Her hand encircled the heat of his erection and then there was no room in his thoughts for anything but the pleasure, so long denied. She pulled him on top of her and lifted her hips toward his with a low moan of desire.
“Please, oh please oh please . . .”
And he thrust at last into the heat of her center as she rose to meet him. The stars swirled around them as they moved together and climaxed with an intensity of pleasure that washed away all memory of pain or worry.
He held her, after, with her head on his shoulder, a treasure beyond price. “Tell me you are not a dream,” he murmured into her hair, knowing what would come next. Always in his dreams, she left him. And still, he was unable to fetter the hope that beat in his breast. In all the dreams, through all the years, she had slipped away before he was able to claim her. Maybe this time it would be different.
She only smiled, and kissed him one more time, lingering.
He raised his right hand to her hair, flinching as the torn muscles cramped and burned. And only then did the thought come clear, the thing that had nagged at him before all thought was driven from his brain by pleasure.
Vivian would first have seen to Jared’s wounds, and his. No matter what her wants or desires, dreaming or waking, her first instinct was always to heal. Always. Even an asshole like Jared.
With his hand still tangled in the woman’s hair, his lips on hers, he froze.
“What is it?” she asked, pulling back to look into his face. Vivian’s eyes, Vivian’s voice.
He searched her face for anything about her that looked wrong. It took a moment, before he realized: She looked as he wished Vivian to look, and not as she really was. Gray eyes, not gold, the shoulders free of the mark of the dragon. Guilt flowed over him in a flood of self-loathing.
“You’re not Vivian. Who the hell are you?”
Her face—Vivian’s face—crumpled, and she bit her lip. “Did I get it wrong? I thought you would be pleased with this shape.”
“Only when Vivian is wearing it. Where is she, what have you done with her?”
“We don’t need to talk about her right now—this is about you and me and what we can do together.” She took a step toward him, and the mix of desire and disgust awakened by a stranger’s soul in Vivian’s body nearly pushed him beyond control.
“Stay away from me.” His fists were knotted, his body thrumming with the familiar energy of violence. Don’t hit a woman, even an evil one. Especially not in Vivian’s body—it could have been hijacked or possessed.
She stopped and stretched out white hands to him. “I need your help, Warrior. I have been looking for you.”
“Why would I help you? I don’t even know what you are.”
“I swear I don’t come here as an enemy. The form I wear is one I thought would please you. See—I have brought you a gift.” She held out a dagger, the bone hilt toward him, the blade concealed in a leather sheath.
“Thank you, but my sword is weapon enough.”
Vivian’s lips turned up in a smile, but it wasn’t right, a crafty, sly expression that would never cross the face of the woman he knew. “But this is a special knife to be used for dragon slaying. You could kill them all, one at a time. Nights, this body will be yours to love and cherish. Days, you will kill dragons for me. All of your dreams fulfilled. Do you see?”
Zee took a step back, dismayed to find the words a temptation. She offered him a chance to pursue his two conflicting passions. In the real world he would always be torn between his hatred of dragons and his love for Vivian, because she was both things in one. Here was a solution, easy and clean, if he was willing to let go of reality.
But he could not love Vivian’s body without her soul filling it. The desperation to find her, to see that she was safe, blazed into a flame of need and desire.
“Where is Vivian? What have you done with her?”
“She’s safe enough. For now. Do we have an arrangement?”
“No. God, no! Tell me where she is!”
All of the ways he could kill the creature spun through his head, but on the chance that this was still Vivian’s body and her soul was elsewhere, he couldn’t harm it. He could do nothing but make empty threats. And he needed to know what he was dealing with. “Show me your true form, and then we will talk.”
She hesitated, an expression of what might have been fear filling her gray eyes. “Will you promise not to kill me if I make the change?”
Zee stared at her. Rage filled him, drove him. If this—thing—was not Vivian, had done something to her, harmed her in any way, all he wanted in the world was to wreak vengeance. But Vivian’s safety came before vengeance, and he knew nothing about where she was or how to find her. Cautiously, he answered, “I will not seek to harm you unless it is self-defense.”
“Do you give your word?”
“I swear it.”
“Very well.”
A wavering and shifting of muscle and bone and her appearance began to change. The slim white body softened and sagged. The auburn hair turned white and the gray eyes went dark. Her face was hollow with age, her teeth yellow and broken. Around her wattled old neck hung Vivian’s pendant.
It was the old woman they had run over with the van.
Zee lunged forward and grabbed for the pendant, but she eluded him, too quick and lithe for a woman of her apparent age.
“Give it to me.” He had sworn not to harm her, and that promise was tearing him apart. His breath rasped in his lungs; his entire body trembled with the effort to hold his hand from lopping off her head.
“The pendant belongs to me, as do all things. So tell me—are you with me, Warrior, or will you be so foolish as to stand against me?”
Vivian’s voice emerging from the old crone’s body made him shudder with revulsion. She stepped forward, close enough to lay an arthritic hand on his arm.
Zee shoved her away from him, harder than he’d meant. The dagger spun out of her hand as she sprawled backward into the grass. She lay as she fell, bony legs spread, naked breasts empty bags hanging down her chest.
His stomach churned with sickness at the thought that his hands had caressed the creature’s body, that he had kissed her lips. “Cover yourself, in the name of all things holy.” He tossed the shift to her, but she made no move to put it on.
“Have you made up your mind then? No more kisses? I can take on many forms.”
His hand clenched so tightly around the hilt of the sword that he could feel it digging into the flesh of his palm.
She moved as if to get up, and he extended the sword toward her. “Don’t move.”
“You said you would not harm me.”
“And I’m trying to keep my word. Lie still and don’t test me.” She obeyed, the dark eyes not leaving his face as he bent and picked up the dagger. The handle was made of bone, yellow with age and worn smooth with use. Not uncommon, although he found himself hoping the bone was animal and not human. The blade, when he pulled it free of its leather sheath, was a thing of wonder. It was carved from an unfamiliar stone, dark bloodred. No tool marks marred its glasslike surface, and yet it had been honed to an edge so keen it seemed as if just the look of it could cut.
“Give that to me,” the old hag hissed, and there was clearly fear in her eyes now. She scooted backward away from him. “It was only yours on condition.”
“Give me Vivian’s pendant and I’ll think about it.”
“You promised.” At last she was fumbling at the shift. Not to put it on and cover her naked old body, he realized too late. Digging something out of the pocket, something small and shining that she held up toward the stars.