Light Dragons 02 - The Unbearable Lightness of Dragons

wooing Ysolde. Bloody hell, I think I broke something. You, Gideon, help me up. I lost my corporeal form for a second, and now I’m merged into the wood of this table. . . .”

Read on for an excerpt from
Katie MacAlister’s next Dark Ones novel,
     
    Much Ado About Vampires
     
    Coming from Signet in October 2011

A lec Darwin was dying, or as close to it as one could be without having that last little spark of life flitter away into nothingness.
    He closed his eyes and lay back, shifting slightly when a rock dug into the small of his back. Should he go to the trouble of trying to remove it so he could lie for eternity in comfort? he wondered absently. Or was such a trivial thing worth the effort? Did he even have the strength to do it? It had been all he could do to stagger to the area, his final resting place, which the previous day he had cleared of small, pointed rocks.
    He shifted his shoulder in mild irritation. The rock pressed into his kidney, the pain of it distracting him from his plan. Dammit. He hadn’t seen a rock when he had fallen to the ground, his strength draining from him as his body squeezed the last morsel of vigor from the remaining teaspoon or two of blood that slowly was absorbed into his dying flesh.
    He was supposed to be cherishing his martyrdom as he lay dying in the Akasha, not thinking about a damned rock the size of a watermelon digging into his back. He was supposed to be thinking of the pathetic tragedy of a life that he had been forced to live, unenlivened with any sort of joy or happiness or even hope. He shouldn’t be wondering if he rolled over onto his side whether the damned rock would let him die in peace.
    If only his Beloved hadn’t died. If only he’d come to her a few minutes earlier, he could have been there when that idiot reaper had lost control. If only he’d bedded her and Joined the minute he knew she was his Beloved, rather than allowing her to give in to her mortal sensibilities, demanding he court her.
    A last breath passed his lips as he tried to hold on to the image of her face—his one true love, the woman who had been put on the earth to save him, and who had died the victim of a senseless accident that was also directly responsible for his impending death.
    Awareness slid away from him, the rock ceased to be an annoyance, and the last few sparks between his brain cells provided not the image of his Beloved, as he so desperately wanted, but that of a woman who had lain in a faint at his feet a few months previously.
     
    The dream started the way it always started.
    “What do you see, Corazon?”
    The voice that spoke so calmly was Barbara, the hypnotherapist whom Patsy had hired for our “Girl’s Night In” semiannual party.
    “Mud. I see mud. Well, mud and grass and stuff like that. But mostly just mud.”
    “Are you sure she’s under?” Patsy asked, her voice filled with suspicion. Pats was always a doubter. “She doesn’t look hypnotized to me. Cora! Can you hear me?”
    “I’d have to be five miles away not to hear you. I’m hypnotized, you idiot, not deaf.” I glared at her. She glared at me glaring at her.
    “Wait just one second. . . .” Patsy stopped glaring and pointed dramatically to where I lay prone on the couch. “You’re not supposed to hear me!”
    “Is she supposed to know she’s hypnotized?”
    That was Terri, the third member of our little trio of terror, as my ex-husband used to call us.
    The bastard.
    “Her knowing doesn’t negate the regression, does it?” Terri asked Barbara.
    “Hypnotism isn’t a magical state of unknowing,” Barbara said calmly. “She is simply relaxed, in touch with her true inner spirit, and has opened up her mind to the many memories of lifetimes past. I assure you that she is properly hypnotized.”
    “Let me get a pin and poke her with it,” Patsy said, bustling over to a bookcase crammed full of books and various other items. “If she reacts, we’ll know she’s faking it.”
    “No one is poking me with anything!” I sat up, prepared to sprint to safety if she so much as came near me with anything pointy.
    “Please, ladies.” I didn’t see Barbara show any signs of rushing, but I knew she wanted to hurry us along so she could leave. “We have limited time. Corazon is in a light trance, also referred to as an alpha state. Through that, she has tapped into her higher self, her true infinite being, a state in which she is free to bypass the boundaries of