He strode out of the kitchen without a backward glance, and oxygen rushed into her deprived lungs, even though she didn’t remember holding her breath.
I’m not losing my mind.
Clutching her phone like it was an anchor to reality, she risked glancing over her shoulder. The kitchen was all sleek gray stone and must have cost a fortune, but it was the view through the floor to ceiling windows that shook her mind.
Beyond a paved veranda, an impenetrable, lush forest spread across the horizon.
This is really happening.
He hadn’t abducted her. She knew that was true, even when she’d accused him, but her panic had blinded her to logic.
He’d rescued her from that streak of violet light. The same light that had flashed through her mind in the second after she’d fallen from the astral planes.
A shudder inched along her arms. Was it sheer coincidence? Or was it her fault that the strange fissure had seemed to follow her?
He’d said it was nothing to do with her, and although she couldn’t see how he could possibly know something like that, for some reason she believed him.
It’s because you want to believe him. Because then she didn’t need to feel guilty for having inadvertently done something terrible while attempting to reach her mother’s elusive world.
Either way, she was now stranded on an island with a guy who possessed far more extraordinary powers than telepathy. A guy who was determined to protect her from—what had he called them, the Guardians?—even if the prospect of her staying with him clearly pissed him off.
She sucked in a deep breath. She’d only caught a fleeting image of shadows in that eerie light, but menace leaked from them, chilling her heart.
But no matter how dangerous they were, there had to be a way she could go home. She couldn’t just disappear off the face of the Earth. Her dad would be frantic and her mum …
She didn’t want to think how it might affect her mum.
She needed to find him and get some more answers.
The hall, which like the kitchen reeked of understated wealth, was empty. And massive. More like a lobby to a grand hotel, except there was no artwork on the walls, statues on pedestals, or sofas and coffee tables scattered around for intimate gatherings.
Then again, who needed manmade art when you had a view of tropical paradise through the endless windows?
An imposing staircase beckoned, and although she’d much rather investigate the rest of the ground floor, she’d heard him go upstairs. She shoved her phone back in her pocket and made her way over. There were no banisters, and the stone steps were worn, as though a million feet had trod them over the centuries.
As she reached the top floor, it was eerily quiet. Three single timber doors were on her right, but directly ahead were a pair of enormous double doors that took up the entire wall. They were partially open and must have been twelve feet high and eight across, and if she didn’t know better, she’d think he was trying to compensate for something.
Stop right there. She wasn’t going to think about how his body had felt sprawled on top of her. Or remember the breath stealing pressure from his impressive erection.
Even if she just had. She ignored the needy flutters between her thighs and resisted the urge to wipe her suddenly sweaty hands on her jeans.
Slowly, she walked toward the doors, half expecting him to emerge from the room at any second. She cleared her throat. “Hello?” No answer. She pushed one of the doors open a little more. “I wanted to thank you.”
She stepped inside and the view of the forest from his open balcony doors stopped her dead.
There was no balustrade enclosing the sweeping balcony. Who would build such a thing without any safety barriers?
She forced her feet to move, until she stood by the open doors. The forest stretched in every direction, and she caught a flash of sapphire ocean in the distance. The sky was a flawless azure, and the haunting call of exotic songbirds drifted in the air.
She could leave. But she had no idea where she was, and in that forest, and without her phone’s GPS, she’d be hopelessly lost within a couple of minutes.
An arch led to what she guessed was his dressing room and bathroom, and she swept a glance around his bedroom. An immense bed dominated the space. Who needed a bed that big? It could easily sleep six.
And it probably did. Although she doubted much sleeping happened.
Just. Stop. It was none of her business what he did, and she certainly didn’t care. It didn’t stop her from stroking the silver-gray bedspread that draped to the floor. From what she’d seen so far, he was a minimalist, whereas she loved having personal photos and all her stuff around, but she couldn’t fault his taste. The linen was soft and luxurious against her palm. She had the insane urge to climb on his bed and wrap his immaculate sheets around her naked body.
He’d never know.
She snatched back her hand and curled her fingers, her face burning with mortification.
Obviously, his irresistible pheromones infused everything in his villa. That was her story, and she was going to stick with it. The sooner she got out of his bedroom, the better.
And then he emerged through the arch. He must have just had a shower, as his hair was damp, and her throat dried at the sight of his sculpted, bronzed pecs and taut abdomen. Dark gold hair dusted his chest, arrowing toward his unzipped jeans, and it took all of her willpower to force her gaze back to his face.
His scorching gaze raked over her, but his expression was impassive. “Do you want something?”
Her legs were pressed against his bed and her cheeks were still hot from imagining how his sheets would feel against her naked skin. She couldn’t blame him if he thought she had an ulterior motive for following him into his bedroom. Especially after the way her glance had inexcusably slid south.
At least he hadn’t caught her caressing his bed linen.
She cleared her throat. She just had to ignore his half-naked body and stick to the plan.
“I wanted to thank you for rescuing me.”
He prowled toward her like a panther stalking its prey, and all the questions she had fled her mesmerized mind.
“Do you?” He towered over her, golden and beautiful, like a god from ancient myths. His cologne was subtle and addictive and swirled through her senses like an elusive aphrodisiac.
It was hard to remain upright and not simply sink down onto his bed.
