Firewalkers: Dreamer Read online

  DREAMER

  An Ellora’s Cave Publication, July 2004

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.

  PO Box 787

  Hudson, OH 44236-0787

  ISBN MS Reader (LIT) ISBN # 1-84360-959-2

  Other available formats (no ISBNs are assigned):

  Adobe (PDF), Rocketbook (RB), Mobipocket (PRC) HTML

  DREAMER © 2004 SHILOH WALKER

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. They are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Edited by Pamela Campbell.

  Cover art by Syneca.

  Firewalkers:

  Dreamer

  Shiloh Walker

  Dedication

  This one is for Anni and Renee! I love ya, ladies!

  And to Jerry…always to Jerry…my life just wouldn’t be complete without you.

  Hugs to my babies!

  Prologue

  2338 A.D.

  It was only about ten p.m. American Eastern Standard Time when it happened. The United Federal States of America, which now consisted of America, Mexico, a number of the smaller islands in the tropics and many of the small Central American countries was settling down after yet another prosperous day. It looked like they would be drawing Canada into the Government before much time passed.

  It was good times for America. The past century had been good.

  A young woman was crossing the tiny, well-kept lawn of her home after walking her licensed pet, requisite waste receptacle in hand, when she heard and felt an odd rushing noise. The flutter in her womb caused her to lay a protective hand on her belly. She looked up absently, and found she could not look away.

  The sky was red.

  Brilliant, ruby-red.

  Some thought it was the end of the world.

  Less than a third of the population believed in the being called God. Those people flocked to churches and synagogues and prayed.

  Scientists were in a flurry of movement all over the world. The bizarre phenomenon had been going on for more than three days now. The sky was nearly blood-red at night, and tinged purple, almost lilac during the day.

  Other, less religious, less logical thinkers, thought there were beings from outer space coming. There had been several encounters with other races by now, but for the most part, the races Earth people had met had not wanted much to do with them.

  And over the past several decades, the people from Earth had been slowly becoming more Earthbound. Fascination with space travel had faded. The rather fantastic space stations were abandoned and the space ports that had once called out to the rich and famous were now desolate. There was even talk of NASA being dismantled.

  The talk about creatures from outer space had died rather quickly—because more fantastic things had occurred. The red haze had started to coalesce over the eastern borders of the United Federal States of America, and people all over the world saw the normal nighttime sky for the first time in three days. But the people of America, particularly New York, Boston, and Washington, looked out their windows and saw red. It wasn’t possible that people from cities all up and down the east coast could see it at the same time, but it was happening.

  It towered into the air, human shaped, with arms and legs, shoulders and a torso, a head with streaming ribbons of fiery red. It looked like a man made of fire. The formation process took more than two days, and as is natural with men, they became more and more frightened.

  Fear mounted. But the thing seemed to be illusion or mist or vapor. Nothing that was done to it seemed to have any effect.

  It responded to no voice, no threat, no promise.

  It responded to none of the firepower, none of the gases, nothing. And the armies of the Federated States didn’t have the needed firepower, either.

  And on the seventh day after the red mist first settled over the planet, the being started to walk, from the east coast to the west. The journey across the country took the man/demon/God seven days. With each day, it dissipated, little pieces of the creature fluttering down here and there, like red glitter, fading away into the night. By the time it reached the new beaches that had been formed when California had fallen into the sea after the massive earthquakes of 2241, it was all but gone.

  The red fires reformed, though, until the men with cameras who had been following had to turn their heads away from the brightness. It coalesced again, brighter and brighter, and then it exploded. With a mighty roar, the first sound it had made, the man made of fire was gone.

  The effects from the creature were not seen in that generation.

  Nor in the next.

  It wasn’t until children were born to the children who had been conceived around the time that the demon fell to earth that odd things were noticed. Children born with gifts, or curses, depending on how you looked at it. A few cropped up in Europe—fewer still in the Middle East, which was in truth a blessing.

  The few gifted who were discovered there were not just killed, they were tortured to death, while the people cheered and watched.

  A handful from Asia and other eastern countries. A rather startling number from Australia and New Zealand.

  But the United Federal States…they were nearly overwhelmed. Children were talking at six months. A telepath was discovered when she was 12 months old. A four-year-old fire starter was nearly put to death but some brave soul smuggled the frightened child out of the state before the government could follow through. Parents started to hide the gifted children.

  But other parents started to kill their own blood.

  An underground movement formed. Nurses were trained to recognize the gifted children, born with eyes that glowed in just the right light, if one knew what to look for. They were taken from the hospital and spirited away before their own parents could harm them.

  Some called them the demon touched.

  But others knew the creature hadn’t fallen from space, or been sent from Hell.

  The man of fire had been a gift, or a last warning.

  Too many things were going wrong. He was sent to give them peacekeepers—the children who were being killed in their cribs. They were to be the protectors, the enforcers, one last attempt to save a fallen world.

  They called themselves the Firewalkers.

