Dream Lover Read online

  As her vision cleared, distant lights and buildings twisted and wavered, distorted by something not quite visible, something trembling between being and not being. She reached out and felt a throbbing like air propelled by beating wings, or a pounding heart.

  She leaned into the pressure, then fell back as it surged toward her. Forward, back, approaching a balance; “Yes, gently, softly, but not too softly…now harder….” He was taking form now, still murky to the eyes but tangible to her hands, her skin, her demanding body.

  Wingtips curved around her. Strong arms circled her and hands grasped the soft fullness of her buttocks to lift and press her up against him. Fiery crescent eyes flickered closer and closer as she stretched upward. He bent his head and with a tongue gently rasping like a cat’s, licked the drops of blood from her lip.

  She clutched at his massive chest, iron-hard under deep velvet fur; gripped corded thighs with her own, straining to raise herself enough to meet the tip of the great cock pulsing against her belly. He lifted her higher, and she was there…there…but in spite of overflowing readiness she thought at first she could never fit him in.

  She sobbed in frustration, thrusting frantically against him, and he raised her again until his hardness teased, stroked, licked at her, flooding her with wetness and sensation. When finally, slowly, he slid inside, the demanding fullness was pleasure and pain almost more than she could bear.

  Distant sounds, banging, harsh words impinged on her consciousness. Then he moved and drove her to move, and the world receded. Hot surges of sensation wracked her, until they came so close and fast that she rose on the wave and rode it until it crashed, at last, into thunderous release.

  Even the ebbing was glorious. She clutched the great body, now solid, dark, completely there and held him as his wrenching spasms went on and on and on.

  At last, when he seemed almost spent, she reached up to stroke his face, but it grew ever more distant as the presence that had filled her receded. She slid down until her feet touched the floor. His form dissipated slowly, like smoke, leaving her a last vision of a wraithlike hand outstretched in supplication.

  Cold air chilled her fevered skin. She watched the glow intensify inside the stone and knew he was trapped again, though a thread of fire showed through the long crack newly formed between braced forelegs.

  The rain had stopped. She forced herself to move, bent to reclaim the limp raincoat, turned toward the lighted window. Lighted? She hadn’t turned on the lamps! Had she locked the door before rushing to the window? Sounds and words she had blocked out came back to her in a rush.

  There had been banging on the door, thumping on the window frame, a harsh voice shouting, “For Christ’s sake, buddy, get it off already, will you!”

  She knew that voice, like oily gravel. It was one of Leopold’s “associates.” She had expected to have to deal with him, or someone like him, but not in such a state of vulnerability. The raincoat felt wet and cold and gritty as she hugged it around herself and stepped through the window.

  “Kinky bastard, eh?” He waved a heavy arm toward the window. “Isn’t coming in? Afraid to be seen? I don’t give a shit who he is. Just tell me where fucking Leopold is hiding out and I’ll be out of here.”

  Jayne was shaky, but not as dazed as she sounded. “I… who…” She glanced vaguely around the room. “I’m sorry, Mr.…Mr. Robinson, isn’t it? I haven’t seen Leopold in three or four days, and that’s just fine with me.”

  The hair was impeccably styled, the skin pampered, but the wide mouth grinned in a toad-like face. “You don’t say! Considering new management?” She saw the move coming but couldn’t retreat. He whipped her raincoat open and yanked at it, turning her until it fell off. “Rough stuff. Nice.” A thick finger jabbed at the bruises on her neck and shoulders where Leopold had gripped her and the scrapes from tonight’s impact of stone and wall. Then he gripped her jaw and squeezed her mouth until drops of blood from her cut lip ran down her chin.

  “What does it cost for a piece of that?” His voice had thickened.

  “What’s it worth to you?” Her purr masked her fury. Keep him off guard, find a way to kill him, feed him piece by piece to the stone jaws…

  “Get rid of the john out there and we’ll see.” He adjusted his trousers. “Christ, he’s going to freeze his ass off, if you’ve left him any!” He moved toward the window.

