Supernatural. Part 28

"If that were true," he finished for her, "then you wouldn't be alone."

"I . . . I'm not alone," she denied quietly, her face turning from him. "I have my sister."

"Corrine, there is nothing wrong with wanting a companion in your life," he told her.

Perhaps it was the infinite compa.s.sion in his voice that made her look back at him, but the sight of her br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes stabbed into Kane like a huge, butcher knife.

"I've done everything I was supposed to do," she said softly, a hard sniffle trying to force back her feelings. "I went to school. I've got a good career. I live a strong and independent lifestyle. I'm good to other people as much as I can be. I take care of my family. I try so hard to do everything right . . ."

"Corrine, your lack of a partner has nothing to do with some kind of cosmic scorecard. Not in the way you think," he countered. "Destiny isn't punis.h.i.+ng you by forcing you to be alone. Very much the contrary, sweetheart. She was simply making sure you were ready and open when your true mate came along."

She pushed back at the thick coiling curls of her cinnamon-fire hair and gave him a dirty look. "And let me guess. That special guy just happens to be you, right? How friggin' convenient for me that I just happened to get so lucky as to be held prisoner by your side, eh? Oh, wait. That's not luck, that's you insisting I'm going to croak if I budge so much as an inch off this bed! And can someone tell me again why I believe that ridiculous claim?"

Kane watched her pull back behind this caustic display with a sense of fascination. It was almost enough to make him forget the insistent desire punching through his body repeatedly. She was so beautiful. Even when she tried to be as p.r.i.c.kly as a cactus, he found her utterly gorgeous.

"Because," he replied absently as his eyes dropped of their own accord over her bare curves, "you've seen the proof of it. You left me and it hurt you. Drained you. Now, after only a couple of hours near me, you're able to sit up again."

"It's called rest," she argued. "You had nothing to do with it!"

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, really!"

"Then prove me wrong. Come here and kiss me."

Corrine gaped at him. "And just what the h.e.l.l is that going to prove, besides the fact that I'm a gullible idiot?" she demanded.

"Come and kiss me and see."

He watched with amus.e.m.e.nt as she debated the wisdom of falling for what she thought was a prank, a way of conning her into cheap thrills. He forgave her for thinking so little of him. After all, she hardly knew him. He, on the other hand, knew everything about her. He'd staked her out, observed her, read her mind, and hunted her down. There wasn't a single thing about her, not even the deepest secret she had, that he wasn't privy to. He knew exactly who she was, and Kane knew she was everything he could ever have wanted. He also knew he was everything she had ever wanted. It would just take a little time to make her see that.

She chewed on her bottom lip for a long minute, forcing herself to keep her eyes on his face, studying him very closely to try to read what kind of game he was running on her. After a minute she made a little sound of disgust.

"Fine. Whatever floats your boat, sport. I'm going to love to see how you fast talk your way out of this one." With that, Corrine scooted up onto her knees, grasped hold of him with hands on either side of his face, and leaned forward until she was just about to lay her mouth against his. Kane didn't even realize it, but as she hesitated he began to pant heavily for breath. The closer she was, the more difficult it became for him to control the vicious hunger Samhain was beating into his body. His hands curled down into tight fists, the chains pulling taut with a c.h.i.n.k of sound that made her glance up at his bound wrists. The small smile that touched her lips at the corners told him that she was enjoying her position of power over him. But he didn't begrudge her that. The tables were about to turn.

Corrine was super cautious as she touched the barest surface of her lips to Kane's. When he didn't move or make a single sound, when he didn't even so much as blink, she dared to move an increment closer. His mouth was nice, lax, and soft, completely lacking any aggression. Somehow she had expected him to try to press himself onto her, take instant command . . . to try to prove something to her. She certainly hadn't expected him to lie utterly pa.s.sive and quiet as she tentatively kissed him. She drew back and c.o.c.ked a brow at him. He chuckled, the sound short and clearly derisive.

"What are you? Two?" he mocked her. "I've seen twelve year olds kiss with more pa.s.sion than that."

Kane's redheaded mate gasped with a hot flash of indignant fury. "Why you lousy son of a-!"

