Five: Out of the Pit (Five #2) (4 page)

Exhaustion took over when we were still several miles from our new rock home. “I need to rest a minute.” I sat on the packed dirt of the trail we followed.

Sitting next to me, Johnathan reached to rub my back. He stopped when he felt the tremors undulating across the muscles there, then wrapped his arm around my shoulders and hugged me to him. “Why are you trembling? Are you in pain?”

I shook my head then laid it on his shoulder. “I’m just tired, I think. And cold.” I could just barely feel the rays of the morning sun as it rose. There hadn’t been time for its warmth to reach us yet.

“I need to get you home so you can warm up and get some sleep.” He stood and pulled me to my feet. I almost fell as a wave of dizziness washed over me, but Johnathan steadied me.

I let out a little squeak when he picked me up and carried me like a bride over a threshold. “John, really, I can walk. I just need to rest for a minute.” My chattering teeth weren’t very convincing, apparently, because he refused to put me down.

“Call off your sonar spell so it isn’t draining your reserves any more than they’re already drained. No arguing; I’m going to carry you the rest of the way.” He planted a kiss on the top of my head.

Who could argue with that? I draped my uninjured arm around his neck, laid my head on his shoulder, and breathed in the scent that was uniquely him. His warmth flooded through me and I soon stopped shivering. I think I even dozed off a few times before we reached home.

Halli had infused the walls of our
room
with a warming spell—rocks were awesome at holding in heat—so it was nice and cozy when Johnathan led me in to my sleeping bag and helped me lay down. As soon as my head hit the pillow I had a flashback of the Incubus laying atop me, holding my arms down, holding my legs with his
—
kissing me. I shot up to a sitting position.

“What’s wrong?” Johnathan asked.

“Don’t leave me alone in here.” I hated acting like a wimp, especially in front of Johnathan, but fear enveloped me.

The Incubus said he’d be back for me.

“I wasn’t planning on it. You sleep and I’ll keep watch. Don’t worry; I won’t leave your side. Now, lay down.”

He smoothed the hair away from my face and planted a kiss on my forehead before moving to sit at my feet, closer to the entrance. His hand rested on my ankle. Knowing he was there—and that he wasn’t going anywhere—gave me the courage to sleep.

I slept, dreamless at first; the kind of sleep that only true exhaustion brings. Then,
he
came to me as I slept. Stronger and more real than a dream. I could still feel Johnathan’s hand on my ankle, which meant I was aware of the waking world. Yet, I slept, unable to fight my way back to wakefulness.

“
Paige, I’m here with you.”

His warm lips brushed mine. The softness of that touch awakened the desire for more. If my mind had been in any shape to think at all, I would have recognized this as more than a dream—when I opened my eyes in a dream I could see, and it was a glorious feeling. I opened my eyes now, as he hovered over me, touching my face with the silk of his hands, but all I saw, eyes opened or closed, was the endless darkness that was my vision now.

I couldn’t speak. He had more control of me in this dream state. I could only move my head—and that only minutely. I tilted my head, bringing my mouth toward where I could feel his hot breath with each slow exhalation. His lips closed over mine, soft and gentle, teasing. His hand snaked around my head and grabbed a fistful of my hair—not painfully, but in a sensual way, tilting my head further back. My lips parted and his tongue slid between them. He kissed me so gently, never increasing the pressure or intensity—it was like torture. Pleasurable torture.

With his other hand, he pulled the collar of my t-shirt away from my neck. I mourned the loss of his lips on mine as he broke the kiss. A breath caught in my throat as his lips moved to the side of my neck, the hand in my hair expertly guiding my head into a position so the softness of his mouth could reach the tender spot just where earlobe met neck. His lips were hot but his breath turned suddenly cool—the diverging sensations sent a chill down my spine. He pulled my collar further to the side and trailed the freezing-hot kisses down my neck and onto my shoulder.

I’m forgetting about something.

I gasped when his lips returned to mine with renewed intensity. He unraveled his hand from my hair and traced his fingers slowly around to the front of my neck. He rested his hand on my upper chest so his fingers rested on my throat.
This is wrong. Something’s not right.

As the trance he held me in deepened, he released the binding and allowed me to move. I raised my hand to his arm, thinking I would make him move his hand away. That thought fled as soon as I felt the strong muscles beneath his silky skin. His other arm wrapped around my torso and lifted me against him
.
We were both floating now, levitating above the floor.
Think Paige. There is something you’re forgetting. Someone…

A vision of Johnathan broke through the mind control. A vision of our first kiss. Only then did I start fighting. I tried to move my mouth away from his. Instantly, he took away my ability to move again. I strained against the paralysis even as his kiss increased in passion.

“
Paige, don’t fight it. You want this. Listen to your body.”

