Halcyon Nights (Star Sojourner Book 2) Read Online Free

against me. I smear lipstick as I kiss her, so hungry for her. Lisa's… Oh, yeah, she's outside playing with horses. No. Staying with Althea's parents. “Al, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But we're together now, and everything's all right.”
    “I know.” She strokes my hair, hugs me. “I understand, Jay, really I do.” She always called me Jay. The carriage flattens and sprouts bedposts. The church steps curve up into walls, blocking out relatives and friends. Althea lies beside me. “It's not your fault, Jay,” she murmurs. “You had a bad childhood, you poor thing.” She strokes my hair.
Poor thing,
I hear April chuckle inside my head.
    “Stay the hell out of this!” I tell her.
    “Your call, tag.”
    Tears burn my eyes. “Yes. I was scared, Al. I thought I'd somehow cause Lisa's death too, like…like Ginny's. But I'm past that now, I swear i am! I'm ready to be responsible.”
    “I know,” she coos.
    I undo silk buttons down her back, lift off her headdress and set it on the night table. ”Al, I'll always love you, no matter who you marry.” I kiss her smooth shoulders. Her hair falls on my cheek as I slip the gown down to her waist and undo the bra. “Oh, God, how I've missed you,” I murmur. “How I want you.” I open more buttons to ease the rustling gown over the curve of her hips.
    Althea's crumpled headdress rustles there on the night table and contorts into a large white spider, grinning, panting.
    “Suppose you back out now, April? I warn her, “if you want the creds for this dream.”
    Your little indulgence would dissolve faster than a bad marriage. The spider's not me.
    Althea rolls on top of me, spreads thighs around my hips, smiles down. But… I cry out as her face darkens. Her skin shrivels. “Al. No!” April!” Glowing threads of fire race up cracks that split Althea's face, circle her eyes like brands! I try to twist out from under her. Something silver shimmers, flows from within the spreading wounds of her charred body.
    This is illusion, searcher,
I hear in my mind.
But Halcyon is not.
    “April!” I scream. I choke on bile as Althea's blackened skin shreds and the amorphous silver being emerges as from a chrysalis. I'm trapped beneath its heavy weight! A piercing lick of flame erupts inside my head and I see a dark tunnel, its walls streaked with laces of silver. A smell of rotten fruit. The alien presence still radiates a sense of…of despair? Sadness!
    “April, help me,” I cry. “Please. I'm losing control.”
    “Shit!” she growls.
    Shit indeed! It's just a dream,
I tell myself.
Just a –
My head burns. “Pull me out,” I beg.
    “I can't!” she cries aloud. “Go to another vision. Quick! It's toasting my brain. Damn you, Jules, let go of it. You're holding me here!”
    I drag in breaths and try to force away the image. The alien pushes back with a very undreamlike power.
    Your destiny is on Halcyon!
    The word echoes through my mind, touches that place where obsession waits. I find myself desperately searching my memory. Halcyon… I feel drawn to the word, the place.
    “Shut off the goddamn IQ!” I yell to April. “Hurry up. Do it!”
    “Something's…got my hands,” she says. “What the hell are you doing? Let go of the vision, you dumbshit cull!”
    I clamp teeth against the alien mindlink, image an ocean absorbing the intruder, spreading his being like a silver oil slick.
    He lifts a mighty wave against me.
    “This is no dream!” I hear April draw in a breath as she pushes against the vision. “You're on your own, tag!” Her presence begins to fade. I feel a loneliness that has no edges as she slips away.
    But fear strengthens me and I throw my mental defenses against the wall of water, image my enemy a black void. “Suck on this, slimeshit!”
    The silver being doesn't recoil. His dripping body catches light in quivering motion. Droplets of water shake off him like haloes.
    I moan as his telepathic probe burrows deeper. ”Who are you?” I mutter.