That was when Kane surged up at her and captured her scowling mouth. He caught the pa.s.sion of that temper between them, letting the power of it loop them together like the surest of knots. It was true that all the information he and his brethren knew about the Imprinting had come from rare live examples and potentially embellished fairy tales, but one thing had always seemed to be consistent in the tales he'd heard. Nothing kick-started the Imprinting faster than fierce emotion, and some of the most ferocious was anger and outrage. Oh, he would have preferred love or even just blatant pa.s.sion, but he was limited by the situation and could only work within certain bounds.

The kiss seared them together at their mouths, the crush of lips awkward and harsh at first because of his lurching, graceless attack on her. But he cheated for just a moment or two, his mind taking over her motor control so she couldn't rush away from him, the resulting paralysis dropping her against his chest and mouth.

The result was instantaneous ignition. Like a rocket roiling out burning fuel at liftoff, the sensation exploded over them both. Kane's libido screamed into overdrive, demanding all he had been denied when his brother and his King had bolted him down next to Corrine, forcing him to bear up under all her warm sighs and subconscious snuggling against his raw body. Her mind did not recognize him; the mores and hang-ups of her species interfering noisily, but when she'd been asleep, her body had had no doubt as to whom it craved. Now she was getting a crash course in what it had felt like for him as he had struggled through this sacred full moon. She would be untouched by it no longer. Never again, in fact. Kane growled inside in frustration as his shackles kept him from wrapping her into his embrace, kept him from dominating the moment anymore than he already had. But he knew Abram, his Siddah, who was keeping him from teleporting out of the bindings, would not free him until Noah gave him leave to do so.

So he dismissed the limitation and let it work in his favor. He slowly relaxed back into the pillows behind him and Corrine hastily moved forward to close any distance that might be created by the action. Ensnared by the shocking heat of Imprinted pa.s.sion, she was stunned into reacting purely on instinct. Kane knew she had never felt anything like this in all of her human existence, but he liked the feel of her wicked delight and surprise as it burst through her in sprays of hot cinder and liquid lava. She reached to wrap her hands tightly around his head, seizing him firmly and fiercely as her lush mouth worked heatedly against his. Kane pulled for breath as his body strained with hardest heat for her. She opened her mouth and licked his lips with an achingly gorgeous invitation.

She sealed their mouths together and swiped her artful tongue against his. The pure flavor of her mouth burst against Kane's tongue and he ground out a deep sound of pleasure. But it was nothing compared to the shout that escaped him when she unthinkingly threw her leg astride his hips and settled her weight down against his fly.

Corrine did it to catch his kisses at a better, deeper angle. When she settled over him, though, she felt his entire being clench in response and need whiplashed back into her like a raging brushfire. She went liquid against him, pressing her rapidly overheating skin to his and rocking herself against his aroused body in thoughtless want. She never once broke their kiss, her slender, sensual body writhing with kinetic energy over his until he was shaking with the intensity of his desire for her.

"Touch me!" he gasped in command against her devouring lips. "Sweet Destiny, have mercy on me, Corrine, and touch me!"

Kane was straining so hard at his shackles that they were biting viciously into his flesh, the scent of fresh blood rising up sharply to compete with the pungent delight of Corrine's aroused body. Musk, sweet and sultry, s.h.i.+mmered against his senses as she drew her hands free of his hair and finally brought them down the expanse of his chest.

Corrine didn't understand what she was doing! A kiss, a simple kiss! That was all it was supposed to be. An obnoxious little peck to disprove the claims of her obnoxious bed-partner. Except suddenly there was a conflagration of positive proof that all his claims might have more than a little value. Every second she remained connected to him she felt revitalizing energy infusing her every cell. The weakness that had dogged her was fading fast and she suddenly felt starved. Starved for food, starved for energy, starved for a pa.s.sion long due her.

This is it! This was what she had been looking for! This amazing, incredible feeling! It was like flying. It was all about dissolving into the ultimate and perfect pa.s.sion. How? How could she possibly be finding this pa.s.sion with a total stranger? Why now, of all the moments and of all the situations, why now? Why him?

