Incubus Moon Page 10
I was seemingly alone. Me and my galloping pulse.
The bizarre and dangerous had returned to my life with a vengeance. The real Shadow Walker was out there somewhere, getting closer. I could feel him even now.
Maybe I shouldn’t wait until daybreak. I could pack up a few things and be gone within the hour. It was gutless not to face Mark and Christie before I did. In the end, though, what would confessing the strange and terrible truth to them accomplish?
No, the sooner I took off the better for everyone.
“Leave behind a world you despise and embrace the new one I offer you…”
I half-jerked, half-kicked, experiencing the sensation of free-falling.
When I looked around again, I found myself in a strange room and bed that, nevertheless, felt as though I belonged in them. Gossamer, tent-drawn sheers surrounded me, behind which candlelight flickered in the gentle currents of air. A large armoire stood in the far corner, and a wooden chest sat at the foot of the canopy bed opposite an ornate escritoire.
I was not alone in this bed, either.
Reaching an arm over, I pulled the warm body lying next to me against my nakedness.
This was clearly a dream; a remnant in my subconscious from my encounter with the rock singer. Why not go with it?
So I let myself trace small, delicate circles with my fingers over the woman’s shoulder, before venturing lower, where I caressed and kneaded the creamy flesh of her smooth belly. My dream body was swarthy against her porcelain complexion, my arms and chest covered in a light dusting of dark hair. Pressed against her like this, my arousal intensified.
“You should not be here,” she said in a sleepy voice, the swell of my excitement pushing at the inviting cleft in her backside.
“Because your Queen forbids it?” I responded with a dismissive laugh and moved my hand lower on her body. “I do not fear Alyahs.”
She placed her own hand atop mine in a bid that I go no further. “You should.”
The woman turned in my embrace, her bed-tousled locks a sea of white-gold in the candlelight against the meandering vines and exotic blooms of her corn-silk blue pillowcase. Her skin held the ethereal glow of women in Renaissance paintings.
Paintings. This was the young woman from the portrait at Dimitri’s. The very same woman from my dreams! The moment she focused soft, sapphire-gray eyes on me, her whispered name fell from my lips. “Francesca.”
How amazing to be taken over by a fantasy this vivid, yet still be aware that I was dreaming on some conscious level.
Suddenly, I was no longer gazing down at Francesca, but found myself staring up at the man I had once been through her eyes. Staring up into the handsome face of Dimitri Ravello.
“The Queen forbids a union between us,” I warned him as the young woman now. “She and her army…they will move against your people.”
He caressed the side of my face, his hand unnaturally cool, electric. “They would not dare. Our retaliation would be swift. Merciless.” The force and conviction behind this last word, the brief angry fire animating his green eyes, awakened a delicious quiver between my legs. “Open to me, my love, and I shall forever liberate you from your queen’s tyranny.”
“You ask for what I cannot give.”
Dimitri fixed me lovingly, his lips curving into a seductive smile. “Your heart is not your own to give?”
His voice sent a wave of gooseflesh across my body, causing my nipples to harden, as he leaned forward to part my lips with his tongue. I loved the feel of him in my mouth, the weight of muscular body pressing me to the mattress. But when I broke from our kiss, a gust of wind swelled the bed sheers over us like a giant sail, only to recede again, leaving the candles to flicker dangerously on their stands.
A storm was coming.
Dimitri took no notice of it and stole a hand beneath the bedding to cup one of my breasts, the other he used to pull me closer against the cool, solid planes of his body. His touch thrilled the soft flesh there in a way that no other man could, his fingers deftly finding and igniting the stiff little protrusion at its center, which he rubbed between his thumb and forefinger.
He took my gasp as further encouragement to stoke and fan my rising heat for him.
His arousal twitched between us, and I found myself both excited and wary of what his passion was capable. “Yield to me, beloved, and be free.”
