"Get your key out, please, quick-it's freezing out here," she said.

He slipped his key into the door, and in her mind, entered too slowly behind her. Once he was in, she pushed past him, closing and locking the main entry door with the speed of light.

"What on earth is the matter with you?" he queried, looking both concerned and impatient.

"Nothing-I'm just cold." She brought a finger to her lips. "Sh. Don't want Fallon coming out to tell us that we're disturbing the entire place again. Let's get to our room, okay?"

He nodded, his gaze still curious and skeptical.

To Megan's annoyance and unease, it seemed as if some of the fog had crept into the house. Of course, only night-lights were on to guide the guests through the house to their respective rooms. The night-lights were muted and an eerie yellow.

They pa.s.sed from the entry through the dining room and down the hall to their own quarters, opposite from the rest of the guest rooms. Their own wing. Private, special.

She wished that they were surrounded by tourists. By kids. People. Even crusty old Fallon would be good now.

They entered their own room. Finn switched on the light. It blazed, and she felt better. Actually, she suddenly felt as if her fear had been ridiculous. It fell from her as if she had doffed a cape from her shoulders.

Megan didn't want Finn reading the relief she felt from her face. "Running into the shower," she murmured briefly.

In the bathroom, she turned the shower on hot and lingered beneath the spray, letting the warmth and confidence seep into her, just as the cold and fear had seemed to do earlier. She scrubbed herself studiously, as if she could wash away the remnants of any unease. At last, she turned off the spray, and wrapped herself in one of the B and B's heavy terry towels.

When she emerged, she saw that the drapes to the balcony were open and fluttering inward on a gentle breeze. She walked over to the open French doors and slipped on out. Finn was at the short, Victorian-intricate railing, looking out at the night.

"Look," he said.

She stared out. She saw the sloping lawn and the street beyond. Trees, becoming denuded of their brilliant autumn covering.

Buildings at a small distance, cloaked in the gentle shadows of night.

"What am I looking at?" she asked.

"The fog is gone," he said briefly.

"Yeah, well... New England," she murmured.

He turned and gave her a brief kiss. "I'm hopping in the shower. Be right out."

He was gone. She stood on the balcony alone, looking out.

The fog was gone. Completely.And yet, as she stood there...

She felt as if she were being watched. The moon, so nearly full, rode overhead. With the fog gone, it, combined with the muted glow of street lamps, gave the area a surreal look. As if the houses weren't really solid, as if the ground didn't really lie still.

The breeze shifted, wafted, soft, and gentle...

She thought she heard her name whispered. The wind, nothing but the wind, air moving through dry and brittle leaves.

Her fingers tightened around the railing.

They were there, somewhere. The eyes that watched her. They came out of the shadow, they watched her every movement, knew her fear, knew...

"Megan?"

Once again, she nearly jumped a mile. And yet, she knew it was Finn. He was hot, still emanating a shower-warmth from beneath his bathrobe. His hands rested on her shoulders. And then, she felt that brush of his fingers against her nape, sweeping her hair aside, a touch that was so totally Finn. He set his lips against the skin bared by the movement of her hair, and they were warmer still, a touch that seemed to send the slow heat, a liquid shimmer, down the length of her spine. His fingers were long, instinctive and practiced, moving over her shoulder blades, kneading and brushing, pulling her back tautly against the length of his body.

"Tired?" he murmured.

"Um."

"How tired?"

She turned into the circle of his arms. "I suppose I could be persuaded to stay awake a little longer."

He touched her face. She loved the simple feel. Thumb caressing her chin, long forefinger stroking over her cheek. He gazed at her for a long moment, rueful grin sliding into place as he pressed closer against her, a subtle movement that was endearing and erode, locking them more intimately together, and allowing the tension of his length to seep into hers, along with the more obvious intrusion of the hard rise of his s.e.x. His mouth covered hers then, encompa.s.sing, molding first, then the tease of the tip of his tongue, and something more forceful as it slipped between her lips, invasive, hungry, awakening whatever desire might not have been evident in the simple magic of his hold. Megan clung to him, still awed by the explosive sweep of longing he could create, the surge in her blood, the simmer, then the surge of sheer physical urgency he had the power to create. It had been like this from the beginning...

the touch, and everything that was known was new; she was shaky and trembling, hot and breathless... as desperate as ever.

