Key of Knowledge
Page 20

Flowers tangled on lush green vines. Fruit dripped, glossy as gems, from the delicate branches of trees. The sound of the surf, a seductive whisper, shivered through the air.
She stood, alone, in the paradise she had made.
“No.”
She said it out loud, as a kind of test.
This isn’t right. This isn’t who I am, isn’t what I want.
The fruit she held slipped out of her fingers and hit the ground at her feet with an ugly splat. Her heart jolted in her chest as she saw it was rotten at the core.
The colors around her were too harsh, she realized, the textures too flat. Like a stage set, like standing on an elaborate set built for an endless play.
“This is a trick.” Angry wasps began to buzz around the spoiled fruit. “This is a lie!”
As she shouted it, the blue sky turned to boiling black. Wind screamed, ripping fronds, hurling flowers and fruit. The air turned bitterly cold.
She ran, with icy rain stinging her face, plastering the silk against her body.
In this wild and wicked world, trick or no trick, she knew she was no longer alone.
She ran, through the hurricane scream of the storm, through the lashing, razor-edged fronds that seemed to snatch at her arms and legs like grasping fingers.
Breathless, terrified, she spilled out onto the beach. The sea was a nightmare, walls of oily black water rising up, pounding down, eating away at the land bite by greedy bite. Palm trees crashed down behind her, and the white sand caved in on itself, like a world collapsing.
Even in the dark, in the cold, she felt the shadow spread over her. The pain shocked her to her feet again, had her stumbling forward as she felt something ripping inside her.
Ripping out of her.
Gathering all her strength, all her will, she made her choice, and plunged into the killing sea.
SHE reared up, gasping, shuddering, a scream tearing at her throat.
And found herself sitting up in her tub, chilly water sloshing over the side. Her book was floating, her candles pooling in their own wax.
Panicked, she crawled out of the tub, and for a moment simply curled shivering on the bath mat.
With her teeth chattering, she forced herself up, grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her. Suddenly the thought of being naked only added to the layers of fear. She stumbled out of the bathroom, her heart still heaving inside her chest, to fumble a robe out of her closet.
She’d wondered if she would ever be warm again.
He’d pulled her in. Kane. The dark sorcerer who had challenged the king of the gods and had stolen the souls of his daughters. Because they were half mortal, Dana thought, and that offended his sensibilities. And because he wanted to rule.
He had conjured the Box of Souls with its triple locks, and had forged the three keys that no god could turn. A kind of nasty joke, she thought as she struggled to catch her breath. A rude thumbing of his nose at the god who had had the bad taste to fall in love with a mortal woman.
The spell Kane had cast behind the Curtain of Dreams had held for three thousand years. Which meant he had plenty of punch—and he’d just given her a good hard shot to remind her that he was watching. He’d slipped into her head and pulled her into one of her own fantasies. How long? she wondered, hugging herself for warmth. How long had she been lying there, naked, helpless, out of her own body?
It was dark now, fully dark, and she switched on the light for fear of what might wait in the shadows. But the room was empty. She was alone in it, just as she’d been alone on that illusion of beach.
At the hard rap on her front door the scream started building again. She clutched a hand to her throat to trap it and all but sprinted to the door.
Whoever it was, it was better than being alone.
Or so she thought until she saw Jordan.
Oh, God, not him. Not now.
“What do you want?” she snapped. “Go away. I’m busy.”
Before she could slam the door, he slapped a hand on it. “I want to talk to you about . . . What is it?” She was white as a ghost, her dark eyes enormous, and glassy with shock. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.” The shakes started up again, harder this time. “I don’t want to . . . oh, the hell with it. You’re better than nothing.”
She simply fell against him. “I’m so cold. I’m so goddamn cold.”
He scooped her right off her feet, then booted the door shut behind him. “Couch or bed?”
“Couch. I’ve got the shakes. I can’t stop.”
“Okay. It’s okay.” He sat, kept her cradled in his lap as he tugged the throw off the back of the couch. “You’ll warm up in a minute,” he comforted, and tucked the throw around her. “Just hold on to me.”
He rubbed her back, her arms, then just wrapped his own arms around her and banked on body heat to do the rest. “Why are you wet?”
“I was in the tub. Then I wasn’t. I don’t know how it works.” Her hand was fisted in his jacket, kneading there as she fought to steady herself. “The son of a bitch got inside my head. You don’t even know it’s happening, it just does. I’m not going to make any sense for a couple more minutes.”
“It’s okay. I think I’m following you.” His stroking hands bumped the band that tied her hair up. Without thinking, he slipped it off, combed his fingers through. “It was Kane? He was here?”
“I don’t know.” Exhausted, she laid her head against his chest. She had her breath back at least. It no longer felt as if a hand was squeezing her racing heart. “Like I said, I don’t know how it works. I wanted to take a bath, relax.”
To give her something else to think about, he deliberately sniffed her neck. “You smell terrific. Tasty. What is that?”
“Mango. Cut it out.” But she made no attempt to get off his lap. “I did the bubble bath routine. Lit candles, got my bath book. It’s got a Caribbean setting—the book, so that’s why the mango and Buffett. I put a Jimmy Buffett CD on.”
She was rambling, but he let her talk it out.
“So, I’m settling in—hot bubbles, Buffett, beer and book. The book’s a romantic thriller, nice fast pace, sharp dialogue. The scene I’m reading was from the heroine’s viewpoint, during one of her breathers. She’s on the terrace of her room at this tropical resort, that’s actually a front for . . . Never mind, not important.”