Awakened

jolted back to his body. Zoey smiled up at him with an expression filled with warmth and trust.
    By the shades of reality surrounding him, Kalona knew immediately he hadn’t entered the Realm of Dreams. He stared down at Zoey, hardly daring to breathe.
    And the sense of touch returned to him. She was wrapped in his arms, her naked body, pliant and warm, pressed against him. She touched his face, letting her fingers linger over his lips. His hips automatically lifted to her and she made a small sound of pleasure as her eyes fluttered closed and she raised her lips to his.
    Just before she kissed him and he settled deeply within her body, Kalona’s sense of hearing returned.
    “I love you, too, Stark,” she said, and began to make love to him.
    The pleasure was so unexpected—the shock so intense—that the connection was severed. Breath ragged, Kalona pulled himself to his feet and leaned against the rooftop balustrade. Blood pumped hot and fast through his body. He shook his head in disbelief.
    “Stark.” Kalona spoke the name to the night, reasoning aloud. “The connection I followed wasn’t to Zoey at all. The connection was to Stark.” He understood, and then felt a fool for not anticipating what had happened. “In the Otherworld I breathed the spirit of my immortal soul within him. Some of that spirit has, obviously, remained.” The smile that broke over the immortal’s face was as fierce as his raging blood. “And now I have access to Zoey Redbird’s Guardian and Oath Sworn Warrior.” Kalona spread his wings, threw back his head, and let his triumphant laughter ring into the night.
    “What is so amusing and why are you not awaiting me in my bed?”
    Kalona turned to see Neferet standing naked in the doorway to the suite, a look of irritation on her haughty face. But that look quickly changed as she gazed at his fully aroused body.
    “I am not amused, I am joyous. And I am here because I wish to take you on the roof with the open sky stretching above us.” He strode to Neferet, lifted her, carried her back to the balcony railing, closed his eyes, and imagined dark hair and eyes as he made her cry out in pleasure over and over again.
    Stark

    The first time it happened so quickly Stark couldn’t be sure, totally, absolutely sure, it had happened at all.
    But he should have listened to his instincts. His gut told him something had gone wrong, very wrong, even if it was only for a few minutes.
    He’d been in bed with Zoey. They’d talked and laughed and basically just been having a good time being alone. The castle was awesome. Sgiach and Seoras and the rest of the Warriors were great, but Stark was really a loner. Here on Skye, no matter how cool it was, someone was always around. Just because the place was withdrawn from the “real” world didn’t make it any less busy. There was shit going on constantly—training and castle maintenance, trading with the locals and such. And that’s not even taking into account that he’d been teamed with Seoras, which meant he was more or less the old dude’s slave/errand boy/fodder for comedy.
    Then there were the garrons. He’d never really been a horse guy, but the highland garrons were amazing animals, even if they did seem to produce an amount of horse crap that was totally out of proportion with their size. Stark should know. He’d spent most of that evening shoveling it, and when he’d made a couple offhanded comments that, sure, might have sounded like complaining, Seoras and some other old Warrior with an Irish accent, bald head, and a ginger-colored beard had started calling him Ach, poor wee Mary with the sweet, smooth hands of a lassie.
    Needless to say he was seriously glad to be alone with Z. She smelled so damn good and felt so damn good that he had to keep reminding himself it wasn’t a dream. They weren’t still in the Otherworld. This was real and Zoey was his.
    It had happened between deep, hot make-out kisses that made him feel like he was going to explode. He’d just told her he loved her, and Z had been smiling up at him. All of a sudden something inside him had changed. He’d felt heavier yet weirdly stronger. And there was a strange sense of shock that jolted all along his nerve endings. She’d kissed him then and, as usual when Z kissed him, it’d been more than kinda hard for him to think, but he’d known something was off.
    He’d felt shocked.
    And that was bizarre as hell because he and Z had been kissing and