“Aphrodite, why can’t I have love?”
The goddess had laughed at him. “You are the child of Myst, V’Aidan. She is formless, shapeless. Vacuous. The best you can hope for is to feel fleeting, muted emotions, but love… love is solid, eternal, and beyond your understanding or abilities.”
“Then why can I feel such pain?”
“Because it, like you, is a fleeting phantom. Like the great ocean it ebbs and flows, swelling to titanic proportions, then sweeping down into nothingness. It never lasts for long.”
Over the centuries, he had learned the goddess was wrong about pain. It, too, was eternal. It never went away.
Not until he had held Erin.
Closing his eyes, he didn’t understand it. What had she done to him?
Wink poked him on the shoulder. “Come on, V, tell me why you are in such a state.”
He looked up at his great-uncle. Trust of any kind was as alien to V’Aidan as love. Still, he needed Wink’s experience. Wink had been around longer and knew more than he did. Perhaps Wink could give him an insight. “If I tell you what happened, you must swear by the River Styx to tell no one. No one.”
Wink nodded. “May Hades chain me in Tartarus, I swear by Styx to never utter a single word of what you tell me.”
V’Aidan took a deep breath and braced himself for betrayal. “I had sex with a mortal.”
Wink arched a proud brow and smiled. “Nice, isn’t it?”
“Wink!”
“Well, it is. I highly recommend it.” Wink paused speculatively. “Was it a man or woman?”
“A woman, of course. What kind of question is that?”
“A very nosy one and in keeping with my charming personality.”
V’Aidan rolled his eyes. Now he understood what the other gods meant when they said Wink could be a major pain in the ass.
“So,” Wink continued, “was she any good?”
A wave of desire tore through V’Aidan, piercing his groin with heat at the very mention of her. Still, he refused to answer that question. It was personal and none of Wink’s business.
“Judging by the look on your face, I’ll take that as a yes.”
V’Aidan growled at his great-uncle and sought to change the subject. “Anyway, something happened.”
“Something?”
“It changed me somehow.”
Wink snorted. “That’s just stupid. If sleeping with a mortal changed a god, there’s no telling what I’d be now. As for Zeus… perish the thought.”
V’Aidan ignored his words. The worst part of all was this incessant need he felt to see Erin again. To feel her hands on him.
He craved her tenderness.
Craved her warmth.
He had to have her.
“V’Aidan!”
Wink paled at the sound of Hypnos’s voice. Hypnos was the one god who held dominion over all the gods of sleep. Sooner or later, all of them answered to him.
“Uh-oh,” Wink whispered. “He looks mad.” Wink vanished, leaving V’Aidan alone to face the old god’s wrath.
V’Aidan looked up over his head to see the old man’s angry scowl. But since he’d never seen any other look on Hypnos’s face, he couldn’t judge it. “He looks the same to me.”
“V’Aidan,” Hypnos growled. “Don’t make me come down there to get you.”
V’Aidan snorted in response. If Hypnos thought to scare him, he’d have to try something new. V’Aidan had learned a long time ago not to care.
Rising up to the cliffs above, he went to meet the god who made Skoti and Oneroi alike quiver in fear. He alone could give them real emotion.
V’Aidan felt nothing as he approached the old man.
“You seduced a mortal in her sleep.”
The accusation hung between them as V’Aidan stared at him.
“What have you to say for yourself?”
V’Aidan said nothing. What could he say? He had committed a forbidden act. Other gods could take humans as they wanted, but not his kind.
He wasn’t the first one of his kindred to violate that mandate. However, he wasn’t foolish enough to think for one minute Hypnos would be merciful toward him.
He wasn’t a favored son.
“You know our code,” Hypnos said. “Why did you break it?”
Because I wanted to be held. Just once.
For one moment in eternity, I wanted to pretend someone cared.
The truth tore through him. Regardless of what Hypnos did to him as punishment, it had been worth it.
He would never forget that one precious moment when he’d held Erin in his arms and she had slept peacefully on top of him. Her breath tickling his chest, she had done something no one had ever done before. She had trusted him.
Her warmth had seeped into him, and for the first time since he’d been born, if not love, he had known tenderness. And it had been enough.
