Shadow Kissed 03 - Shadowman

by your interest, and what you claim is our history, I just . . .” As she spoke, she worried the skin on her ring finger and looked away. “This is crazy. Any chance you’ll be out in the real world soon? It would be much easier to speak to a body.”
    His body was the problem. “It may be some time before I can get back. Please continue. You just what?”
    â€œI don’t remember you.” She sobered completely. “Maybe our time has passed. Maybe you were meant to be with Kathleen, but not so much with me.”
    â€œI’ve searched the whole of your life for you. Been burned by divine light. Breached Hell even.” His Shadows grumbled within him. “And now that I have you, I’m not letting go. Our time is just beginning.”
    He watched her swallow hard. Scrape the skin on her ring finger.
    â€œWhat troubles you?” he asked.
    Her gaze darted nervously away, then back. “Well, I’m sorry to have to point this out, but you’re strange. Frighteningly strange.”
    â€œGet used to it.”
    â€œYeah, and the bossy, imperious thing . . .” She made a pained face as if looking for the right words. “I’m a pretty independent woman. You say something arrogant, flip your long black hair, and I just want to, uh, mock you, which I think might be very dangerous. And I’ve had enough danger for today, thanks.”
    She was right. What he had in mind would be much easier face-to-face. “Go to the bed, Layla, and lie down.”
    She tilted her head, as if thinking. “See, now, there you go again. I’m not quite sure if you’re aware of it since it comes so easily to you. You just commanded me to do something, and I can’t see myself complying.”
    Her words were at odds with her reaction. The word bed had sparked a violet pulse deep in her womb. Part of her badly wanted to be in bed. It was her indomitable will and her Earth-centric reservations that tormented them both. They needed Twilight, and now.
    â€œLayla, will you lie down for me? Or will you drive me mad?”
    â€œThose are my options?” she scoffed, goading him.
    â€œI am immortal, yet I do not know how I will survive you.”
    She waggled her head. “Yeah, and speaking of the immortal thing . . .”
    Khan cursed himself. “Lie down.”
    â€œDon’t boss me.”
    â€œ Please , lie down.”
    â€œI don’t go to bed with people, or”—she snorted—“ immortal fae , that I’ve just met.”
    â€œYou know me, Layla, or you would not be arguing with me.” Stop fighting, love . “Your inborn sense of preservation would send you flying from my presence. And yet you stay, and argue with a dark lord of the fae, because you know that, of all mortals, you are safe. I ask you to lie down so that I can share your dreams, so that we might converse a little easier.”
    She frowned. “You scared the crap out of Dr. James this morning.”
    â€œAn excellent example of the typical mortal response.”
    â€œWhat are you?”
    His Layla was too clever.
    â€œFae,” he answered.
    She gazed at him in the window and pressed her lips together, deliberating. “The ‘dark lord’ part was a bit much.”
    He bowed his head to concede her point. Nevertheless, a dark lord he was. That much she would have to accept.
    â€œIt will be your dream, Layla. You control what happens in it.”
    â€œDream only,” she said.
    â€œYes, of course.” What occurred in the dream, however, was entirely up to her.
    She went to her bedroom and set herself up primly, head centered on her pillow, hands clasped over her belly, ankles crossed. The coverlet dimpled around her. Her mind was too agitated for slumber, so he waited for the moment her shoulders relaxed, her thoughts wandered, and then he cut her free and let her fall.
    Khan emerged in the dockside warehouse where they’d first met. He took the form Layla knew, the body that Kathleen had created for him. In dreams, he could be anything.
    The warehouse was done up with the riches he’d copied from the magazine scrap: plush chairs; books; the map flat on the table, held down by the figure of a wooden Buddha, who regarded him tranquilly. Khan found Layla staring into the gilded mirror. Frustration beat the air around her. The glass was murky; whatever she sought eluded her.
    â€œLayla,” he said.
    The room