Even in Her Darkest Dreams

By Merabeth James

Bored with an eternity devoted to evil, Satan, posing as Nick Dorian, decided to take a vacation away from it all and rented a lake cottage deep in the woods, where he befriended a beautiful 'feral' child, who flipped his world upside down. Though an unlikely pair, Lealynn and Nick became fast friends over the summers that followed until a family illness ended her visits. But she never forgot the tall, dark stranger, who had been her childhood love...her dream 'prince'.
Years passed, then one day a compulsion sent her back to the cottage, where she found him waiting for her on the rickety porch. Time hadn't touched him, she thought, yet there was something different about him. Suddenly, she realized it wasn't Nick who had changed. She had grown up and now saw him with a woman's eyes. He was as beautiful as a dark angel, with a beguiling smile that set her pulses pounding.
Nick, in turn, was stunned by the beautiful woman she'd become and the fondness he had felt for her as a child, exploded into a powerful savage lust. He wanted to possess her...body, soul and heart...but his pride insisted she know the truth first. She must accept him, as he truly was...the Prince of Darkness...and still want him.
But his 'truth' set in motion a chain of events he couldn't have foreseen and the seeds sown that night among the gravestones in the old churchyard reaped a strange and bitter harvest, when, twenty-six years later, Lealynn's daughter, Menzie, took a job at Seaborne Island Resort and her odyssey begins.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Merabeth James
• Release date: May 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476408255

Merabeth James

There are six things important to me...well, most important to me: To love unconditionally, to always keep a sense of 'wonder', to always be kind, to find joy in simple things, to never take myself too seriously, and to make sure I don't leave this earth with a list of "if only I hads".I've taken many 'leaps of faith' in my time and, so far, have landed on my feet or, in one case, on a dilapitated houseboat with my dog, and a lot of enthusiasm. I named her 'Sanctuary Annie' and hoped for the best. I knew nothing about boats, couldn't swim and wondered how long she would stay afloat. In the middle of the night, when my dog jumped up to join me on the antique Victorian bed I had moved on board, I would check to see if he was wet, knowing, if so, we were both in big trouble. But Sanctuary Annie hung in there, even surviving a hurricane, when others around her were not so fortunate.Living in the small marina, with the sea as my back yard, I found a profound sense of peace..and the love of my life....my Jim, captain of 'Wings', a beautiful racing sloop that flies across the water, when the wind fills her sails.I often think how much I would have missed out on, if I hadn't taken that leap of faith and followed my heart. Life is meant to be lived and I intend to keep on doing just that.

Book preview

This book is entirely a work of fiction. All characters are completely fictitious and do not represent any persons living or dead. Product- business- location names used remain the property of any and all trademark holders and do not represent an endorsement or association of any kind, either expressed or implied.

EVEN IN HER DARKEST DREAMS

BY

MERABETH JAMES

Smashwords Edition

(Copyright 2012 Elizabeth Repka All Rights Reserved)

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

PROLOGUE - THE DARK STRANGER IN THE WOODS

She sighed heavily and shifted her position to ease the nagging pain in her legs. Hours had passed since she’d first taken refuge in the old church...hours spend kneeling in prayer, asking for protection from him. She had loved him once...may God forgive her, she loved him still...but above all else she feared him. Desperately. He had changed her life forever in a way she couldn’t have imagined even in her darkest dreams.

She had been so vulnerable when it all began…fertile ground for the seeds of trust and love he planted…a lonely, awkward child foisted off on her paternal grandparents every summer by parents too involved with their political ambitions to have room in their lives for their unexpected child.

Briefly, a smile flickered, as she remembered the grandparents who had loved her despite her sometimes outrageous behavior. She had been like a small wounded animal...often hostile and rebellious, bolting out the door at every opportunity, seeking the solace and freedom of the woods where she had found a deep-seated peace her restless, seeking spirit had never experienced before. Soon she was as wild as anything that lived there...a feral child...a woods bunny her grandma had called her and she had liked that name. Woods bunny. She smiled again and let her mind drift back to when she first met him, the dark stranger, who had rented the lake cottage nestled deep in the woods. It had been the summer of her eighth year.