Hypnos looked at him as if he were disgusting. Vile. But then, V’Aidan was used to that, too.
“Take him,” the old god said, shoving him into the hands of his punishers. “Strip the human taint from his flesh and make sure that he will never forget the pain of it.”
3
It was after midnight before Erin finally found the courage to go to sleep. She was terrified of what her dreams might bring and yet she wanted to see V’Aidan again.
How stupid was that?
He wasn’t real and there was no guarantee she’d ever have another dream with him in it.
Still, she wanted a small miracle.
Surrendering herself to the domain of Morpheus, she let her exhaustion take her.
Instead of the falling sensation she’d learned to expect from her dreams, she felt as if she were flying high above the world. For the first time in weeks, she had normal, happy dreams.
No one chased her. No one scared her.
It was heaven, except for the absence of one particular phantom lover.
Sighing in her sleep, Erin saw herself dressed in jeans and a tank top, sitting outside on the porch swing that used to hang on the patio at her Aunt Mae’s house. The day was perfect, bright and pleasantly warm with fragrant air laced with honeysuckle and pine. She’d spent so many youthful summers here on this farm in the California mountains.
How she had missed it.
“What is this place?”
She started at the deep, accented voice behind her.
Turning around, she saw V’Aidan leaning against the white porch railing, his hands braced on each side of him, watching her. His long black hair was tied back into a ponytail and those clear silver eyes were guarded. His black button-down shirt only emphasized the perfect muscles of his body, and his jeans had holes in the knees.
For some reason she couldn’t fathom, he looked a bit pale and tired, his features pinched. Even so, she was glad he was here.
She smiled at him. “It’s one of my favorite places from childhood.”
“What did you do here?”
She stood up and approached him, but he quickly moved away. “Is something wrong?”
V’Aidan shook his head. He shouldn’t be here. He should have stayed far away from her, and yet…
He couldn’t.
As soon as she’d fallen asleep, he had felt her soothing presence calling out to him.
Determined, he had fought it as long as he could.
But in the end, it had been futile.
He’d come here against his will. Against his common sense. His body, even though it healed a hundred times faster than a human’s, was still sore and aching from his punishment. It reminded him of the high cost he would have to pay again should anyone learn where he was.
She placed her hand on his arm. V’Aidan closed his eyes as pain swept through him. His arms were so incredibly sore, but not even the agony of his wounds could conceal the hot, intense shiver he felt at her touch.
“Come.” She slid her hand down his arm to capture his hand in hers. He stared in amazement at their fingers laced together. And he tried not to feel just how soothing her touch was against his skin. How much he wanted to strip her clothes from her and make love to her for the rest of eternity.
“Let me show you,” she said.
He allowed her to lead him down the porch steps and across the yard to an old barn. As they walked hand in hand, her imagination stunned him. Her dream was so vivid and vibrant. He’d never visited anyone who had created something so wonderfully detailed.
She released his hand to open the well-oiled doors of the barn and show him where three horses rested inside stalls.
V’Aidan watched her toss a horse blanket over the back of a pinto, then lead it to him. It amazed him that the horse didn’t shriek at his scent. Never before had an animal tolerated his presence in a dream. But the brown-and-white pinto seemed completely at ease with him. That spoke volumes about how much power her mind held.
“Have you ever ridden?” she asked.
“No.”
She showed him how to mount the horse then she climbed up to ride in front of him. V’Aidan held on to her waist as she kicked the horse into a gallop and they rode through the fields.
The feel of the animal under him, with her in his arms as they rode, washed over him. He felt so strangely free and almost human.
She rode him out to a lake where they dismounted and the horse vanished into a brown cloud of smoke.
Erin sat on the grass and started picking wildflowers to weave into a crown. Enchanted, he watched her hands blend the stems together into an intricate piece that bore little resemblance to a simple headdress.
While she worked, he drew her back against his chest so that he could hold her.
Just for a little while.
“You are so incredibly creative,” he said. “This place is so… you,” he finished. And it was. Bright, friendly, welcoming. It was everything good.
Everything Erin.
She laughed happily and the sound of it brought a foreign comfort to his chest. “Not really.”
“Yes, you are.” It was what had made him seek her out originally. “Why do you suppress your creativity?”