  Without any clear plan she moved to intercept him. He stiffened. The toad’s mouth curled into a snarl. “That’s fucking Leopold out there, isn’t it! Fucking Leopold, fucking! He should have stuck to that side of his business instead of pimping worthless mutual funds.” He gave a bark of mirthless laughter and shoved her aside.

  Rage coiled through Jayne like a steel spring. He would not foul her balcony with his gross presence, leer at the red glow of her lover’s trapped spirit! She launched herself at his back, striking between his shoulder blades with all her weight and fury. His startled cry mingled with a roar from beyond as his upper body pitched forward, through the window…and beyond into a spray of blood.

  Jayne watched in savage joy. Her demon was so strong now, he could reach out so far…

  When it was over, though, she stumbled to her bed and sank, shaken and drained, into darkness.

  Late at night the demon came to her, in vision deeper than dream. Jayne saw his true form, merely caricatured by the stone carving: a shape more man than beast, long limbed, graceful, powerful, covered with a thick black fur whose silken touch made her shiver with delight. The curved horns rose naturally from his proud head, extending the line of the pointed ears. His slanting eyes curled into crescents when he smiled, a wicked grin that showed gleaming fangs. She had to smile back.

  He held out a hand, cruel talons retracted, and she grasped it with her own. She pressed against him, but after a moment he swung her gently around.

  Only then did she become aware of the surroundings in her vision. Walls of smoothly fitted stones, candles smoking fitfully in sconces, hangings in deep colors with intricate designs not quite revealed by the dim light. It was an ambience profoundly other, yet vaguely familiar, a scene from a history book or fairy tale.

  He drew her to a small, arched window, and she looked through iron bars down into a torch-lit courtyard. She watched, unseen, as a red-robed figure passed by, thick fingers stroking a heavy golden cross; but when she looked for holiness in his face she read only a cruel sensuality she knew all too well.

  The demon gripped the bars, bent them with slight effort, then pushed with increasing tension against an invisible field of force just beyond. When she reached through the bars she felt no barrier; it seemed to be devised for him alone.

  Ancient magic or future science? She was distracted by the play of muscles across black-velvet shoulders, back, buttocks… no wings? But the wings were there, sweeping in and out of visibility as he strained against the unseen wall. They faded as he slumped back and turned toward her, face twisted in anger and despair.

  The proud head bent, the tall form folded, knelt, until he crouched at her feet like a great dark knot of wood shaped by a master carver.

  A wave of compassion swept her, and, in its wake, a resolve. If he asked for her help, it must be in her power to give. In the world she inhabited, however tenuously, they had already cut a strange and bloody swath together; she would willingly challenge whatever world held him captive.

  She reached out to embrace him, pressing her breasts against his bowed head; the sheltering mantle of her moon-pale hair enveloped him. “Yes,” she murmured, “yes,” more certain of the answer than the question. A cool breeze stirred the curtain of hair. She saw brightening sky outside the window, and as she watched a shaft of hazy sunlight came through the window and crept toward them, until, with a convulsive lurch, her lover was gone from her arms and she was left empty, hollow, kneeling on her own floor in her own room in a cold pool of daylight.

  Even with Leopold gone there were some regular clients to deal with. Those f
ew who persisted despite her refusal went the same way in due course, each adding to her demon’s strength. She began to think he might break free of his bonds while still in this world.

  She savored for days the lingering feel of him, like a taste too intense to absorb all at once, but by the end of a week the urge for further tasting consumed her.

  It was time for a test. He had devoured the latest victim at the very door of her bedroom, sucking him into that unseen dimension that claimed them all. Could he come in visible and tangible form just a few steps farther?

  She watched her reflection in the dark window. A long white satin gown caressed her skin, clinging and rippling; she might have been a caryatid, or an angel from a Renaissance artist’s erotic dreams.

  When she opened the window a stream of raindrops brightened with a reflected glow. He knew she was there.

  Jayne stroked the creamy satin; then, deliberately, turned away. The lick of silky fabric over skin already sensitized drove her longing close to pain. If he didn’t come she would have to go to him and soon.