Crosshatched with scratches, dirty and sweaty, she was picking blackberries along the lake for a promised pie, when she saw a glint of metal through the trees at the old Mullin’s cottage. Curiosity aroused, she crept stealthily forward. A sleek black sports car was parked in front of the house that nobody ever rented. It was supposed to be haunted. She had heard that a grizzly axe murder had occurred there, though her grandpa had laughed and told her it was just a story made up by folks with nothing better to do.

She moved closer to the cottage, threading her way through the trees. Her pulse raced, her mouth felt as dry as yesterday’s toast, and then she saw him, standing on the rickety porch, looking out over the lake. He was tall...very tall ...and dressed all in black. A sudden gust of wind flapped his long black coat against his legs and teased his dark hair over his forehead. He brushed it back impatiently and sighed...a sigh she could hear all the way to her hiding place or maybe she only felt it in her heart. He was sad...lost...lonely and she understood only too well how each of those things hurt.

He turned then and looked right at her, though she knew she was well hidden. He couldn’t possibly see her, could he? Then he smiled. It was a beautiful smile...beguiling...angelic even. Don’t be afraid it seemed to say, but she was.

It took all of a week for him to earn her trust...or some part of it. At first, he tried luring her closer with buttered biscuits and honey, which she ate greedily, after he had gone back inside. Then one morning she made it all the way to the bottom of the front steps, while he leaned against the porch post. A swirl of steam rose from the blue china mug he held in his hand. It’s hot chocolate. Would you like some? he asked with his smile.

In reply, she asked him bluntly, Why are you here?

I’m taking a vacation...of sorts...from my usual routine. How about you? What is your name and why are you here?

She shrugged her too thin shoulders. Lealynn...my name is Lealynn and my parents make me come. I spend the summer with my grandparents, over there through the woods. There’s a trail if you know where to look. The deer made it to get to the lake. They’ve got lots of trails to all kinds of places.

I see. And you keep coming by just to visit me or are you a foreign spy trying to ferret out my blackest secrets? he asked with a perfectly straight face, though there was laughter in his eyes.

She stammered awkwardly, then blurted out, I wasn’t spying. I was looking and you happened to be in the way of where I looked!

Touché, my little one. I can see that you are more than a match for old Nick here.

She squinted up at him in surprise, her hand shading her eyes from the bright sun that haloed his dark hair. Nick? There had been something about the way he said that, that had not rung true even to her young ears. Something more that licked along the edges of his smile.

But she soon forgot her initial wariness, as they became fast friends in the summers that followed. She would run to look for him as soon as she could get away from her grandparents’ welcome and he was always there. The loneliness...the painful shyness, the awkwardness that she had always worn like a thick suffocating garment...was, miraculously, shed in his presence. She felt light and free and the laughter that came so easily for others now bubbled up from a new well of happiness.

Bit by bit...ever so gently...he drew from her the painful stories of her neglected childhood and plucked them from her like thorns buried deep in her soul. He cried with her afterwards, as he pulled her into his arms and rocked her back and forth until her sobs turned to hiccups and then into giggles at something silly he'd said. Slowly, he seemed to shed his own dark mantle...a shadowy something that clung to him like smoke.

Often they would dance in the meadow, scattering the cloud of butterflies that sipped the nectar there, while the deer watched, unafraid, from the deep shade of the forest. They made up a song together about it. Come dance with me...come dance and play…twirling and whirling all through the day.... As time passed, there were more verses some of which she didn’t understand, but they made him smile a secretive kind of smile, as though he knew a very funny joke he couldn’t or wouldn’t tell.

Sometimes they would lie on their backs watching the clouds, laughing together as they put names to their shapes. Lions...bears...whales...she had never seen such clouds before...and never would again. And on the rare times she slipped out at night, they would look up at the stars and he would tell her about the constellations. One night they talked about Heaven and the possibility of angels and he smiled at her strangely, then said, What if I told you I was an angel. Would you believe me?

She poked at his back and giggled. You can’t be because you got no wings. All angels have wings and haloes and blonde hair not black like yours.

His smile grew darker. Of course, you are right. Whatever was I thinking? Just having a little fun with you I guess. He had been quiet the rest of the night and she remembered wondering if she had hurt his feelings somehow.

Often he told her about places he’d been...fabulous places that surely couldn’t really exist...and about people...famous people she had read about in school. He told her funny stories...sad stories about them, as though he had known each and every one personally and they came alive before her mind’s eye. She grew to love him then above all others. Being with him was...well...magical. That was the only word for it. Magical!

