Darcy Branwyn

Tangled Moon:

…A muffled grunt, followed by a short, feminine squeak woke Alessandro. His gaze focused weakly as he pulled struggling free from his nightmare. Eyes drew in on pale skin, pink-cheeked, golden hair framing face and down shoulders. A golden woman? A woman made of spun gold? By the gods, where had she come from?

It took him a baffled moment to come back to the present. Alessandro realized he had Kendra backed against the wall.

“Habibti?” He reached out, to make sure she was real, and that he was where he thought he was. His fingers trailed over her cheek, down her neck, felt the scabs from his fangs there, her breath catching when he touched them. Yes, real. He was real. She was real.

She pushed on his chest. “Can’t breathe,” she said.

He eased off her but didn’t back entirely away, his hand still on her neck as if to hold him there grounded in reality, her soft hair between his fingertips, spun gold of a spider’s web.  

“I could have killed you,” he said.

“You were having some kind of nightmare. What was I supposed to do, just leave you?”

“Ignore me.”

“Not likely. You would have brought the whole place down with your yelling.”

“I was not.”

She eyed him. Well, perhaps he had.

“What did I say?” he asked.

“I don’t speak Arabic.”

He paused, remembering only a little now as it began to fade away. “Egyptian.”

“About your life? I mean, your mortal life.”

“Yes.”…

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