In dreams, it would only be him and her.
She was dreaming of the quarters she and the other human women had been kept in, oddly enough, with its bare, windowless walls but plush furnishings.But Vikan knew how strange the mind could be.The quarters were empty.It was only her with none of the other females in sight.And she was sitting in the fire pit, watching the flames flicker up, nestled among the cushions.
Vikan joined her there, sitting next to her, before he acted on his Instinct’s will.Heneededto touch her, to hold her.He’d been fighting his Instinct since the moment he saw her, but there, nothing would keep him from her.
So, immediately, he lifted her and put her across his lap, curling his arms around her back until she was cradled securely.
“Vikan,” she murmured, her beautiful green eyes catching on his.And the expression he saw there was identical to the one when he’d woken her earlier.Soft and familiar, full of intimate knowing and affection.
His muscles felt loose, his mind felt calm.Purrs began to rumble in his chest.
“Luxiva,” he murmured back to her, leaning forward to nudge his horns against her forehead, careful of the sharp tips, marking her with his scent.A soft sigh drifted over his cheek and when he sought her eyes, close enough to see every strand of color there, she was watching him with a small, maddening smile.
Vikan pulled back so he could run the backs of his fingertips over her lips, feeling the softness.Lust surged into him but he controlled it as best as he could, though he could feel his cock pulsing against her backside.
Shock and desire made him still when she playfully nipped at his fingers, her dull white teeth flashing as she bit down lightly.Vikan growled, his cock giving another throb so intense he wondered if she could feel it against her.
“You do not know what you tempt, female,” he rasped.
“I do though,” she teased back, placing her hands on his bare chest before running them all the way down his front, tracing over his scars and muscles.“I knowexactlywhat you’re capable of.”
Vikan couldn’t help the groan that tumbled from his throat when her fingers met the cloth of his leg coverings, tracing the length of him through the thick material.
It seemed that in Taylor’s dreams, she allowed herself the same freedom he did.She was remembering him as she had in the visions she’d unknowingly seen of their possible future, not as the male she knew in her reality.In reality, she held herself apart from him.In her dreams, she couldn’t be separated from him.
Knowing that she wasn’t aware this dream was very much real, that Vikan had entered it purposefully, he snagged her wrist gently and pulled her hand away from his cock.
“I just want to hold you,luxiva,” he told her, gathering her closer, despite his Instinct prowling just on the edges of his mind.“Will you let me?”
Taylor looked up at him, her eyes softening, and she nodded her head before pressing her forehead to his chest.Vikan pulled her tighter, inhaling the scent of her hair, tracing the tips of his dark claws up and down her arms, careful not to prick her vulnerable skin.
“Why are you in this room,luxiva?” he asked her softly, testing the limits of the dream.
“I don’t know,” she replied.“I was just here.”
“You could be anywhere,” he said.“Where do you want to go?”
“Lopitax,” she murmured and Vikan felt his body jolt.“Take me to our spot on the shore.”
Vikan’s chest filled again and he nodded, slightly shaken.He’d lived with the gift of foresight his entire life span and yet, seeing that gift culminate in another being, was unexpected.It was…jarring.
She’d foreseen their future, after all, or at least a potential path of their future.Deep in her mind, Taylor knew everything.And it seemed that she would only allow herself to accept those visions in sleep, in dreams.
Lopitax.That meant she’d foreseen them both on the shores ofLopitax, the sea closest to his outpost, and where he often spent early mornings, watching the twin suns rise from the horizon.He knew the exact place she spoke of, because it was the only place he would’ve taken her.
In the dream, he changed her own.In an instant, he brought them to his favorite place and all at once, the silver sea greeted them, shimmering and gleaming as the suns began their ascent.The sand beneath their feet felt like soft, dense fur as Vikan led her to the base of a cliff.
He settled back against it, feeling the smooth stone against his skin, his long legs stretching before him.He pulled her between them, tucking her back to his chest, so they could both watch the new span rising.Her small palms gripped his wrists, feeling his pulse and the measured beat of his heart.
“Much better,” she said softly and Vikan could hear the smile in her voice.
EIGHT
TAYLOR WOKE SMILING, her heart stuttering in her chest, and feeling high off of…him.
But the moment that the night’s events replayed in her mind and she realized she was in a deserted, chilly cave far away from their destination, and that she was in the arms of Vikan, but notherVikan, that smile faded.
Again, she felt the loss of him as sharply as a blade to the chest and it didn’t make any damn sense.
