16
B
runo ducked und
er the swing of the studded iron ball that swung on Rudy’s mace. There were three Rudys, inexplicably wearing medieval chain mail. The second was armed with an ax, and the third with a broadsword. Bruno jerked back. The broadsword swooshed by his Adam’s apple. He stumbled to the side to avoid the ax, dove to bring down the mace-wielding Rudy.
Then he saw the dais.
Lily was bound to a pole. She wore a long white gown, torn and mud stained. She was blindfolded. Oil-soaked wood was piled around her. Her ragged skirt flapped in the wind. So did her skeins of hair.
Terror tore him open inside. He sprang up to fight, but now there were six Rudys, a mass of suffocating bodies driving him back as one of them sauntered toward Lily, waving a burning branch. He glanced back, his sweaty face split by a mocking grin. Thrust the flame into the fuel.
The wood ignited instantly, flames leaping to lick at Lily’s ragged skirt. Bruno struggled, shoving, punching, howling Lily’s name.
She yelled back, but the sound came from so far away—
The image splintered.
Thud,
he was on a floor, in the dark. Naked, sweaty. He looked around frantically for his attackers—
Lily was huddled against the wall, naked. Her hands were over her nose. Her eyes were huge. Oh God. What the fuck had he done?
It took him about six attempts to get words out, his voice shook so hard. “You . . . all right?”
She lifted her hand, looked at it. Blood trickled from her nose. His horror soured into shame. “Oh, fuck,” he muttered. “Did I do that?”
“I’m OK.” She touched her nose. Blood reddened her fingers.
“That wasn’t the question.” He tried to get up. Thudded down onto his ass, still shaking. He hadn’t even thought about the nightmares. How dangerous they might be for her. Hadn’t even warned her. Fucking idiot. He’d just drifted off in a post-coital haze. La-di-dah. Zzzz.
“It’s my own fault,” she said softly. “I should have known better. You were having the mother of all nightmares, and yelling my name, and I, um . . . tried to grab you. To wake you up. Big mistake.”
He cringed. “Oh, God, Lily. I’m sorry.”
“It’s OK, really,” she assured him. “I’m not—”
“I could have fucking killed you!” he roared. “Do you realize that? How close you came?”
She shrank back. “You didn’t,” she said. “So chill. No harm done.”
“No harm done?” His voice cracked. “You’ve got a fucking broken nose, and you have the nerve to say
no harm done?
”
She palpated her nose. “Not broken. Just, you know. Bumped.”
“By my
fist?
That’s not a bump! I
slugged
you, goddamnit!”
“Well, and so? You’re not helping matters by yelling at me. You were dreaming. It’s not your fault. Get the fuck over it.”
Her attitude was so calm in the face of all the apocalyptic doom he was feeling. It had a weird effect on him. Like a knot, slipping loose.
He fell into pieces. Shaking with silent sobs. He dropped his face into his hands, mortified. Lily grabbed him, but he flinched away, flinging her arms off. “Don’t touch me!”
“No way!” she yelled back. “You can’t do that to me! You can’t push me away! I won’t let you! Not anymore!”
“I just don’t want you to get hurt!” he bellowed.
She grabbed him again, and what could he do? Slug her again?
Aw, fuck it. Let her hug him if she wanted to risk it. It was her skin. He kept his face covered and just endured the silent, racking sobs. He couldn’t make any sound. Pressure in his throat kept building. His voice box was imploding. A burning, crushing ache. He didn’t even try to stop crying. He knew when he was pounded.
After a while, the weight of her arm across his shuddering back came into focus. Her cheek was pressed against his shoulder. Drops of moisture tickled, cold against his back. She was crying, too. Did not help. Not that he had any right to complain, after scaring her, popping her in the nose. Letting her watch his nervous breakdown up close.
