to get everything out of my head, even if it was only for a little bit.”
Of course, the mechanism that had worked best was killing that woman’s assailant. And Syn was all too correct. Boone had needed that release before he could trust himself to be around anyone. Including, if not especially, his Helania.
“And again,” he murmured, “it was when I was walking the streets that I ran into that human woman.”
Helania laid her head back down on their pillow. “As I said before, she’s lucky she found you. And so am I.”
Boone kissed the top of Helania’s head and smiled up at the ceiling of her bedroom.
They were quiet for a time, and yet neither of them was still. Helania’s body kept shifting against his own, as if she were in search of a comfortable position and being denied that prize, and he was the same, fidgeting this way, that way.
It seemed ironic that in the midst of their mutual discomfort, he decided that he really did love her.
He loved Helania.
Yes, the timing was not the best. Yes, it had happened quickly. But when you knew . . . you knew. And the next step was to tell the person—
Helania let out a soft snore, and when a second one came, Boone closed his eyes again and told himself to follow suit. There would be time for revelations later. And maybe something downright romantic, with roses and candlelight.
Or maybe he’d chill and keep it to himself for a little while. Like a week. Tops.
Assuming he could keep his happiness to himself.
A short time later, exhaustion claimed him, his consciousness draining out and being replaced with a dense void of thought, emotion, and dreams. But as he fell off that cliff, there was a smile on his face.
He couldn’t wait to tell her he loved her. And do it properly.
At first, Boone didn’t know what woke him up. He wasn’t even sure if he had roused from sleep. He felt as though he were floating, everything fuzzy and far away, both his body and wherever he was more ether than substance in the manner of a dreamscape. And yet something was very, very real in the midst of the haze . . .
His name. Across a vague and shifting awareness, he could sense his name being called from far away.
Something . . . was calling him home.
Someone.
A sense of needing to rush sharpened his thoughts, the urgency making him try to run—except he didn’t seem to be connected to any corporeal form: He had no limbs to command into action, no feet to pick up, no arms to pump. Further, there was no solid ground upon which to ambulate.
Had he died and gone unto the Fade?
Who was calling for him?
Desperation made his heart pound, and it was then that he felt the heat. There was a fire somewhere close by, the burning so intense, surely it would melt the skin from his bones—
Boone shot up right, a great breath exploding out of his mouth as he ripped free of the dream—or had it been a nightmare?
Looking around frantically, he saw a dim bedroom that was mostly empty. Barren walls. Sheets tangled around his calves.
It was a split second before he recognized where he was, and as soon as he did, the last dregs of his confusion washed away and he reached for his female . . .
He was alone on the bed.
“Helania?”
A tortured moan answered him from somewhere else in the apartment, and stark terror had him leaping all the way across to the open doorway, his feet not touching the floor at all. Except Helania was nowhere to be seen in the living area or the kitchen, the couch and the chairs around the little table empty—
Abruptly, he looked down at the front of his hips and recoiled. He was painfully aroused, his erection jutting from his hips with such force, it stuck straight out.
He was on the verge of an orgasm even now.
A feeling of dissociated dread came over him as he realized he was panting and flushed. Lifting his hands, he noted the sheen of sweat that was all over his skin, and as he inhaled through his nose, the scent in the air caused his alarm bells to go off even more loudly.
In slow motion, he turned to the open doorway of the bathroom. Helania was lying on the tile floor, her naked body facedown and spread out, the bath mat shoved aside as if she