And why, when he asked her to touch him, was she unable to resist doing exactly that? Suddenly she needed to feel him. All of him, everywhere she could possibly reach, just as quickly as she could. She kissed him until she could scarcely draw a breath, her hands running down the bare contours of his fine chest and tensed abdominals. Her skin was burning with the need to feel his hands and she tried to satisfy it by rubbing her body sinuously against his.

"Oh my G.o.d! Oh G.o.d, you feel so good," she cried out blindly, splitting her focus between the feel of him against her wriggling body and the sensation of his hot skin under her palms. Then the feel of his skin was replaced by the coa.r.s.e thickness of denim and the burning heat of hardened flesh beneath it. The next thing either of them knew, her deft fingers were unb.u.t.toning and unzipping his pants. She reached into his briefs and wrapped an eager hand around the incredibly thick circ.u.mference of his erection.

Kane broke from her mouth and shouted a vivid curse. His hips surged up into her grasp, forcing himself through her fingers. "Corrine!" he gasped, choking on his next demands when she slid her fist straight down his jutting length.

"Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, yes . . ." she hummed as she looked down the landscape of his body to see the prize she'd taken hold of. She couldn't get her hand completely around him and the realization made her body go wet with antic.i.p.ation. It was as if she were possessed by something within herself that she had never encountered before. For a moment she tried to focus on the remnants of suspicion and confusion that had hounded her before she had touched him. Before she had tasted him.

Tasted him.

The craving for his taste seared through her mind an instant before it seared through his. Realizing what she was going to do almost unmanned him. The fever in his blood reached a boiling point as her fiery hair trailed down his torso. Tensed tight in antic.i.p.ation, Kane threw out a desperate plea to his mentor, the man he called Siddah.

Let me be free! he begged Abram.

You know I cannot. Not without Noah's leave, was the reply.

I was seized in order to protect her from unwanted advances! You see she is willing!

She is possessed by the Samhain moon, Kane. You've used it against her to have your way. She is young, unskilled, weakened, and uninformed. The fact that she is being the aggressor at the moment is a mere technicality. Jacob and I raised you better than this.

Kane threw back his head and roared with the agonizing pain of his needful body and his stabbed conscience. It was the feel of her breath coasting hotly over the wet head of his erection that jolted him back to the issue at hand.

"Corrine, stop! Don't do this. Sweet Destiny, you have to-"

Her tongue touched against him and he felt it like a match burning a fuse into life. It was nothing tentative or shy; it was the bold stroke of a woman starved for the flavor of her lover. Kane jolted and his entire being seemed to gather energy up all at once. He had been suffering in need for so long beside her that this single contact had the power to drive him out of control. He was going to lose it all. Like an overeager boy fumbling clumsily with the precious gift of a young girl's innocence, he was going to create damage that could never be undone.

"Jason Deaver!"

Chapter 4.

Kane blurted out the accursed name, a last ditch effort to rescue himself from the disaster he had created. He dragged the offensive moniker out of the deepest, darkest place in her mind and slapped her with it. She drew back so sharply and so suddenly that Kane had to fight not to sob with relief; to sob with devastation and loss. But now her suspicion was back, and pain and hurt were welling up fast and fierce in her eyes. She backed away from him as if he'd suddenly sprouted plague symptoms and curled her back into a cringe.

"What did you just say?" she asked him hoa.r.s.ely, even though they both knew what he had said.

Kane needed precious moments to catch his breath, to calm the rage within his body. Abram was right. He could claim no satisfaction from Corrine while she was lost in the blind fever of the Samhain moon. When that haze cleared she would feel used and betrayed . . . and she would be right to feel that way. And even though it made him suffer vicious jabs of pain from unrealized release, he confronted her with the name again.

"Jason Deaver. You were fourteen to his eighteen. Infatuated and innocent, you thought you could trust him."

"Shut up," she hissed darkly at him.

"But he just wanted to get off, and he didn't give a d.a.m.n about how you felt. He blundered around on top of you for what? Ten seconds? And then it was over and you-"

"Shut up!"

"-never saw him again." Kane drew a deep, unsteady breath. "I won't let this be like that, Corrine. I lost it for a minute there, I know, but I am not going to let you get all caught up . . . only to come down from it calling me the names you called him for years."

