Dreamfever (Fever #4)

by Karen Marie Moning

When he picks up Mac and turns away, I swallow a dreamy sigh. I’m gonna give Barrons my virginity one day.

“Be still, Mac. Bloody hell, would you just be still?” “But you’re not in me,” I complain. “And I’m not going to be.” “Why not? You want me.” “You need rest.” “Rest later.” He closes his eyes. A muscle works in his jaw. He opens his eyes. They glitter like arctic night. “I am trying to help you.” I arch up against him. “And I am trying to help you help me,” I explain patiently. My beast is dense sometimes. He growls and drops his face in my neck. But he doesn’t kiss or nip it. I grunt my displeasure. When he lifts his head again, he wears a mask of impassivity that does not promise more of what I want. My hands are still trapped in his. I head-butt him. He laughs, and for a moment I think I have won, but then he stops and says, “Sleep,” in a strange voice that seems to echo with many voices. It pressures my skull. I know what it is. This beast has magic. I have magic, too, in a place in my head. I push back at him with it, hard, because I want what he has and he will not give it to me. It angers me that he resists, so I push into him, I try to make him do what I want him to do. With my beast magic, I search for his weakness to use it against him, like he’s trying to use mine. Then something gives way, and abruptly I am no longer snug between the pleasure of silk at my back and man at my front but—

His eyes narrow. He lunges from the bed and is on me. I exhilarate him. I see it in his face, feel it in his body. He dances with me. I am struck again by how strong and powerful and sure of himself he is. On a predator scale of one to ten, I have enticed a ten. That means I, too, am a ten. I am proud. Our sex is fierce. We will both be bruised. “I want it to always be like this,” I tell him. His nostrils flare, obsidian eyes mock. “Try holding on to that thought.” “I do not need to try. I will never feel differently.” “Ah, Mac,” he says, and his laughter is as dark and cold as the place of which I dream, “one day you will wonder if it’s possible to hate me more.”

Now I have forgiven him because I have him inside me, and he’s got his big hands on my petunia—I do not know that word, or where it came from!—rump, and he’s doing that slow, erotic bump and grind so smooth and deep that makes me purr to the bottom of my toes and kissing me so hard I cannot breathe around it and I do not want to. He is in my soul and I am in his, and we are in bed but we are in a desert, and I do not know where he begins and I end, and I suppose if his peculiar madness is music and photos and stories that chafe, it is a small price to pay for such pleasure. He comes hard, shuddering. I match him, bucking with each shudder. When he comes, he makes a noise deep in his throat that is so raw and animal and sexual that I think if he merely looked at me and made that noise, I might explode in an orgasm. He holds me. He smells good. I drowse.

“Look at me. Who am I?” There is something I have forgotten. I do not want to remember. “You are my lover.” “I was not always, Mac. There was a time when you didn’t even like me. You have never trusted me.”

“Why did you smash this ‘birthday cake’ into the ceiling?” I wait for his answer and am struck by a violent sense of déjà vu—that I have waited for many answers from my beast, and have gotten few, if any. He stares down at me. He seems startled that I have asked such a question. I have confused myself with it. I do not ask questions. I have little interest in talk. There is only now. I met my lover the day he became my lover. What do I care of things called cakes and birthdays? Yet I seem to want his answer very much and feel oddly deflated when he does not give me one.

“I am Jericho Barrons. Say my name.” I try to turn my face away, but his hands clamp like a vise on my skull and hold it immobile, preventing me from looking away. I close my eyes. He shakes me. “Say my name.” “No.” “Damn it, would you just cooperate?” “I do not know that word, ‘cooperate.’ “ “Obviously,” he growls. “I think you make up words.” “I do not make up words.” “Do, too.” “Do not.” “Too.” “Not.” I laugh. “Woman, you make me crazed,” he mutters. We do this often. Get into childish arguments. He is stubborn, my beast.

“Open your eyes and say my name.” I squeeze them shut more tightly. “It would make my cock hard to hear you say my name.” My eyes pop open. “Jericho Barrons,” I say sweetly. He makes a pained sound. “Bloody hell, woman, I think a part of me wants to keep you this way.” I touch his face. “I like how I am. I like how you are, too. When you are … What is that word you used? Cooperating.” “Tell me to fuck you.” I smile and comply. We’re back in territory I understand. “You didn’t say my name. Say my name when you tell me to fuck you.” “Fuck me, Jericho Barrons.” “From now on, you will call me Jericho Barrons every time you speak to me.” He is a strange beast. But he gives me what I want. ...

