Chapter One
Spiderus Mansion, Dalcon City, Planet Dalcon
“Good night, sweetheart.” Betrys Torin kissed the top of her son’s head.
Ricci’s young face glowed with an impish grin as he slid beneath the white covers of his sleep-bed. “Good night, Mama. Don’t be sad. Everything will turn out all right.”
Her breath caught, but she forced her lips to kick up at the corners. “I love you, Ricci.” She ruffled his hair, gave him another quick kiss on the cheek and retreated to her quarters with mere seconds of her allocated deadline remaining.
She hated her situation, hated it with a passion, yet despite her constant planning, her scrimping and saving, her search for alternatives, freedom was no closer.
Trapped.
Betrys prowled the interior of her room, her heart beating faster than normal. How could everything turn out all right when she’d made such a colossal mistake and placed her son and herself in the way of inescapable danger?
With no answers, she paced herself to exhaustion. In the distance, a timepiece struck to mark the cycle segments. It grew late and she needed to rise early to prepare things for Leo Mitchell’s visit to Iseult, her employer.
Leo.
The backs of her eyes stung as she shrugged off her robe and climbed onto her sleep-bed. At the last second, she reached for her oracle cards and did a quick three-card spread. The door to romance was the first card she drew and a hoarse laugh of disbelief shot up her throat.
“Goddess, please. You’re playing a joke on me.” Romance. Any man in her life belonged to Iseult. Even her son, until she managed to extricate herself from Iseult’s web.
In disgust, she thrust away her oracle cards. “Lights off.”
Her small room plunged into darkness, and she pulled the covers over her nakedness. She closed her eyes and forced herself to relax, to sink into the arms of sleep.
A bright swirl of colors drew her like a beacon. The hues pulsed and glowed, and she found herself enticed to follow.
Not awake.
She knew she was sleeping, but she’d never experienced anything like this before.
Scarlet red. Emerald green. Royal purple. Cobalt blue.
The vibrant colors should’ve clashed, should’ve hurt her head with their wild, crazy swirling, but instead, she found herself stumbling toward the pulsating ball.
It stopped moving at the top of a hill by a lone tree.
The ball split into separate colors, and each one pulsed. A crossroad, she realized.
Betrys studied the four different colors and chose the green one. The instant the decision firmed in her mind, the other balls blinked from sight. The green broke into swirls and strands, and they wound around her arms and legs, her torso, guiding her to the right.
Betrys found herself outside a bedroom, looking through a window at a huge sleep-bed.
The covers were turned back as if waiting for the occupants to arrive.
And there were two people because the sweet perfume of flowers, the soft music, and the bottle of nectar-wine nestled in a chill-sleeve hinted at a couple.
The door to romance.
Part of her mind wanted to snigger at the impossibility, yet a sense of wonder held her in thrall.
A dreamscape.
Spoken of in hushed tones by her people.
At least before the war wiped out most of her race.
Not every person experienced the dreamscape.
The ability skipped generations, sometimes more than one.
Some families never received the gift. Her grandmother had been a skilled dream walker, but the talent usually manifested during the first years of sexual maturity, Betrys thought in confusion.
She’d married, had a child, and not glimpsed a single dream during the years prior to her union. The power had passed her by, and the lack of hadn’t mattered since her marriage made her happy.
Drawn forward, Betrys padded through the open door and scanned the seductive scene. Her heart thumped extra hard while her mind probed the possibilities, the signs of the future contained in the dreamscape.
A sound from behind had her starting, and she whirled, her hand pressed to her breast. She stared at the man standing before her, swallowed, and gave a soft, pained groan.
Dreamscapes give hope, child. Her grandmother’s gentle voice poured into her mind, almost as if she were in the room, almost as if she hadn’t died cycles earlier.
Betrys sucked in a harsh breath, steeling herself against the shot of the guilt, the searing pain as she acknowledged the truth. She was pretty sure this dreamscape was a big, fat falsehood.
A nightmare.
“What are you doing here?” Leo Mitchell folded his arms across his naked chest. His lower half was garbed in tight black trews that displayed his flat midriff and the bulge of his manhood, but his feet were bare. Strong feet. Big feet. “I said, what are you doing here?”
Betrys frowned and lifted her chin. “I don’t know.”