She blurted that out to him on the bright morning of her twelfth birthday, as they sat together at the edge of the lake. That’s because I am a magician...or sort of, he told her with his angel’s smile. Do you want to see a trick? She nodded eagerly and he continued. Okay. Nothing up my sleeve, he said peeking up his shirt sleeve and giving it a shake, which made her laugh until her bare toes wriggled. I don’t seem to have my magic wand with me just now, but let’s see what I can conjure up. Hmmmmm. I think I will summon the frogs to do homage to the birthday queen. Would you like that? She nodded...her eyes widening in anticipation. Hocus pocus whoisthemostos gillymanduhowaboutyou...or something like that...from the dark waters...the sunlit shores...come as I command thee.

And they did come...swimming, hopping, climbing...they came. At first just a dozen or so and then more...much more. She became rather frightened and begged him to stop, though he seemed to be enjoying the whole thing immensely. Maybe this will serve as a reminder now that you are almost a woman, that you must kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince. Or maybe I’d rather you wouldn’t and with that he waved his hand and the frogs vanished, leaving little wisps of smoke or fog where they had been.

Suddenly nervous, she twisted the end of the long braid her grandmother wove every morning from her unruly red hair and told him what was in her heart. I already found my prince. You. You are my prince and when I’m all grown up I will marry you and.... She stopped, blushing furiously, wishing herself a million miles away in any direction.

He cupped her chin in his hand and lifted her face till her gray eyes met his dark ones. He wasn’t laughing, as she had feared. He wasn’t even smiling. And live happily ever after? In the real world, Lealynn, happy endings don’t happen all that often. But we’ll see what the future holds for us. Maybe it is possible to redeem even me. Now I have another surprise for you. A birthday cake complete with candles. Devil’s food. Your favorite if I’m not mistaken.

Her eyes widened. How did you know that?

Because you tell me so every year. It’s my favorite, too. Now come inside. You have a birthday wish to make. He led the way inside the cottage and there on the kitchen table was a three layer chocolate cake topped with twelve candles, which he lit with the tip of his finger. I’m a magician, remember? We can do things like that.

And the cake...did you conjure that up this time, too?

In a manner of speaking, but let’s not look at the ‘man behind the curtain’ too closely. A 'Wizard of Oz' reference that you might not recognize.

Of course I did. I’m not stupid you know.

He smiled his dazzling smile again and said, Perhaps it’s time you made that wish. And she did. She wished from the bottom of her young heart that he would wait for her to grow up.

After they stuffed themselves on cake and ice cream, she fell asleep or so he told her later. The next thing she remembered, he was walking with her through the woods to her grandparents' cottage. She asked him about the magic...the frogs...the candles. He laughed and hunkered down next to her, then tugged the end of her braid. It was only a dream. What else could it have been? Maybe the product of too much chocolate cake, little greedy goose. Now scoot on home, before you have them combing the woods looking for you. There are those that would find our friendship.... a bit unusual. You must always remember your promise to never tell anyone about us. About me. A promise must never be broken and with that he seemed to vanish.

He was gone the next day. The little cottage he had rented every summer was dark and emptier than empty. It looked like he had never been there, as though she had conjured him up. All star dust and dreams. Figments of a lonely child’s mind. Forget me his voice seemed to whisper from the shadows, but she couldn’t.

That was the last summer she had spent with her grandparents, she remembered. Shortly after she'd left that year, Grandpa had a bad fall and they'd moved into town to a small apartment with no room for her. The last time she saw them had been two years ago. She had sensed something was wrong when she called them on their anniversary. Sixty-five years and still in love. Everything is just fine...no need to worry about us old folks, her grandma had told her with the throaty chuckle she remembered so well.

She had caught the next plane out anyway. Even then they tried to keep the truth from her. Let’s enjoy your visit. You’re not here to fuss over us, they had both said. But she knew. Grandpa was dying. The truth of it was in their eyes and in the way they held hands as though her touch was what kept him with her like a helium balloon that would drift skyward if she let go of the string. But neither had been able to stop the inevitable. Grandma had followed him in death just a few days after the funeral. His picture was on the pillow next to her; his favorite Buffalo Bills t-shirt pressed to her face. Their loss had left a huge hole in her heart, but she took comfort in believing that they were together again. That even death could not keep them apart.