His hands close tight on my waist, hurting me. “What? What did you see?” “You. Books. Lots of them. You … I … know you. You are …” I trail off. A sign creaking on a pole in the wind. Amber sconces. A fireplace. Rain. Eternal rain. A bell rings. I like the sound. I shake my head. There was no such place or time. I shake my head harder. He surprises me. He does not push me with words I do not like to hear. He does not shout at me or call me Mac or insist I talk more. In fact, when I open my mouth to speak again, he kisses me, hard. He shuts me up with his tongue, deep. He kisses me until I cannot speak or even breathe, until I do not even care if I ever breathe again. Until I have forgotten that for a moment he was not a beast but a man. Until the images that so disturbed me are singed to ash by the heat of our lust and gone. He carries me to the bed and tosses me on it. I feel anger in his body, although I do not know why. I stretch my naked body on the sleek silk, luxuriating in sensation, in the sure knowledge of what is to come. Of what he is about to do. Of what he makes me feel. He stares down at me. “See how you look at me. Fuck. I understand why they do it.” “Who does what?” “The Fae. Turn women Pri-ya.” I do not like those words. They terrify me. I am lust. He is my world. I tell him so. He laughs, and his eyes glitter like night sky pierced by a million stars. “What am I, Mac?” He pours his sleek, powerful body over mine, laces our fingers together, and stretches m...

Suddenly I am laughing and cannot stop. I laugh so hard I cannot breathe. “Oh, God, Barrons,” I finally gasp. “I never knew you could dance. Or have fun, for that matter.” He freezes. “Ms. Lane?” he says slowly. “Huh? Who’s she?” He stares at me, hard. “Who am I?”

“Church, Mac. Unseelie Princes. Remember?” “I do not know those words.” “They raped you.” “I do not know that word!” My hands are fists; my nails hurt me. “They took your will. They took your power. They made you feel helpless. Lost. Alone. Dead inside.” “You should have been there!” I snarl, but I have no idea why. I was never at a church. I am shaking violently. I feel like I might explode. He drops to the floor on his knees in front of me and grabs my shoulders. “I know I should have!” he snarls back. “How the fuck many times do you think I’ve relived that night?”

I beat at him with my fists, hard. I punch him and punch him. “Then why weren’t you?” I shout. He does not resist my blows. “It is complicated.” “‘Complicated’ is just another word for ‘I screwed up and am making excuses!’” I yell. “Fine. I screwed up!” he yells back. “But I only ended up stuck in Scotland because you asked me to go help the bloody damned MacKeltars!” “And there you go making excuses!” I stare at him, furious, betrayed, and I do not know why. “How was I supposed to know? Do I look omniscient?” “Yes!” “Well, I’m not! You were supposed to be at the abbey. Or back in Ashford. I tried to send you home. I tried to get you to go to Scotland. You never do what I tell you to do. Where the fuck was your fairy little prince? Why didn’t he save you?” “I do not know those words—fairy, prince.” They burn my tongue. I hate them. “You do, too! V’lane. Remember V’lane? Was he there, Mac? Was he at the church? Was he?” He shakes me. “Answer me!” When I say nothing, he repeats in that strange multilayered voice he sometimes uses, “Was V’lane there when you were raped?” V’lane failed me, too. I needed him and he did not come. I shake my head. His grip on my shoulders relaxes. “You can do this, Mac. I’m here. You’re safe now. It’s okay to remember. They can never hurt you again.” Oh, yes, they could. I will not remember, and I will never leave this room. Here there are things that keep the monsters away. I need those things. Right now. His body. His lust. Erases it all. I pus...

