Taken at Dusk (21 page)

“Tonight, you mentioned that you were good at … the art of persuasion.”

His lips curled into a smile. “Yeah, I remember that.” His voice had a teasing, sensual quality that made her want to shiver and press herself closer to him.

“What … what did you mean by that?”

His smile turned ultrasexy. “I’d rather show you.”

She nipped at her bottom lip, considering his offer. She was tempted—Lord, how she was tempted. And what would be the harm in saying yes, just this one time? After all, this was just a dream. Anything that happened here would have no effect on her real life. Right?

“Relax, Kylie,” he said. “It’s just a dream.” His words echoed her own thoughts. Then his warm lips brushed against her brow and the ripple of unease increased.

“Maybe it’s just a dream,” she said. “But it feels real and I’m … I prefer you just answered my question the old-fashioned way.”

He nodded. For a second, he appeared not to want to continue, but then he said, “It’s not like a trick or anything. It’s part of what I am. It’s instinctual.”

“What’s instinctual?”

“When a were is with a potential mate, our bodies react in certain ways.” He paused as if he knew his explanation wouldn’t be enough. “Last night, when you had your head on my chest, you heard the sound … the low growl.”

“Like a purring or humming,” she said, remembering being lulled by the soft noise.

He nodded. “Well, that reverberation is supposed to be somewhat hypnotic. It encourages our potential mate to want to be closer.”

Close and naked, Kylie thought, but didn’t say it. “It makes one dizzy, too,” she said, remembering how she’d felt last night.

He caught her face in his hands. “I guess maybe a little.” He brushed his thumb over her cheek. “But it’s not a ploy to trick girls into bed. It’s just a natural thing male weres do. If that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m not exactly worried,” she said. And she wasn’t. Because as potentially dangerous as the werewolf’s purr could be, she didn’t think she had to worry about Lucas misusing it. Last night, he’d had a chance to let things escalate between them and he’d put a stop to it.

“Like I told you,” she said. “I trust you.” And she still did.

He studied her face. “But?”

Okay, there was a but. She hesitated to find the right words. “But knowledge is power. I like knowing what I’m dealing with. And I like being the one in the driver’s seat, if you know what I mean.”

He frowned slightly as if he didn’t like her answer. “It’s not like entrapment. A female has to be close, really close, to a male were before she’s even aware of it.”

Kylie smiled. “So I guess I need to be careful how close I get to you.”

“Or not.” He leaned in and kissed her softly on the lips. “I really, really like you, Kylie Galen.”

“And I you, Lucas Parker.” She raised herself up on her tiptoes to press a quick kiss to his lips.

His eyes met hers and he let go of a deep breath. “Okay.”

“Okay, what?” she asked, sensing his remark meant something.

“Okay, I’ll be a bit more patient. Okay, I’m happy with this. With just being this close to you.” He picked her up and twirled her around.

She grinned when he set her back on her feet. “Thanks,” she said, and touched his lips with her fingertips.

He caught her hand. “We just have to be a little careful when we’re not dreaming.”

“Careful about what?”

“Like I told you last night. The closer to the full moon, the more I run on instinct. And sometimes, my instincts are short on patience.”

She didn’t like the sound of that. “Do you mean we can’t see each other when it’s time for your change?”

“I didn’t say that.” He frowned. “We can see each other. But we shouldn’t … dance in the moonlight for too long. Or roll around on the ground by the creek.” He grinned. “Or go skinny-dipping at the swimming hole.” His tone seemed to deepen.

“That was just a dream.” She felt her face flush.

“A good one, too.” He smiled. Then he breathed in as if to sober his thoughts. “But basically, we’ll be fine as long as we don’t play too close to the fire until after the change.” He ran his hand through the curtain of her hair and brought a handful of it to his nose. “Unless you change your mind. You do know that what happens in dreams isn’t really real, right? I mean, we could—”

Suddenly, she felt something yanking her from behind and pulling her away from Lucas. Pulling her to someplace she didn’t want to go.

Lucas yelled out her name. But a cloud appeared between them. She realized that two men dressed in white lab coats had her in their grips. One on each arm, holding her so tightly that she couldn’t get away. The camp had dissolved. Now she was in a building of some kind, and the two men pulled her down a dark, dismal hall. She screamed and tried to pull away, but she was helpless.

