Kavya watched him intently. Saint clamped his eyes shut, wishing he could shut the powerful Magian out of his mind, wishing he could purge the memory altogether.
But, of course, he would never have done that, because despite his shame, despite the horror of what he’d done, he clung to the beauty of the recollection of seducing Christina.
He knew he’d never let that memory go.
Twelve years ago
He only saw vibrant color when Christina was present, so Saint knew for the first time in his life why they’d named the huge flowers after the blazing sun that gave life to this planet—sunflowers.
His skin warmed under the yellow star’s rays—another new experience. It’d never imparted its enlivening heat before. He’d never been cold, like someone might imagine a soulless creature. But he’d certainly never known the comforting kiss of the sun until Christina entered his sterile, shadowed world.
He approached her still figure silently. He’d watched over her for the past month, seen her coming and going from her Lakeview apartment, observed her from a distance as she waited for the “L” train to take her to work, or to meet a friend for a drink or dinner. He’d seen her with a dark-haired, good-looking young man who Saint instinctively didn’t trust. By then, he understood that Christina’s brilliant, powerful vitessence conferred her with special powers, including the ability to read other peoples’ minds.
He couldn’t comprehend why she refused to see the falseness behind the man’s white-toothed smiles.
She was sleeping with him. He easily caught her scent on the man—Rick was what she called him—when he left her apartment after spending the night there. The odor of her arousal intertwining with the cocky human’s odor nearly sent him into an animalistic rage every time he smelled it. Not a bloodlust, but a fury of violence. He shook with a need to share his profound pain with Rick.
He’d refrained, and eventually nature had set things to right. Christina’s luminous smiles were less and less in evidence when she was with Rick. They fought once in front of a restaurant, Christina accusing Rick of sleeping with a woman who they’d unexpectedly encountered while dining. Rick had denied it, but Christina’s telepathic powers were no longer dulled by the flush of first infatuation.
Saint had watched over her afterwards as she’d taken the “L” and walked home alone. He’d gotten a savage satisfaction from hearing her tell Rick to go to hell and never come back. But Saint’d become tense and restless as he watched her solitary figure walking down the darkened street, her vitessence still brilliant, but muted.
It hurt, seeing her sad. Hurt like when he considered the Iniskium villagers he’d wantonly murdered before he understood his nature, pained him like when he’d considered damning the few Iniskium, his trusted companions and friends, to a life of near immortality, but also emptiness and strife. Saint had responded in the only way he knew, ceaselessly trying to atone for his sins by helping those in need.
He wanted to make it up to Christina, too, wanted to make her smile again…somehow.
He’d stayed outside her apartment all night in his wolf form, hidden by the shadows of a tree. His gaze never left the window he’d learned was her bedroom. The next morning, she’d left, carrying a beach bag, looking pale and exhausted, as if she’d slept fitfully, if at all.
He’d followed her to Lincoln Park, to the outdoor gardens of the arboretum. She’d been the only occupant in the thousand-square-foot clearing surrounded by thick, seven-foot-tall hedges, trees and prairie-growth perennials. With his preternatural hearing, Saint could hear two males tossing a Frisbee in the near vicinity, and farther off, several people having a picnic. But Christina and he might have been the only two creatures on the entire planet when he approached her sleeping form.
His cock felt leaden and heavy as he stared down at her. The sunflowers and lavender danced in the soft breeze, creating a moving, colorful background that mimicked her vibrant lifeforce.
He’d never been this close to her before. Her face looked young and innocent in sleep. His gaze traced her flushed cheeks, lush, sweet mouth, the light sprinkling of freckles on her nose. Her dark hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, but a few strands flicked across her cheeks. She’d been reading a paperback before she fell into a sleep of exhaustion. The pages flipped lazily in the breeze against her relaxed fingers.
She wore a patterned, floral sundress that tied in a halter around her neck. Her skin looked dewy and sun-kissed. Saint’s eyes lingered on the swells of her pale breasts in the V of the fabric. The thought of her curving, succulent flesh filling his hands, the satin of her skin sliding along his cheek and lips, made his cock surge painfully.
He thought he was hallucinating when her nipples suddenly pulled tight against the clinging fabric. Without telling himself to move, he rubbed his thick erection through his jeans, needing the friction to stop the sharp ache of desire.
He burned. He’d never known a hunger like it, never imagined a need that could score you from the inside out. Looking back on the incident twelve years later, Saint realized he hadn’t been that different on that sunlit, golden day with Christina than he had been on that gray dawn when Teslar and he had attacked the Iniskium village. Both times, he’d been overwhelmed with a blinding hunger, incapable of controlling his need because it was so new to him…so raw.
Having no experience with standing face to face with the essence of beauty, he had no ready defenses against it.
He reached out to her with his mind, the action as instinctive and natural as a wolf calling to its mate. Wolves knew the dream world intimately. He called to her soothingly, seductively. Her lips parted and a soft moan escaped her throat. Her hips shifted and, as connected with her as Saint was at that moment, he knew she tried to get friction on her swelling sex.
He recognized the answer to his call and came down on his hands and knees over her.
The sounds of the two men shouting and laughing on the other side of the thick hedge didn’t faze him as he untied the halter around Christina’s neck. He was entranced. Nothing existed for him but her singular, intoxicating scent, her sparking vitessence…the soft, sweet body where he would find release from this unbearable tension soon…soon.
But he wished he could make this last forever.
He spoke to her while she slept, keeping her in the cocoon of the sunlit dream. Wolves often communicated using dreams, especially with their mates.
“Do you want me
, Christina?”
“Yes, more than anything. Who are you?”
“A dream,” Saint replied before he kissed her parted lips.