I gasped, feeling like a shard of glass had pierced my heart.
Trailer trash.
He’d recognized my classless beginnings, even with all that I’d tried to accomplish in my life to overcome that handicap. Raw pain mixed with powerful fear clogged the back of my throat, and I could hardly respond. I was as invalid to him as I had been to all the people in my life. He could kill me with no remorse, and no one would protest or find injustice in it.
The thought brought a silent protest and a renewed fight from the depths of my soul.
I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ryder.
Don’t you?
No!
I didn’t have you pegged for a murderer. Thousands of my people have died to protect our nation, and here you are working to revitalize a war that was all but over. Twenty fucking years gone to shit. Grayson was smart to pick you. Somehow he just knew, didn’t he? The statement was bitter and served to make him even angrier.
A murderer? I haven’t done anything!
I won’t play this game with you. You fooled me with your big blue eyes and innocent look. Fuck! His eyes blazed with fury into mine. It ends now.
Ryder suddenly stretched to gigantic proportions. He was ten, fifteen, twenty feet tall. His teeth became sharp fangs, and his eyes glowed an evil, piercing green. He issued a roar that shook the very ground where I stood.
My blood turned cold. The flower dropped from my fingers. I froze. A ball of energy surged powerfully from my gut, and the sound of a shrill, terrorized scream tore from my throat. The sound broke my paralysis.
I ran for all I was worth. It did no good.
The soil beneath my feet instantly, magically turned into the finest sand. I scrambled on all fours to get up the embankment, but it kept slipping under me. Instead of surging forward, I kept sliding back. A large hand grabbed my heel, and I shook it off frantically, pulling my foot out of my tennis shoe.
Free again, I tried to get to my feet and run, but the air around me developed the density of molasses. I couldn’t move through it.
He was coming! He was going to kill me!
All I heard was the ferocious pounding of my heart in my ears. It roared a freight train through my skull until all I was aware of was the sound of my own screams.
“Wake up.” A hand shook my shoulder roughly. I came to in a fetal position and sat up with a gasp to see Ryder’s angry face inches from my own.
“No!” I scuttled back, stopping only when I hit the wall behind me, clutching the sheet to my body as though for protection. I looked around, not recognizing where I was. There were no furnishings, the walls were bare and the closet was open, with men’s clothing folded inside. I squinted my eyes against the early-morning light that fell through the window. Ryder stood up, looked down at me with impatience.
A dream? Yeah. A dream. Okay. I released pent-up breath slowly, still breathing roughly, trying to get my bearings. Pretty fucked-up dream. The fear started to fade, and my breath grew less tremulous. Pushing the hair off my forehead, I noticed my hands were trembling and had the absurd urge to giggle. If he only knew what I’d just dreamed. Shit. He made for a scary monster.
Ryder was wearing his pants from the previous night, but they weren’t completely buttoned and hung precariously on his lean hips. They hung open just enough to leave an interesting V shape over his exposed skin. He obviously worked out to get the hard ridge of muscles. Lord. Even as my heart calmed and my breathing became more even, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by the sight. The man was out and out too sexy by far.
“You’re at my place.”
“I am.” I agreed, somewhat foggily. “Why?”
“Your place was robbed.”
“It was?” It was. Now I remembered. He saw the resignation on my face and must have correctly interpreted it, because he didn’t respond to my question. Shoving my face into my hands, I groaned. “This has been a creepy couple of days.”
“You ain’t seen nothing yet.” His expression was unreadable. “So who do you work for?”
I looked up at him, wide-eyed, trying to comprehend what he was saying with a suddenly eerie tingling over my body. Wasn’t I awake? Was this going to be one of those screwy you-thought-you-were-awake-but-you’re-not dreams? “What did you say?”
“I’m taking up where I left off. Who do you work for?”
Fear swamped my body like a heavy blanket. “But that’s impossible.”
“You dreamwalked.”
“What is that? You keep saying that!” I could hear my voice getting louder as, once again, alarm set in. I stood quickly, my back to the wall, dragging the sheet with me like armor.
“Where’s the fucking mylunate, Taylor? You have no idea the power you hold!”
“Oh, my God. You were really in my dream. You had those demon eyes.” I watched him at the same time I wrapped the sheet around me, tucking the ends in front of me. I could feel my panic mounting.
“Correction,” he snapped. “You were in my dream.”
“That’s not possible! People can’t just do that! And you became a monster! You were going to kill me!” I could feel myself losing it. Horror was setting in. My eyes whipped around the room looking for a weapon, a window, anything. I started edging along the wall toward the door. Only quick breaths were coming in and going out. My body was screaming for flight.
“You can do anything in dreams.” He flared his nostrils, his face set in fierce lines.
“I don’t understand this! Any of it. I don’t know who you are or what you want, but I’m going home!”
I dashed for the door.
Ryder caught me around my ribs. His powerful arms halted my forward motion midstride, my breath exiting in a sudden hiss. He pulled me back against the rock wall of his chest, and then it was on! I fought for my life. I elbowed his gut and heard a deep grunt. I reached backward to scratch at his eyes, but his arms repositioned to bind mine to my sides. I tried to head-butt him in the chin and kicked at his shins, which had him growling deep in his chest but did little if any damage, because the damn sheet hampered me!
“You’re going to hurt yourself,” he snarled in my ear. He was just too big and too strong. He was nearly wrapped around me, and I could feel him overpowering me with sheer strength.
“Let me go.” I bent over and tried to bite his arm.
“Dammit!” he thundered, and he loosened his grip. I stomped his bare toes with my heel and lunged for the door as he hollered, but he was standing on my sheet, which thwarted me again. During my moment of hesitation, he tackled me to the bed and pinned me with his body.
“Get off me. You are absolutely crazy. This is kidnapping. You’re holding me against my will.” The weight of his chest alone had me pinned helplessly to the mattress, but I still tried to kick him off.
“Hush up.”
“I want to go home.” We were both breathing heavily as he wrestled my legs between his own, binding them tightly so I couldn’t move.
“Not until we settle this.”
“Settle what? What is there to settle? You’re some weird superhuman freak, and I want you to leave me alone.” But he wasn’t even listening. He was talking to himself.
“A ring, piercing... I need to find it,” he muttered. Putting both of my wrists into one of his large hands, he held them down above my head with little effort, though I struggled to get them free.
With his free hand he gently checked my lobes, my fingers, my neck, my wrists, but found nothing. He even went so far as to check my mother’s charm bracelet carefully. Then he pulled the sheet aside and in a single motion yanked my T-shirt up and away from my breasts. I gasped, shocked motionless, staring down at them, bare to the sunlight slanting through the window.