Dark Flame (Flame 3)

“Yes. It took me a lot of practice, but I had to keep Roche out.”

“So, it’s kind of a cage that travels with you when you move to a new location?”

Her brows rose. “I think that’s one of the best explanations I’ve ever heard. But, yes. It’s exactly like that.”

He kept exploring, checking for weaknesses. “You said you had a headache when you woke up, which was unusual, and that you knew Roche was coming after you again. So, is he tampering with your blocks, trying to find a way in?”

“I don’t know what else it could be. Besides, it feels like Roche.”

Brannick turned in a slow circle and let the space speak to him—very fae—as though his intuition meter had been switched on high. He focused on Roche, especially on the images of Roche in his sex shop just before Juliet slammed into him. He pictured the fae monster at the top of the double row of cells, his red hair, the teal flames on his cheeks, his small feral eyes.

Juliet drew close to him and slid her hand in his palm. He felt an odd electrical impulse flow up his arm and spread through his body. He’d felt something similar when he’d made love to her in a combination of real-time and the dreamglide.

Only this current situation wasn’t sexual at all.

Her voice penetrated his mind. Keep focusing on Roche.

He turned to look at her. You can feel me doing that?

Yes, and it’s more than a guess. I can sense that you’re thinking about the moments just before we got Mary out.

You’re right. I am.

Her lips curved. How about we go there right now and have a look around?

He loved her fighting spirit. She had the aura of a saint and maybe that was part of who she was, but she had no problem going to war. He shifted to face southeast, in the general direction of the underground world and Roche’s sex shop.

When the dreamglide began to move, it was slow at first then whipped through the dream world like a battleship at full speed. He watched thousands of different images pass by the small living room. Yet as they neared the destination, the dreamglide began to change and the next thing he knew, he was standing on the cement floor of the prison, which was blurred around the edges.

The timing was very different. Women were being moved in and out of cells, but behind the blur of the dreamglide. We’re safe in this position, right?

Juliet moved to stand next to him. We are.

With a thought, he piloted the dreamglide forward to the end of the row. He heard one of the guards call Roche’s name. Brannick scrutinized the guard table, then turned to look in the other direction.

And there was Roche, kissing the neck of a blond who had teal flames on her cheeks and dull eyes. She wore one of the beige prison smocks.

Brannick watched Roche glance in the guards’ direction, then stand upright. He shoved the woman away. She fell against the wall and slid to the floor.

Roche started looking around. He drew his gun from a back-waist holster. His movements set all the guards on alert and they hustled into formation, blocking the exit to the hall.

But Brannick was inside the dreamglide, unlike last time when he’d been in real-time but hidden within his vampire cloak.

He didn’t move the dreamglide even an inch. Juliet, I’m getting the sense that if we so much as breathe, he’ll know what we’re up to.

Me, too. We’ll sit tight.

Brannick loved how calm she was under pressure.

Roche slowly moved in their direction. Brannick’s newly acquired fae sense told him that if they remained still, Roche wouldn’t be able to detect them, not even if he passed through their dreamglide in the same physical space.

“Is that you, Juliet? Did you come to see me? Ready to trade up from the vampire who dumped you? We could have some fun, you and me, and earn a whole lot of money.”

Roche drew close to the end of the dreamglide, the part where blur and rebar joined. Brannick held his breath.

Roche took another step, then another.

He heard the faintest intake of breath from Juliet.