It was as if a warm line stretched from that swollen little mound between his fingertips to my brain, compelling me to abandon everything I held dear and give in to him. Part of me wanted to do just that, allow him to fill me, to take me over completely.
Dimitri pressed into me again, almost to the point of pain. “Yield to me, Francesca.”
“I…” I arched against him and almost said yes. “…cannot defy her wishes.”
“Your Queen is corrupt!” he all but growled. “Blinded by arrogance and misguided hatred. Even her own King spurns her sadistic lust for violence and war.”
He was right. He was also here with me, no matter the danger his presence brought to us both. I didn’t want to spoil the moment with talk of my mother and the fragile truce between our peoples. He should be kissing me, making love to me; for I did love this man with all my heart.
“Midnight magic and mischief,” I whispered, gazing up at the handsome man I’d first met under silver moonlight in the woods near our palace. “That is what you are to me.”
“Then say yes, Francesca, and spend an eternity of such enchantment with me.”
“Don’t you see?” I reached up to stroke the side of his face. “To be yours forever means to forsake everything else that I cherish; my people, my birthright.”
Dimitri’s eyes ignited with rage. “I offer you a new life to cherish, with me at your side.”
I withdrew my hand and turned into the pillow. “Alas, it is a gift I cannot accept.”
A roar like that of a wild beast erupted from him, his dark hair a trembling mane of tangles, his naked chest heaving. He lunged at me then, his mouth slamming against my throat and tearing a short-lived scream from me.
I could feel my windpipe collapsing beneath the force of his bite, the sting of sharp teeth and a sticky wetness flowing down the side of my neck and onto the sheets. Blackness threatened to consume me, my bedroom giving way to a nighttime wasteland with a gaping maw at its center. The scent of rotting citrus was everywhere, the stench undercut by something even more fetid. The stench of the grave. I would not go willingly into that void.
With all the strength I could muster, I clawed and shoved at Dimitri, his mouth tearing away from my throat with a sickening wet pop. It was dripping with my own blood.
I made one final attempt to strike out at him, but a volley of wind whipped one of the gossamer panels into the candelabrum next to my bed. The fabric exploded in a riot of flames. It jumped to the next panel, then the next, until an unstoppable heat licked at my naked flesh.
I screamed, but Dimitri clamped a bloodied wrist over my mouth and forced me to drink deep of it. I gagged on the coppery-sweet fluid flooding my mouth and throat, the intense heat pure agony now.
A tremendous explosion rocked the bedchamber, followed by the sound of shattering glass and splintering wood. It obliterated that other lurid image with a new one; my body being propelled away from Dimitri and out into the cold night air filled with shouting and screams coming from within the castle.
The roar of flames thundered in my ears. I was on all fours, the abrupt silence of early morning daylight signaling that the dream—no, the nightmare!—had finally ended.
I coughed several times, bringing a hand up to shield my eyes from the brightness. My throat ached from the heat and smoke that only ever existed in my subconscious, and I lunged for the half-consumed bottle of water at my feet, drinking it down in one gulp, a lifeline in an angry sea. The water stung the lining of my throat as if it had actually been singed.
When had my dreams started to come with physical side-effects?
His contrite smile instantly vanished. “Jesus!”
I followed his shocked expression as far down as my knees and blinked in disbelief. Bloodied and raw, the top layers of skin had been peeled away, which was about the same time every pain receptor in their general vicinity began to sting and throb like crazy.
Holding the coffee cup in one hand and the bag clenched between his teeth, Mark ushered me inside and tossed the food items on the kitchen countertop. “First aid kit?”
My voice came out a dry croak. “Bathroom.”
I winced lowering myself onto a barstool from the jolt of nerve-sparks shooting through the pulled skin of my kneecaps.
He returned with a red canvas pouch and bathrobe, which I draped over my lap. I’d forgotten that I was naked. He dabbed at the first knee with a hydrogen peroxide-soaked cotton pad. “And here I figured a cappuccino and pastry would make up for last night.”
