The Siren's Dream Read online

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  Revenge never felt so sweet...

  Murdered by a bullet intended for her beloved, Katya Dvoynev’s fate is to haunt the building where she took her last breath. That is, unless she can lure her killer into her clutches and find the vengeance her mara spirit seeks. But destiny has other plans, and handsome Nikolai Zurkov arrives instead, filling Katya with a desire so strong she must fight to remember it’s revenge she seeks, not love…

  Investigative journalist Nikolai is on a mission to bring down a corrupt corporation responsible for so many deaths. If the gorgeous ghost who enters his dreams holds the key, Nik has no problem sharing in the seductive beauty’s nightly encounters. But when he discovers Katya’s intent is murder, he’ll do anything to keep her from getting blood on her hands. For only true justice can give her the love she longs for and keep her in his world.

  Visit us at www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Books by Amber Belldene

  Siren Romance

  The Siren’s Touch

  The Siren’s Dance

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  The Siren’s Dream

  A Siren Romance

  Amber Belldene

  LYRICAL PRESS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Copyright

  Lyrical Press books are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp. 119 West 40th Street New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2016 by Amber Belldene

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

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  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

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  Lyrical Press and the L logo are trademarks of Kensington Publishing Corp.

  First Electronic Edition: November 2016

  eISBN-13: 978-1-60183-704-2

  eISBN-10: 1-60183-704-6

  First Print Edition: November 2016

  ISBN-13: 978-1-60183-706-6

  ISBN-10: 1-60183-706-2

  Printed in the United States of America

  Dedication

  For journalists, who risk so much to tell the truth.

  Acknowledgements

  Sincerest thanks to my agent, Becca Stumpf, for her encouragement, support, and unfailing good humor; my editor Heidi Moore, for her brilliant help making The Siren Series sparkle; and of course, my critique partners, who continually make me a better writer. Without you all, writing would be no fun at all!

  Chapter 1

  Spying on a naked man is impolite, even for a ghost.

  Katya knew it was true, but still she hovered in the corner of the bedroom that had once been hers, unable to whoosh herself away from the sight of his beautiful, broad shoulders and the powerful muscles of his back that tapered into a muscular butt. What harm did it do? Soon enough, he would pull on some pajamas, climb under the covers, and sleep.

  Oh my.

  He turned to reveal a rather insistent erection and he took it in hand, lying back on his bed. Now she should go. Really, she should.

  He bent one knee toward the ceiling and stroked himself. Her ghostly particles began to thrum, pushing away all remorse.

  The man closed his always-sad eyes, which tilted slightly downward at their outer corners as if the weight of the world tugged at them. He moved his fist up and down his length, and his quickening breaths sent some spectral form of arousal she’d never felt before buzzing through her. Watching him was so, so wrong. And so, so hot.

  His abs tensed, and the ropy muscles in his forearm strained as he worked himself until he came with a grunt. She’d never actually seen a man masturbate before, but the ones she’d had sex with had made similar pained expressions as they’d orgasmed. Still, his was especially grim, like he’d taken little relief and even less pleasure in the release.

  What would he look like truly sated and wearing a smile for once?

  For a rare and blessedly long moment, thoughts of avenging Fedir’s murder faded from her mind. She tried to imagine this man full of joy and satisfaction. What would it be like to share pleasure with someone as magnetic as him? Too bad she would never find out.

  He cleaned himself up, slid under the sheets, and drifted off to sleep.

  She should leave. Instead, she floated across the room to his side and waited for her desire to ebb. It lingered, keeping her vapors hot and unstable, keying her up with an arousal she obviously could not gratify without a body.

  She could slip into his dream, though. Cocking her head, she waited for her usual qualms to surface. In real life, her sexual desire had been disappointingly fleeting, a perpetual victim of her over-thinking.

  The aching hunger for him didn’t fade a bit now, though. Why not try?

  She sat astride his chest, as she had so many residents of the apartment building. Never actually touching, she only pressed on to them the crushing psychic weight of her vengeance, pouring furious nightmares into their dreamscapes.

  She plummeted into his dream, but this time, instead of her anger, she let that unfamiliar spectral desire flow into him. Inside his imagination, she found herself in a setting identical to his bedroom, his blankets cast off and his big body bare beneath her.

  His eyes flew open, blinked, then widened. He was so very handsome, in spite of the fatigue carving lines along the sides of his mouth and the perpetual furrow cut between his dark brows.

  “Who are you?”

  Finally, her familiar reservations reared up. What if he didn’t want her? Or what if he did, because he recognized her.

  “I’m just a dream.”

  “Best I’ve had in a long time.” His thin, determined lips spread into a hungry smile, and he reached to cup her breasts through her shirt, finding her nipples with his thumbs. “Beautiful,” he whispered before rising up to suckle at her.

