Jayne Castle - Obsidian Prey

For the moment, his senses told him more clearly than words that she still wanted him, at least physically. He could work with that. The trick was to remain in full control of himself and his passions.

Her fingers sank into the fabric of his shirt, tightening. Without warning, a shuddering thrill whipped through him. Memories of all the long nights he had spent working late or restlessly prowling the empty streets of the Old Quarter in an effort to distract himself from thoughts of Lyra slammed through him.

She was in his arms again. That was all that mattered now.

He had been semi-aroused all night, and now he was consumed with a sense of rising urgency. The kiss was unleashing the full force of his own need. It was all he could do not to push through the door and drag Lyra into the bedroom.

The only thing holding him back was the hunter in him. Strategy was everything.

He felt the hot little shivery chills going through her and took another chance. He deepened the kiss, silently willing her to remember how it had been between them. Energy flashed and spiked in the atmosphere. Their auras sparked invisibly around them, testing, teasing, enticing, challenging. He and Lyra were dancing through a warm, iridescent shower of psychic rain.

He heard a low, urgent groan and realized somewhat vaguely that it had come from his own throat. Probably time to stop. He could not afford to lose it, not at this juncture.

Releasing her was the hardest thing he had ever done. All of his instincts were urging him to seize the opportunity to imprint himself on her forever.

But he managed, somehow, to let her go. He took a step back out into the hall. For a moment she just looked at him, her eyes sultry and a little unfocused with desire. Her lips were full and slightly parted. She blinked a couple of times, and then she was back in command of herself and the situation.

"You always were a really good kisser," she said softly.

He was not sure how to take that, but he could not afford to be choosy. Any kind of wanting on her part was better than total rejection.

"Will you let me take you out to dinner tonight?" he said. "We'll make it an early evening, since you're not going to get much sleep this morning."

"I'll think about it. I'm too tired to make a decision now. Call me this afternoon."

She closed the door very gently but firmly in his face.

He stood looking at the closed door for a while, wondering if she was setting him up for a refusal later. When he realized he could not decide, he went back downstairs and headed home.

FOUR HOURS LATER SHE DRESSED FOR HER HARMONIC Meditation class in the uniform that signified her beginner's status: baggy gray trousers and a loose-fitting, wide- sleeved gray shirt secured with a plain gray sash. She was still a little groggy in spite of two large mugs of strong coffee.

When she opened the door of her apartment, she woke up fast. Her own face stared back at her from the front page of the Herald . She was not alone in the photo. Vincent was on her shoulder, looking like an adorable ball of badly wrapped yarn in a red beret. Cruz was also in the picture. He looked like he always did, the chief hit man in charge.

"Looks like we're famous, again, Vincent. Just like the old days when we sued Amber Inc."

Vincent made chirpy sounds and peered out of the partially unzipped gym bag that she used to carry her meditation gear. He showed no interest in the newspaper.

She scanned the headline and read the story with a rising sense of unease.

CRISIS DRAWS NEW AI SECURITY CEO

An emergency at a recently discovered alien ruin in the underground rain forest brought the new CEO of Amber Inc.'s security division to the scene. Cruz Sweetwater was accompanied by Lyra Dore, who recently dropped a lawsuit she had brought against Amber Inc.

A spokesperson for AI indicated that Miss Dore was an antiquities consultant who catered to an exclusive clientele. He stated that she possessed the unique skills required to rescue five members of a research team who were trapped in the ruin known as the Amethyst Chamber. The precise nature of the problem was described as a "technical malfunction." The team emerged, unharmed.

Mr. Sweetwater and Miss Dore left the scene together, leading observers to question whether Dore's lawsuit had been dropped because the pair was involved in a personal relationship.

"Well, I suppose the speculation was inevitable," Lyra said to Vincent. "There will be a lot more of the same if I'm seen having dinner with Cruz tonight. But, hey, they called me an antiquities consultant who caters to an exclusive clientele . That's a step up from three months ago when the press implied that I was a low-end tuner who dabbled in the shady side of the relics trade."

She tossed the newspaper onto the hall table and continued downstairs. A glance at her watch informed her that she was going to have to hurry to get to the morning class on time. Fortunately, Master Quinn's studio was only a few blocks away.

The waking nightmare struck half a block later. Between one step and the next she suddenly found herself in a twisted, horribly distorted version of reality. The familiar street coiled like an infinitely long snake ahead of her, the head vanishing into dark infinity. The old Colonial-era buildings on either side of her loomed, impossibly high and strangely narrowed, over her head. Windows glittered like the eyes of great insects.

"Oh, damn," she whispered. "Not again."

She stopped, afraid to take another step because her sense of balance was almost gone. The world veered and teetered around her. Nausea stirred in her stomach.

And then the monsters began to emerge from the alleys.

She heard Vincent making anxious noises. She looked down and discovered that the gym bag had become the mouth of a strange beast. There was blood in the creature's mouth.

No, not blood . She was looking at Vincent's red beret.

Vincent rumbled again. He wasn't growling at her, she realized. He was trying to get her attention. But at that instant, one of the alley monsters started toward her. It was a strange, shambling, vaguely human thing that looked as though it had just arisen from a grave. Its eye sockets were empty. The skin was gone in several places, exposing bare bone.

I'm hallucinating again, she thought. She knew from experience that she had to stay focused on that one single bit of hard information. There's nothing real here .

Vincent made more urgent noises. The red beret bobbed up and down and side to side, making her even more dizzy than she already was. She tightened her grip on the gym bag, but Vincent was no longer inside. Panic slashed across her senses.

"Vincent. Where are you?"

When she realized that he was scuttling up her sleeve, she cried out with relief. He arrived on her shoulder, murmuring anxiously and huddled close. The physical contact steadied her. She dropped the bag and reached up to touch him.

The nightmare dissolved as swiftly as it had coalesced. Just like that, she was out of the dark Alice in Amberland world and back on a normal-looking street. Her pulse was racing, and her palms tingled. She was breathing much too quickly, and she still felt nauseous, but she was no longer hallucinating.

A retired hunter she saw frequently in the neighborhood peered at her with concern. Harvey Wilkens always took a morning walk at this time of day. He no longer looked as if had just arisen from a grave.

"You okay, Miss Dore?" he asked.

"Yes. Yes, I am. Thanks, Harvey. I didn't get much sleep last night. Guess I'm a little jumpy this morning."

Harvey nodded. "Heard how you went down to the jungle to rescue that AI team."

"You saw the morning papers?"