Before I Wake (26 page)

He was still watching me. “Not many in this world can move like that.”

I tried to smile. “Well, at least I’m not alone.” I had company in my freakiness. I was about to say as much when I caught the scent of something familiar. It wasn’t so much a smell, but yet it was. It was like…a feeling—a deep knowledge of a presence.

Lola. I could feel her close by, and yet it wasn’t her. It wasn’t vivid enough to be my roommate. Lola pulsated with light and life and joy. But this was almost as if Lola had been watered down and mixed in with a bunch of other people. This was Lola-lite, and it set off warning bells in my head, reminding me of another time I had been struck by such a feeling. I remembered what Antwoine had said about his succubus being able to hide the two of them from my father.

My head snapped up. “Karatos.”

Morpheus’s face tightened and paled. “Where?”

I looked around, but there was nothing. I knew he was close…

In the time it took to blink, my father was gone. Or rather, I was gone. Another Nightmare power that I hadn’t known about and couldn’t control. I had teleported myself to the source of the “Lola” feeling, and guess what? I had company.

I was standing in the middle of the dirt floor in a Roman amphitheater, complete with cheering crowd. I could smell the sweat and animals. I could feel the barely restrained aggression of the crowd, their desire for blood. And just a few feet away from me, dressed like an emperor of old, complete with gold coronet, was Karatos. He was beautiful enough that the look worked on him.

He was smiling smugly at Noah, who was slapping dust off his jeans and bleeding from the mouth.

“Nice outfit,” I called out, grabbing Karatos’s attention.

The Terror looked up in surprise, and Noah seized the moment, delivering a vicious kick to Karatos’s windpipe that send the Terror sprawling. Pivoting on his heel, Noah ran to me.

“You need to get out of here,” he told me with a scowl. His hands pushed at me, trying to get me to run away.

“Don’t be an idiot,” I replied with a scowl of my own, pulling free of his grasp. “You aren’t in control here, Noah. As much as I hate to be the one to tell you that, I’m the only one who can save your ass.”

“Since Karatos is on his right now, I think I’m doing okay.” Nope, he didn’t like my interference much at all. I thought we were

“stuck” with each other?

I pointed past him, feeling much more confident than I should. In fact, I was pretty freaking close to jubilation. I had tracked Karatos all on my own. “He’s not on his ass anymore.”

Noah turned his head, and we watched together as Karatos straightened his coronet and adjusted his leather breastplate. It might have been amusing if Noah’s blood hadn’t been dripping on my shoes.

“Dawn!” Karatos greeted me with a huge grin. “How lovely of you to join us. Did you bring that little pigsticker of yours?”

“You know it,” I answered cheekily. “Did you lie to me, Karatos? You said you had no plans to hurt Noah.”

An expression of sheer indignation crossed his rugged face. “Hurt him! Of course not. But you know how kids can be, Dawnie.

Sometimes you’ve got to show ’em who’s boss before they’ll fall into line.” He flashed a grin at Noah. “You know all about being brought into line, don’t you, Noah?”

I saw something on Noah’s face then that I had never seen before. It was more than embarrassment at having me witness Karatos’s remark. It was shame. I wouldn’t have been half so alarmed to see anger or even fear. What had happened to him?

“I’m not going to fall ‘into line’ for you, asshole,” Noah bravely replied, his jaw tightly clenched.

Karatos gazed at him with mock sadness. “I didn’t want to take you by force, boy, but you leave me little choice.”

Something in his words made me shiver. Take Noah? Where was he going to take him? And for what purpose? Karatos claimed that he didn’t want to hurt him, and certainly the Terror could have killed him several times over by now, so what did he want with Noah? Why did he insist on beating him down, physically and emotionally? He seemed to want Noah weakened, but not broken.

“And you.”

My head jerked up at the force of Karatos’s tone. He stalked toward me like a lion with a gladiator lunch in mind. “You are beginning to seriously piss me off, Little Light.”

All my cockiness was gone in the face of his anger. Karatos might not want to kill Noah, but he’d cheerfully murder me, and do God only knew what to my corpse before sending me back to Morpheus.

“I can’t let you have him, Karatos.” I kept my tone calm. “You know that.”