  Chapter One

  The Dreamer

  Caris left the computer and stretched her arms high overhead. Her head ached and felt tight, so she pulled the band from her honey blonde hair, letting the heavy, straight locks fall free down her back as she left the silence of her room.

  Another child had been captured, but one of her kind had saved the boy. Anger stiffened her body as she paced the spacious log home nestled in the foothills of Montana. Her parents had left her acres and acres of land. The land alone made her a rich woman, but she needed it…needed to be there.

  Two of her gifts were telepathy and empathy. If she spent too much time around others, their emotions and thoughts would slowly drive her mad. She knew how to shield, but she could not constantly do it. She had to leave herself open and listen for those who were preying on the Firewalkers, especially the children.

  In the twenty-five years since her birth, the government had developed more advanced ways of searching and the Firewalkers needed all the resources they could muster. Thank God for men like Sage. Sage Monroe was a thought sensor, but a selective one. He only seemed to home in on thoughts of those in need, and he was also a teleporter. He was one of their most valuable assets.

  But that particular agent was a walking time bomb.

  His r
age was a palpable thing. Too many more near misses like today’s, and he was going to sacrifice himself just to kill the men who threatened the helpless children he was saving.

  The Firewalkers were doing everything they could. But it was not enough.

  Every day, one of the captured children died. Every day, more and more of the Firewalkers were sacrificed in the fight to save the youngest of their brethren.

  “Stop it,” Caris whispered harshly to herself as tears threatened.

  Sliding into a pit of depression would do nothing to save the lost. Would do nothing to protect the vulnerable.

  The simple cotton shirt that she wore over her slim golden body did little to hide her lithe muscular form. Long legs, left bare, were strong and taut thanks to the hours she spent riding her horses over her land. And her hands were deadly—although if she ever had to use any of the dirtier tricks Sage had taught her in a fight to the death, she’d probably go mad.

  You couldn’t fight without touching, couldn’t kill a person without touching them.

  But she’d had to force herself to learn.

  If it came down to a choice of kill or be killed…she’d risk the madness.

  Her long, thick golden locks lay heavily on her shoulders, streaming behind her as she paced in quick, long strides, her agitation written all over her heart-shaped face, her golden eyes sparking with it.

  She realized she was leaking, spilling emotion all over, and forced herself to stop, to breathe, to relax.

  Sighing, Caris settled down with a book and thumbed the screen. A little while just to herself, without dwelling on the fate she and her people were facing. She was going to read a little, then nap. After that, she had to brace herself and pack. Because it was her time to go trolling in town and wait for the cries of the missing.

  Sometime later, she had fallen asleep, a hungry sigh on her lips, sliding her fingers inside her panties. The vampire in the story had made her hunger and wish—she shouldn’t have read it right now. Aching and wishing were not good things for Caris. Odd things tended to happen when she was needy, wishing, and weak.

  While sleeping, her fingers grazed the hard nub of her clit. In her dream, it was a vampire lover, with deep, deep chestnut hair, shot through with thick strands of red. His face was leonine, tawny gold, handsome, his mouth clever and sexy, a full lower lip, a thin, sensual upper one. Right now, that mouth was on her belly, sliding down further, and then he was feeding from her, his fangs piercing the vein in her thigh as he thrust two long fingers deep inside her.

  Her vampire—she waited for him, constantly. Yearned for him. She wanted him here. She sobbed in her sleep, drove her fingers inside her slippery sheath, and climaxed, while yearning for the sweet pain of a bite, the heavy weight of a man’s body on hers, the pleasure of joining her mind with another’s, of finding somebody like her.

  In her heart, she thought he was real. He felt real. In her head, she knew vampires didn’t exist.

  Damn it, you’re supposed to be here. Come and find me!

  Then she settled into true sleep, unaware of what her mind and her powers had been doing while she was dreaming.

  Chapter Two

  The Vampire

  Damn the bitch to the lowest level of Hell, Jax thought viciously. The Princess Kyrel had arranged for her Guard to kidnap him. Then she had starved him. Once the Bloodlust had nearly driven him insane, she locked herself into the room with him and removed the heavy verstael restraints.

  He stalked away from her.

  “I’ve no desire to fuck you, or to have my head cut from my body, Princess. Leave me be,” he snarled at her.

  She laughed. “If you had fucked me the first time, it wouldn’t have come to this, Jax. All I wanted was to have the sexy vampire as my lover.”

  “As your lapdog,” he spat, trying to ignore the scent of her blood.

  She smiled, her red lips curving as she drew a slim knife from the belt at her hip. “All one and the same,” she purred as she took the knife and cut a tiny nick in her throat.

  Jax watched her with morbid fascination as the trickle of blood flowed enticingly down her pale neck.

  His fangs dropped, his cock swelled. He couldn’t fight the fucking blood hunger. “I’ve no desire to sink my dick inside you,” he rasped, lisping a bit around his fangs. “Your pussy probably has teeth.”