The Demon watched with no little suffering as she withdrew even further and curled up into her own body. She took Yoga, he knew, and so was in the habit of flexing her limber arms and legs around herself, but this was strictly protective. She was trying to erect an armor of limbs around her hurting heart and spirit.

The wound he spoke of was deep in her past, and it was true that she rarely even thought about it or took it out for examination. Corrine had considered it a hard lesson learned and had never forgotten since then to take everything a s.e.xually invested male said with a very large grain of salt.

But she didn't know how to apply that lesson to this situation. She looked at him from the side of her eyes, seeing the way he struggled for control of himself, his breath coming so hard and his skin bright with perspiration. He was nearly stripped to his thighs, her eagerness and haste to hold him in her hands having been so sharp that she had . . .

Corrine's face flushed with new heat as she recalled exactly how she had felt and how driving that need had been. She felt a heavy thread of mortification for her unexpectedly wanton behavior. She closed her eyes, hiding her face against her updrawn knee and trying like h.e.l.l to hide from her own embarra.s.sment. What had gotten into her? It was to have been a simple kiss! How had that so rapidly evolved into her having his musky flavor on her tongue? What had . . . what had he done to her?

"It wasn't like that," Kane said, interrupting her thoughts.

"You've already proven you can take control of my mind and manipulate me like a marionette!"

"Do I look like I want a marionette?" he demanded in a sharp temper. "If I wanted a brainless s.e.x toy, Corrine, I have the power to make you forget everything you'd do! You wouldn't be sitting there questioning me because you'd never even realize you'd missed a step in your daily life. And frankly, babe, if you and I are going to burn up the sheets together, I want you to remember every d.a.m.n minute of it!"

"Why? Why me?" she yelled at him sharply and suddenly. "Why are you here like this"-she indicated his lashed down state-"and why am I here with you? You won't explain any of this to me and yet you expect me to simply accept and believe whatever choice bits of information you feel like doling out! Just tell me what is happening to me!"

"Don't you think I want to tell you all of that? I want nothing more than to clear the air and make you realize just how important all of this is!"

"Then do it, Kane! Stop p.u.s.s.yfooting around my delicate sensibilities and just explain this to me!"

"You're mine!" Kane blurted it out in a growl of frustration and need. The demanding conditions of the sharp moon that rose higher and higher with every second forced the claim out of him. "Mine! Not just for now but forever, Corrine! The person you've been searching for? That other half you've always known was missing from your soul? It's me. Me." Kane closed his eyes then and laughed with strained control. He couldn't bear to see that caustic, disbelieving expression on her face. She was looking at him as if he were some kind of horrible insect crawling up out of her drain. Unwanted. Undesired. Potentially dangerous and harmful. Well, so be it. If she was going to think the worst of him, then what more harm could it do to throw a few choice logs on the fire?

"I'm not human, you know," he told her, a sudden grin striking his mouth. "And if you need more proof of that than what you've already seen, I'm momentarily going to have to disappoint you. My best parlor trick has been snuffed for the time being in order to keep me here." Kane jerked on the wrist shackles above his head. "And for that matter, you aren't entirely human either. I mean, you were, but then I touched you and apparently that set off this whole chain reaction that altered the h.e.l.l out of your DNA . . . to the point that it almost killed you . . . and shot my s.e.x drive into oblivion. See, I wasn't supposed to touch you, and I wasn't supposed to want you and I broke the law by doing both. I just couldn't stay away. You're just so remarkable . . . so strong and vital . . . so d.a.m.n beautiful and independent. Yet you're covering up this chasm of loneliness inside. You called me to you. You were craving exactly what I can offer." Kane stole a glance at her. "Except the reality is that you think I am a lunatic. You think you've been kidnapped and thrown into some kind of weird human experiment or a practical joke. So I guess the odds of really getting to learn the things I want to learn . . . like what you feel like under my hands . . . like what you'll sound like when you laugh genuinely for me . . . I guess that's completely screwed up now."