He drew back for a moment. "Think I can keep you awake a few minutes?" he asked softly.

She pushed away from him, doing her best to offer a casual shrug. She cast her head back with a pretend yawn, and went walking slowly back into the bedroom. But once there, she kept her back to him, letting the robe slip from her shoulders to puddle to the floor. And there she waited.

And he came. A subtle, sensual a.s.sault from such a position, once again, his fingers at her nape, and then his lips, and then just the touch of his kiss, the brush of his tongue, slowly down the length of her spine. Mercilessly slow, far too quickly... but then his hands, upon her hips, and the sudden shift of her body, him on his knees, hair soft against the tender flesh of her abdomen, and then his lips, tongue... caressing all over again... until her fingers were entangled in his hair, and the world seemed to spin. Any fog was silver, any thought was purely carnal, and her words were whimpers and pleas, then warnings that she would fall.

He was up, and ever the romantic, sweeping her up into his hold, and carrying her the few steps to the bed. There was a brief touch of laughter as he nearly tripped flat over his own shoes in his effort to kill the light, but then they were falling, and the sheer heat, rippled power, length and breadth of his body blanketed her, and a moment later, they were entangled as one, and she knew what she had missed when they were apart, and she didn't think she could ever bear to think they could stay apart, that he might not be hers forever, that this might not be hers...

She cried out, and tried to twist into the pillow to silence her own sound.

"Fallon!" she whispered with alarm.

But Finn, arms braced, hair tousled, features taut, had a quick reply.

"d.a.m.n Fallon!" he swore, voice low and ragged, a sound that swept into her, and ignited even more excitement.

She half smiled, until she was swept up into the urgency of another wet, sloppy, liquid kiss, and the sear of his body within her own, and...

The hunger.

He stood on the street, a figure as dark as the night, one with shadow and fog. He lifted his head toward the night sky, and then his arms, feeling the power that was his now, savoring it. The time was coming, and he would be rewarded even more richly for the service he had done.

Ah... the mind.

And all that lay beneath the sunlight of the day, the charade of logic and learning!

The fog swirled around his feet, blue in color, beneath the uncanny glow of the moon, so nearly at its radiant peak. The time was coming...

And there would be no stopping what was about to be.

He turned his gaze from the sky to the centuries-old house, there, in the midst of so many others, and yet on its own little hillock.

They hadn't thought to close the balcony door. And though he couldn't see, he could see, and so, he closed his eyes, and thought again of the power that was his. As He had promised, all would be fulfilled. Pieces fell into place, and all that was needed would be obtained.

The time was coming...

For a moment, he was disturbed, feeling again the surge of power, thinking of what that might mean for himself. The things that he could do... the things he longed to do.

The things he now felt, saw in his mind's eye.

But he served a greater power. He could not falter. He could not allow the greed, the l.u.s.t, and all that might be go beyond the state of wonder.

For he served a greater power.

And he was smart enough to know both the tremendous gifts that came with all he had been given, along with the...

Fear.

He would serve, and thereby, know reward.

He lifted his eyes to the sky once again. To the moon, glowing blue like the fog that swirled at his feet. He raised his arms to the deep, roiling sky, and began to say the words.

In his dream, he knew first that he was walking. He felt the pads of his feet fall upon the earth, and the feel was good. Dirt, rich, ever so slightly damp, no gra.s.s, no stones, no sticks, just the feel of his bare feet and earth, and it was strangely erotic.

More so when he felt the cool breeze that touched him, that seemed to wrap around him. And he realized that the sensation was so powerful because he was walking naked, and every moment in that strange breeze, on the barren earth, was sensual.

There was sound. At first, he thought it was the air, the sound of it whirling around him, touching him. But then he knew. The soft, melodic chants were real. They came from the group who awaited him, and he knew it was he that they awaited, that they adored him, and were ready to fall on their knees before him. It was exhilarating. He felt the play of his every muscle as he walked, and he felt stronger, more powerful than ever before. He could feel his blood rushing through his veins, the even sound of his breath, rising and falling with his movement.

