether. She would finally be safe in dreams.

When he’d first translated that section of the text, he’d been confused as to why something so dangerous would be given to him, a man who was sent out nightly to interact with Dreamers who might be the Key. Why wouldn’t it be locked away?

Then he’d read further.

The Key. The Lock. The Guardian.

Lyssa was the Key, as evidenced by the reaction of the stone, which was the Lock. He could only assume that he was the Guardian. And the result of the combination of the three?

"The end of the Universe as we now know it."

Further translation was sketchy. Many of the words used were unfamiliar to him. But some things were clear. Rupture. Annihilation. To say it didn’t sound good would be a huge understatement.

He had to return to the Twilight for answers, and he had to stay away from Lyssa.

Fissure creation wasn’t the direction he needed to be looking. He needed to know what it was about Lyssa’s ability to see into the Twilight and control dreams that made the Elders so fearful. Why wouldn’t a curious Guardian, like him, be an equal threat? And the stone. What was it? What was its purpose? Why had it been given to him?

And what did this all mean? Were the Elders malevolent or benevolent? He didn’t know, but he couldn’t help thinking that if their cause was just, they would have shared it freely with the Guardians. They’d lied about so much. They said the trip to this world was one-way, but parts of his translation led him to believe otherwise. Why would they hide the ability to travel freely between the conduit and this plane? It was only one of countless unanswered questions.

But, if he was wrong about the round-trip travel, it was possible he could wake again in this world. Aidan’s jaw tightened. He couldn’t allow that to happen if his presence here jeopardized Lyssa. He would have to prevent it. By whatever means necessary.

The water in the shower upstairs turned off, galvanizing him into action. Aidan washed quickly in the downstairs bathroom, then moved to the kitchen, steeling himself inwardly for the parting that was rapidly approaching.

* * *

Hearing the low, warbling birdcall that said it was safe to proceed, Connor set his jaw grimly and entered the Temple of the Elders. Using comms wasn’t possible in a situation like this, where their transmissions would be picked up and used against them later. By necessity, this was a stripped-down mission. His favorite kind.

Philip had taken out the guard at the entryway with a blow dart dipped in tranquilizer. Then he’d retrieved it from the unfortunate man’s neck so that no evidence was left behind. The guard would awaken with only the vague sensation of having dozed, perhaps in boredom. Connor would do the same to the lone sentinel in the control room. They hoped their careful planning would prevent them from being both seen and remembered. If they could manage to get some answers and then retreat without being detected, he would consider the engagement a resounding success.

Keeping this objective in mind, Connor moved within the shadows, his senses alert, his steps deliberately planned and timed to avoid being recorded. He entered the middle hallway that led away from the haiden. The hall to the left branched off toward the living quarters of the Elders. The hall to the right led to a secluded, open-air meditation courtyard.

So far, so good.

As he walked, a vibration beneath his feet drew Connor’s attention to the floor. The stone shimmered and became translucent, frightening him for a moment into thinking the ground had completely disappeared and he was about to fall into the endless blanket of stars revealed. He groped for the wall in an instinctive gambit to save himself, then the view of space melted into a swirling kaleidoscope of colors.

"Fuck me," he breathed.

Arrested by the display, Connor stared agape, wondering if what he was watching was real or a projection of some sort.

Then, knowing time was short, he forced himself to ignore the vertigo caused by the floor and continued on. With each step, ripples of writhing colors spread outward, as if he were walking in a body of shallow rainbow water. Up ahead, he spied an arched entryway and stealthily pressed his back to the wall directly next to it. He glanced inside and saw one Elder bent over a lighted console.

Connor withdrew the dagger at his thigh and held it away from him, angling the shiny blade to catch the reflection of his industriously working target. He would have one shot at this. If he missed, he would give away his position and intent, and set himself up for severe disciplinary action.

So he pulled out his blowgun with his other hand and waited patiently, ignoring the drops of sweat that slid down his temple. When the Elder finally turned away to remove a book from the wall of volumes behind him, Connor filled the doorway, taking the space of a heartbeat to aim before sending the tiny dart flying across the not inconsiderable distance between himself and the Elder.

He then returned to his spot, his gaze on the wildly swirling floor, waiting until he heard the thud of the unconscious Elder falling.

Before he entered the room, Connor whistled, telling Philip that he’d succeeded and to start the clock ticking. The tranquilizer would not hold for long.

"Tell me all your secrets," he murmured, setting his blade next to him on the control panel. Before him lay a semicircular panel of lighted buttons. Above that, embedded in a raised lip, were a dozen small vid screens, each one displaying a view of various Guardians engaged in their assignments. He stared at the display, his mind faltering at the realization of what exactly he was looking at.

All this time, the Guardians had assumed their moments spent in a Dreamer’s stream of unconsciousness were private. They were not.

Which means they would have known of the captain’s suspicions about the Dreamer. They would have seen the growing attachment between the two. Perhaps they had even fostered it by sending him back to her. They had allowed the relationship to progress because they were aware, not because they were ignorant.

Intrigued and horrified by the thought, Connor set to work, running through the archives with nimble keystrokes, trying to prove or disprove his guess. A quick glance toward the doorway showed him that the hallway floor had resumed its appearance of marble now that he no longer stood upon it. Too many oddities in a world he once thought he understood completely.

All the years he’d spend teasing and dismissing Aidan for his overwhelming curiosity rose up as bile in Connor’s throat. Sex and fighting were all he had cared to focus on. How frivolous that seemed now. Life was not as simple as a halfhearted search for a centuries-old prophecy.

Who are the Elders? Who put them in charge? Why the drastic change in their appearance? Where did they learn about the Key? Why do we stop aging? Don’t you ever wonder these things?

You ask too many questions, Cross.

Stupid. He never went into any mission without knowing every facet of the situation, yet he’d lived his life without knowing jackshit, as the past few moments had made abundantly clear.

"No more." He rolled his shoulders back, the primary focus of his life switching in one powerful moment of epiphany. "That’s all about to change."

Then he heard his name and stilled, trying to discern where the sound had come from. He heard it again, and his wide-eyed gaze lifted to the row of monitors. "Cross."

On the farthest screen to the right he saw Aidan’s dream… and Aidan.

As Lyssa put lotion on her face, she considered her dilemma and wondered what, if anything, she could do about it. She couldn’t help Aidan with the books he’d brought with him since his language was beyond her, but she had noted that the new books he’d purchased the day before had been about Stonehenge. She didn’t know why the place held such interest for him, but she would find out.