“Can you stay on your hands and knees?” Brandon asked.
She tried twice to speak but found the words were not there. So, she nodded in reply. He guided her into position. The hard aftershocks subsided into tiny ripples of pleasure. Her pussy was still quaking when he plunged into her from behind. It took her breath.
The tip of his cock reached her limits. Holding her hips, he rocked her back into him, applying a little more pressure. She could feel his long shaft stretching her. There was no tearing, no pinching pain. She was ready.
“Yes, please, Brandon! Please, don’t stop,” she breathlessly pleaded.
“I hadn’t planned on it. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Oh, yes. I’m very okay,” she purred.
Brandon began, slow and steady. She could feel the ridge of his cockhead rubbing along the soft walls of her pussy. His cool shaft was enveloped in her hot, pink folds. Strong hands gripped her hips for support. She could tell he was not using all his strength. It was just enough.
She whimpered and gave a soft moan. His pace sped up stroke after stroke. She could feel his balls tightening on her pussy lips. He groaned between clenched teeth. His dick gave a spasm as his cum erupted into her. It was cool like his body. The contrast brought images of fire and ice.
He held her to him and panted. Shaking his head made cold droplets rain down on her. She flinched away with a high-pitched laugh and lifted herself up to feel the warm water spray her face. Hands from behind helped her stand.
The pain in her knees became noticeable. Had they been hurting? If so, she had paid it no notice. A red mark had formed on her chest where her pendant had bounced. The back of her neck had rubbed the wet chain until it had chaffed. She wished she could take the thing off.
A click and snap sounded. The chain and pendant slithered off and hit the marble floor with a clang. Both hands flew to her neck and felt around for the missing weight. Looking down, Sabrina found it at her feet. Picking it up, she realized the dark rainbows were gone. The stone looked more like a faceted oval of black, smoky quartz. A clasp had formed on one side of the decorative gold bezel. She turned it over and over in one hand. The other stayed at the base of her neck, as if she were unable to believe it had come off. It had seemed so large when she was wearing it. Now, it was just so regular, so ordinary.
A throat cleared behind her. Startled, she nearly dropped the necklace. She turned to see him watching her. In her stunned state, she had forgotten he was there.
“The water is getting cold. It’s not going to bother me, but you might want to get out,” he suggested. He warily eyed the thing in her hand like an unknown danger.
Instead of reaching out to turn off the water, she pointed one finger at the faucet and twirled it in the right direction. Something seemed to happen, but the water still flowed. She tried again. This time she thought about the knobs turning to stop the water. It worked. The knobs spun around on their own.
Next she mimicked the hand gesture she had seen Eleanor use thousands of times to open doors. Nothing. She did it again, visualizing the door opening. The glass doors swung open. She reached out, as if she were beckoning the towels. They flew across the room to her a bit too enthusiastically and hit her in the face, rather than landing in her hand.
“Well, that’s going to need practice,” she muttered.
She handed one to Brandon and dried off. He stood there, still watching her with the same wariness. It made her uncomfortable.
“Did I do something wrong?” she asked.
“No, not wrong. I’ve just never seen someone so transformed. Last night you were this helpless little thing tagging along behind her aunt. Now, you’re a whole different person.” He sounded amazed.
“Different good or different bad?” She threw her towel over one shoulder and put her hands on her hips, the pendant clutched in one hand with the chain swinging. Her tone was defensive. She had spent a lifetime being told how different she was. It was never meant in a flattering way.
He gave her a wide, approving smile. “Different good.” He looped his towel around her neck and drew her to him. “I like this more confident you.” He kissed the top of her head and hugged her.
She gave a long exhale and relaxed against his chest. There was no heartbeat, no warmth. What was there was comforting strong arms that surrounded her. She realized how tired she was and yawned. A hearty chuckle escaped him.
“Okay, let’s get dry and go to bed,” he recommended. It sounded perfect to her. They toweled off at top speed.
