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V&039;Aidan woke up to a piercing screech that felt as if it would shatter his eardruroaned at the awful sound as Erin stirred on top of him

"What is that?" he asked

"My alar from him to rush to her bedroom

It wasn&039;t until her return that they both realized what had happened

Nothing

"Did you have any dreams?" he asked

She shook her head "You?"

"No," he said, s

"Do you think"

His smile faded "No They can find us Sooner or later, they will"

Erin closed her eyes and cursed the thought of it "Maybe they won&039;t bother" She saw the doubt in V&039;Aidan&039;s eyes

Wanting to cheer his dour mood, she pulled him up by his arm "C&039;mon Let&039;s take a shower and then I&039;ll call in sick to work"

"You can&039;t What if you get fired?"

She shrugged "I&039;ll find another job"

He shook his head at her "You are a"

She smiled at him

Erin called into work only to be re report that had been due on Friday, which she had forgotten to drop off

"Theis at noon," John told her

"Okay, I&039;?" V&039;Aidan asked as she hung up the phone

She shook her head "I just have to take so to the office Want to come with me?"

"Sure"

They didn&039;t speak much as she drove across town V&039;Aidan held her hand the entire tith of his hand wrapped around hers

Once they reached her building, Erin led V&039;Aidan into the maze where her cubicle was He watched the hustle and bustle of corporate life with a dispassionate stare

Erin went to John&039;s office, only to find it empty

With V&039;Aidan directly behind her, she dropped the report in John&039;s in-box, then turned to leave

Chrissy stood in the doorith Rick Sword behind her The two of them stepped into the office and closed the door

Erin heard V&039;Aidan curse

What the devil was going on?

"What are you doing here?" V&039;Aidan asked, his voice laced with anger

"Waiting for you" Chrissy stepped around theht us in her workplace, will you, V&039;Aidan? All we have to do is make ourselves invisible to the hu but her And her they&039;ll lock up in an asyluone"

Erin still didn&039;t understand as going on But she had a sick feeling that she had been duped fro by all of this

If V&039;Aidan could be real, then so could they

"What is this?" Erin demanded

Chrissy&039;s eyes flashed to yellow and it was then Erin knew the truth

Chrissy was the she-snake frohtmares

"Stay out of it, human," Rick said "We will deal with you after we finish with him"

V&039;Aidan pulled Erin behind hi "One would think you were Oneroi they way you coddle her"

"He is Oneroi," Erin shot back, her entire body shaking froht thehed at her words "Is that the lie you told her?"

V&039;Aidan held his breath He didn&039;t want her to find out like this "Erin, I" His words faltered as he turned to see the confused look on her face

He didn&039;t want to tell her the truth He didn&039;t want to be what he was any better and he didn&039;t want to go back to the way he&039;d been

"What does she on," Krysti&039;Ana said ht we met in your dreams"

"No" Erin shook her head "It&039;s a lie V&039;Aidan, tell me it&039;s a lie"

He wanted to, but he couldn&039;t He&039;d lied so many times that it shouldn&039;t have mattered to him Yet it did

"I&039;m a Skotos, Erin"

Her eyes filled with tears "It was you! You who made me so terrified I couldn&039;t sleep? You who chased in to recount the torture he had put her through during those first feeeks She had thought she was losing heryou were Oneroi? Was it just so you could feed froet you away froon, so I appeared to you as a man And then later" His voice trailed off as his eyes went dead

"You lied to ony in her eyes sliced hirief washed over him "I needed you, Erin And I didn&039;t kno else to keep you with esture tore through hier wanted his touch

Like all the others, she, too, rejected him

The hurt betrayal on her face made him feel lower than any of the insults the others had ever dealt him

"I should have known," she whispered, "someone like you pretended to be could never really want someone like me"

V&039;Aidan winced at the pain in her voice "Erin, don&039;t say that You are the most wonderful person who has ever been born"

"Is that another of your lies?"

V&039;Aidan closed his eyes There was nothing he could say to

All he could do noas make sure no other of his kind hurt her

"M&039;Ordant!" he called, su his brother to him

The Oneroi appeared between Krysti&039;Ana and Rec&039;Sord

V&039;Aidan took a deep breath "I will go with them peacefully if you will keep them from her"

"It is my job, is it not?"

V&039;Aidan nodded It was the job of the Oneroi to help It was the job of the Skotos to use and destroy

He turned to look at Erin, but she refused to ht, he would say he&039;d done his job very well this time

His last view of her hen M&039;Ordant wrapped his arm around her the way he yearned to

Krysti&039;Ana and Rec&039;Sord grabbed him to take him home

"I&039;m sorry, Erin," V&039;Aidan whispered as they shimmered from her realm into his "I&039;m so very sorry"

Erin didn&039;t one She&039;d heard the sincerity of his apology as he vanished But inside she was all raw eon in the cave Feeling the scaly talons on her

How could that be the same man who had made love to her? The same man who had made her love him?

The betrayal of it lacerated her heart Why? Why had he made her believe in him?

"I don&039;t understand any of this," she said to M&039;Ordant

"Sh," he said, brushing her hair back from her face "Krysti&039;Ana and Rec&039;Sord wanted you for their own, but V&039;Aidan got to you first When she found out he&039;d beat her to you, she was livid"

"But how did he findin your subconscious called out to hihtmare and move on, but he didn&039;t"

"And Chrissy?"