His melted chocolate voice slid across my brain even though his lips continued to assault mine… he spoke within my mind.

I fought harder. Johnathan’s image firmly planted in my mind. Where moments before I had felt indescribable pleasure from the Incubus’s lips, now I only felt revulsion and fear. I fought to escape the entrapment. Pain flooded my head and flashes of red light assaulted the blindness behind my eyelids.

“
Your attempt to battle against what your body wants is making me want you more. I haven’t felt this alive in decades. When I achieve victory with you, it will be a grand occasion—one that neither of us will soon forget. So, battle on Dear Paige… battle on. I won’t take you until you beg for it. And you
will
beg for it.”

His lips, his tongue, the contour of his body touching mine—his voice in my head, and the revulsion I now felt where only pleasure had been before—it was too much. The pain in my head exploded and with one last flash of red, all went back to black.

It’s funny how the mind plays tricks on you. Every time I awakened from sleep since my eyesight had been taken, I opened my eyes expecting to see. The shock was new every morning. This time was no different. First, I felt someone place a cool, wet cloth on my forehead, and then I heard voices beside me.

“When do you think she’ll wake up?” Halli’s quiet voice broke through.

“Soon, she has to wake up soon.” Johnathan sounded beyond worried; his voice dripped with distress.

I opened my eyes thinking I would be able to see what had distressed him so much. But, of course, the cruelness of reality hit me like a snowball to the face. I saw only nothingness.

“Oh, you’re awake! Thank goodness.” Johnathan grabbed the fingers sticking out the end of the cast and squeezed. “Are you okay, Paige?”

“I… think so,” I remembered my encounter with the Incubus and shivered. “My head feels like someone took an ice pick to it. And, my body aches… everywhere. What happened?”

“You levitated and then your body went into convulsions… like a seizure. I didn’t think you were going to stop. Your lips turned blue and you were making choking noises. It seemed like it went on forever.” Johnathan stroked my arm above the cast.

“It actually lasted about five minutes, but I agree, it seemed like forever,” Joe said. “Paige, have you ever had a seizure before?”

“No, never.” I didn’t want to tell them about the newest attack
.
I didn’t want Johnathan to know.

“I thought you were going to die,” Johnathan’s voice broke. I reached my good hand up to his face, wet with tears.

“I know the feeling.” I flashed back to Johnathan’s near death experience in Seattle.

I struggled to sit as my muscles groaned in protest. Johnathan slipped his arm under my shoulders and lifted me to a sitting position.

“Can I talk to Joe for a minute, alone, please?” I asked.

“Sure. We’ll be in the other room.” Hearing the hurt in Johnathan’s voice made me glad I couldn’t see that same emotion on his beautiful face. Multiple pairs of feet shuffled from the small room.

“Okay, they’re gone.” Joe touched my arm. “What happened, Paige?”

I rubbed my forehead with my good hand; I couldn’t decide what hurt worse—my throbbing wrist or the ice pick in my head. “He was here… the Incubus…”

“What do you mean, ‘he was here’? Johnathan never left you, not for a second.”

“He came in a dream… only it was more than a dream. I was aware of John’s hand on my foot. He… the Incubus… was levitating over me. I couldn’t move, except my head, just a little bit.”

“What happened? What did he do to you?” His voice was rough.

I fought back tears as I explained to him in a shamed whisper what happened. How he’d clouded my mind again, made me want him, and finally, how I’d fought to escape the paralysis. “I don’t understand Joe, it was so real. How could it have been so real if he wasn’t really here?”

Joe took a deep breath and put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “It’s called a
waking dream
, Paige. He’s a man with Demon blood. He can do things that are beyond human explanation. He was definitely here; but only for you. He attached himself to your… essence, I guess. That’s why he so easily incapacitated you.

“There is one thing I want to make sure you understand, without a doubt. The feelings he stirs up in you… the desire you feel for him… that’s his power. It’s what he is and what he does and he’s likely had centuries to perfect it. You, Paige, are amazingly strong. Out of a million females, you are likely the only one that would have the strength to resist him. I’d be willing to bet you are his first conquest out of hundreds, maybe even thousands, of women who has been able to resist him. As amazing as that is, and as proud as I am of you for your strength… I’m afraid that, by so resisting him, you’ve been marked as a conquest he must defeat. He won’t leave you alone until either you succumb, or he’s destroyed.”

“Then let’s destroy him.”

he regular tourist season in Moab had ended, but they were used to seeing large groups of people from all around the world. No one seemed to pay much attention to the six of us as we purposefully strode down the main street of the small town. The exhaustion I’d felt as we trudged across the rocks and sand on the way in to town had now been replaced by the adrenaline of the hunt.