  But he was there before her, lounging on the bed, watching with hot eyes and laughing mouth. She avoided his outstretched hand, letting a satin thigh just brush his fingertips. He kept talons retracted, willing to play the game.

  When she knelt by the bed and pushed gently at his chest he leaned back onto the mounded pillows. Her hand brushed his erection, making it leap; she felt an urgent pang but kept her movements languorous.

  The inner sweep of his thighs, where the fur almost disappeared, shivered under her strokes. Avoiding the most outstanding feature, she burrowed her face into his silk-furred belly, then pulled back quickly. He was gripping the blankets now and breathing faster.

  Jayne slipped a white hand between dark thighs and cupped his heavy fullness with gently increasing pressure. His buttocks tensed, his back arched. She slid her fingers upward, moving along his pulsing cock, trembling slightly as she wondered how her cunt had been able to hold this immensity, and how long she could bear to wait before doing it again.

  Too much protraction of this game and she might cheat herself, but to see him like this, to press him to the edge, to bend, taste… His head was thrown back, his eyes slits, a low growl rumbling along with each ragged breath.

  Her tongue flicked in and out, again and again, tasting the very tip, tormenting him with the lightness of each touch. His talons pierced through to the mattress as he gripped the bed. She pulled back to shrug the satin down over the peaks of her nipples, then leaned forward to brush them against his hardness.

  She ached to be filled, but still… One more teasing lick, then her whole mouth plunged over him, filled with him, sucked at him, savored his salt tang, while her hand slid up and down the length that was too much for mouth and throat to hold. The throbbing began, the taste intensified…she had gone too far….

  Great hands gripped her shoulders, pushed her back. Through streaming hair she watched him wrestle for control, a harsh moan grating in his throat, drops of blood welling where fangs clenched in his lower lip.

  Then his eyes burned into hers, urging, demanding, sending a message she didn’t understand. All she could do was what she did understand, sliding the satin gown up above her hips, moving over him, meeting his hardness with her own wild, wet need, sliding down over him slowly, slowly, until the fullness drove her to rise, and plunge, and rise.

  He gripped her hips, stilled them, then grasped her shoulders. She was consumed by the need to move, but he pulled her until her damp hair brushed his face; then his tongue came out to lick at one of the drops of blood gleaming on his lip. She remembered that tongue on her own lip, her own blood….

  Jayne lowered her head and ran her tongue along the line of drops, then closed her lips around his and sucked gently until her mouth was full of the metallic tang. She swallowed. A tingle spread through her body in a frothing tide, ebbing just as he began to move, at last, in the demanding rhythm she craved.

  Then she knew only the driving ache of pleasure, the mounting of the great wave that must break at last into the maelstrom of release. But he held her there, riding the crest, farther and farther, until they spun at last completely out of the world she had known.

  The blaze of sensation faded gradually into glowing embers. Jayne became aware of the beat of wings. Still they spun on, ever slower, until at last familiar stone walls enclosed them and all motion ceased. She buried her face in his velvet chest.

  He stroked along her hair and down her back. Her shoulder blades tingled. The sensation grew, swelled—and at last she understood, and felt her own power and gloried in the unfurling of her own great white sheltering wings.

  The red-robed priest might think to hold a demon captive, but he could never resist an angel of seduction, and ecstasy and death.

  OLD-FASHIONED GLAMOUR

  Nikki Magennis

  Rural Scotland, 1968

  “I shouldn’t be here.”

  Talking to yourself is one of the hazards of living alone too long. I stared at the clean, cold fireplace in Margaret’s old living room and wished she were here to answer me. Not that she’d have disagreed. It was a foolish visit, and I was the first to admit that I had no right to be back in Maybane.

  But I needed to see him. How would he look? I knew the map of his face. After all the years I would recognize him—even if he’d changed and weathered with the passing time.

