Illicit Desire: Outlawed Realm, Book 2 by Tina Donahua

there.”
    “Alone?” Nikoli snapped.
    She touched his shoulder. A gesture of empathy rarely used on E2. “There are others like us…like you, Nikoli. Our government didn’t convince everyone their way was best. Remaining there is what your father wants. The same as his decision to help us.”
    He’d built a device to bring them from the Pleasure Palace and past E2 to here. However, the portal closed more swiftly than they’d predicted. Although Damir and Lukan were already on the other side, Meelo was only halfway through when the gateway narrowed around him. He fought to get loose, but the portal trapped the left side of his body, the intense pressure scarring his throat and cheek, injuring his arm, causing him to drop the device in the void between the dimensions.
    With no desire to ever return to E2, Meelo hadn’t considered it a problem to lose the instrument. Lukan thought otherwise. He wanted a way back to Arez.
    Nikoli watched Damir brushing Lukan’s windblown hair aside, resting her fingers on his cheek as a mother in this dimension might.
    On what looked to be a sigh, Lukan lowered his face, his hunger for affection, his caution in believing it was real playing across his handsome features. Damir said something to him. Without comment or acknowledging her with a glance, Lukan went down the street. She and Meelo followed, all of them disappearing into the night.
    Tomorrow, they’d return. Meelo promised to bring Nikoli the materials he needed to construct the device. No one asked if he’d actually do it, particularly Regina. She’d gone upstairs to their bedroom shortly before the others had left.
    Nikoli no longer heard her pacing.
    The thought of facing her worry or anger daunted him more than returning to his own realm to deal with the consequences of his actions.
    Was she sitting in one of the chairs near the window, calmly waiting for him when they both knew she could be quite agitated at times? Would she argue against him helping Lukan, tangling objectivity and emotion until Nikoli was too confused to know how to respond? Would she withdraw into silence, her thoughts the same as his? That he’d lost all good sense in crossing over and promising to stay here, letting his feelings guide him.
    Perhaps his father and the others on E2 had been right. What had giving in to his lust and love accomplished for Regina? He’d exposed her to vampires, his father’s disdain, and now two genetic scientists and a pleasure slave intent on murdering her and him if Nikoli didn’t help.
    Hardly the future Regina or any sane woman expected. One that would most likely continue. Who else…what else…might cross over from the other dimensions and come here to harm her?
    He should leave. It would be a blessing she’d understand, possibly one she wanted after tonight, giving her a chance to find a man from her own realm. Someone who’d love Regina without exposing her to danger.
    Rubbing his forehead, Nikoli left the living room, thinking he could go to the house Meelo was renting with the cash he’d won. The older man had also purchased fake licenses, social security numbers and identities for himself, Damir and Lukan.
    “At a market that’s dark,” Meelo had explained.
    “Black market,” Regina corrected, sounding as though she might laugh or scream.
    Nikoli couldn’t blame her. He had to do what was right.
    At Meelo’s place, he’d build a device so Lukan could rescue Arez, and then he’d find a permanent place to live. By all that was reasonable, he knew his new home should be far from here, certainly on another realm. However, love—primal and deep—urged him to remain close so he could check on Regina without her knowing it, assuring himself she was safe and happy.
    He stopped at the front door, his hand poised near the lock. A part of him wanted Regina to run down the stairs, demanding to know where he was going…begging him to stay. A greater part knew how sentimental and foolish such thoughts