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  Dream Wars Domination

  Leia Stone

  Dream Wars

  Leia Stone

  Copyright © 2018 by Leia Stone. All rights reserved.

  Dream Wars characters, names and related items are trademarks owned by Leia Stone.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, live or dead, are purely coincidental.

  Stone, Leia

  Dream Wars Domination Book Two

  Gilbert, Arizona

  1. Science Fiction, Fantasy

  For information on reproducing sections of this book or sales of this book go to www.facebook.com/leia.stone

  [email protected]

  Created with Vellum

  To Mother Earth, thank you for all you provide. I’m sorry for how we treat you.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Acknowledgments

  One

  Three weeks had passed since we’d released the plasma cuffs to the world. So much had happened in those three weeks. The government had taken credit for working with Striker Industries on the cuffs, publicly saying it was a joint venture and they’d been the ones to suggest making them free and accessible to humanity. We’d also been waking up every night after eight to ten hours of sleep in a new country, or house, next to a different person. The ghouls were keeping us in longer. Scientists said our sleep was so deep it was akin to a bad concussion or coma. Almost as if the ghouls were trying to keep us there in desperation and we were only able to escape their hold after that long. On the plus side, humanity had never been so well rested. I no longer needed concealer to cover the bags under my eyes, but on the downside, we had to survive eight to ten hours of the Dream Wars. And not everyone had the plasma bands yet. The ghouls were freaking out; rage didn’t begin to cover what they must have been feeling.

  The entire planet had opened its borders and suspended passport, visa or identification requirements. When you woke up in another country with no passport, how the hell were you supposed to get home? The governments were working out trade deals with the airlines to give credits to people who couldn’t afford to fly home, but if this kept up, it looked like we would just be staying in the countries we landed in. A different one every night. It was starting not to be worth it to fly back for a few hours, only to go back to sleep and then wake up somewhere new again. Jeremy and Damien were working on making a modification to the dream bands to keep the ghouls from being able to scramble us like that, but it seemed impossible at this point. Nothing they tried worked. However, we were still able to go in together and land in the Dream Wars as a group, and for that I was grateful.

  In the past three weeks, I’d only seen Damien a handful of times. It was taking us all day to travel back to Bisbee to see each other depending on where in the world we were and where Damien’s private jet could fly to. If the ghouls wanted to inconvenience us, it was working.

  I had just gotten off the Striker Industries jet a few hours ago, and was now in a hired car to our shared house in Bisbee. We all agreed it was the best place to be, away from the government’s watchful eye, and near the rare mineral that powered the plasma band. Not to mention the quirky artist town had an appeal to it. Maxine and I had started taking a yoga class once a week when we were in town, and other than not having the best shopping, I was vibe-ing Bisbee hard. I could see myself settling down here. Selling the loft in LA, leaving the big-city life and buying one of these old places, fixing it up. I never thought I’d say that. I thought I was a lifer to the sound of sirens and homeless people shouting at my window at 2:00 a.m. I loved the bustling city but this town was special.

  “Your residence, Miss Steele,” the driver said.

  I thanked him and grabbed my backpack, exiting the car. When I looked up, I saw Damien walking out the front door in a pair of basketball shorts, no shirt and wet hair.

  Yum.

  I wasn’t sure what we were. We’d kissed three times, and seeing him now made my knees go weak, but we hadn’t talked about it much, so I was just playing it low-key. Low and slow was my motto. It was better that way for me or I would run for the hills when my self-sabotage mechanism kicked in.

  “I was lucky. I woke up this morning in Utah, next to a sweet woman named Susan,” he said.

  I walked gingerly, not wanting to test my newly reconstructed ankle too much yet. I’d only taken the walking boot off the day before. Although I couldn’t feel the tops of my fingers in my right hand, they still moved when my brain told them to, so I was taking that as a win.

  “Sleeping with other women already? Damn, I thought we would last longer,” I joked.

  His face darkened and he took a step closer to me. “Do you want it to last longer?” His tone was dead serious.

  Standing there on the street in Bisbee, half naked and dripping water, he wanted to have the ‘relationship talk.’

  I must have waited too long to answer. He frowned and started to turn away.

  “Short answer, yes!” I told him, running to catch up and spin him around. When he turned, he was wearing a devastating smile, dimple and all.

  “And what’s the long answer, freckles?” he asked, trailing his finger over my nose and the freckles that lay there.

  His touch. I hadn’t realized how much I needed it until it was there.

  Long answer is I want to see you naked right now, but I’m scared of getting my heart broken. But naked… I need to see it.

  “Long answer is… to be honest….” Oh God, what was the long answer? Why couldn’t I be normal? Emotionally normal and say ‘yes, I want it to last super long and maybe forever.’ “To be honest, I feel emotionally broken, and I get scared when things get serious because I don’t want to fall in love with you, and then mourn you at your funeral when the ghouls kill you,” I said in a rush, then slapped a hand over my mouth.

