Ensnared by the Dream Lord (Dark Lords) Read Free

more than capture and study her as he held her beneath him. 
     
    Comforted by those thoughts, Adriana quieted her struggles, allowing her breathing to return to normal as she attempted to discern who he was.  She could see nothing but the general shape of a man leaning above her.  The width of his shoulders and his whipping cloak obscured the light.  Squint as she might in the gloom, nothing availed his identity to her.
     
    He remained silent so long after those three words, she thought perhaps he’d turned to stone.  Only the warmth of his body seeping through the supple leather to her trapped thighs alerted her that he lived.
     
    Unable to bear the suspense any longer, she asked, “My lord, pray tell, who are you? Why have you pursued me?  Have I done you wrong?”
     
    “I am Morpheus Dragunas, Lord of the Night.  You summoned me.”
     
    She felt the deepness of his voice reverberate in her chest.  Elation surged through her body.  Her prayers had been answered!  But how had she arrived here, and why had he frightened her?  Had she been too dim-witted to recognize him when he came?  Surely that was it.  “My lord, forgive me.  Had I but known it was you, I would not have taken flight,” she said, breathless.
     
    Strangely, the weight of his body on top of hers excited her.  Her belly quivered, her sex felt awakened and eager for exploration.  Her fingertips tingled with the need to touch him, and she longed to discover what he looked like.
     
    She’d angered him, she realized suddenly.  She had summoned him, and he had come at last, and then she had fled him, and fought him.  “I will gladly accept whatever punishment you wish to mete out, my lord,” she whispered, anxiously touching her lips with her tongue to moisten her suddenly dry mouth.
     
    Her voice, husky with fright still, quaking, washed over Morpheus like a warm tide.  He stared down piercingly at the girl’s face, frowning in confusion when he could not read her thoughts, struggling to ignore the unbidden surge of desire that tightened his loins at her supplication. 
     
    Her mind was closed to him.  Tightening his hold on her, he leaned forward, as if closing the distance would open her mind to him.  It didn’t.  He could discern nothing of her inner thoughts.
    He puzzled over it.  The dream world was his domain.  He should have had complete control, been able to twist her desires into nightmarish visions.
     
    “What trickery is this?” he asked harshly, suspicious at her lack of fear, puzzled at the slip of his control.  He had no need to fear sorcery, in dream or in reality, but still, he was wary at the alteration to his plan.  She was supposed to be frightened witless. 
     
    Adriana felt her heart skip uncomfortably at the anger in his voice, not from fear of him, but from the dread that he was so angry that he would decide not to grant her heart’s desire after all.  “No trickery.  I swear it!  I wouldn’t dare, not when I begged you to come,” she assured him earnestly, trying to summon the nerve to voice her request, trying to think of what words she would use to describe her heart’s desire.  If she merely asked for a man to love and a family of her own, how would he know what man to give her?  Could he see into her heart and know the perfect man for her?
    It occurred to her quiet suddenly though that, perhaps, the wish she had intended to make would not be one that he could grant.  Perhaps it was not even what she really desired, for she could not begin to envision what sort of man she wanted.  In truth, she could not think beyond the ache that had come upon her at his nearness, at the sound of his voice. 
     
    It dawned on her that, in all the times she had read of him, pleaded for him to come to her, she had not once thought of the vague wish for a man to love and a family of her own.  She had thought only of him.
     
    “I—wanted to ask….  Would you grant me a boon?”  Her voice