They lay in Sabrina’s bed, wrapped in each other’s arms and waited for sunrise. She tucked herself under one arm, using his chest as a pillow. He wrapped the arm around her, holding her to him. The other held her head. The necklace stayed on the nightstand.
“Sabrina, can I ask you something?”
“Hmmm? I guess,” she said sleepily. Her mind had already begun taking on a foggy presleep state.
“What is Midnight’s Jewel? Why would so many people go to such great lengths to get it?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Until that guy tried to take my head off, I’d never heard of the thing. Eleanor told me it’s a tool that can be used as a spindle for light and dark magic. Somehow, it can be tapped into by the celestial beings to channel power from others. It’s supposed to be capable of maintaining the power balance. That’s why Lucifer wants it. So he can return instead of them. I got the impression it has a mind of its own and has to choose its own fate. Eleanor’s got to destroy it if it chooses the wrong path. She said it can choose to give up its power,” Sabrina mumbled. She took a deep breath and snuggled in as close as she could.
“But I don’t know how a rock’s going to do all that. Sounds bizarre to me,” she added and then began drifting off to sleep.
From outside the darkness that was overtaking her, she heard a smooth, deep voice say, “I love you, Sabrina Rivers, for what it’s worth.” The voice dissipated the further into the dark she delved.
The next thing she knew, she was looking down on a bright throne room. Everything was covered in gold. Archways lined each side of the room. In each niche stood a pedestal topped with a statue draped in shiny silver fabric except two. The occupied niches reminded her of Greek and Roman statues of the gods and goddesses she had seen in books. In place of the two missing statues were a golden sun and a silvered moon. Stained-glass windows surrounded the top of the walls.
Footsteps and shouted pleas echoed from beyond the throne room. A heavy moan of complaint came from the far end of the room. It was difficult to make out the source without squinting. A floor-to-ceiling window surrounded the throne with intense sunlight. It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust. Sitting in the elaborate pillow-covered throne atop a dais was the most beautiful man Sabrina had ever seen. Ordinarily she would have assigned the word handsome or dashing to describe a man, but this man was masculine with a few feminine features. They softened the hard lines, rounded the sharpness she would expect in a masculine jaw and chin. Androgynous would have been a better description than man. Somehow, she knew this creature was a flesh-and-blood male.
He was dressed in tunic of rich gold and silver-tone velvets accented with white silk sleeves. A thick belt of white leather studded with silver looped through a gold braided belt buckle. White silk pants ended in white leather boots with silver toe caps.
The heavy gold doors opposite the throne were flung open. Between two silver-clad guardsmen dangled a man dressed like Camo Guy from her shop. He begged and pleaded for mercy and the chance to explain. The guards dropped their charge in front of the throne.
“Please, my lord, please! I wasn’t in the shop. I don’t know what went wrong. She was there alone, like she was supposed to be, and Kyle went in without me. I watched from across the street. He couldn’t get the necklace off her. She blasted him with some kind of dark light. He pulled his knife and went after her into the back room. The fairy showed back up, and I lost sight of him. I don’t know what happened. Honest!”
In a tone so calm it sent chills up her spine, the beautiful man focused on his fingernails and said, “I don’t want excuses. If I wanted those, I’d talk to my children. And I never talk to them. You had one task. Retrieve the girl, alive and unharmed. Pulling a knife would be rather contradictory to your orders, would it not?”
“But I didn’t…”
“Silence! It was a rhetorical question,” he said in the same chilly, calm tone.
He looked down at the man and rose. The dais had two steps between the floor and the top. The ruler stopped on the step head level with the cowering man. He lashed out with his right foot, landing the blow in Camo Guy #2’s face. The man’s head snapped back. Blood splattered the floor. The guards dropped him and stepped away.
A look of disgust crossed the ruler’s face. There was blood on his boots. The man whimpered in pain and fear, spitting teeth into his hand. He was still softly pleading for mercy. The ruler returned to the throne, pulled a heavy sword from the side Sabrina could not see, and leapt off the dais onto the prone man. The sword buried into his back and stopped when it hit the floor. The man screamed and attempted to pull it out.