Her heart thumped in her chest, and she tasted fear on her tongue. Nothing made sense. Then she remembered—this was a dream. All she had to do was wake up.

She slammed her eyes shut. Tight. Then tighter.

Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

Suddenly, a bright light shone in her eyes. Everything had changed again. The men who had dragged her away were gone. She felt disoriented, lost, alone. Empty. She felt empty. What was happening to her?

The light shifted from one eye to the other, and she saw a man’s face inches from her nose. She realized she was lying in a bed. Not her bed, though. Not the twin one at camp or her full-size mattress at home. This bed felt different. She tried to move but felt numb. No, not numb—she felt paralyzed.

“Is she okay?” a female voice asked. Kylie cut her eyes to the side to see her new captor, but she was out of vision range, and Kylie was unable to turn her neck. Panic started to tighten her throat again.

“She should be,” said the man, shining the flashlight into her eyes.

Kylie blinked and when she opened her eyes, she saw his pattern. He was vampire.

Then he turned her chin in his large hands and ran his finger over her head. Oddly enough, Kylie realized he touched her bare scalp. She was missing her hair.

Missing her hair?

She blinked again and remembered her ghost, Jane Doe. Was that what was happening? Was this a vision sent to her by the amnesiac ghost—one of those crazy ones where Kylie actually became the spirit? Fear swelled in her chest. She cut her eyes to the side and stared at the man’s eyes until she saw her own reflection. Or saw the ghost’s reflection.

It should have calmed her, but the panic built higher. She wanted out of here. She hadn’t wanted to be here to start with. She’d already lost everything that mattered. Thoughts, feelings, and emotions collided in her chest and she wasn’t sure which ones were her own and which ones belonged to her spirit.

“Wake up. Kylie, wake up!”
Kylie could hear voices coming from somewhere far away. But then the voices faded and she felt the vampire’s hand on her head again.

“She’s healing nicely,” he said. “Maybe she’ll just take a while longer to come around. Let’s do another MRI scan on her.” The man stood up and twitched his brows at her. “Then again, it could be more. Her pattern still hasn’t emerged.” He frowned. “I don’t understand that. Something isn’t right.”

“What do I tell her husband? He woke up several hours ago and is asking for her,” the female voice said. Kylie had yet to see the owner of that voice.

Help me!
Kylie screamed in her head, because she couldn’t make her throat work.

“Tell him she’s doing fine. But we’re keeping her for observation. Release him if he’s ready to go.”

“Do you think she’s going to live?” asked the woman again.

“I don’t know.” He slipped his flashlight into his coat pocket. “But I guess it’s inevitable that we will lose a few subjects. We just have to remember it’s for a good cause.”

“I guess,” said the female voice.

“Get me the results of the test. However, if she hasn’t awakened by tonight, go ahead and extinguish her.”

Extinguish her?

Kylie’s fear ratcheted up a notch.

Noooooooooooo!

Chapter Eighteen

“Damn it! She’s not breathing!” a familiar male voice boomed in Kylie’s ears, and she wanted more than anything to answer him. She tried to move but couldn’t. She still felt paralyzed.

Help me. Please …

“She did this once before.” That was Della talking now, but panic filled her voice. Della never showed panic or fear. To the contrary, the vampire was fearless.

“Kylie, wake up!” the deep male voice said, and this time Kylie recognized it as belonging to Lucas.

Suddenly, Kylie’s lungs opened up and demanded air. She opened her mouth and gasped and started coughing as if her lungs wanted to reject the oxygen. Rolling over on her side, she continued to cough, certain she was going to blow a lung. Finally, she opened her eyes and realized she was on the kitchen floor in her cabin.

After a few more seconds passed, the coughing stopped and she focused on breathing. Someone grabbed her and pulled her up into their lap and held her. Heat surrounded her. He was hot. So hot. And she was cold. So damn cold.

She focused on the face of the person cradling her so tenderly. So close. So warm. And his eyes were so blue. Lucas.

Then his face faded and she saw a strange woman’s face moving close. The feel of Lucas’s arms around her seemed like a memory that time was pulling away a little bit each moment.

