He didn't answer. Erin felt the familiar pull of the Oneroi trying to send her home.
But she wouldn't go. She wouldn't leave V'Aidan alone to face the monsters.
Twisting out of M'Ordant's hold, she ran toward the Skoti and shoved her way through them.
She found V'Aidan on the ground, covered in blood. His armor in pieces around him, he lay helpless.
V'Aidan felt someone tugging at him. The desperate, grasping hands hurt him even more as they rolled him to his back. He looked up, expecting to see Krysti'Ana poised to end his life, but instead he met the dark brown eyes of heaven.
Erin wrapped herself around him, shielded him with her body as she willed herself to wake up. He heard her loud thoughts screaming in his head.
He wanted to tell her to go but couldn't.
His strength gone, V'Aidan could do nothing more than wrap his arms around her and cradle her gently. Her tears stung his wounds and he wanted to tell her not to cry for him. He wasn't worth it.
He'd never been worth anything until she had taught him kindness.
He heard M'Ordant trying to get through the Skoti to pull Erin back, but the Skoti refused.
"I'll have them both," Krysti'Ana snarled. "His life and her mind."
Closing his eyes, V'Aidan summoned the last of his powers. He kissed Erin on the lips, then sent her home.
As she shimmered out of his world, V'Aidan felt himself slipping, sliding down a deep hole. The world shifted and spun. Too weak to fight it, he allowed himself to go wherever it took him, and he was sure that place would be Tartarus.
Not that it mattered. Any day without Erin in his life was hell.
Erin woke up from her nightmare with a jerk and a scream lodged in her throat. She couldn't be back, not without V'Aidan. She had reached down deep inside her and had fastened on to him with all she possessed.
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 shift beneath her.
Opening her eyes, she realized she was back in her bed... and lying draped over a naked and bleeding V'Aidan.
Part Two 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 shielded 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