  Diarrhea of the mouth. That was me.

  He shook his head and then snaked a hand out and pulled me into his body. I dropped my backpack and let myself go limp as he pressed my hips into his pelvis. “Oh, Kit. We’re on step one and you’re on step ten. Get out of your head and live a little. It’s nice out here.”

  I chuckled at that. It sounded like something Maxine would say.

  Damien was good for me.

  “I missed you,” I admitted sheepishly.

  His hand trailed up my back, slipping under my shirt, and then he leaned in and kissed my neck. His warm lips on my neck made me melt. Where am I? What was I saying? I didn’t know. I just knew that I hadn’t yet had the pleasure of sleeping with this beautiful man, and I was beyond ready for that day to come.

  “How’s Jeremy?” I asked, suddenly remembering him.

  Damien pulled away at the question.

  We’d been having some major issues with Damien’s autistic brother. Although he was much more on the mild end of the spectrum and could communicate and express his brilliant ideas, his social skills and ability to deal with change were s
eriously lacking. When he woke up alone, next to a stranger in a foreign country, he either freaked out and started screaming and running, or he went into shock and wouldn’t speak to anyone. Damien had been forced to pin a laminated sign to his chest stating the situation, including his phone number for the strangers to call. It was heartbreaking. I wanted to keep him safe and make sure nothing stressed him out, but that was impossible with what the ghouls were doing to us.

  “He’s retreating into his shell. The selective mutism is getting worse and carrying over into the waking hours. He can’t deal with the constant change, and I don’t know how to fix it,” Damien admitted, looking pained.

  He loved and cared for his brother so much, and it broke my heart to see him so helpless. Jeremy couldn’t deal with the violence and unpredictability of the Dream wars, wouldn’t speak to anyone he wasn’t close with, and now I guessed that was happening here too. He’d surprised us all by speaking in the Dream Wars when we’d set up the plasma bricks; he must have finally felt safe enough to do so. Now that safety was bring ripped away.

  “We’ll figure something out,” I assured him, reaching for his hand.

  He interlocked his fingers with mine and picked up my backpack. “How’s the ankle?”

  I shrugged. “Tender but so far, so good. I’ve been doing the physical therapy videos I loaded on my phone.”

  Damien had hired a virtual physical therapist to make videos and manage my care, no matter where in the world I landed.

  “Good,” he said.

  Opening the door to our little shared bed-and-breakfast, I didn’t know who would be home. “Who all’s here?” I asked, stepping inside.

  “I am!” Maxine popped in front of me wearing a tight black dress with fishnet stockings, her hair in a glossy cascade of red curls. It was 2:00 p.m., but she looked like she was going to a nightclub.

  I let out a catcall whistle. “Looking good. Where you off to?”

  Maxine smiled, and it was contagious. For someone who suffered from anxiety and PTSD, she sure knew how to exude happiness. “I met a sculptor named Pablo. He’s taking me out on the town.”

  I chuckled. Leave it to Maxine to find some young hot guy to date in a town of only 3,000 people and declining.

  “Have fun,” I told her as she kissed my cheek, bringing her floral perfume with her.

  “I always do,” she responded, closing the front door behind her.

  Maxine Cross was my life goals. She didn’t give two shits about anyone’s opinion of her, and she lived life to the fullest. She’d probably slept with more guys than I had fingers and toes, but who was I to judge? She was responsible about it and always happy, and that was all that mattered.

  “Jeremy is upstairs with Mr. Hansen. He just got in a few hours ago from Colorado. He’s listening to some music and trying to calm down. Nox is lying on the roof with Ronnie, looking for birds or something. Brisk is in Japan and won’t be able to make it back until tomorrow, and I just sent the jet to get Josephine from Chiapas, Mexico.” Damian said it all in a rush, and then collapsed on the couch.

  I sat at the edge, by his feet, but he reached over and pulled me down, closer to him. I snickered as I fell onto his chest, resting my blue hair in the crook of his neck. Damien was super affectionate. He didn’t care if anyone else was in the room, or if he didn’t look macho enough; he was always trying to snuggle or hold my hand or smack my ass in the kitchen. It made me feel wanted, and it was honestly one of the things I really, really liked about him. My past boyfriends were all stuck in their egotistical macho persona, and wanted to hide their affection.

  “I owe you that date,” Damien whispered in my ear.

  “Screaming Banshee Pizza?” I asked with a smile.

  A billionaire wanted to take me on a date to a pizza shop in a small border town. It was actually pretty perfect.

  “Yep. How about tonight?” he murmured, running his fingers along the length of my neck.

  Goose bumps broke out on my flesh as I looked up at him. “Only if we can have a sleepover afterward.”

  Yep, I went there. Screw it. Why let Maxine have all the fun? We could die tomorrow, and I’m not leaving this world without seeing Damien Striker naked.