A few days after that, she found out they had willed her the cottage they had hung onto all those years and she had driven back to the small town on the edge of the woods, where she took a room at its only motel...one that favored knotty pine paneling, log furniture and a stuffed black bear with one glass eye.

The drive from there to the cottage had been bitter sweet. Memories pushed at her from all sides and the years seemed to slide away, as she climbed the narrow, rutted, dirt track to the clutch of summer cottages embedded deep in the woods like ticks. And then she was there, where, clearly, no one else had been in years. A large pine had fallen on the roof and the front porch had collapsed from some past winter snow load. The repairs would be more than she could afford, she realized, and in its present state there was little hope she could sell or rent it. There had been no insurance.

She crossed what was left of the porch and looked inside. It was even worse than she had imagined, but a slide show of images began to dance through her mind. A montage of memories. Ghosts. Her grandma kneading bread on the pine kitchen table. Grandpa tying flies to catch the big trout he never caught. And there had been other memories, too. The slam of doors...voices raised. Much of it had been her fault. Her bone deep unhappiness had spilled out of her like blood.

Suddenly, she heard music...enticing...seductive...and memories of Nick stormed her senses. Long ago, he had opened up the dark wound inside her spirit and set her free and now he was summoning her. Come dance with me... sang the voice carried on the wind...a voice she remembered so very well. The compulsion swallowed her whole. She must go to him...to the Mullin’s cottage. Crazy as it sounded, even to her, nothing in heaven or on earth could stop her.

Almost of their own volition, she found her feet retracing the now overgrown path she had followed so often as a child. Stumbling...cursing the shoes that weren’t meant for hiking through the brush, she kept going. A low-lying branch delivered a stinging slap, leaving a thin welt along her cheek, but she scarcely noticed. Her pace quickened until she was running. Her heart was beating wildly...faster and faster...and then she was there.

He was standing on the porch leaning against the rail with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his long black coat. He was just the same...time hadn’t touched him...and then she looked again. He was different...very different. Now she saw him with a woman’s eyes. She had remembered him as ‘handsome’ but he was far more than that. He was breathtaking...like a dark angel and she felt a strange unsettled stirring deep inside. What took you so long, he said with a laugh and opened his arms.

She flew up the steps into his embrace. It was like coming home. It was as though she was, finally, where she always belonged. I’m a grown up woman now, she whispered.

He smiled, then, and quirked up one dark brow So I see. I tried to stay away, Lealynn. God help me, for your sake, I tried to stay away, and then he laughed again, mockingly, though there was infinite sadness and regret in his dark eyes.

She blinked, as she shook off her memories and pulled herself back into the present. Standing, she waited till the pins and needles left her legs, then took a seat in the closest pew. Nothing had turned out as she had hoped, she thought, bitterly. Nick had been her childhood fantasy. The man she had planned to marry some day. Only he wasn’t even a ‘man’. He was Satan. It was almost funny in a sad twisted kind of way. Their first meeting had been only a week ago and now she was hiding from him in the only place she could ever feel safe. She shook her head in disbelief. A week and her whole world had crashed and burned. The nice little life she had planned...gone. Up in smoke! She laughed at that. How apt in a way, she thought wryly, as she let her thoughts slide back to their last few days together.

From the moment she had rushed into his arms, he courted her...beguiled her...and she loved it! His touch...his voice...his very smell seduced her until she lay hot and open, begging for what she knew they both wanted...needed desperately. But each time he only took her so far and then stopped, rolling away from her and staring at her with an expression in his dark eyes she could not begin to fathom. Was it disgust? Had she been too eager? But how could she not want him, fiercely, when his every touch ignited her like a torch?

Finally, he spoke. They were lying at the edge of the lake, hands intertwined, watching the last of the day disappear with the sun, as it plunged behind the trees in a tangerine blaze. There is something I must tell you about myself, before I make you mine forever. And it will be forever, Lealynn...count on that.

