Chapter 3

Until recently, science always held the answers for Harper.

The lab where she worked in the International College of Science, Miami, was a refuge. Here she could lose herself and all her concerns in the process of uncloaking the earth's secrets.

The lab was dedicated to exploring geological wonders that shaped the world around them. Before her, a computer screen displayed intricate maps and graphs, capturing the raw power of the earth"s inner workings.

Normally, such displays got her heart racing with excitement and her mind entertaining possibilities.

Her passion for the past few years had been for rocks and magma, and now suddenly Harper found herself daydreaming about the mysterious, handsome man in her dreams.

Not that she recalled his face, or even his body. Only the fiery pleasure he delivered in her dreams as he whispered words of love to her, and stroked her bare skin to the heights of erotic release.

Closing her eyes, she remembered his warm mouth trailing kisses across her throat, his long fingers caressing her bare thigh and drifting upward as she writhed in abject need…

Heat suffused her face as her eyes flew open.

"Sheesh." She glanced around, glad she was alone. Having an orgasm in the middle of work was definitely NOT listed as a skillset necessary for the job.

"Stop it," she muttered aloud. "Get back to work or you'll never get this done in time for tonight's date."

The internet date wasn't something she eagerly anticipated, but she needed to socialize with someone other than her bestie, Char. Harper felt a pressing need to find someone special. Ever since she had the recurring dream in which she had a soulmate, she had a sense someone waited for her. The theory was ludicrous because after growing up with parents who liked to fight more than love each other, she didn't exactly believe in true love.

But the dreams...

Turning her attention back to the computer, she typed in the data and let the program do its work. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, casting a sterile glow on the rows of cluttered tables and mounds of paper. Geological journals and field notebooks piled high, threatening to topple over in a paper landslide. Nearby, sat Harper's assortment of rocks collected by the one field study she'd done this year.

She picked up a rock, fingering it absently, the way a woman will finger freshwater pearls around her neck while waiting for a formal dinner date. The earthy, pungent scent of nature seldom failed to ground her, but not today. Not after last night's dream.

She took the data her professor gathered on his recent trip to Iceland, and began comparing it to older readings. More than 200 earthquakes had indicated growing activity near the fissure and then the volcano erupted, sending streams of molten lava toward a small fishing town.

Harper felt sorry for the villagers whose homes were swallowed by the relentless lava flow. With today's advanced technology, they did have warning. Her desire was to develop a system of even greater warnings, ones that could accurately pinpoint an eruption, perhaps divert it, and save lives and possibly, homes and land.

As she worked, her thoughts drifted, not to the data or saving property and lives, but about another active volcano that commanded her interest for several weeks.

Indonesia"sKawah Ijen. The volcano, on the island of Java, emitted a rare blue fire.

The volcano fascinated her, and last night in the dream she knew she'd visited it before.

Harper tried to remember vague wisps of the dream and the lover who sobbed upon the woman's death. A man, committed to only her, whose face she couldn't recall, but whose touch set her on fire with passion.

His caresses were, well, volcanic.

The mysterious dream lover…and the Kawah Ijenvolcano.

Somehow, she sensed the two were connected.

Some days,it was tough being a sexy incubus demon with time on your hands.

In human form, Jared perched on a comfortable stool at the outdoor bar of a semi-popular Miami sports restaurant, drumming his fingers on the counter. A glass of good Kentucky bourbon sat before him, but he did not drink. Instead, he scanned the room, looking for her. His soulmate, so claimed Xavier, the Crystal Wizard. The one who could save him.

As if that were likely.

Tigers cannot change their stripes and nor can I change myself. Even if you think so, Xavier.

The witch who cursed him to turn into a beast from midnight to sunrise had long vanished into the underworld, so he'd heard. Probably serving the Dark Lord. She was the one reason Jared hovered on the razor's edge of crossing over to embrace pure evil and heading into the Dark Lord's domain after death.

He had no desire to spend eternity with that bitch, er, witch.

Nearby at a table for two, a middle-aged woman talking on her cell phone held it away from her ear to complain loudly to a young waitress about her meal while her male companion quivered and tried to look elsewhere. Jared studied the woman, one known as a "Karen" in social media circles.

"I said I wanted the fish rare, you idiot! How hard is it to take a food order? Are you stupid? Did you even graduate the third grade, you ass!"

The woman bellowed like a bull he'd once encountered in a field while he made love to a farmer's wife. He'd turned that bull into a butterfly until he'd climaxed, and the farmer's wife had reached her zenith, several times.

Turning this shrew into a butterfly wasn't warranted. He listened to the woman berate the poor server, a young girl turning beet red.

"I'm, I'm sorry Ma'am, but we cannot serve fish undercooked. It's a health hazard," the girl stammered.

"Then what the hell is sushi, you twit!"

"But ma'am, begging your pardon, this is grouper, not…"

"I know what I ordered. Now stop arguing with me, you minimum wage idiot, and get me the correct food! I pay good money in this restaurant."

Tears rolled down the server's cheeks as she picked up the plate and scurried away. The woman resumed talking on the phone, her lips flapping.

Flapping…no pursing like a grouper in water…

Don't do it, don't do it Jared. You promised Xavier no more tricks.

Aw hell, one last time and she deserves it for making that girl cry.

Conjuring an image in his mind, he sent a tendril of magick floating over to the offending woman, who was shrieking into her phone loud enough to be heard over the normal conversations.

"These people they hire! Can't they get anyone with half a brain who knows how to cook grouper? I mean, honestly, I want it fresh and almost raw, so rare that you could see it opening and closing its mouth…"

Suddenly the woman's red-painted mouth turned into fish lips. Giant fish lips, like that of a grouper, pale and fleshy.

Dropping her phone, the woman screamed. Her male companion, who had been eyeballing a cute blonde at the bar, looked at her and yelled.

"My face, my lips!" she screamed.

He admired his handiwork. Definitely an improvement over that fire engine red lipstick.

Leave now. Jared sent the suggestion into her mind and the woman smacking her fish lips as if tasting something delish and her male friend hurried out of the restaurant, everyone staring after them.

As the intimidated server came over to the table with a fresh plate of fish, looking bewildered, Jared slid off his stool. He peeled a couple of hundreds off the wad in his wallet and handed it to her.

"For your trouble and their meal. She had to leave in a hurry. Said something about needing a facial."

Offering a tremulous smile, she thanked him and proceeded to march the fish back to the kitchen. He looked thoughtfully after her. Nice figure, cute face, perhaps a tad young… but she might please him in bed…

You're here for another woman, Jared. Stop it. Stop it now.

Jared smiled, even as Xavier yelled at him inside his mind for violating his promise to be good.

I can never be good, wizard. I'm a lost cause. Even if I find this so-called soulmate to break the curse.

Then a woman came into the bar, a woman who was neither beautiful nor ugly, but whose very countenance made his embittered heart beat faster.

A woman who called to him, who struck him with dozens of thunderbolts of desire and longing he'd never before felt.

A woman who might save his dark, tainted soul. Maybe he wasn't lost after all.

"I'm so screwed," he muttered.