“It’s not your soul I want, Allisandra.” That gravelly voice again, and how did he know what she was thinking? How does he know her name?
“I know everything about you,” he tells her, as though she had spoken her question aloud. “I know all your darkest desires. And I’m going to make them come true, one by one—whether you want me to or not.”
His voice is a rumbling purr—it rubs Alli’s nerves like a rough hand stroking a cat’s fur the wrong way. Her nipples are hard little peaks at the tips of her breasts and she’s suddenly throbbing between her thighs. Heat climbs her spine and sexual need lashes her like a whip. What’s wrong with her?
“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have any desires,” she denies breathlessly.
“You can lie to yourself,” the shadow man with the mirror eyes tells her. He leans closer and she sees herself reflected in his black and silver gaze. “But you can’t lie to me, Allisandra. I see everything—everything you’re hiding. When I come for you, I’m going to make every dark dream—every forbidden fantasy—into a reality.”
“I don’t have any fantasies!” Alli feels close to panic now. Her heart is pounding and her whole body is throbbing with desire. What has he done to her to make her feel like this? What’s wrong with her?
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Allisandra. Nothing I can’t cure.”
The shadow man leans forward, bends down so that their faces are level. And then he opens his mouth.
His teeth are white and even and his tongue looks normal at first, but then it narrows somehow—becomes long and sharp. A needle…a stinger. And it’s coming for her.
“No!” Alli gasps. “It’s a dream—it’s only a dream and I want to wake up!”
And then finally, mercifully, her alarm rings and the dream is blown to dust.
One
Allisandra Stone sat up in bed with a jerk and slapped off the alarm. She was bathed in cold sweat and her heart was pounding in her chest like she’d just run a desperate race. Her body throbbed with unfulfilled desire.
“Only a dream,” she whispered and looked reflexively down at her left wrist. Sure enough, there was the red ribbon she’d tied on before bedtime last night. She was awake. Everything was okay.
Except it wasn’t.
The dreams were getting worse—crazier. The shadow man had never talked to her before but now she couldn’t get his deep, gravelly voice out of her head.
“I’m going to make every fantasy a reality,” he’d said—or something like that. But Alli didn’t have any fantasies.
Not anymore.
Once she might have dreamed of wild nights—hedonistic desires and hot sex. But that was back when she was young and silly. She hadn’t thought of things like that since she was in her twenties. She left them behind for good once she had buckled down to law school and then to building a lucrative practice. Her life was settled—organized and neat.
So why were these crazy dreams cropping up now, when she was on the far side of forty? Was she going through some kind of second puberty or something? Alli had heard that some women had hormone surges in their forties that made them as horny as teenagers. Was that what was happening to her?
If so, it needed to stop. She ran a shaky hand through her hair. God, these crazy dreams had her so rattled she didn’t know if she was coming or going!
Well, right now it’s time to get going. You have a meeting with Lizabeth and Commander Sylvan in an hour and you can’t be late, the practical little voice in her head informed her.
Alli thought of it as the voice of her self-control—her self-discipline. It was the voice that kept her on track when she was wearily working through a monstrous pile of briefs for a tough case, the voice that jerked her back to reality if she drifted off into a daydream. It was the same voice that told her a second éclair was a bad idea.
Alli didn’t always listen to that voice—her plus-sized behind was proof of that. But it mostly kept her in line and on task and she was grateful for it. Now it prodded her out of bed and into the shower.
The Kindred showers were one of the reasons Alli kept a suite aboard the Mother Ship, even though she still technically lived on Earth. Instead of just one showerhead, the entire ceiling above the large, square shower stall streamed steaming water. It was like stepping into a warm rain and Alli loved it.
After a moment to get her hair and body wet, she waved a hand above her head and said, “Shampoo.”
Immediately a creamy dollop of sweet-smelling foam dropped from above and landed squarely in her hair. Alli massaged it into her scalp, trying to concentrate on the lovely fragrance and forget about the dream.