I jerked from the cold sting of the bubbling liquid. “I’m not that easily bought.”
An inspection of the contents of the paper bag revealed two croissants staring up at me, their chocolate bits begging to be savored. Guess I was that easily bought.
“Wanna tell me what happened?”
Here it is. Your chance to come clean. “Not particularly.”
Mark lowered his gaze and applied some Neosporin to the wound. “Look, Austin, I—”
“Moving in here was a mistake. You obviously have issues with me. Where I go, who I talk to, who I fuck.” Mark reacted as though I’d dumped ice water on him. “So I’m gonna make this easy for both of us and find somewhere else to live.”
He stood up and stared down at me in stunned disbelief. “I call you out on barging into my neighbor’s house uninvited and now you’re just gonna split?”
I stood up as well, albeit more slowly and painfully. “Your neighbor. Your property. Your life. You need to be in constant control of everything and everyone around you.” It was fucked up of me to end things like this, but better Mark hate me for something he could rationalize than the implausible, horrible truth. “Not being my landlord is a first step in the right direction for both of us.”
Incredulity and hurt darkened in his expression. “Where will you go?”
“I’ll figure something out.”
He began pacing back and forth in front of me. “This is bullshit, Austin.”
I could have reminded him that he was the one who told me I had to go. “I’ll leave these with you,” I said instead, retrieving the house keys from the kitchen counter and dropping them into his hand. “I’ll use the same moving company to pack up and store everything.”
Mark stared down at the keys in his palm for a long moment and then shook his head. “After fifteen years of friendship, this is how you want to end things?”
My heart sank to watch him storm out. All I could do was gape at the open front door and wonder if I really was doing the right thing. Nerve sparks exploded in and around my injured knees, a not-so-subtle reminder that the weird and dangerous had returned to my life.
This was exactly the right thing to do. The only thing to ensure Christie and Mark’s safety. The sooner I got away from them the better for everyone.
There was just one last task ahead of me before I said goodbye to my friends and Los Angeles for good: A visit to Dimitri Ravello.
Two hours later, I was standing in the living room of my guest cottage staring at the suitcase and duffle bag next to the front door. I couldn’t believe I was actually doing this.
The king-size knots in my stomach tightened when I secured the locks to the tall, folding doors leading out onto the veranda for the last time. Beyond their glass panes, the first real stirrings of fall danced in the rustling tree branches, in their dryer and less verdant foliage. The pool still sparkled brightly in the late-morning sun, with silvery glints skittering across the water’s deep turquoise surface.
It was my cell phone ringing, followed by the blare from a car horn, that took me to the kitchen window in time to spy Christie’s SUV backing down the long driveway.
I tapped the ‘accept call’ field. “Mark told me everything.”
“Christie, I—”
“No! You listen to me Joshua Austin Iverson. I don’t care what was said in anger last night.” He must have been in the car with her, because I could hear Mark muttering something in the background. “You are not moving out, and that’s final. Whatever happened between you two, fix it. Got it?”
The vehemence in her voice took me by surprise. “Yeah, I got it,” I lied.
She let out a ragged sigh. “Good. Now, we’re headed up to Ojai. Vic’s had a motorcycle accident and is in the hospital there.” Vic was a childhood friend of Christie’s. “When we get back tomorrow, we’re all going to sit down and talk this out.”
An image of Christie and the French chef flashed in my mind. “I’ll be here,” I told her, hoping that she’d mistaken the crack in my voice as remorseful compliance.
“You’d better be.”
She hung up just as her SUV disappeared from sight, leaving me with an even sicker feeling in the pit of my stomach. How could I leave the two people I loved most in this world?
It’s because you love them that you have to go…
CHAPTER 18
I gave the angry, horned dragon knocker another couple of strong raps and waited.
Still no answer.
