Burning Skies by Caris Roane Read Free Book Online Page B

being a vampire just felt right.
    Her thoughts turned to her long-deceased fiancé, her beloved Eric. She had shared blood with him, and the act had been one of the finest experiences of her life. But she rarely allowed herself to think of him, because she was still sad, even after fifteen years. He had been a decorated Militia Warrior and had died battling death vampires. Once more the tears began to flow.
    She folded a tissue into her hand and wiped her face. A rough sigh tumbled out of her exhausted body. She never stayed up this late. Working for Endelle during the day was an incredible challenge and she needed to be on her toes, all ten of them, to keep up with Her Supremeness and to not let the spiteful, ill-tempered scorpion-woman ruin her day.
    Her gaze drifted from butterfly to butterfly. Her eyelids grew heavy. Maybe given the level of her fatigue she wouldn’t be drawn into the bizarre sexual fantasy-dream she usually experienced. Surely just this once she would be spared the horror of waking up while engaged in full-on sex with Warrior Marcus.
    Whatever. She was too tired to fuss anymore.
    She heaved one last sigh. As her head rolled on the pillow, sleep claimed her.
    *   *   *
     
    Marcus drifted from deep sleep into a half-waking state because he felt her again, the weight of her on his hips, her knees pressed into the mattress on each side of him, her body moving against his profound arousal. He wasn’t buried in her, not yet, but oh … my … God.
    Then he awoke the rest of the way. Havily was here and she was safe and she was with him.
    He resisted the urge to grab her arms and make certain she was whole and unharmed. Despite Jeannie’s earlier reassurances, he was worried for her safety. However, any brusque movement on his part would awaken her from what he knew was still a dream state. And if nothing else, his four months’ experience had taught him that the moment she awakened, she’d recoil from him in horror and slip away.
    That he didn’t have the power to stop her from disappearing when she woke up still fried him.
    So for the last four months he had experimented, testing her limits to see what he could do, or not do as was the case, to see how long he could keep her in a half-dreaming state so that she stayed with him.
    He glanced around his bedroom, which was not quite his bedroom, but a dream-like place that included his bed, okay, a bed, and felt like his home on Bainbridge Island, but wasn’t, even though he could hear wind rattling the windows. He was in his bedroom … but not … so where the hell was he?—which was the same question he’d been asking himself since this whole madness began.
    The room was dark, especially around the perimeter, as though fading to a blackness that had no end. The symbolism wasn’t lost on him—the only way he could have what he most wanted, what he craved, was in some kind of dream state.
    Weird.
    Whatever.
    As she moved against his cock, he suppressed a moan. No loud noises. Her eyes as usual were closed, and he knew she wasn’t awake, yet not quite asleep, or not very deeply.
    He still didn’t get what was happening. For one thing, Havily detested him because he’d quit the Warriors of the Blood two hundred years ago. She saw him as a deserter.
    Yet despite her dislike of him, she came every night to his bedroom that was not his bedroom, in this peculiar aberration of power and dreaming. He had never heard of anyone on Second Earth possessing this kind of ability, yet here Havily was moaning in that sweet melodic voice of hers as her honeysuckle scent infused the air of his somewhere bedroom.
    Marcus, she whispered over his mind, her hips undulating, the sweet wetness of her flesh stroking his cock.
    Havily, he responded, his telepathic voice low and dark. Yeah, he’d learned a lot in all these weeks—no jarring movements, no sharp commands, no fangs in her neck when oh, God, he ached to taste her blood.
    If he did any of these