Dark Flame (Flame 3)

She could tell he was really upset as he rose. “I’ll be back. I need to figure things out. But a shower sounds really good.”

She let him go. As he’d done before, he was using the shower as an excuse to create distance. She’d said all she could say, and now that he was in full possession of their dreamglide conversations, he knew she spoke the truth. She’d held nothing back from him during the five months he’d been her lover.

She also knew his sister’s death had terrorized him as nothing else could have, causing him to withdraw from all close relationships. She didn’t blame him. She wasn’t much different. She valued both Agnes and Mary, but she’d never truly confided in either. She’d kept her cards as close to the vest as Brann had, at least until she’d seduced him in the dreamglide and he’d opened up to her. Then she’d told him everything about herself, her fears and hopes, even about her marriage.

Maybe time would resolve the issue between them, maybe it wouldn’t. But for now, she knew enough to give Brann plenty of space.

She stood up, gathered her clothes and headed to the small, downstairs bathroom. She cleaned up as best she could in the half-bath then got dressed again.

She loved sex. She wondered if she was even normal for how much she enjoyed being with a man she loved.

When her choice of words hit her mind, she mentally repeated themselves over and over: The man she loved.

The man she loved.

She loved Brannick so much. On some level, of course she had from the first. But it was a hard thing to accept she was in love with someone who might never be able to return that love.

She left the bathroom, and had just reached the dining area near the bottom of the stairs, when a loud explosion rocked the space all around her. Yet there was no debris. She turned in a circle, but she didn’t see any real damage.

It didn’t make sense.

She started to feel dizzy and very strange. Her dreamglide called to her, pulling her toward it.

Brann. It had to be Brann. He’d made a decision about her, about them.

Joy rushed through her so fast she cried out.

She gave herself to the dreamglide and in a blink was inside. At first she didn’t understand, because the space was hazy with black smoke. And the smell was bad.

She didn’t get it at first, except that it appeared the explosion had occurred within her dreamglide.

That’s when she understood exactly what had happened. Roche had finally broken through and her reckless entrance into the dreamglide made it too late to do anything to protect herself.

He emerged from the black smoke, the teal flames on his cheeks pulsing, his red hair flowing away from his face. He looked demonic. “Did you honestly think, Juliet, that I didn’t know you’d found my home? But I don’t let anyone cross into my territory without retaliation. And now, at long last, I have you.”

She tried to back away but he moved like lightning. He surrounded her with a tight powerful grip then pulled her out of her dreamglide and into his.

He’d finally succeeded in hijacking her. The moment she left her own secure space, she became as docile as a lamb.

He whispered into her ear. “And now, I want you to leave Agnes’s compound in real-time and come to my home. You know the way.”

It was a simple thing to direct her real-time self to head down the hall, open the front door and levitate to the compound’s entrance.

The guards barely acknowledged her as she rose into the air and headed southeast, toward the southern end of the Graveyard. She arrived at Roche’s home in less than half-a-minute.

He stood with the doors wide, and opened his arms to her.

She went to him, as one completely hypnotized, and gave herself into

the hands of the monster.

~ ~ ~

Brannick stepped out of the shower no more resolved on the path he should take than when he’d decided to get cleaned up. He dried off and headed into the bedroom. The last time he’d been here, he’d left without his duffel so he knew he had a couple of clean shirts ready to wear.

He found the bag in Juliet’s closet. He opened it and pulled out a black tank.

When he was completely dressed, boots and all, he realized something didn’t feel right. In fact, the house felt empty, which made no sense at all.