Part 8 (1/2)

Her eyes were clenched shut. She didn't want to open them yet.

Didn't want to know that she had left him behind to die.

There had to be some way back to him. Some way to save him.

Her heart pounding, she felt something s.h.i.+ft beneath her.

Opening her eyes, she realized she was back in her bed... and lying draped over a naked and bleeding V'Aidan.

CHAPTER 5

”Ow,” V'Aidan said as he lay in stunned disbelief. His entire being ached from his wounds, but then, he'd suffered a lot worse beatings than this.

Still, in this ”real” physical body it hurt so much that he could do nothing more than shake from the weight of the pain.

The only thing that made it bearable was Erin's presence. The softness of her body on his.

And quick on the heels of that thought came the one that if she had managed to bring him here, the others would follow to reclaim him.

V'Aidan had no fear for himself, only that they would come while he was too weak to protect her.

”Oh my gosh, it's you. It's really you!”

Erin reached up and touched his swollen jaw where one of the creatures had struck him hard. She brushed his hair back from his forehead and caught the panicked look in his eyes before he s.h.i.+elded it.

Even though bruises and cuts marred his face, she'd never seen anything more spectacular than V'Aidan alive and in her bed.

He was human.

She didn't know how she had managed it. Maybe it was her determination combined with his powers that had been forcing her away from him. Maybe it was a lot of things.

But all that mattered right now was that he was here with her. He wasn't a dream.

V'Aidan was a real-life man.

”I have to get out of here,” he said, trying to get up. ”I don't belong here.”

No, he belonged to her dreams, and yet...

He was actually here. With her.

”I'm bleeding?” he asked, looking at his arm in disbelief. ”Is this blood? This is blood. I'm bleeding.”

She nodded, torn between the desire to cry for his wounds and to laugh out loud that she had somehow managed to bring him back with her.”I need to get you to a doctor.”

”No!” He winced. ”I'm not supposed to be here. I'm not...”

V'Aidan paused. ”I'm not human.” He closed his eyes to teleport himself home. It didn't work.

Over and over he tried, and over and over he failed.

His heart pounded. It had been untold millennia since he had walked the mortal realm.

He'd forgotten the vividness of this world. The brightness of the colors and sharpness of sounds and smells.

Erin slid off the bed and disappeared while he tried to sort through it. How could he be here where she could see him?

How could he bleed real blood?

It had to be the fact that his demiG.o.d essence had been drained out of him during his beating.

The only way to kill a G.o.d was to remove all powers from him, which was what the Skoti had been doing. Erin's mind must have found some way to bring him over the threshold in that last moment before he died.

He should be in Tartarus by now, paying for his crimes for the rest of eternity. But somehow she had saved him. Somehow she had brought him here. There was no other explanation.

The power of her mind and spirit was phenomenal.

Erin returned with a damp washcloth. Carefully she wiped the blood from his face and body.

V'Aidan trembled at the softness of her hand and the way the cloth felt gliding over his flesh. She was always so kind. Until her, he had never understood that concept. Never known what it was to help someone else.

Before he realized what he was doing, he captured her lips, then winced as pain swept along his swollen jaw.

”Ow,” he said again, pulling back.

Erin slid her hands over his chest as she inspected his wounds. In dreams, her touch had been muted; now it possessed a tender heat unimaginable. It left him breathless and raw.

V'Aidan reached out and cupped her face so that he could study her beautiful features. ”Why are you helping me?”

”Because you need it.”

He couldn't fathom such an unselfish reason. Such things didn't exist in his realm.

”You need to rest.”

”I need clothes,” he said.

”I will have to buy you some.”

”Buy?”

”Purchase. You don't just walk into a store and have them give you what you need.”

V'Aidan listened to the patience in her voice. Patience he wasn't used to. He knew so little about her human world. He'd been relegated to viewing it through the distortions of dreams and nightmares.The pain inside him, he did know. It was the only emotion left to his kind. It was why they invaded human sleep. There they could feel other things. Even muted emotions were better than none at all.