They were ahead. Chanting still, and the words they chanted were lauds to him. He came closer, and still, they were elusive, for they were shrouded in the soft blue mesh of the fog that stirred so thickly around the ground. It was beautiful. Deep, rich, soft...

and yet simmering. Enticing, yet promising something volatile and exciting beyond belief.

He kept walking. There were two at his feet. He couldn't see them clearly. Women. Flesh blue-tinged, hair long and wild. They kissed his feet, stroked his calves as he moved. They were not the ones that he wanted, and he shook off the hold they had upon him. He kept moving, for there was something far ahead, an altar in the woods, and it offered...

The answer. The release for the tension winding within him. Something he had wanted for eternity.

His rational mind fought such an image, for there was nothing he wanted. He knew he had all he wanted...

No. A voice whispered at the back of his head that there was more. So much more. He kept moving, and even through the fog, he saw that the world had gone bizarre. There were still people. Chanting. Some half clad in strange robes, and half naked. There was a goat ahead. No... not a goat, a man, a creature, half goat, half man. The head of a man, but horned, with a long, strange chin that added to the look of a satyr. The creature had cloven hooves for hands at the end of long, furry arms. He wondered if the creature was the one whispering to him, bringing the thoughts to hover beyond his conscious thought. He came closer to the goat, then started to turn away, for the goat was busy fornicating. A hideous creature, but the woman before him was laid out in extreme ecstacy, her moans rising above the sound of the chants.

Closer...

The invitation beckoned him. And he kept walking, past the goat, and all the people, men and women now, all of them in different stages of copulation. Yet, as he pa.s.sed, they followed, whispering words of adoration, begging for his word, his command. They ran at his side, they touched him, stroked him with oil as he moved.

Again, he was embarra.s.sed, for they ran their fingers down his back, his arms, his chest, his b.u.t.tocks, then cradled his p.e.n.i.s, anointing it with the oil.

And he kept hearing words, silent, shrieking, part of the breeze, the chants...

What you have waited for...

Centuries...

The hunger has grown and grown...

She will be there.They followed, they chanted, they threw flowers. They hissed words in his ears, then, words of what he should do, how he should take his prize. And at last, with the host of demons and humans at his side, brushing him, stroking still, he came upon the altar in the midst of the forest.

And there... what had awaited him.

The woman. He knew her, did not know her. She was tied, yet surely knew she was the sacrifice, surely she gave herself up to the ecstacy and power that awaited, after all these years. Closer...

She was shrouded, in blue-black veils. Glimpses of flesh teased his senses. The gauze draped over her midriff, but bared her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Drifted over kneecaps, but allowed glimpses of thigh, evocative in the blue light.

Their whispers were coming at him, harder, harder, making every step then urgent.

He reached the altar...

The gauze covered her face. It didn't matter. His blood was pulsing. His muscles were tightening and contracting, filled with violence and tension. He knew what he was to do, knew the sense of force and violence.

A cry came, for he was upon her, and naked nymphs were at his backside, touching, stroking, urging him on. He was the king of this strange copse, all powerful, force, the force of nature, of the wind, of...

Evil.

He reached out, and grabbed the woman around the middle, and he leered at her, hands rough as he touched, as he brutally forced himself into her, touching her b.r.e.a.s.t.s...

He saw himself, where he stretched to touch her so callously. His arms were richly furred. His fingers had convulsed into something cloven.

His head...

If he reached up to touch, he would feel that horns had grown from his temples, and that he had done all that was wrong that had been bidden, and that he had become...

He awoke with a violent start, unable to catch his breath, terror holding his heart at a dead standstill.

He breathed.

His heart thumped.

And still, for a moment, the dream had been so real that he was afraid to look around the room. He forced himself to do so.

Night still, but maybe, just barely. He could clearly see outside, for they had left the balcony doors open. Stupidly. It was freezing in the room, he realized.

And still, he was covered in a sheen of sweat.

Megan!

Terror for his wife seized him.