One of my college Psych professors claimed that every choice we made in life revolved around our desire to acquire a single thing: sex. He argued that it was a primitive, unalterable biological imperative (thereby excusing the human race our frequent idiocy?). He said that from the clothing a person selected in the morning, to the food they shopped for, to the entertainment they sought, at the very root of it all was our single-minded goal of attracting a mate and getting laid. I thought he was a jackass, raised a manicured hand, and told him so with lofty disdain. He challenged me to rebut. Mac 1.0 couldn’t. But Mac 4.0 can. Sure, a lot of life is about sex. But you have to pull up high and look down on the human race with a bird’s-eye view to see the big picture, a thing I couldn’t do when I was nineteen and pretty in pink and pearls. Shudder. Just what kind of mate was I trying to attract back then? (Don’t expect me to analyze Mac 4.0’s predilection for black and blood. I get it, and I’m perfectly fine with it.) So, what’s the big picture about our lust for sex? We’re not trying to acquire something. We want to feel something: Alive. Electrically, intensely, blazingly alive. Good. Bad. Pleasure. Pain. Bring it on—all of it. For people who live small, I guess enough of that can be found in sex. But for those of us who live large, the most alive we ever feel is when we’re punching air with a fist, uncurling our middle finger with a cool smile, and flipping Death the big o...

I’d had sex with Jericho Barrons. Not just sex. Incredibly raw, intensely intimate, completely uninhibited sex. I’d done everything a woman could do with a man. I’d pretty much worshipped every inch of him. And he’d let me. Oh, no, much more than that—he’d enthusiastically participated. He’d egged me on. He’d plunged right into my animalistic frenzy with me, met me move for move in that dark lust-crazed cave where I’d been living.

He was dressed differently than I’d ever seen him, and it suited his golden perfection. Like Barrons, he wore an elegant dark suit, crisp white shirt, and blood-red tie. “Get your own fashion adviser,” Barrons growled. “Maybe I decided I like your style.” “Maybe you thought if you were more like me, she’d fuck you, too.”

I answer to you, as always, MacKayla. Not her.” “After your queen,” I said bitterly. “The one you chose to stay with instead of rescuing me.” “You were first to me,” Barrons said. “There was no queen in front of you with me.”

I looked at Rowena and she looked at me and we had an entire conversation in a glance. Child, did you really believe you could take them from me? her fierce blue glare mocked. Touché. Watch your back, old woman. She’d won, for now.

We looked at each other for a long moment. “Dude,” she said finally, “I think we’re outcasts.” “Dude,” I agreed, with a sigh.

Strength wasn’t about being able to do everything alone. Strength was knowing when to ask for help and not being too proud to do it.

“This is worse than an IFP,” Dani muttered. “I feel like I’m stuck in an IFCF.” I raised a brow. “Interdimensional Fairy Cluster Fuck,” she said sourly. “Don’t they see what’s happening?

The dreamy-eyed boy was reflected in the mirror below them. I stared. He didn’t look the same in the mirror. He was … blurred around the edges and … wrong, very wrong. I shivered, struck by a soul-deep chill. I tried to bring his reflection into focus. The harder I tried, the blurrier he became. The blurred shape cleared, gave me a sharp look. “Don’t talk to it, beautiful girl. Never talk to it.” I gaped. “Her, you mean? The Gray Woman?” “It.” He spat the word with such revulsion that I flinched. I looked down from the mirror at the real thing, not the reflection, and suddenly I could breathe again. He was a boy. A handsome, dreamy-eyed boy. Not something I wanted to run screaming from. “What ‘it’?” He stared at me blankly. “I didn’t say anything.”

The room was dark but for the glow of LCD panels. I took a step to catch my balance. For a moment I thought I was falling, but it was an illusion created by the floor, which was also made of two-way glass. It was so dim in the room that all I could see were outlines: a desk, a few chairs, a table, and a man standing across the room, his back to me. Everything beneath the room, however, was clearly visible. It made each step feel like a leap of faith. “Glass houses, huh, Ryodan?” The first time I’d ever called IYCGM on my cell phone, Ryodan had berated me, told me people who lived in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, implying my goals were no loftier than Barrons’. Now here he stood, surveying his world from inside one. Did he consider his own goals so pristine? I narrowed my eyes. There was another room beyond the one in which we stood, even darker. Whatever lurked in its shadows, he was watching it intently.