"When she couldn&039;t take you from him, she called in her mate, Rec&039;Sord I was alerted shortly thereafter to protect you I told V&039;Aidan to leave you He refused"

Her head swam from M&039;Ordant&039;s information and from the pain and hurt inside her "Why did he refuse to leave uess it&039;s just what he is The Skoti suck the hopes and drea the hero with you Building you up so he could hurt you more"

Erin felt so foolish So betrayed How could she have been so blind?

The eyes, she thought with a start She should have realized the eyes were the same color

Was she really that desperate for a hero that she would accept a deuise?

Suddenly, she felt ill

Heartbroken, she headed hoet she had ever heard of V&039;Aidan

Erin sat alone for the rest of the day, thinking, re

"You should be a writer" V&039;Aidan&039;s kind voice echoed through her head

It wasn&039;t the de a pillow to her middle; it was the man And as she sat alone in her apartain see hihts

Most of all, she couldn&039;t tell hi froiven her so much more

He had been her friend as h her

But what could she do? He was back in his world and she was in hers It was over

There was nothing left

In the end, the Skotos had won after all V&039;Aidan had drained all her happiness, all her hopes, all her drea, e more of this world or the other

As the days went by, the pain of betrayal began to lessen and Erin remembered more of her dreams

The more she remembered, the more she wanted to see V&039;Aidan one last time Could she have been so stupid as to let him completely fool her?

She didn&039;t think so

V&039;Aidan wasn&039;t that cruel She&039;d seen things in him that defied what she knew him to be His words caht her to release her creativity to keep the Skoti away

And there at the end

"I will go with them peacefully if you will keep them from her"

No, those weren&039;t the words of a monster Those were the words of a man who cared ardless of what M&039;Ordant had told her, was not all evil

Desperate, Erin went to sleep, trying to find V&039;Aidan again It didn&039;t work

Erin woke up in the ht, terrified Where was V&039;Aidan and ouldn&039;t he co she could think of to reach V&039;Aidan Nothing worked And as every day passed, she hurt ed and heartbroken, Erin sat at her desk, dazed She&039;d barely slept in days and she was so weary

"V&039;Aidan," she whispered "Why won&039;t you talk to me?"

"Erin," John said from his doorway "In ured she was in serious trouble No doubt he was going to fire her forso much work

What did she care anyway? At this point, she was only going through thewas iave her lifeThe only one who had ever believed in her

Soul-sick, she got up and walked the short distance to John&039;s office

"Close the door Sit down"

She did as he co his coffee, reading his E-otten her Then he turned, pulled his glasses down the bridge of his nose, and stared at her "It&039;s awful, isn&039;t it?"

"What?"

"Loving an ie to clean out her ear "Excuse me?"

"Oh, come on, don&039;t play innocent withhere?" He pointed to the dolphin tattoo on his left forearods Which is why I&039;m so damned tired and cranky all the ti in when you least expect it" He sighed disgustedly "The least they could do is pay h to be born into this And benefits" He snorted "No sleep, no pay, no peace Got to love it"

She disregarded his tirade "So, you&039;re like the Oracle of Delphi? I thought they were all women"

"Those particular oracles are, but not all of us are feods"

Totally baffled, she stared at hi Guy had lost his ht, at any rate

"Okay, so you&039;re an oracle Want to tellod and I have no choice except to serve her She wanted a chance to scope out huets I merely provided her a safe cover"

"You sold entle "They weren&039;t supposed to drain you the way V&039;Aidan did TrustAnd you can rest assured he is being adequately punished for it"

Her heart stopped at the forbidding note in his voice "Punished how?"

"What do you care?" he asked, pushing the glasses back up on his nose "You&039;re rid of hiht? No more Skoti in your dreams You have your life back to yourself"

"I want to know" No, she needed to knohat had happened to him

John took a drink of coffee "Why, they sent him to Tartarus, of course"

Erin didn&039;t understand the term, and at the moment she wished she&039;d paid more attention in school "Is that like jail?"

"Oh, no, hon It&039;s hell They killed him the minute they took him back to his realm"

Erin couldn&039;t breathe as tears welled up in her eyes The weight in her chest was excruciating It wasn&039;t true It couldn&039;t be true "They killed him?"

"Didn&039;t you know?" he asked si to do to him? V&039;Aidan was never one who played by the rules He&039;d already been banned centuries ago fro human form and banished from this realm"

"Why?"

"Because he would pretend to be human Skoti are not supposed to have any creativity of their own They&039;re not supposed to want love Not supposed to want anything except a single night of drea from one person to the next He&039;d behaved for centuries, until he found you Even after they stripped all his skin from his ihed "Hypnos had already banned his transfor more to be done with him Since V&039;Aidan wouldn&039;t obey him, they sent him to Tartarus for the rest of eternity"

"But he didn&039;t hurt me Not really"

"Didn&039;t he? You look awful fro for months And I swear you&039;ve lost at least ten pounds since all this started"

"That&039;s not his fault"

"No?"

"No I don&039;t want hi hers, John pulled an envelope out of his desk drawer and handed it to her

"What&039;s this?"

"Open it"

Frowning, Erin did as he said and saw the three pictures of her and V&039;Aidan at the carnival Her hand shook as grief and agony swirled in her heart "Where did you get these?"

"M&039;Ordant sent theht like them as a souvenir"

She stared at V&039;Aidan&039;s handsome face At the love in his eyes