In a fast move, Riley reached out, gripped Sasha’s arm at the wrist. “What do you know about the Stars of Fortune? Who the hell are you?”
Though her stomach trembled, Sasha made herself keep her eyes level with the fierce ones, ordered her voice not to shake.
“I’ve told you who I am. I’m telling you what I know. You know more about them. You know what they are. You’re already looking for them—that’s why you’re here. And you’re hurting my arm.”
“If I find out you’re bullshitting me, I’ll hurt more than your arm.” But she let it go.
“Don’t threaten me.” Temper, hot and surprised, leaped up and out. “I’ve had enough. I didn’t ask for this, I don’t want this. All I wanted was to live in peace, to paint, to be left alone to work. Then you and these others are crowding my dreams, you and these damn stars I don’t understand. One of them’s here, I know it, just as I know finding it won’t be peaceful. I don’t know how to fight, and I’ll have to. Blood and battle, dreams full of blood and battle and pain.”
“Now it’s getting interesting.”
“It’s terrifying, and I want to walk away from all of it. I don’t think I can. I held one in my hand.”
Riley leaned forward. “You held one of the stars?”
“In a dream.” Sasha turned her palm up, stared at it. “I held it, held the fire. And it was so beautiful it blinded. Then it came.”
“What came?”
“The dark, the hungry, the brutal.”
Suddenly she felt queasy, light-headed. Though she struggled, what moved through her won.
“She who is darkness covets. To have what she desires consumes her. What the three moons created out of love, loyalty, and hope, she would corrupt. She has burned her gifts and all bright edges of her power away, and what remains is a madness. She will kill to possess them, fire, ice, water. Possessing them, she will destroy worlds, destroy all so she lives.”
Sasha lifted both hands to her head. “Headache.”
“Does that happen often?”
“I do everything I can to stop it.”
“And that’s probably why you have a headache. You can’t fight your own nature, trust me. You have to learn to control it, and to adapt.” Riley caught the waiter’s eyes, circled a finger in the air. “I’m getting us another round.”
“I don’t think I should—”
“Eat some nuts.” Brisk now, Riley shoved the bowl closer. “No way you’re faking this—nobody’s that good. And I’ve got a sense about people—not empathic, but a reliable sense. So we’ll have another drink, talk this through some more, then figure out where we go from there.”
“You’re going to help me.”
“The way I look at it, we’re going to help each other. My research indicates the Fire Star is in or around Corfu—and your dreams corroborate that. You could come in handy. Now—”
She broke off, flicked a hand at her bangs as she looked over Sasha’s head. “Well, well, it just keeps getting more and more interesting.”
“What is it?”
“Dream date.” Riley aimed a deliberately flirty smile, crooked a finger in the air.
Swiveling in her chair, Sasha saw him. The man who held the lightning. The one who’d taken her body.
His eyes, so dark, flicked away from Riley, met hers. Held them. And holding them, crossed to their table.
“Ladies. Spectacular view, isn’t it?”
His voice, Irish and easy, brought a shiver to Sasha’s skin. She felt trapped, as if a shining silver cage had dropped around her.
And when he smiled, she yearned.
“Where you from, Irish?” Riley asked.
“Sligo, a little village you wouldn’t have heard of.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Cloonacool.”
“I know it. Sits at the foot of the Ox Mountains.”
“So it does, yes. Well then.” He waved his hand, and offered Riley the little clutch of shamrocks that appeared in it. “A token from home, faraway.”
“Nice.”
“Americans?” He looked back at Sasha. “Both of you?”
“Looks that way.” Riley watched his gaze shift, land on the sketches. She said nothing when he reached down, lifted the one of six people.
Not shocked, she thought. Intrigued.
“Isn’t this a fascination. You’d be the artist?” he said to Sasha. “You’ve a clever hand, and eye. I’ve been told I have the same.” He smiled. “Mind if I join you?”
Without waiting for assent, he got a chair from a neighboring table, pulled it up. Sat.
“I’d say we’ve a lot to talk about. I’d be Bran. Bran Killian. Why don’t I buy you ladies a drink, and we’ll talk about the moon and the stars?”
CHAPTER TWO
Sasha struggled to find her balance as he made himself comfortable, ordered a glass of the local red.
He’d walked out of her dreams, as if she’d wished him into being. She knew his face, his body, his voice, his scent. She’d been intimate with him.
But he didn’t know her.