Page 4 of The Edge of Dawn

Studying her.

For just as she said, he would have to leave her soon, and he wasn’t sure if he would encounter her again.

She stared back at him, going very, very still as he withdrew his psychic touch. “What the hell was that?”

Dragek said nothing. He didn’t have to explain himself.

He was simply curious because he’d never been alone with an innocent that he didn’t have to kill.

The beings he’d encountered in his life were either prey or captors.

There was no in-between.

Maybe that was why he couldn’t stop watching her.

She’d dressed herself carelessly in a loose, flimsy top that barely covered her chest. Her body was strong and curvaceous. Her waist was narrow, her hips generous. Her legs were encased in a pair of worn, floppy trousers.

Her hair was a chaotic mess, long, tangled strands falling around her perfect oval of a face. Its hue must be what the sighted ones called dark, for it absorbed the microscopic particles of light rather than reflecting them.

She caught him staring.

She stared back, once again giving him an up-and-down, all-over look as if he were merely a pleasing object to be possessed and admired.

Her eyes narrowed, thick, curved brows drawing together in a quizzical expression. “That’s it. The next time you and I meet in a dream, we’re going to have sex.”

What in the Nine Hells?

Dragek couldn’t help it; he laughed, a cold, bleak sound. “We will only meet again if I allow it. I have not yet decided if you are worth the trouble.”

“Touchy, aren’t you? I’m only saying aloud what any normal heterosexual woman would think if a man like you repeatedly showed up in her dreams.” It was her turn to laugh; a short, sharp sound that was filled with disbelief and perhaps a hint of fragility.

Hm.

It would be so easy to crush her.

In the background, some distance from the dark chamber where his corporeal form was sitting, he sensed an approaching presence.

Time to leave this foolish insanity.

But before he did that…

He would leave her with a parting gift. Something to unsettle her. She couldn’t have it all her way.

He was in control here.

Dragek reached out and found that she was indeed receptive to mindspeech.

So he spoke to her in another way.

And what would you do, human, if it so happened that I was real?

He felt her shock; her fear, which she so quickly tried to hide.

She stared back at him, completely serious for once. “I don’t have to answer that, dream-boy. Because there’s no way that someone like you could possibly exist.”

TWO

Oh my stars, what was that?

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