  Her eyes narrowed. Then she rubbed a finger in the blood while she unzipped her black flight suit. It clung like a second skin and she wore nothing under it.

  The Princess Kyrel was a bloody whore. All but her father knew it. No wonder he couldn’t arrange an honorable match for her.

  But Jax was not about to point that out to King Morain. Morain was a decent and kind man. He was simply blind where Kyrel was concerned. He fought off the need to growl and fall on her like an animal as she painted her nipple with her own blood. “Stop it,” he rasped. “I’m near starving, Princess. If I feed, I fuck. And you’re in heat. If I father a child on you, both I and the child are put to death. Are you so fucking cruel that you would sacrifice two people just to get laid?”

  She laughed as she gathered more blood and started to paint a trail down her slim belly. “I do not care who pays, so long as I get to fuck you, Jax. If you had let me take my pleasure when first I commanded it, it would not have come to this.”

  The hunger was closing in and he could not fight it.

  He lunged for her, taking her down and closing his mouth over the tiny wound. Her blood was flat, metallic, rather surprising. The blood of a royal was usually a fine wine, and with her being ripe—ah well, it was blood and he needed it.

  He wanted to bellow out with rage as her fingers found the tab to his flight pants and opened them. Her hand closed over his cock and he knocked it aside as he fed. She called for her guards, and he fought as they pinned him.

  It took seven of them, but he was weak from nearly two weeks without feeding. Two on each leg, one at each arm and another at his head held him as she straddled him, pulled her neck from him, and sank down on his rigid cock. “See,” she purred as she rode him. “I knew you wanted me.”

  He glared up at her, fought the urge to spit. “I do not want you, Princess. A male vampire’s cock gets hard when he feeds. I’ve fed from animals before and it’s gotten hard. And I’d rather have fucked one of those animals than you,” he said coldly. He closed his eyes and ordered himself not to struggle. Not to come.

  He was pleasantly surprised to discover it wasn’t that hard.

  Though his cock ached, and his balls ached, he didn’t want the Princess, and he never had. Jax suspected he could keep it up for a week if that’s what it took to keep an unwanted half-breed child from being put to death.

  He forced himself into a meditative state, the half slumber that took over his kind when the sun rose in the sky, the lighter slumber that preceded the deep, nearly catatonic sleep.

  Jax was dimly aware of the slippery, loose grasp of her pussy on his cock, but unmoved by it. He could smell other men on her, mostly her guards, chemicals and tobacco. “You reek, Princess,” he said, biting his cheek to keep from laughing when she hissed at him in rage. His head hit the floor as one of her guards struck him in the face.

  He didn’t retaliate. He could have. Tasteless as her blood was, he felt better. She drove herself harder down on him and commanded, “Look at me.”

  He opened his eyes and stared up at her, his blue gaze cold and blank. “Does your father know you enjoy raping his men, Kyrel?” he asked.

  She gasped in shock and slammed herself down. “Your dick is hard. You want me. This is not rape.”

  “It is hard because I am vampire. We associate feeding with fucking. I cannot help that, but I do not want you,” he said. “If I had wanted you, I would have shot you full of seed the minute I was buried inside you, after being forced to go two weeks without sex. If I had wanted you, I would have already come. You can keep riding me with your used little body until the sun rises and I will stil
l not come. I am unwilling—I do not want to be held down by seven armed men while you ride me.” He grunted as her nails raked his face in her rage and she started to thrust harder and harder until he knew she was hurting herself.

  “You will make yourself sore,” he taunted her. “And I am vampire, not human, so while your flesh is chafed and raw, I will not suffer at all.”

  “Silence,” one of the guards growled. “Or do you want me to cut out your fucking tongue?”

  He grinned insolently. “The King is already asking for me. I’m one of his more valued hunters. Do you really think you can get by with that?”

  “When I tell him I saw you abusing his daughter? Yes,” the guard spat.

  “I’ll insist on Truth Judgment. Even the Princess Kyrel cannot deny me, a lowly vampire, that,” he said. Then he closed his eyes and retreated, fighting the urge to laugh at the ridiculous situation. Kyrel screamed in rage and threw herself off of him and into the arms of one of her guards.

  “Hurt him,” she sobbed as she pulled the guard eagerly into her arms.

  And they did.

  Only sunlight or beheading would kill him.

  But a beating most certainly hurt.

  * * * * *

  Jax moved slowly into the chamber before King Morain and dropped to both knees. It hurt viciously to do so, but he refused to show it. He was here to try and save his life. The Princess wasn’t pregnant, because he had never come inside her, but she had claimed he had fed from her without her consent and raped her.

  The King himself would oversee this hearing, and Jax was humbled by such trust. If the King hadn’t truly believed in Jax, he would have been turned over to a lesser court, and probably been given less fair treatment. Though they couldn’t have denied him Truth Judgment, even he knew how easy it would be to “accidentally” allow somebody to move him into a sun room while he was sleeping. Unaware and dead to the world, outside of his own safehold and without a companion to watch over him, he could so easily die.