  “Scott.” It had been so, so long since I felt that name on my tongue. It felt good. It tasted good. I looked at myself in the small, mottled mirror on my teacher’s mantelpiece. The house was far too quiet now that the witch Margaret was gone. She’d taught me enough to know that a home is alive, not merely four walls and a roof to keep the rain out. I missed her. The world had changed, and I was very different. Yet standing in her old living room, I felt doors open in my heart.

  I breathed in and smelled the lilacs in the garden and slowly gathered the haze charm about me. That night, I needed to be unseen. It made me sad, but there was no other way. The visit had to be strictly secret—I was only there because my heart was tired and bruised and yearning for a sight of his face.

  Turning sunwise, I watched in the mirror as my reflection paled and shifted, until it was a shimmering mist in the glass, my black hair and tanned face a faded ghost you’d hardly have noticed. Around my neck the locket gleamed—that was harder to obscure as it contained old magic that wouldn’t be messed with, but I had to wear it if I valued my life.

  “Protect yourself first, so you can protect the mortals,” Margaret had taught a fifteen-year-old girl who knew nothing about the world. “And keep away from Tommy Shearing.”

  Sound advice. I wished I’d listened to her, but the local bad boy was a weakness that I couldn’t resist. Not even when it meant throwing away the chance of a good man’s heart, and long after it became clear that Tommy preferred his magic black. I shook myself and closed my eyes to say goodbye to Margaret’s ghost. I’d broken all the rules, and I’d spend the rest of my life learning to live with it.

  I walked to the village hall, carrying my hazel wand. The early evening air was liquid against my skin. Bumblebees and moths brushed against my arms, confused. Good, I thought, cupping my hand to move them gently away. The haze is working.

  The hall was strung with fairy lights. I could hear music already and it reminded me of all the other nights I’d walked past here, too afraid to show my face.

  I had the cloak of power to cover me now, the knowledge that I couldn’t be harmed by anyone’s curious stares or hostile words. Only hard black magic could do that, and Tommy had been well bound. I was safe. The odd, queasy shiver that ran through me must just have been left over from long-forgotten memories.

  Inside, I made straight for the trestle tables where they were serving punch. The place was packed, and I was glad that none of the familiar strangers could see me. Not that anyone would have recognized the odd, gawky teenager they used to know. I’d become a woman polish
ed, strengthened, and yes, maybe even hardened by magic. I recognized them, though: Trudy and Moira, faces bland and tired, voices lost among the clamor, their own children pestering them for cash; Richard, the skinny widow’s boy, cracking a joke, still trying to ingratiate himself with Don and Morgan, who ignored him as ever. My fingers twitched. I was tempted to give the two of them a blast just to show them some manners.

  God. This is why witches don’t attend school reunions, as a rule.

  And then all of a sudden it seemed that the place was overrun with us. I stopped in my tracks. Tommy lurked at the back of the hall, looking on with his twisted cool gaze. That made two of us here among the mortals—two too many.

  From behind the safety of my protective magic, I gave him a good hard stare. His hair was razor short, and the brutish good looks of his teenage years had turned into a sharp-faced scowl. Next to him, Pamela folded her arms and made such a pinch-lipped pout it looked like she was chewing a wasp. So he’d ended up with her after all. I felt my tummy squeeze despite myself. Jealousy is hard to forget.

  All I could do was keep walking and hope like hell that the haze would stay strong.

  At the makeshift bar I bought some punch from Eric the butcher, who aimed a puzzled “Huh?” into the crowd as he handed me the paper cup. I drank it too quickly. Rum and sugary orange stuck to my lips. Around me, the crowd surged and parted, and nobody seemed to notice the empty space that I created among them. My heart was dancing. I was thinking—It’s okay; I can do this.

  And then my heart stopped.

  There must be something as unique as a fingerprint in the way someone holds himself; in the set of his shoulders, the bow of his head. At once I knew it was him, and I felt the old days rushing up at me like a swarm. Maybe that’s what queered the magic; maybe that’s why the charm slipped for a minute. Because how else could he have turned to look at me, how could he have seen someone who wasn’t there?