Focus. She blinked a couple of times in the hope that might break the mesmeric spell.
“Yes.” Her voice was unforgivably husky, but she couldn’t help it. “I really do appreciate it, and I wanted you to know.”
His mouth quirked, as though he found her thanks amusing despite himself. Not quite the reaction she’d been hoping for. And did he really need to stand so close to her? She pushed her hands into her jeans pockets, so she wasn’t tempted to glide her fingertips over his ripped chest.
“You’re welcome.” His voice was low and sexy, a velvet caress that promised to fulfil every fantasy she’d ever had.
What was she thinking? That was not the reason she’d come upstairs. She needed answers, and she might as well start with the most basic question.
“I don’t even know your name?”
“Gabe.”
“Gabe.” She liked saying his name. It took longer than it should have to recall she was here for a reason, and secretly drooling over his name wasn’t it. “I’m sorry I was weird in the kitchen. I was messed up with the teleportation shock.”
His smile was like glimpsing the sun after a storm, breathtaking.
“You handled it well. Better than most humans do their first time.”
What a strange way of putting it.
“I’d love to learn more about your teleportation system.”
His eyes smoldered. She’d never believed such a phenomenon was possible. What are we even talking about?
“It’s all in the DNA. Not something I can teach you.”
His enigmatic answer fired a dozen more questions in her brain, but DNA was the reason she’d tried to breach dimensions in the first place, and it slapped her back to the present.
Back to why she needed to speak to him again.
“I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but I really need more information on the Guardians. And I have to contact my parents, so they don’t worry about not hearing from me.”
Incredulity flashed across his face before his impassive mask shuttered his expression once again. She hitched in a shallow breath. What had just happened?
“I don’t have a hidden repository of information on the Guardians. I’ve told you what I know.”
All he’d told her were they were vicious aliens who had attempted to abduct her. He had to know more.
“But—”
“I’ll set up a way for you to communicate with your parents later. Right now, I need to work.”
Well, that was abrupt. But if he had to work, she could hardly expect him to drop everything to help her, even if she was desperate for answers.
“Okay, we’ll talk about this later, then?”
“I’ve no doubt.” He didn’t sound as though he was looking forward to it.
He swung around and horror slammed through her. Two deep gashes ran from his shoulder blades down the length of his back, as if an acid-drenched ax had hacked through to the bone, eating the flesh, distorting the muscle.
The wounds were healed and looked ancient, but the passage of time hadn’t disguised how agonizing the injuries must have been.
What in the name of god happened to him?
He rolled his powerful shoulders, and the condemning glance he flung her way was more than enough to confirm her shocked gasp hadn’t remained inside her head. For endless seconds their gazes meshed, but there was no glimmer of understanding in his eyes. Anything she said wouldn’t be welcome.
When he finally stalked away, she let out a shaky breath and made good her escape. But his injuries kept spinning in her mind.
Had he been tortured? She couldn’t imagine any kind of accident would leave such horrific scarring.
It was none of her business. And it wasn’t something she could ask him. He’d made that very clear without even needing to utter a word. In any case, she had enough on her mind to worry about.
Once she was back in the kitchen, she picked the photo frame up from the floor and placed it on the worktop before running the tip of her finger over the glass.
When she was a child, she’d loved listening to her mum’s stories of her own world, where telepathy was as natural as breathing. Distance didn’t matter between those you loved. You could be on the other side of the planet and still be in contact. But although her telepathic link with her mum had always been strong, about ten years ago it had vanished.
There hadn’t been any warning, but it had been the first sign of her mum’s decline.
She sighed and turned away from the pressed flower. Although Gabe had said he’d help her later, she couldn’t just sit around and wait for him to finish work.
Whenever she needed answers, she’d visit the astral planes. They’d never failed her. In fact, it was while she was there six years ago that she’d first had the idea to find her mother’s parallel world.
Well, that hadn’t turned out the way she’d dreamed, but the point was it always calmed her mind and allowed possibilities she’d never thought of to filter through.
It had to be worth a shot.
She sat cross-legged on the floor and took a few deep breaths. She’d cobbled together her own form of transcendental meditation around the same time she’d learned to read and had out-of-body experiences as a child long before she discovered the mystical astral planes. When her parents found out what she was doing, they’d given her basic safety rules to follow, along with advice not to tell anyone at school.
It was just another family secret she’d learned to keep, so the other kids wouldn’t label her a freak.
She closed her eyes, and her mind calmed.
The astral planes glimmered and unfolded before her. Except something wasn’t right, as though they were enclosed within a shimmering sphere of water, just out of her reach.
Unease fluttered through her, and she pushed harder, something she’d never needed to do before. But like two negative forms of magnetism, she couldn’t get closer, couldn’t connect.
She couldn’t enter the astral planes.
Panic crawled up her chest, making it hard to breathe, hard to even think. It wasn’t the astral planes that were surrounded by a protective force, preventing her entry.
It was this island keeping her entrapped.
Where on Earth am I?
Her throat tightened. This shouldn’t be possible. It didn’t matter where you were. Access to the astral planes was universal and had nothing to do with the laws of known physics. Technology wasn’t advanced enough to do anything like this—whatever the bloody hell this was.
But all the facts in the world didn’t mean shit. Because this was her reality.
And I can’t break through it.