Lily went into the bathroom, came out again a moment later. The bed sagged as she sat again, her warm body pressed against his. Thigh to thigh, shoulder to shoulder. She shoved tissues into his hand. He mopped up the snot, keeping his face averted. He felt like a helpless kid again, on those nights when he lled into a ball and put a pillow over his head, when Rudy and Mamma were having at it.
She threaded her cold fingers through his. “Will you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” He was channeling his sullen, truculent Uncle Tony again. Hardwired to act like a butthead when he was stressed.
Lily was unfazed. “The nightmare.”
He shook his head, but she tugged his hand. “Tell me.”
A shudder rippled down his spine. “It’s old,” he muttered. “Had it since I was a kid. When I was thirteen, Kev put a spell on me. Talked me into a trance every night. They finally eased off.” He tried to swallow. A diamond-hard lump lacerated his throat. “Now they’re back.”
“What’s the dream about?”
He shrugged. “Fighting. I’m in a white virtual space, like a video game. Monsters come at me. And I fight them.”
She harrumphed. “Scary.”
“Oh, yeah.” The words exploded out of him. “Because it’s not like other nightmares. I wake up feeling . . .” He trailed off. It was too weird.
“Like what?” she prodded. “Come on, Bruno.”
“Like it’s real,” he concluded, feeling ashamed. “I mean, physically real. Like I’d really been fighting. Pulled muscles, sweat, bruising. Sprains, even. Maybe because I hit stuff while I flop around. I end up on the floor sometimes, like now. I don’t fucking know.”
“Wow,” she murmured. “What kind of monsters?”
“My mom’s boyfriend. The one who murdered her.”
Her soft cheek pressed his shoulder. “That’s so horrible.”
“Yeah, it is,” he said. “But he was not what particularly sucked about tonight’s dream, believe it or not.”
She nudged him after a few moments. “So? What was, then?”
“You,” he said. “You were there. Everybody in costume. Medieval armor, like a goddamn Arthurian pageant. You wore a fancy white gown. You were bound to a stake. And they held me down while Rudy . . .” His throat closed up. “He stuck a burning branch into the wood.”
“Don’t tell me, let me guess,” she said. “That was the moment when I tried to wake you up, right?”
“Yeah.” He waited for more. She just hugged him. “So, uh . . .” He cleared his throat. “I gather you are not as freaked out by this as I am.”
“My threshold for freak-outs has gotten higher lately,” Lily said. “I can only be scared of so much at one time, and I’m sorry, but your dream just don’t make the cut.”
“Oh,” he muttered, vaguely embarrassed. “Gee.”
“Don’t take it personally,” she urged. “It’s, like, a triage thing. I just don’t have the juice. I know it must be really awful for you.”
“Whatever.” He felt an urge to laugh, but that was too close to sobbing. “What the fuck were the crusading knight outfits about? Ye olde renaissance fair from hell? My subconscious decided the dream needed dressing up? What’s next, flamenco outfits?”
“No,” she said quietly. “It’s about saving the princess.”
He went still. Her words reverberated in his head. “Come again?”
“It’s a classic theme, right? In fairy tales, in movies. Video games you played as a kid. Didn’t you ever play to save the princes?”
“Yeah, but . . .” His voice trailed off. He was unnerved. It was true, he’d played in video arcades as a really young kid. But after the dreams started, he’d stopped. He hated video games.
Lily draped herself over him so that his head was tucked under her chin, her gorgeous, mouth-watering tits were right in his face, in all their succulent, springy softness. Right up there to distract him.
“You really are my champion,” she said. “Even in your dreams. Like you were this morning.”
“I, ah . . . but I—”
“I’ve never had one before,” she said. “I always had to fight alone. It feels nice. Thank you.”
“Hello. Lily,” he said, his voice vibrating with tension. “I failed. In the dream. They torched you. It wasn’t nice.”
She tilted his head back. Her eyes shimmered with tears. “They didn’t get me this morning,” she said. She ran her finger across his brow, then through his hair. “And you tried. I could see you were trying. Heart and soul. That’s enough for me. That’s more than I’ve ever had.”
