Chapter 1

ONE

He sat on the cold stone floor, legs crossed, hands laid on his knees, palms facing upwards.

Toward the silent stone ceiling.

Toward the immense weight of layer upon layer of earth and rock—the ancient outer crust of this chaotic, vegetation-infested planet.

They—his captors— had tunneled deep beneath the sun-scorched surface, building a labyrinthine network of tunnels and chambers that would rival any of the networks on Kythia.

They were still going.

He could feel the faint vibrations of the machines as they ate through the inert, lifeless rock. The sensation was strangely comforting; he imagined arteries and veins growing inside a body, warm blood rushing to fill them.

They were conquering the underground, where the vicious rays of the sun couldn't touch their silver skin or blind their darkness-piercing eyes.

His kind.

He still hadn't decided if they were to be his enemies.

For now, he had decided to accept Tarak al Akkadian's bargain. Once again, he would become someone else's weapon.

In exchange for his life.

His lips curved into a bitter smile.

Some choice.

He emptied his mind of all thought. He slowed his breathing and focused on the sensation of the cold air dancing across his bare skin.

Across his bare chest. Down his arms, where a faint halo of ka'qui rippled and flowed across the palms of his hands, into his fingertips…

He allowed his essence to flow out into the Universe. He allowed the void to seep into his mind. Pure, blissful nothingness slipped into his cracks and fissures, momentarily erasing the scars left after a lifetime of pain; thousands of tiny wounds, insignificant little deaths inflicted by his own wretched, callused hands.

Beneath the grandeur of the Universe, everything was insignificant.

Him, most of all.

He closed his sightless eyes and drifted outside his body, allowing the void to take him.

Until he felt it… the faint tendril of a familiar thread.

Wondering.

If he would come to her again.

So he followed it.

Seized it.

And eventually, he did.

He resurfaced in a subterranean room, but unlike the place where he'd left his mortal body, this one was filled with light, thanks to a transparent panel in the ceiling.

Of course, he couldn't see the light with his blacked-out eyes. But he could sense it with his Second Sight, the powerful sixth sense that encompassed all others. He could feel the billions of microscopic particles of energy colliding with his ephemeral body.

If this were his real body, he would be wincing in pain as the sunlight burned through his pale Kordolian skin. But here, he was only a projection, an extension of his own intangible will.

In the void, he drifted… until the lines of reality became blurred, and he came as close to freedom as he'd ever been.

But really, freedom was just an illusion. A distortion of perception.

Because he'd allowed himself to be dragged into the consciousness of another being.

This time…

Hm.

This is where she'd conjured him?

Into this silent underground room, carved into the thick stone of Earth's crust. It was filled with strange human objects. Some, he could guess the function of. There was a table and chairs. An area arranged with low seating. A pipe and a metal basin—presumably for water and washing.

But there were other objects that he couldn't even begin to comprehend. Flat, square things on the walls depicting various scenes. Soft, square things on the seats. Vegetation growing in mismatched round vessels. A bowl filled with sickly-sweet smelling, bizarrely shaped fruits.

Sensing the magnetic pull of her presence, he crossed the chamber, passing through an arched doorway fringed with long beaded strings.

If he were in his corporeal form, he would have pushed them aside, but he just drifted through them, entering what was obviously a sleeping room.

There was a pod in the middle. Human-made: flat, rectangular, uncomfortably exposed. Dressed with inelegantly crumpled linens.

And in the midst of that small nest of chaos, there was her.

" Oh. It's you again." She lay on one side of the rectangular pod, her arms and legs splayed out, hair tousled, eyes barely open. Her brow was slightly furrowed… as if she were in some sort of discomfort. "Hello again, dream-boy. This is the third time you've appeared now. I've never had that before. My subconscious must be trying to tell me something." Her voice was tinged with irony. She spoke in heavily accented Universal, staring at him with a half-lidded gaze.

"I am not a boy ," he said mildly, hiding his irritation. It was because that old hag—the Mistress— used to call him that. Well, she was dead now.

"You look young. But I suppose I'm saying that from a human perspective."

"I am older than I look."

"Well, if my suspected reasons for conjuring you are anything to go by, then it figures. Lucky you."

He snorted derisively. What was she even talking about? Conjuring? Lucky? If only you knew, foolish human . "And neither am I a dream— whatever that is."