  His eyes darkened as he pulled my chin up to capture my mouth with his. The moment his lips parted, I let out a little moan.

  Pulling back, he blew air through his lips. “When you moan like that, it ruins me. Almost as much as your freckles do.”

  I grinned. How in the hell did I land a billionaire who liked to snuggle, and said the most romantic things? I kept waiting for it all to end. He’d grow tired of me, or we’d realize we weren’t compatible or… he’d die.

  He tapped my forehead. “Stop it. Get out of your head. I can see your crazy serious face, which means you’re thinking too much.”

  Laughter pealed out of me. Damn. He knows me too well already.

  Before I could respond, my phone buzzed. Looking down at the screen, I saw it was Kevin. He was my friend who worked for the president. We used to make out, and I was pretty sure still had a crush on me.

  I sat up quickly and answered the call. “Hey, Kev.”

  “Call me from a burner,” he said quickly, then hung up.

  “Shit,” I swore and ended the call.

  Damien looked at me, alarm in his eyes. “What’s going on?”

  I stood, heading for the stairs to get to the roof where Nox was. “Our phones are bugged again.”

  The freaking FBI was a pain in my ass! Why were they doing this? We weren’t a danger to society. They were wasting valuable tax dollars monitoring us, while murders and terrorists were out there. Stupid. Their motivation to keep the Dream Wars going didn’t make sense to me. I mean yeah, they didn’t want overpopulation, and it was convenient for them that the poor and sick were getting knocked off first, but how messed up did you have to be to want a society where only the rich and strong survived? Ugh.

  Damien followed me up the stairs, through the attic and out the access panel that got us to the roof.

  As I stepped out onto the sunny rooftop in Bisbee, I momentarily forgot about our troubles with the government. The view was breathtaking.

  “Kit!” Ronnie squealed and sat up, making her way over to me. “How’s the ankle?” she asked.

  “It’s fine. We have a problem,” I told her, then looked at Nox, who lay on his back staring at the clouds. “Nox, I need the burner phone again.” The moment those words left my mouth, he sat upright, stiff as a board.

  “What now?” He reached into his pocket and pulled it out.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll tell you in a minute.” Grabbing the phone from him, I started plugging in Kevin’s number, deciding to stay on the roof in case the house was bugged too.

  He picked up on the first ring.

  “It’s Kit and I’m on a burner. What’s going on?” My heart was pounding in my throat. I knew this wasn’t going to be good news.

  He sighed. “I could be killed for sharing this with you,” he stated gruffly.

  Damien was listening in from my left side, while Ronnie was on my right.

  “Then don’t. I don’t want you to get hurt,” I told him seriously.

  He’d already put himself in danger for us—for me—before.

  “I can’t live with myself if I don’t tell someone. It’s wrong what they’re doing. So wrong.” His voice was laced with so much barely contained rage that I knew whatever he was holding in was bad. Extremely bad.

  My stomach knotted. “What’s wrong?” I asked. Adrenaline pumped through me as I braced myself for his response.

  Kevin lowered his voice. “The green stuff in the Dream Wars. It’s fuel. It’s clean energy fuel that burns hotter and longer than anything on Earth.”

  I felt dizzy with anxiety. I didn’t want to know where this was going. “Okay.” I knew it was combustible, which made sense why the Galadrias drank it since they were basically alien dragons. It also healed their planet
. It was some weird shit—that we could all agree on.

  “The United States has made a deal with the sentries, Kit. The US lets the ghouls continue to feed off humanity, and in return, the tall flesh eaters make sure certain high-value targets aren’t bothered in the Dream Wars. And that huge barrels full of green stuff make it over Earth-side every week.”

  My food threatened to come up into my throat. “No.”

  I swayed on the rooftop as I processed his words.

  The government had sold us for barrels of alien oil.

  “Yes. The high-value targets are given beacons that the ghouls can sense so they know not to harm them. The future of this planet is one where only a couple thousand rich bastards will be left to control the Earth with a never-ending clean fuel supply. They call it New World Vision. President Buckley tried to stop it and they threatened to kill her kid.”

  Oh God. I’d met the president’s daughter once. She was a sweet kid. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “Why tell me?” Again, I couldn’t understand why he was sticking his neck out to give me this info.

  He sighed. “Because I don’t have a beacon. I’m just like the rest of humanity—food. If I end up dead, I wanted someone else to know. Maybe you can stop it.”

  Me? How the hell was I going to stop anything like this. This was way bigger than me.

  Damien typed something on his phone, then showed me the screen.

  -Are we being watched?-

  Good question.

  “Okay Kevin. I’ll see what I can do,” I told him. “Hey, is the FBI still on our ass?” I added casually.

  He was quiet a moment. “Not that I know of. But they’re looking for where you mine the rare mineral that creates the plasma shield.”