“Everyone seems to think you’re the solution, don’t they?” he said. I shrugged. “Not everybody.” Rowena didn’t. “Has it occurred to you that you might be the problem?” “What do you mean?” “Why do you think you keep having so many brushes with the Book, when everyone else who’s searching for it never gets a glimpse of it? Even Darroc, your illustrious master, can’t get close to it. Word is it’s been taking its own—Unseelie—chewing them up and spitting them out. But nobody who really wants it can find it. Except you.” “I’m an OOP detector,” I reminded him. “I’m the only one who can sense it. There’s potential for you.” “Indeed. Potential for what? Has it occurred to you that perhaps you don’t keep finding the Book—it keeps finding you?” “What are you saying?” “What do you think the Book wants, Mac?” “How should I know? Death. Destruction. Chaos. Same as the rest of the Unseelie.”

Has the Book ever spoken to you?” “Yes.” “Barrons said it called you by name.” I’d never told him that. He must have heard it speak to me that night. I’d thought it spoke only in my head. “So? I don’t know how it knew my name.” He liked the “maybe” game. I could play it, too. “Maybe it knows everybody’s. I don’t know what you’re getting at, but the Book repels me. I can barely get close to it. I’m too good and it’s too evil.” “Really.” He could not have said it more dryly. “What do you mean, ‘really’?” I said defensively. “Good and evil are merely opposite sides of a coin, Mac. Get tossed in the air enough, it’s easy to come down on the wrong side. Maybe the Book knows something about you that makes you different. Makes it want you. Makes it think if you flipped sides, you’d be worth more to it than any of the rest of us.”

Life’s an ocean, full of waves. All are dangerous. All can drown you. Under the right circumstances, even the gentlest swell can turn tidal. Hopping waves is for the weekend warrior. Choose one, ride it out. It increases your odds of survival.”

“Sit down and drink your coffee. And put that spear away.” He glanced at the fireplace, murmured a few words, and flames leapt from the cold logs. “How did you do that? You’re not Fae.” “Fae isn’t the only game in town. Your illustrious benefactor taught me well.” “V’lane?” I said. “No.” Something inside me went very still. “Barrons?” “He taught me many things. Including Voice. Kneel.” “Kiss my ass.” “I said kneel before me now.” I sucked in a sharp breath. Layered voices resonated around the room, pushing at me, trying to invade my mind, make his will mine. It was Voice as strong as Barrons had once used on me. I smiled. It was an annoyance, nothing more. It looked like I’d found that place inside me that Barrons had sent me hunting for, where I had the strength to resist Voice. Too bad I still didn’t understand what it was. I had no idea how to use Voice, but it no longer worked on me. I was free. It was another of the things that had changed in me. One more power.

But they were putting Dublin back to rights. I wanted Dublin back to rights. Did this mean they were working to restore the power, too? “Are you doing it to keep the Shades out?” I shook my head at the oddity of having just initiated a conversation with a Rhino-boy I would have wondered if my day could get any stranger, but my days always get stranger. “Pigs,” one of them grunted, and the rest of them agreed, snorting. “Eat everything. Leave nothing for the rest of us.” “I see.” I decided I would let them finish cleaning up the block first and kill them on my way back. Hands in my pockets, I resumed walking. “Pretty girlie-girl, want to live forever?” one of them grunted at my back. They all snorted and snuffled as if at some inside joke. Like, duh, maybe eating them in exchange for sex really didn’t give you immortality, just some new, never-before-heard-of Fae STD. “Got something you can suck on, girlie-girl.” Ew. “Not a chance,” I said coolly. They should have let me go. I would have let them go. But Rhino-boys aren’t the brightest bulbs in the box. I heard hoofed feet shuffling, moving toward me. Their bribe hadn’t worked, so they were switching tactics to brute force. They’d picked the wrong woman to mess with. I hate Unseelie. “Think twice,” I warned. I suspect Rhino-boys have a hard enough time thinking once. A few moments later, the six of them were dead and I was walking toward BB&B, thoroughly pissed that I’d had to kill them before they finished wiring the lamps.

I moved to the counter. A note was propped on the register. Welcome home, Ms. Lane. “Arrogant, overconfident jackass.” Keys lay on the counter beside it.

Some people are a force of nature. Like wind or water over stone, they reshape lives.