Even in broad daylight Dimitri’s house gave off a somber vibe, much of its gray and brown stone façade shaded from the sun by the giant oak tree behind me. Only the very top of the turret came to life against the deep blue autumn sky. And while the main gates had been left open, almost as if he were expecting me, a glance at the upper-floors revealed garnet drapes drawn across thick lead-glass panes. In fact, drapes covered every window I could see.
Shit. What if he and Andrea’s are still…?
I dismissed the notion with a mental shrug. Girlfriend or wife, a surgically-enhanced brunette with insecurity issues was the least of my concerns. My goal for coming here today was to find out exactly who (or what) Dimitri Ravello was. Either he would enlighten me to that fact or toss the insane neighbor claiming to be a sex demon out on his embarrassed ass.
Another distinct possibility? He was a Shadow Walker and I was walking into a trap.
About to give the dragon’s head one last rap, a sound from the edge of the property took me to the eastern-most boundary separating our two houses. Another security gate stood open.
“Hello?”
When no response came, I crept along a path of stone pavers until I emerged into a spectacular Mediterranean-style garden that unfurled all the way to the tree-lined rear of the property. Well-manicured lawns and hedges curved around pathways dotted by squat stone walls and carved marble benches, with an enormous fountain serving as its centerpiece. I could have easily been in Southern Europe instead of Southern California.
Deeper into the yard, I passed a covered terrace laden with pink bougainvillea at the rear of the house. The path I was on ended at the fountain, its four mythological sirens making up the innermost portion of a wide column, with a muscular Poseidon seated above them on a throne of coral and starfish. He gripped the rod of his legendary trident in one fist, the staff overtly suggestive in its arrangement between his legs. Hogwarts this was definitely not.
I heard that noise again. A muffled, slicing/scraping sound that came from beneath a cluster of trees near the same wall bordering our properties.
“Madre de Dios!” yelped a short, stocky man, when I stepped through the canopy of low-hanging branches. He’d been tilling the soil near a clump of fragrant gardenia bushes.
“Sorry. I thought you were Dimitri.”
The gardener straightened at the mention of his employer’s name, his eyes widening as tho
ugh something monstrous were sneaking up behind me.
“Austin?”
I turned and peered through the lacy leaf cover to find Dimitri Ravello standing at the center of the covered patio, arms folded across his broad chest.
He didn’t appear overly happy to see me.
“Sorry to intrude…again,” I said with forced cheer and stepped back out into the bright sunlight. “But I think we should talk about what happened last night.”
The gardener snatched up an old coffee thermos and faded red plastic cup from the ground and took off toward the rear of the property. The look of fear in his eyes after he caught sight of Dimitri should have been warning enough that I might be in over my head.
“Come,” Dimitri surprised me by saying and gestured to the open door behind him.
I crossed the expanse of green lawn separating us, stepped up onto the slate-tiled terrace, and followed my enigmatic neighbor into a house of which I knew practically nothing about the layout. My mysterious neighbor who just so happened to possess superhuman strength.
The scenario screamed spider/fly.
It turned out the spider’s parlor was an impressive study that would have made any Edwardian English gentleman proud. A soaring, coved ceiling showcased large, ebonized beams, and an entire wall of glass-fronted bookcases sat opposite floor-to-ceiling windows, which were also draped in the same heavy garnet velvet I’d viewed from the outside. An ornate fireplace anchored one end of the study, but the room’s real showpiece was a massive, antique wrought-iron chandelier that illuminated what would have otherwise been a gloomy space.
Absorbed by the room’s contents, I startled to find Dimitri standing next to me and holding up a bottle of red wine with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“The vintage is excellent. Can I tempt you with a glass?”
His nightmare doppelganger flashed in my mind, lips and chin dripping with Francesca’s blood. Instinct dictated that I get the hell out of there pronto, but I’d purposely landed at the center of his web. I had to find out as much as I could about this mysterious man before I left Los Angeles for good and, hopefully, learn more about myself in the process.