"But you are my dream."

"Explain." He leaned his incorporeal body against the wall and folded his arms, not sure what to make of this strange being.

The only thing he knew for certain was that when he meditated, drifting in and out of the physical world… into the void that existed between all worlds, he'd somehow appeared in her consciousness.

Their first contact had been fleeting. The second one had been intriguing. And this time—the third— she was completely unsurprised to see him.

"Well, since I'm asleep, and this is all a dream, and you're not real, I suppose I can tell you anything I want." She closed her eyes and placed her hand on her forehead, brushing back her long, messy hair. "What are dreams, huh? I suppose they're little alternate realities that our brains randomly create when we're asleep. They're made of lost thoughts and memories and hopes and fears. Wishes. The impossible. Guided by our subconscious… trying to tell us something, I suppose. Maybe they predict the future. I don't know."

"Ah. Thought-walking. " He'd experienced something similar once or twice when he hadn't yet developed full control over his ka'qui. There were times when his sleep-thoughts had become wild and terrifying.

Did humans lose control of their minds all the time?

"Is that what your people call it?"

That's what I call it. He shrugged. Outside of The Program, he hadn't had much contact with his so-called people.

Her eyes widened. They glowed with bright, luminous energy and all-too-human curiosity.

She was completely unafraid of him.

But if she understood what he truly was…

She would run.

She would try.

Clearly, she was one of those rare humans who possessed the Talent—somewhat like Ashrael's mate. The fact that she could draw him to her while he was in the void was proof enough of her power.

Pray to the Goddess that he would never have to come for her… like that.

He hadn't had to eliminate many humans, but the ones he'd encountered so far were disappointingly weak.

Far too easy to kill.

Maybe that was why he found this scenario so amusing.

A weak and fragile human female who was bold and unafraid to speak her mind… to him, of all people.

"At least now I know that you can speak," she said softly, pinning him with a look of pure fascination. "You were awfully quiet the last couple of times. I thought you were just being rude, but you do speak Universal, huh? I just guessed, seeing as you're an alien and all. You're not like the guys I've seen on the Networks, but there's a similarity. Are you a kind of… " Her brow furrowed. "Kordolian ?"

"I am." He inclined his head, his amusement turning bitter. It was the first time he'd been able to speak in her presence. She had no idea that he'd only just been released from his curse of silence. "We don't all look the same, you know."

"Now I know. Makes sense." Her gaze traveled slowly down his body, lingering on his bare torso, on his loosely clad hips. "Hmm. My subconscious is definitely trying to tell me something."

He stared back, a disbelieving half-smile curving his lips. Nobody had ever dared give him such a look.

Nobody.

Let alone a human.

Unable to help himself, he leaned forward, playing into her little fantasy. "And what would that be?"

Her long, slender fingers slipped between the v-shaped folds of her garment; a soft, flowy thing loosely belted at her waist. Her hand came to rest on her chest, in between the tantalizing swells of her breasts. "Well, alien- man , if you really want to know, I believe you exist because my mind and soul are rebuking me."

Alien-man? This female was ridiculously impudent. "I have a name, you know."

"Oh, you do? Go on, then…" She gestured with her hands as if she were responsible for conjuring his infernal name out of thin air.

"Dragek," he said matter-of-factly.

" Dragek. " She shaped his name with her human accent; with her plump, delicately shaped mouth. "Of course."

"And I am not, as you so strangely put it, a rebuke. "

"Oh, but you are. " Her voice deepened, becoming slightly hoarse. "You're what my mind throws at me as punishment for being celibate for so long." A soft sigh escaped her lips. "Two years. Not entirely by choice, mind you."

What in the Nine Hells was she going on about now?

Abruptly, she sat up, folding her arms across her chest. "Never mind. I'll probably wake up any moment now. It always happens."

Dragek regarded the human with a mixture of amusement, curiosity, and irritation. What foolishness. Who did she think she was talking to?

He'd never encountered anyone like her before.

He'd never been in a situation that was so infernally… un-serious.

Why in the infernal Nine Hells had he been drawn to her in the first place?

She was spectacularly ignorant; she had no idea how to wield the ka'qui or even sense the innate energy of another.

How pathetic.

With his second-sight, he engulfed her for just a moment, sending a ripple of ka'qui across her body, taking in every last detail.

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."