“My lord, Lucifer, please! Have mercy!” Camo Guy #2 choked, blood running from his nose and mouth.
“Oh, all right, mercy it is.” He withdrew the sword. The man attempted to get up but was unable to do more than roll into a ball on his side. Lucifer lifted the sword over his head and brought it down on the man’s neck. The calm disgust never left. There was no other outward emotion.
Sabrina screamed in horror. She capped her hands over her mouth. Lucifer spotted her floating near the ceiling. It took him a moment to recognize her.
“Aradia? No. You!” he roared. His face contorted into an evil snarl. “Where is the necklace? Where is Midnight’s Jewel?”
Before she could answer, he threw the sword at her. It twisted and twirled through the air in slow motion. She knew it would hit her. Then, everything went back to darkness.
“Sabrina! Wake up! It’s just a dream. Wake up!”
She was being shaken. She opened her eyes to find Brandon hovering over her. The screaming ended in a sob. He lifted her into his lap and cradled her. She clung to him, her safe rock. He shushed her and rocked back and forth whispering, “It was only a dream.”
Once she regained her composure, Sabrina rolled out of his arms and snatched the smoky pendant off the night stand. She wrapped the chain around her neck. The clasp clicked neatly into place on the backside of the pendant. The clasp was completely concealed. Dark rainbows flared to life, reflecting through the facets. No longer was it a piece of smoky quartz. It was a jewel.
“What time is it?” She sniffed and wiped her cheeks with the sheet.
“About thirty minutes until sunset. Do you want to talk about it? The dream?” he asked as if he was comforting a small child. In a way, she felt small, or else his tone would have bothered her.
“I’ve never been anywhere in my dreams except where we went. This was different. There was so much light. It was like there was never a time without it. Everything was gold and silver, bright and shiny and reflective. I saw the most beautiful man I have ever seen just sitting on a gold throne. Two guards dragged a man in dressed like the guy Eleanor killed in our shop. He begged for mercy from this ruler, Lucifer, but ended up losing his head.” She put her hands against her eyes. “It was so horrible. I’ve never seen anything that horrible in my life!”
Brandon laid her back onto the bed, kissing her cheeks. He nestled in beside her, wrapping himself around her. “You’re here with me. Everything is fine. Go back to sleep,” he cooed and made shushing noises.
The words were soothing. Eleanor used to do the same thing when she was a child. Her eyelids were getting heavy. She began drifting off to sleep feeling safe and loved.
Before she was completely out, a light rap on the bedroom door pulled her back. Brandon gave a frustrated sigh and reached for her robe. He cracked the door. Whispering ensued, but there was nothing she could understand. He looked back over his shoulder, gave a weak smile, and left the room, opening the door only enough to slip out.
Sleep tried to take her again, but she resisted. Each time she tried to close her eyes, a sword gleaming in flashes of light flew through the air at her. For a dream, it had been very realistic. There was the same quality of understanding and clarity as her dreams about Diana’s Palace. Only instead of peaceful darkness, she found violence and light. She gave up the notion of more rest.
Digging in the dresser revealed a matching black lace bra and panty set, another pair of jeans, and a plain, black, short-sleeved cotton T-shirt. The clothes were simple, but suitable for everyday wear. Picking up an elastic ring, she slipped it over her wrist like a bracelet. Once dressed, she sat on the end of the bed and made an effort to pick the tangles from her thick black curls with the brush. She hummed a melody learned in childhood.
A quick glance in the mirror made her do a double take. Her deep brown eyes had become inky black. The black shirt and her blue-black hair made her look even paler than normal. If she did not know the woman in the reflection, she would have thought the reflection was a vampire.
Raised voices filled the hall. Her bedroom door suddenly crashed open. A tall, slender man with very square shoulders strode in wearing a dark-gray three-piece suit. His long, black, curly hair was bound at the nape of his neck. A thick, curly black beard, neatly trimmed, covered his face. A slightly hooked and crooked nose sat above a pair of thin lips. His bright-brown eyes fell on her, and he froze midstride.