He sneered, twisting that handsome visage into something grotesque. “I might be more impressed if you truly were a full-blood Nightmare, but you’re nothing more than a little girl without a mommy desperately trying to win the attention of a boy who can never love her.”

“Maybe you’re right,” I replied, pulling my dagger from its sheath. “But I’m also the daughter of Morpheus, heir to the throne of this Realm, and you will yield to me or die.”

Oh, such brave words! Karatos looked every bit as shocked by them as I was. Stranger yet was that I felt the power and truth of them rushing through my blood. I took a step toward Karatos. “In fact, why don’t we call my father right now and get his opinion?

”

Karatos whirled around, and I reached out to grab him, thinking he was going to escape. Instead, he lunged toward Noah—who wasn’t prepared and hadn’t had enough time to launch any kind of defense. I’d never seen anything move as fast as Karatos did. I was standing there, still dazed, so all I could do was watch in horror as the Terror literally shoved his hand into Noah’s chest.

Light burst from around Karatos’s arm, where it was buried past the wrist in Noah. Noah screamed as the Terror groped around inside him. It was the scream that finally broke through my shock and propelled me forward. I lunged at Karatos, and this time I knew how fast I moved. I was like a streak of lightning.

And I still wasn’t fast enough.

I flung myself into Karatos, knocking him backward to the dirt. With both hands wrapped around the hilt, I thrust the Morae dagger through the Terror’s throat with all my strength. I felt it pierce flesh and bone, felt the blade embed itself into the ground below. I stared the Terror in the eye for a split second, taking a perverse, bloodthirsty thrill in the pain and surprise I saw there. I could hear the blood gurgling in his windpipe as I jumped to my feet.

Then I remembered my father’s number one rule, and I yanked the dagger from the Terror’s neck.

I ran to Noah’s side, screaming for my father like a banshee on acid. Noah was shaking when I reached him. Pale and pasty, his skin was covered with a thin sheen of sweat, and there was a huge burn mark in his shirt. Beneath the smoking fabric, a four-inch circle of skin on his chest was blistered and raw.

“Don’t you dare die,” I told him, shaking now myself. I couldn’t wait for my father to come. I could only trust that he would and that he would find Karatos bleeding to death when he did.

As carefully as I could—as I dared—I gathered Noah’s upper body into my arms and closed my eyes. I pictured the one person who I knew could help him. I pictured the one place where he would be safe.

And when I opened my eyes we were in my bedroom at Morpheus’s castle, and my father was waiting.

Morpheus fixed Noah’s physical wound within minutes, but it was going to take more than a touch to fix what was going on inside Noah, I was afraid.

“I’ve done my part,” Morpheus said softly, as we stood on the other side of the room from where Noah lay on the big canopy bed. “The rest is more your specialty, I think.”

He meant my mortal-world specialty, obviously. Right now I wasn’t sure I could manage even that much. I had managed to tell my father that Karatos was somehow cloaking himself, hiding behind other dreamers—like Lola—as a way of camouflage.

“Thank you for your help.” It seemed trite, but it was all I could think of to say.

“I would have followed you if you hadn’t hidden yourself from me,” he said softly—with just a hint of hurt and accusation. “Why did you?”

I stared at him. “I didn’t.” Hidden myself? Frig, I would have welcomed his help. And here I’d thought maybe he had left me on my own. I mean, there had been that brief second I had thought that it would be nice if I could handle Karatos on my own, but that didn’t mean I wanted to.

He watched me for several seconds, his expression purposefully unreadable, and I knew that he believed me. I also knew that bothered him.

“I’m going to join the Guard in the search for Karatos.” The father gave way to the Lord of Dreams as he lightly touched my arm.

“You and your friend are safe here.”

I thanked him again and watched as he left the room. I wasn’t sure if he had to leave that way or if he chose not to teleport. There was so much I didn’t know that I should, and I was angry at myself for not knowing it. If I had, Noah wouldn’t have gotten hurt.

“Who was that?” Speak of the devil.

“Morpheus,” I replied, walking toward the bed on knees that were still shaky. “He healed you.”

Noah was a study in gold and ebony against the snowy sheets. Aside from a faint discoloration on his smooth chest, where the skin had been charred not even half an hour earlier, he looked perfectly normal. My father had even healed the cut in his lip. Only there was a strange brightness in Noah’s eyes, a brightness that made me careful not to get too close.