“She stopped breathing again!” Lucas shouted, and he started rocking her. “What do I do? Someone tell me what to do!”

“Holiday says she’ll be okay.”

Kylie recognized Burnett’s voice, but it seemed to be coming from somewhere else, from someplace far, far away.

“Holiday thinks she’s probably having a vision. That sometime…” His voice faded into the background.

The vision yanked Kylie back completely, and she watched in horror as a group of women brought something up to her face. Only it wasn’t her. She was experiencing Jane Doe’s life, but it felt as real as if it were happening to her.

She felt a thick, nubby towel being forced against her mouth. She gasped, tried to move, but couldn’t. She—Jane Doe—was paralyzed, and someone was smothering her.

The unfairness of it stung her throat as her lungs begged for air. Everything went black and then she saw the spirit standing over her. She leaned down, her blue lips frosted over.
“They killed me. They really killed me,”
she said.
“You must breathe, though. You must live.”

Kylie’s lungs screamed for oxygen, but she felt unable to gasp for the air she needed. Then she became aware that she was back in her kitchen.

Kylie heard Miranda chanting in the distance. She heard Della muttering that Lucas should give Kylie CPR. And Burnett kept asking questions to Holiday over the phone.

“Breathe, damn it!” Lucas yelled.

She pressed her forehead tight against Lucas’s bare chest and pulled big swallows of oxygen into her throat. Tears filled her eyes, and she cried for the life that had been so brutally taken. Cried for the woman whose name she didn’t know. Cried for the woman who, in addition to losing her life, had lost her child. How unfair was that?

“She’s breathing again,” Lucas said, cradling her tighter in his arms. “And she’s crying.” He dipped his head. “Shh,” he whispered for her ears only. And then he said to the others, “I’m taking her to her bed. She’s so cold.”

Kylie felt herself being lifted in his arms. She vaguely recalled that he’d been the one to carry her to the bed that night weeks ago when she’d had the vision of Daniel, and for some reason, it felt right him being here now. It felt right when he lowered her on the bed and then crawled in beside her and held her against his chest, with his arms around her. And being so tired, too emotionally spent to talk to anyone, it especially felt right when she fell asleep with her head pillowed on his warm chest.

*   *   *

Unfortunately, when Kylie stirred awake a short while later, still curled up in Lucas’s arms, Burnett, Miranda, Della, and Lucas all stared at her in shock and concern, and it felt a bit like getting caught French kissing a boy in public. It didn’t feel so right.

She pushed off his chest, brushed her hair from her face, and gazed at all her onlookers, who stared at her as if her head might start spinning or something. Didn’t they know their own abilities and powers were just as weird to those who didn’t have them?

The words
You okay?
and a couple different variations of the same question came from all four people.

She nodded. “I’m fine.”

“She’s awake and says she’s fine,” Burnett said into his cell phone, which he held to his ear. “Yeah, I’ll have her call you as soon as she’s able.”

Kylie recalled hearing Burnett talking to Holiday. “I’m sorry,” she said. She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to apologize. What happened wasn’t her fault. Though she still wasn’t sure exactly what had happened, beyond her getting caught in a vision about Jane Doe’s death. Still, she supposed it was a good idea to apologize for causing a scene in the middle of the night.

She looked at Burnett. “How did … Why are you…?” Embarrassment fluttered in her stomach. “Was I screaming so loud it woke the whole camp or something?”

“No. You hardly screamed at all this time,” Della said. “I woke up when you were walking around the kitchen, muttering and, well, screaming just a bit. When I went to see if you were okay, you were, like, totally out of it. I mean, the lights were on but nobody was home kind of thing. You weren’t here.”

“Yeah,” Miranda said, moving in. “And I woke up when Lucas was trying to bust down our door saying he had to check on you.” Miranda looked at Lucas. “How did you know she was having another one of her dreams?”

Lucas didn’t answer, and Kylie recalled that she’d been dreamscaping with him when the vision had started. Had he seen it, too? He must have if he ran here.

“I … uh…”

Kylie figured he didn’t tell them they were dreamscaping because he knew she probably wouldn’t want him to share that with everyone.