He seemed to grow darker, as he spoke, until he was only a shadow with blazing eyes and fear began to gnaw around her edges. Remember your twelfth birthday when I summoned the frogs? She could only nod mutely. "You wanted me to be your ‘prince’. Remember? Your prince. I knew then what you couldn’t have even imagined. I am a prince...the Prince of Darkness. Don’t look at me like that. I am not insane. But I am everyone’s worst nightmare. Even yours if you force me to be. I want you to step into whatever lies ahead for us with both of your beautiful gray eyes wide open. Make no mistake. I am the very essence of evil. I tempt...seduce...entice people into doing the most despicable things your young innocence cannot begin to grasp. I...."

A shudder shook her...whether of revulsion or fear...she wasn’t certain. Surely, this was all some grotesque game. He couldn’t possibly be serious, but then she remembered the frogs...the candles and all the other little parlor tricks’ as he had called them over the years. You are telling me that you are Satan," she managed to say.

Ah, yes. I am Satan, though I am called by other names...Beelzebub, Old Nick, and Lucifer the fallen angel cast into Hell, which, by the way, isn’t a very nice place, even for me. I much prefer being here...with you. Let me make love to you, Lealynn. I will pleasure you beyond your wildest imaginings...introduce you to the darkest delights...take you to places you could never even dream of in this world and beyond. You are good for me, Lealynn. If you had followed the news as a child, you would have seen the drastic drop in world crime those summers I spent with you. Unknowingly perhaps, you saved the world from all kinds of unspeakable acts. That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Perhaps...I can change permanently, but I need your help to do it.

She rolled away from him and scrambled to her feet. Propped up on one elbow, he looked up at her and smiled crookedly with a vulnerability in his eyes that broke her heart. I’m sorry. I cannot be what you want. I cannot be Satan’s whore no matter how much my body may want that very thing. And it did. Just looking at him had her tingling and pulsing throughout her entire being despite the horror and revulsion she felt.

I want you...need you as I’ve never needed a mortal woman before. Can’t that be enough? he asked softly. She began to back away and his mouth tightened into a thin hard line. There can be no marriage in the ‘little stone church in the vale’ as you may want. How could there be? But I know my mating with you will bring me more pleasure than I have ever felt before because of my feelings for you. And I promise even more for you...pleasure that will shatter you...shake you free of all your hidebound virtues. Let me take you, Lealynn...here...now and you will never regret it.

But she knew she would regret it for the rest of her life. So she fled...running through the woods towards the very church he had mocked, hoping it might be her sanctuary. Behind her, she heard a low guttural growl that became the howl of the hunter after his prey, as the wind rose to a banshee wail, tearing at her hair and clothes, lashing the trees around her till they writhed and twisted like tormented souls. The roaring sound grew louder. He was gaining on her rapidly. So close now, she knew she would see him had she dared to turn and look back.

Fear lent her wings and she sped on until...stumbling...falling...she broke free of the woods and into the open. The church was just ahead...its steeple silhouetted against the now dark sky. She was panting, heavily, as she ran up the stone steps and wrestled open the heavy oak door, then slammed it shut behind her.

The howling stopped, but she knew he was just outside the door, when he ordered, Come out of there!

No! I won’t. Go away! Please go away! she pleaded. The minister will hear you...the whole town will hear you.

Those sanctimonious fools, he scoffed. "Why should I care if they do hear me? Is this the treatment I get for trying to do the right thing? Which, I might add, is entirely out of character for me. I didn’t have to tell you who I am. I could have taken you and you would have welcomed me between your legs. Think, Lealynn. You might redeem me and save those fools and so many more like them from my evil influence. You might change the world. What say you to that?"

She had no answer, so she remained silent, then heard a long breathy sigh penetrate the thick door. Besides...no one can hear me unless I want them to. You are the only one who can hear what I must do if you reject me. Please come to me, Lealynn. I want you as no mortal man could ever want you. You love me. I know you do. Come to me and be my love forever.

She continued to remain silent only too aware he was right. She did love him. She’d always loved him almost enough to risk her soul, but...no…she wouldn’t do that even for him.

Come out! I command you. You will not deny me. Open that door or I will shake that stone pile into rubble.

That won’t get me out of here, she found herself replying.

Hah! was his only response and then she felt it. At first just a slight tremor and then a shake that rattled the walls and windows and sent hymnals flying to the floor. Suddenly, all grew quiet, too quiet, and then she heard a low moan that morphed into a long drawn out wail that could have come from the depths of hell, as well it might.

"I can’t destroy His house, as you must