Kane looked away from her, his long lashes lowering over suddenly hollow eyes. That he was utterly devastated by his situation was clear to Corrine. She could do little more than gape at him for the longest moment as she tried to process everything he had said to her. Of course, she ought to be telling herself he was insane because he thought he wasn't human, but all she could seem to focus on was the s.h.i.+vering thrill that raced beneath her skin when he spoke of touching her. She couldn't escape the way it made her feel when he spoke of craving something as simple as her laugh. She knew in her soul that it wasn't just a line, and she had never believed the words of any man with such conviction. Not since she'd learned that boys sometimes lied to get their way.

What was it about him that compelled her to believe in him so utterly? "If you aren't human, then what are you?" she asked.

Kane looked over at her briefly. His short laugh was a nearly soundless burst of air through his nose. "Well, pretty lady, my people are known as Demons. No wings, no fangs . . . not usually, anyway." There was a brief flash of a toothy grin and she could feel the mischief that swirled into his personality for that fleeting instant. It was an odd sensation, almost as if she were intruding directly into his mind. She wished for a moment that she could read his mind. Then she could figure out what he was up to. It wasn't the first time she'd had the desire to be able to read a man's mind so she would know if she could trust him. "We're people almost exactly like you. Except . . ."

"Except you can read the thoughts of others," she injected into the pause. "And we're not in some kind of h.e.l.l, I take it?" Corrine looked up to indicate the stone room around her with its beautiful stained gla.s.s cathedral windows and rich castle-like appointments. It looked like a high end tourists' castle hotel, other than the gas lighting perhaps and the set of chains holding him securely in place.

"Oh, I'm in some kind of h.e.l.l," Kane countered bitterly. But the sarcasm spoke as an affirmative answer to her question.

"So it's just a name. Demon."

"No. It's a culture, Corrine. A deeply complex culture with all the same sorts of mores, rules, and monsters as yours has. But it's a little more dangerous and it revolves around the night instead of the day. We live our lives, have jobs, find mates . . ." There was a distinct breech in his sentence as he slowly slid his gaze from the top of her head, all the way to the knees she was resting on beside him. The look was fast and fierce, beyond hot as it burned over her, and very, very clear in its intention. "Sometimes we have perfect mates. Soul mates. We call that connection an Imprinting. It's oh so very rare, Corrine, but when it happens . . ." He closed his eyes and drew in a slow, deep breath, his expression turning peaceful and pa.s.sionate at the same time. "When it happens, we treasure it with all that we are. Just like you would."

"But"-she laughed nervously-"we don't usually just look at a total stranger and think There he is! That right there is my soul mate!' It's a long process, getting to know someone that well. It takes time to figure that sort of thing out."

"Not for us. Not for you and me. At least not physically speaking," he amended when she startled at his intensity. "This is a chemical connection, sweetheart. It's science. DNA and biological imperative. That much is written in our blood and cannot be changed. You and I are connected in this symbiosis of energy-" he indicated himself with his eyes, then looked at her-"and need for energy." He rushed onward when she seemed to be quietly listening, needing for her to hear him. "Some creatures in this world are driven by certain biochemical compulsions and some are driven by the turn of the seasons and time. My people are driven by both. And tonight . . . tonight is one of the most intense nights on our calendar. Tonight is Samhain, when the moon rises to its fullest in October. The weeks before and after are hard enough to deal with, but tonight is the worst. There's only one drive that seems to matter to us. And if we don't have our true mates, we'll try to satisfy it as best we can wherever we can. But if we find that one . . . that ever so precious one . . . then only that mate will do from that moment on. Civilization and logic and mores stop meaning anything to us; all we want is our mate. No matter what. Even if she doesn't know who we are. Even if she is sick and unconscious. It's a drive, Corrine, and I want to fight it with everything I have so I can approach you the right way . . . the way you deserve. The way I know you crave." With sweetness and romance. Tenderness and caring. You want to be wooed and swept away and you think it's a fantasy that will never be fulfilled, but it will. It will. I just need to get through tonight. Then I can give you the romance as well as the pa.s.sion. I can give you everything!

But this is all just words and empty promises to her, he thought to himself, looking away from Corrine's very stunned expression. She doesn't believe a word of it. Why should she when all she has known are liars who'll speak sweetness to her in order to coax their way into those amazing arms and that incredible body?