  The sensations speared her with desire, but his words were somehow even better. Her whole life she’d been told she was as beautiful, as feminine, and as muse-like as her mother the model, but that praise had never before sent molten arousal through her. She shuddered with the aching need to give herself to him, to give him pleasure, and perhaps to steal a little for herself, a reprieve from her lonely, ghostly existence.

  Just this once, she would be a fantasy instead of the nightmare she’d become in death.

  Reaching backward, she found his thick, rigid erection. The memory of how, moments earlier, he’d stroked it himself heated her. She burned to have him inside her. She yanked her panties aside and slid onto him. And then, instead of pressing the breath from his chest, pouring fury and fright into him so he would help her to avenge Fedir, she rode him until they both found oblivion in their bliss.

  * * * *

  The next morning, she hovered at his side, close to his burly body. Perhaps it was
his strength that drew her, formless and powerless as she was. Or perhaps his eyes. Whenever she looked at his gloomy expression, she forgot her own worries. The incessant whisper of her need for vengeance hushed, and she longed to know his burdens instead.

  He combed his wet, overgrown hair back from his forehead, and drops streamed down his bronzed back as he bent over the bathroom sink. He scraped the razor over his skin, its grating sound surprisingly loud. She winced, even opened her mouth to tell him to apply more shaving cream. Then she remembered he wouldn’t hear her.

  Every day, she spirited herself through the units in the apartment building, shook plates, wrote messages in the fogged-up mirrors of the elderly neighbors who used to invite her for tea. She slipped into their dreams and shared memories of the night she and Fedir were murdered, hoping just one would understand her ghostly desperation and help her pursue her killer. She only succeeded in panicking people, never in getting any help. And some force always drew her back to this bathroom, the place of her death.

  Then he’d moved in with his niece, the pair towing a cloud of grief behind them like a helium balloon. Still, when he came home each evening, his round-rimmed eyeglasses sliding down his nose, and reheated a pair of frozen meals, she envied their stilted conversations, their life, no matter how melancholy it seemed.

  At the bathroom sink, with only a towel around his waist, his tanned skin pink from hot water, his chest covered in dark hair, his shoulders broad and bear-like—he was so very alive in spite of the way the world seemed to press upon him.

  He whistled a cheerful tune as he shaved, and his eyes were scrunched at the corners with an almost-smile. She’d brought him that joy, and he’d given her so much pleasure she’d lost count. His melody rang out loud and clear, practically drowning out the mara’s unceasing whisper—Find Lisko. Kill him.

  She smiled and caught sight of her reflection in the mirror—not the Katya she’d been in life and in this man’s dream, but the vengeful mara she’d become in death, teeth small and pointy, reptilian eyes round, her purple, blue, and platinum-blond hair replaced with stringy dark locks.

  Her dream lover switched cheeks, beginning the rasping scrape down the other side of his face. His lips puckered again, as if the urge to keep whistling was irresistible. Those thin lips, so finely carved and sensual. The sight of them left her nipples tingling even in her ghost form.

  “Chert,” he cursed and dropped the razor in the sink.

  A line of blood beaded up along his jaw and quickly became a rivulet, seeping through his fingers as he tried to stanch the flow. He angled toward Katya, and she darted to the side when he thrust his hand out for the washcloth behind her. Not that it mattered; she presented no barrier.

  His blood dripped onto the floor and traveled through the valleys of grout between square tiles. It catapulted her back to the frightening seconds after she’d been shot, when she’d watched from outside her body as her blood and Fedir’s mingled and pooled at the edge of the shower stall.

  She would not, could not, rest until their murderer paid for what he’d done to her white knight. By some unknown cause, she’d become a mara to avenge him, and the need for vengeance coursed through her almost constantly. Find Lisko. Kill him.

  Fortunately, this man shed far less blood from his nick than she and Fedir had from their bullet wounds. There was just enough to cause a watery trickle to roll toward the shower, pulled by gravity to the place where hers had also pooled. She stared at the pink thread of liquid, transfixed.

  The man bent to wipe up the blood, froze at her feet, and slowly moved his gaze up the length of her vaporous body. He couldn’t be looking at her. She’d been invisible for eleven months and eighteen days. No one had seen her, except in their nightmares.

  She turned to check what was behind her. A wall tiled in white, and not a thing out of the ordinary. So she angled back to look down at him, suddenly aware of a heavy heat settling through her ghostly form.

  With his dark blue eyes, he peered straight into hers. Then he rubbed them and blinked. When he opened his lids again, he frowned. “You’re here?”

  Katya’s pulse throbbed behind her sternum, and she raised her hand to her chest. How could her heart beat? She was dead.

  He rose up to tower over her and reached out his hand to touch her cheek as he had in the dream. She flinched. In real life, she didn’t let strange men caress her face.