“Fuck, I can’t even escape you in my dreams.”
She felt the furrow between her brows deepen as she cocked her head. “What do you dream of?”
“I dream of home,” he said. “I dream of running across the paddocks with my brothers and friends. I dream of my girlfriends. I dream of hot, kinky sex.”
Her breath caught, and somehow, the robe she’d worn during the journey here vanished, and she stood in front of him, naked.
She watched his gaze flicker up and down her body, linger at her breasts. Her best feature, according to her husband.
Leo prowled closer. He reached out with his right hand and smoothed his palm over her shoulder. His mouth twisted, and his attention shifted from her to glance at his groin. The growing erection indicated his interest, and he laughed. The sound held irony, a touch of disbelief.
“I haven’t had a hard-on since you signed me up to service Iseult.”
Betrys opened her mouth to refute his claims, then decided to remain silent. Nothing she said would change the truth. Both of them were ensnared in Iseult’s web and neither would emerge whole.
Fact.
“I’ll hate myself in the morning, but I might as well take advantage of the situation.” His gaze sought hers then, bright green like the orb that had led her here and full of mockery. “On your knees.”
Betrys wanted to protest. She wanted to rail at his disrespect and the way he was ruining a perfectly good dream. This moment was important, and he was sullying it by his attempt to subjugate her, make her less.
But look what you’ve done to him, her conscience whispered.
That decided her, and without haste, she knelt before him. “Wish your trews away.”
“What?”
“This is a dream. You control your thoughts.” Not quite the truth, because she didn’t understand how she’d ended up in a bedroom with the scene set to seduction. That made no sense at all.
His clothes dissolved as she watched, and his heavy erection spilled free. She glanced up to meet his green gaze. His expression held a dare, and something cracked inside her.
In that instant, she accepted her attraction to Leo, the hopelessness of it after what she’d done to him. But in this dream world, nothing could touch them because in the morning, they’d both wake in their sleep-beds on different planets.
She reached for him, noted the faint tremor of her hand, but kept going until her palm grazed his hip.
“Touch me.”
His daring tone told her he thought she’d balk, but she slid her fingers over his warm skin until she reached his groin.
His cock twitched at her first touch, and she thought she heard a muted groan.
With her confidence growing, she handled him with more assurance.
She took his hard flesh in her hand and stroked.
This time, his moan of pleasure wasn’t in doubt.
His cock grew larger as she teased him and tightened her grip.
Betrys went up on her knees and guided his shaft to her mouth.
She used her tongue to trace the tip. His salty flavor exploded across her taste buds as she took him deeper, the act making her feel strong and intrepid.
One of his hands settled on her head, a heavy yet welcome weight because it meant he was responding.
Her private fears that she repulsed him were untrue—at least on the dreamscape.
Beneath his cock, his balls tightened, and she massaged them, fascinated because her husband and their race had smaller gonads with much of the testicles hiding inside the body.
More practical, it was true, yet this difference brought a new element to her explorations.
Her busy hands investigated while she took him deeper.
His big frame trembled, yet he remained rock-solid on his feet. He groaned with each suck, each teasing sweep of her tongue, and his fingers tangled in her hair, his hands subtly guiding her to take him faster and deeper.
In this dream, there was no gagging, no apologies because she couldn’t do it right. On the dreamscape—at least this one—it seemed only pleasure existed.
The taste of him intensified, and his shaft grew even larger.
Leo let out a growl and encouraged her to take as much of him as she could.
She swallowed, and he grunted. She swallowed again and followed it up with a hum of recognition.
This man, with his indomitable spirit, fascinated her.
She admired his courage and she realized if she met him here again, she’d do anything he asked.
Leo’s grip tightened on her head, his fingers yanked on locks of her hair. Another of those sexy moans issued from his throat, and he came in long, hard spurts.
At first, the shock of his semen hitting her throat made her still, then she swallowed on reflex, enjoying doing this personal act because it was Leo.
His grip loosened, and he pulled from her mouth.
Without a word, he hauled her to her feet and led her over to the sleep-bed.
With a gentle hand, he pushed her down, and she fell, legs splayed in an unfeminine fashion.
She tried to bring her knees together, to arrange her body in a semblance of dignity.