Kane's eyes closed and the pain on his features etched into deeper lines. "Oh, honey," he sighed, "I know you don't believe me. To you I must seem like just one more in a long line of con artists. I've just got a better line right? More creative?"

Corrine didn't acknowledge him. Her brain was churning out other information. I heard his thoughts! she realized with no little sense of awe. She realized by his spoken words that he had not meant for her to hear what had rung like a conversation in her head. It had been loud and then soft, fading in and out of clarity, different from when he spoke directly into her thoughts in a clear and distinct manner. What was most telling was the sheer emotion behind his thoughts. When he'd spoken into her mind before, it had only been his voice she'd experienced. But this time she felt everything. She felt his frustration and his desperation. She felt, once again, that ring of utter truthfulness. He wasn't lying to her. She could tell. She could read his thoughts!

As well as his starkest emotions. His rawest needs.

They came barreling forward, rus.h.i.+ng into her inexperienced, awakening mind like a defensive line of burly ball players. Cras.h.i.+ng into her hard and fast, screaming his agonizing physical need.

"Oh my G.o.d!" she gasped, suddenly doubling over and reaching to clutch at the bed sheets. It flooded over her whole body, a tension of constant readiness and endless craving. Her heart began to race as fast as his was, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s filled heavily with a rus.h.i.+ng heat of blood and awareness until her body s.h.i.+vered and her nipples came to painfully erect attention. Liquid fire melted through her every bone, hunger raged and clenched through every muscle.

This, she realized, was what he had been struggling with all this time. Corrine looked up at Kane with shock and dismay flas.h.i.+ng briefly in her eyes just before savage appet.i.te and need overran it.

"Corrine?" Kane was almost afraid of the look she was running over him, but it didn't keep his aching body from reacting eagerly to it. The fresh rush of blood into his already swollen p.e.n.i.s hurt incredibly, but it was quickly forgotten as she slowly sat back on her heels, her hands releasing the bedclothes to run up her body. Thighs to hips, her palms slowly turning and fingers spreading as they coasted into the bend of her waist and over her belly. She rushed abruptly upward to cup her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, each hand kneading fiercely for a moment as she made a soft noise of frustration mixed with pleasure. Her eyes had long since slid closed, but now they opened so she could stare steadily into him.

"You didn't tell me how much this hurts," she whispered, a soulful groan coming out of her as she curved her spine against the rush of heated feedback coming from his reaction to watching her touch her own bare body. "You didn't make me understand the way it hurts! The way I make you hurt." She exhaled sharply and then reached out for him, her hair falling all around him in a curling auburn curtain as she leaned far enough forward to grasp his forearms just before that spot where the shackles bound him. "You didn't explain that you let them do this to you to protect me from you."

In truth he had shown very little to her. All he had given her so far was words and an underhanded trick to trigger her moon-fed libido. That realization reminded him that there was much more to him and his powers than telepathy and his currently thwarted ability to teleport. He needed to do something to distract her from what she was feeling. He didn't think he could man up twice in such a short period of time and pull away from the fire he saw burning in her liquid green eyes.

"I am not human," Kane reminded her, knowing she wasn't quite absorbing the truth of it. "I am not without power. Right now my Siddah, my mentor, keeps me from teleporting, which is my most significant power, but there is much more to the power of Mind than that. I may be young by my people's standards, but I have mastered much in my time."

Suddenly he seemed to be pulling free of the chains binding him, and Kane reached for her hand, interlacing his fingers with hers, and drawing her into a swirl of nonexistence. For a moment she could not breathe, felt as if she had no substance and no focus, and yet her mind had never felt so sharp. The next thing Corrine knew, she was standing on her own two feet, her fingers still locked within his grasp, and the crisp cold of an autumn breeze was rus.h.i.+ng over her. She was out of doors, sunset streaking the horizon all around her, a lush lawn p.r.i.c.kling softly beneath her bare feet. She was now clothed, her body wrapped warmly in a fiery red velveteen fabric, a dress with a high waist and ripples of feminine material flowing away from that high center point of her body. She tended to wear jeans and T-s.h.i.+rts, so she was not used to the feel of plush fabric billowing around her in the breeze. But, if she could choose . . . she had always been drawn to beautiful, cla.s.sic fas.h.i.+ons like this. Dresses that were soft and feminine and flowing. Of course, they were not very practical for day-to-day living in the bustling world of New York City. She was a counselor for endangered teens in the Bronx. What would they make of her if she came to work every day dressed like this?

