Demon Dreams by Misha Paige Page A

said gently.
    “I hurt Samuel last night.” I explained about the sexy dream I had started having about him. “He was so unhappy.” I bit my lip as I thought about Samuel’s offer. “I might be having trouble coming to grip with what he is, but I never wanted to cause him pain like that. He looked so defeated.”
    “It wasn’t your fault.”
    “I accused him of messing with my dream again.” I pulled away from Alec. “He said…”
    “He told you he would set me free and we could be together. That he would make us forget him if that’s what you wanted, didn’t he?” Alec growled.
    I nodded.
    Alec drew his shoulder up and he spun around. “That isn’t an option.” He slammed his fist on the kitchen counter. “Damn him for even thinking of it! How could he consider doing that to me?”
    I saw wild fear in Alec’s eyes. “There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”
    Alec turned back to me as he seemed to collapse into himself. “If he breaks the familiar bond then he will only have two options, feed on others or waste away. And he would never choose to feed on others.”
    Samuel’s weak body lying on a pile of filth as he faded before my eyes.
    I felt myself go sheet white and I clapped a hand over my mouth. “Oh God, he would…again?”
    Alec flinched. “He showed you the ship, didn’t he?”
    I nodded.
    “He showed you what I did with those men?”
    I nodded again, watching as his hands clenched angrily.
    “He had no right to do that!” Alec whirled away from me.
    I walked to him and put my hand on his shoulder. “Alec,” I whispered, not letting him shrug off my hand. “He was trying to show me why he’d do anything to see you happy.” I squeezed my hand. “All I saw was two brothers willing to do anything to save the other.”
    Alec swallowed hard as he pulled away and took several steps from me. “Does it matter to you? That I gave myself to them.” His dark eyes dulled when he turned and looked at me.
    This time I cupped his chin, forcing him to meet my gaze and see I was being truthful. “It matters to me because it shows the bond between you and Samuel. I understood your choice. You were right when you told there was no shame in men being together, but I could see why it was so upsetting for you back then. I only wish Samuel hadn’t had to glamour you because I think it broke him.”
    Alec’s eyes shined with emotion. “It did. He had always wished he was human, but that was the moment he started hating what he was.”
    “Why? It was the two of you trying to survive. Why was it so different to feed from you in that moment than the countless women you both have used?”
    “I think it was because for the first time he got a taste of the power he could wield. Add to that, that it was me, scared him. Because…”
    A horrifying thought came to me and I finished what I thought he was going to say. “Because he liked it, it felt good.”
    Alec nodded. “The rush that an incubus receives from exercising that kind of control is akin to a drug high for humans.” Alec hesitated. “We used to share women so he could feed. But he no longer trusts himself to resist temptation. He’s never touched another person, Becca, not since that day. He only feeds from my experiences. He’s been waiting for our mate.”
    “When was that?” I gulped at his answer. “Almost three hundred years?”
    Alec nodded as he watched me.
    “Why would I be different? He doesn’t trust himself with you so I don’t get that at all.”
    “Because the bond isn’t designed to be just between us. It’s like a broken triangle. It was always meant to be completed by a third. One person, even with the gifts of being his familiar, cannot give him everything he needs to be at full strength. When I took a woman to bed he would receive just barely over half of what he needed.” Alec ran his hands through his hair. “We don’t really know why, everything we know he has pieced together from instinct and