“The God of Dreams,” he muttered almost bitterly. “He wouldn’t need you to save him.”

“No, because that’s what being the God of Dreams is all about.”

He fell silent, jaw clenched so that the muscle there pulsed beneath the skin.

“Look,” I said after it became clear that he was just going to lie there and seethe. “Karatos knocked the crap out of me, too, and I’m supposed to be able to beat him. The fact that you stood up to him at all is amazing.”

He turned his head to look at me. He still didn’t look quite right to me although I couldn’t put my finger on it. “He makes me feel weak. You make me feel weak.”

My temper spiked. Fuck that he had come close to dying, or that he had made my abilities sound like a good thing not too long ago—before kissing me senseless. “Yeah, well you know what you make me feel, Noah?”

He threw back the covers and jumped out of bed. Thank God Morpheus had removed his shirt, not his jeans. Still, Noah half-naked was a pretty impressive, pretty angry sight. “What?” he demanded. “What do I make you feel?”

I held my ground regardless of his approach. “You make me freaking crazy. All I’ve ever wanted is to help you.”

“I should be able to help myself.”

“And I should be able to destroy Karatos.” We both knew how well that was going.

We stood there, just staring at each other for what seemed like the longest time. Instead of calming him, this standoff seemed to make Noah even more agitated.

“I don’t feel like I’m in control when I’m with you,” he blurted. “I want to be with you, keep you safe. No matter what I do, my trouble always seems to find you.”

I couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d dropped his pants and revealed a pink lace thong. “I’m sorry,” was all I could think of to say.

“No you’re not.” And then he was kissing me, and I was kissing him back. He was right, I wasn’t sorry.

Noah’s mouth was the softest, firmest mouth I’d ever kissed. He tasted warm and salty, and when his tongue nudged my lips, I opened them and let him inside. His fingers bit into my arms, and I could feel a slight tremor in his body as it pressed against mine.

If this was what happened when he lost control, I was all for it.

My arms went around his neck, and he spun me around, dancing me backward until my legs hit the edge of the bed. One of his legs came up the side of mine, then he was lowering me onto the bed, his weight balanced on the knee he had pressed into the mattress. He followed me down, and it never crossed my mind to stop him. I didn’t want to stop him.

For a second I thought of Karatos and what he had done to me, then it was gone. This was not the same, and I wasn’t going to give the Terror any more power over me.

Noah broke the kiss to undress me, but he kept his gaze locked on mine the entire time. The look in his eyes made my skin hot and made me tingle in the most delicious places. My leather boots were the first to go. They landed on the floor behind him with a thud. Next came my socks, then my jeans, then my shirt.

Normally being naked in front of a guy scares the crap out of me, being as self-aware as I am. I was still in my bra and panties—new and a matched set, yayee me—and had yet to feel that niggle of embarrassment in the back of my brain. It wasn’t just that I looked good in this world, it was that sudden awareness that I looked good to Noah, no matter what I thought of myself.

He slid between my legs, levering himself on his arms so that his body hovered above mine. His jeans were rough against my thigh, and as his hips pressed into mine, the ridge of his erection was so hard I thought I’d bruise from it. He moved against me, and I raised my hips to match him. I literally ached—throbbed even—he felt so good.

He kissed me again, his lips and tongue hot and demanding. When one of his hands came up to cup my breast, my hand went between us, fumbling with the button of his jeans. Why did they make these things so damn hard to undo? Finally, the button slid free, and I eased the zipper down, gasping and wriggling against him as his thumb flicked my nipple.

It had been too long since I’d had sex. And it had been longer still since I’d wanted a guy this badly. I was damp and ready and eager enough that as soon as I had him naked, he was mine, mine, mine.

Noah’s mouth left mine to plant hot kisses on my jaw and my neck and finally close around my breast. Every muscle in my body tightened, and I pushed at his jeans and underwear.

“Naked,” I panted. “Now.”

Lifting his head, he stared down at me, eyes as black as night, cheeks flushed, lips deliciously damp. “Okay.” His voice was hoarse, little more than a whisper, and if I hadn’t been certain of his desire for me before this, I was now.