She threw out her hands, reaching for him. For a moment she felt his questing fingers brush along hers. Then he was gone.
She hurtled to wakefulness and plunged upright in her bed with a soundless shout. Her heart hammered like she had just raced a marathon. Her dirty clothes were soaked in sweat, the motel bedspread tangled underneath her. The air conditioner rattled, blowing stale, deodorized air through the room. The remnant of magic lay flat in the air like soured champagne.
Her hungry body wept. With a moan, she plunged one hand between her legs and pressed. It only made her ache more.
She had never felt such a wretched, unconsummated lust. She curled into a miserable ball, starving for that dream lover and terrified of him at the same time. Something deep inside her started to whisper his name. Then panic shut it down. She couldn’t think it, couldn’t let what happened become too real because that would be beyond disastrous.
Then she jerked as she realized that she was still glowing. The low-level glamour that hid her skin’s pearl-like sheen was fed from her own life force. It was supposed to remain active at all times, even when she slept. Her mother had helped her put the spell in place. She hadn’t lost control over it in years.
She renewed the spell and dampened herself to look human again.
She was so screwed.
Grimacing, she curled into a tighter ball.
Dragos exploded out of his bed, face contorted, one hand holding his painful erection. His balls ached so badly he stumbled forward to grip at the edges of a nearby mahogany dresser. He bowed over it, shuddering.
What the hell?
The beguilement he sent was supposed to seduce his thief with her deepest fantasy, her most heartfelt desire. He had expected anything but this, a dream of riches or power, success or even fame, but sex? The ultimate opportunist, he had laughed to himself and had been quick to oblige, as he beguiled her deeper into his dream trap.
Then she stepped into his bedroom and his world stopped.
She was lovelier than he could have imagined, her body glowing with its own internal moonlight. His mind seized. What was she? His knowledge of the Elder Races was near encyclopedic, compiled as it had been over the long ages. He cast back, searching for any memory of this type of creature, and slammed into a blank wall. All that came to mind was that distant tantalizing memory of the time he had caught the hint of a scent on the breeze that had driven him wild.
He remembered now. Centuries ago he had plunged into the forest in North Umbria and chased after an elusive wild scent very like his thief’s, catching and losing it again in fitful spurts, sure that he heard the sharp rustle of foliage as some mysterious creature bounded away from him. The forest had teemed with the Power of green growing things, back when both he and the world were so much younger.
In the dream he concentrated everything he had on this woman, greedy to understand and categorize what was happening, to find its appropriate place in his vast memory. Yet he met with absolute failure. The magic that was an inherent part of her was delicate and filigreed, layered with feminine complexity and beauty. It felt wild and mysterious, cool like her moonlit glow. His whole body had tightened with shock as he watched her walk toward him with a graceful roll of slim hips, generous lips parted and her gaze radiant with sensual yearning.
Yearning for him, the Great Beast. Cuelebre. Wyrm.
He did not recognize himself then, or the volcano that erupted inside him. The beast pounced and took her with violent, voracious force.
And she had loved it.
Blind lust took him over then, scorching him in a way he had never experienced before. He fell prey to it and to her, body and old wicked soul. The beguiler became the beguiled. The sensual undulation of that graceful female form underneath his felt like some kind of epiphany. Eating at her plump, eager mouth made him ravenous. All he could think about was plunging his cock inside her in an ecstasy of ravishment.
He had managed to hang on to the reason for the spell he had cast, as he recognized in one corner of his mind that however intense and pleasurable this dreamscape felt, it was designed to feed a hunger, not assuage it. It worked to use his prey’s weaknesses and desires against it so that he could pull it into his control. Neither of them would gain fulfillment from the dream, only increased appetite.
But when he tightened the spell and pressed her for the ultimate surrender, she denied him.
His thief said no to him.