  “Sorry.” He dropped his arm.

  “It’s all right.”

  “I just… I don’t remember bringing you—I mean, I remember that…” He tilted his head toward the bedroom. “Unforgettable. But…” He reached for the stylish eyeglasses on the vanity. “Chert, how much did I drink last night--a whole damn distillery?”

  “I’m not sure.” She shrugged. “Maybe just a beer with that Chinese food you brought home.”

  “Right. A beer…” Behind the lenses, his pupils dilated, leaving tiny navy-blue rims of iris around them. “Fuck, you have a nice voice, like a sex-line operator.”

  “Uh, thanks?” It sounded like a compliment, and there wasn’t a trace of disdain in his voice. Normally, she was praised for how much she looked like her mother, so this was a new one.

  “Is that how we met?” He approached her more slowly, lowering his voice to a whisper and nuzzling at her neck with his nose, sending warm, tingly, alive sensations down her spine that melted away her defenses. All his confusion and reservations about her sudden appearance seemed to have been magically wiped away.

  “Did I call you from an ad on the back of the Kiev Weekly and beg you to come down here when I heard your voice?”

  “Not exactly.” She laughed, pressing her palm against his chest—also warm and alive.

  “Keep talking. Say anything.” His hands came around to cup her butt as he nibbled at her ear. “I’ll do whatever you want, if you just keep talking.”

  He drew hard on the skin at her neck and her head swam. He was a stranger, even after what they’d done in his dream. She should want to pull away.

  “I don’t have anything to say.” Not true, she had a lot to say, but none of it would lend itself to his present mood.

  “Just the Lord’s Prayer then, or ‘Ukraine Has Not Yet Died.’”

  “What?” He may as well have scratched a needle across a vinyl record of the song. “The Ukrainian national anthem turns you on?”

  “No. But your voice…” His impressive erection, which she’d grown quite familiar with in his dream, prodded at her belly. “It’s so…”

  “So what?” But then she heard it herself, as if…

  Oh crap. How could she have forgotten? Maras belonged to a class of female spirits with siren-like powers. Rusalkas, vilas, succubi—double crap. Was she controlling him with her voice? “Shit.”

  “Yep. Even that’s hot. Keep talking…” His hand came to her breast, just as it had many times in his dream. But now, in the flesh, with him enthralled by her siren spell, the touch grated instead of aroused. She tensed, then slapped him. Hard.

  “Chert. Sorry, I don’t know what’s gotten into me.” He braced his hand on the sink, blinked, adjusted his towel, and readjusted his glasses, all the while breathing deeply through his nose. He examined her again. When his gaze passed over her chest, his lips twisted.

  She glanced down to see an angry, puckered scar marring her skin. Lisko had fired the bullet right through her, killing both she and Fedir with one shot.

  The big man’s brows furrowed, and he continued to stare at the wound—the least enjoyable ogle anyone had ever directed at her chest. “That…” He exhaled loudly. “That wasn’t there last night.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” A lump lodged in her throat. She hadn’t seen her body since she’d died. Corpses didn’t have scars, only wounds.

  “What the hell happened?” Again, he moved to touch her, extending his damp washcloth as if he could wipe away a bullet wound. Then he halted and looked around the room li
ke he might find a weapon to explain the sudden injury.

  She inched away from him. In the dream, submitting to his touch had seemed harmless enough, had felt wondrous. But here, in the flesh, in the apartment she’d shared with Fedir, it felt like a betrayal of her mission—to avenge her knight in shining armor.

  The half-naked man held up his hands and let the blue washcloth drop to the floor. “Just tell me you’re okay.”

  Actually, she was awash with sensation—freezing cold, hungry, acutely embarrassed about being in her underwear with this stranger she’d had dream sex with. But, yes, she was more or less okay. “I am.”

  “And can you turn off the liquid-sex voice?”

  She cleared her throat. “I’ll try.”

  “Good.” He let out an enormous sigh from the barrel of his big chest, his gaze volleying from her face to her wound. He winced. “Then I have some questions. Where did I pick you up last night, and where did that scar come from? Because I know I kissed every inch of your perfect tits.”

  She opened her mouth to state the obvious, but then flushed at the compliment. And, on second thought, clearly nothing was obvious at the moment. He thought she was real, a woman he’d brought home from the bar or something. Funny thing was, she did seem to be corporeal, which meant she had a chance to avenge Fedir. If only she could recruit this man to her cause.

  “It’s not a new wound.” She covered the ugly scar with her hand. “It’s from when I was shot a year ago. I died. And now, I’m a ghost.”

  His mouth fell open, his brow creased, and he snapped his jaw shut. “Is that right? A ghost.” He grabbed her elbow and steered her toward the door. “Well, listen. Last night was fun. Let me help you find your things.”