And in red no less. She would never have chosen red. Didn't many of the fas.h.i.+on experts say redheads shouldn't wear red? The truth was, red washed her out terribly. She looked wan and sickly. The only thing possibly worse would be orange. But here it was, on her body, and even without being able to see herself, she knew it was beautiful. Beautiful on her, beautiful with her. He had chosen for her far more bravely than she would have chosen for herself and had done an amazing job of it. The narrowed sleeves warmed her wrists, making her seem so thin and fragile. Yet there was vigor in her body for the first time in days. She felt strong and healthy, felt full of energy and life.

She looked back at him and saw he was dressed as well. He had on the same faded denims as before and a s.h.i.+rt made of that same rich fabric as her dress, only in a dark teal he wore very well. Actually, he wore everything well. Would wear anything well, she realized as her gaze ran over him quickly. He was taller than she had realized, longer in the waist, stronger in his stance. Once again she appreciated just how beautiful he was. Breathtakingly beautiful as only a perfectly fas.h.i.+oned male could be. He was almost too handsome.

Then a strong breeze rushed over her again and she realized she was out of doors for the first time in what had to be ages. Days. Too many days. She closed her eyes and turned her face into the wind, taking in the deepest, cleanest breath she could manage. The air smelled so fresh and different, the touch of it carrying the crispness of late autumn in a way that chilled the tip of her nose.

"You're doing this?" she asked, even though she already knew. "We're really back in that place, lying next to one another, but you're doing this with your mind?" She didn't need to see his nod to know it was the truth. She held her free hand up to her eyes, s.h.i.+elding them against the brilliant light and colors of the waning sun.

"I would not be able to be out in this much daylight if it were real. I would still be sleeping, or very weak. Darkness is my daylight." Kane squinted his eyes against the fading brightness around him. His eyes, like all Demon eyes, were made for darkness. He could not see nearly as well in sunlight. But he knew the same was not true for her. Not yet, in any event. Humans, he knew, found much beauty in sunrises. And yes, they were lovely, but they had always meant borders to him. Restrictions. Time to rest. Quickly to rest, or he might find himself exposed to the deadly light of day that could kill a Demon as young as he was. He must spend the sunlit hours locked in rest, forced to sleep whether he wanted it or not, forced to wait for the day to hide itself.

But this had always been her world. And just as day was turning to night, now she would have to say farewell to blue skies. If she were to be his mate, she must change her ways to match his. It was a lot, he realized, for her to sacrifice. The truth was, she was sacrificing far more than he was. What was he saying farewell to, besides perhaps the torture of lonely Samhain and Beltane nights?

Corrine looked all around herself, knowing as she breathed it in that there was something foreign in the air around her. Not exotic, just different. But that was easily seen just by looking at the vast green landscape that surrounded her. She was encompa.s.sed by a great ocean of manicured green, rolling hills of it sprawling away from her in all directions. In the distance before her was a great stone building, what she could only call a castle. It was wider in body than it was tall, reaching high and then tumbling low, clearly made of a grand central ma.s.s that had been added to over time. There had been an attempt at balance, and the engineering of it was remarkable compared to castles that she had seen in pictures. But it was a fortress of stone no matter how you looked at it. Flags flew from its highest points, but there was nothing in the design of those flags that she found familiar. Nothing that hinted at state or country or an affiliation she recognized. There was writing in the crests, but she couldn't see what it was from this distance and she had a suspicion she wouldn't be able to read it even if she were closer. There were hedgerows and fountains, great sweeping drives of white stone that reminded her of a great manor from an Austen novel. The oaks that lined the drives waved at her with pale-colored leaves barely hanging on.

"Is this where we are?" she asked him. "Inside of that place?" She recalled the stone room she'd woken up in and how it had reminded her of an old castle room.

"This is the home of the Demon King, Noah. And yes, this is where we are. Somewhere on the third floor, beyond those colored windows. I wanted to show you some of my world from another perspective. Some of who and what we are."