His arms clamped around her. She melted into his embrace.
“It’s not enough,” he blurted out, harshly. “I want more.”
She just gazed up at him, looking confused. He gave her an impatient little shake. “I want more,” he repeated, louder.
She looked bewildered but willing. “Ah . . . OK,” she offered, timidly. “Take it, then. You can have it all. It’s yours. Everything.”
All. Everything. That was good. He could work with that.
Then they were kissing, dying for more of that magical whatever it was that they made together, out of nothing, out of nowhere. A mystery made of energy and heat, out of ache and want.
He pushed her down onto the bed, lips locked, fitting his body to hers. Feeling her silent welcome as she arched and spread, wiggling against him until his cock could find its way in, then the long clinging slide. Arms clutching, legs twining as they rocked and plunged, sighing, gasping. No technique or style, just raw emotion. The bite of her nails in his back were points of light in the heaving turbulence. They thundered over the top and down, into the heart of a violent climax.
Reality crept back, with relentless marching steps. His sweat cooled, trickled down his back, into his ear. The first few times they’d had sex, he’d managed somehow to keep from coming inside her.
Well, hell. He’d warned her. And he still felt like an opportunistic asshole. He pulled away, rolled onto his side. She glowed in the dim light of the kerosene lamp he’d left burning. So beautiful he could start up and make this same mistake again, right now.
“I’m sorry.” The words rasped out. Hoarse from all the sobbing.
She just nodded, as if it were no big deal. Too used to danger. Her threshold was high. It took a lot of juice to be constantly terrified. There was nothing to say. She touched his cheek. She didn’t say, “No problem.” They had nothing but problems. She didn’t say, “It’s OK.” It wasn’t.
You’re my champion.
That scared him to his bones. He’d always avoided responsibility. Now he knew why he’d steered clear. It was a ten-ton weight of cold rock. Stark fear, of failing her, losing her. Fear that could break him.
But all he could do was keep fighting. Hell, he had lots of practce.
This was ridiculously easy. Zoe was irritated. She could have sent that brain-dead sow Melanie after all. Petrie didn’t even have an alarm. There was a tree that would allow an intruder with no technique at all to clamber onto the kitchen roof and steal over to the bathroom window. Evidently, Samuel Petrie was not as paranoid as a normal cop.
Zoe felt practically insulted.
She slid the window open and slithered in like a slim shadow. She realized that he just hadn’t gotten around to putting his paranoia into practice. Boxes were piled everywhere. The rooms were empty.
Research had revealed that Petrie was twenty-nine, unmarried. Wealthy family. Ivy League school. He’d decided after graduating to go into police work, to his family’s distress. He’d recently bought his first home in a middling shabby North Portland neighborhood.
The master bedroom was at the end of the hall. Light and chatter of the TV came out, even at three
A.M.
She’d waited until the last minute to creep in, but soon she had to rendezvous with the team following McCloud down from Seattle. If he was still awake, she would melt away the way she came. Lots of cops had trouble sleeping. Tomorrow was another day. She angled a tiny mirror around the door and peeked.
Ah, yes. He was sprawled on the bed, a sheet wound around his hips. Mouth open. Fast asleep as the TV gabbled. She drifted toward the bed, smiling behind her mask, silent as a whorl of smoke.
She angled the bottle close to his face, admiring the jutting angle of his stubble-shadowed jaw, and
squirt—squirt—squirt.
He murmured, but the stuff worked instantly. He wouldn’t stir for hours. In fact, with such a heavy dose, he was liable to sleep through his alarm and wake with a nasty headache tomorrow. Poor baby.
Zoe sat down on the bed next to him. The large bed and low dresser were the only articles of furniture in the room, and they stank of newness. No mirror. Dead giveaway that there was no woman in his life. Only a man could make do with just the mirror above a bathroom sink.