Alexis threw her lasso up to where she hoped it would rope the turret of the castle which loomed in front of her. She had ridden her palomino stallion up to the dirt road leading up to the huge building surrounded by a moat. One filled with crocodiles or piranhas or something equally toothy that would take a bite or more out of any poor soul that miscalculated the trajectory to latch onto the castle and rappel up the stone face to the tower on top.

She took a step back and then took a deep breath. No guards dressed in impressive armor looked over the edge of the castle for any invaders or even interlopers. She had been prepared with what was this in her hand, a cross bow? She didn't know how to use one did she? She must, why would she have it with her. My how confusing things had gotten in this journey, but she couldn't dwell on that.

She had a man to rescue who had been held prisoner by a ruthless princess who wanted to be queen and she needed a consort to do that, anyone with a pulse would satisfy under the rather bizarre codicil of her father's will.

Alexis tried not to think about the immense danger that awaited her even if she made it successfully to the top and she calculated the distance once more in her head as she drew her arm back to toss the rope to where it could catch on the turret. She watched, shielding her face against the sun as she watched it nearly fall short but then somehow, it caught the turret…well one of the pointy edges of it anyway. She pulled the rope to test its hold up above and satisfied that it would support her weight, she began her tedious climb up the face of the 20 foot wall.

Where were the guards anyway? Shouldn't the castle be guarded with if not guards, a fire breathing dragon or two? A watch dog, or at least the queen's lord in waiting? But she couldn't see anyone up above her or on the ground below her and she had to keep on going.

Time was a wasting.

Her muscles tensed and began to cramp in her legs as she hauled herself up the side of the castle and finally she reached the top and without looking down, she hoisted herself over and dropped onto the tower. She unhooked herself from the rope and went to peer into the tower.

Inside the window, she saw him sitting on the bed, the man that had been chosen by the future queen to be her consort and damn, the woman had some serious good taste even if she had been flawed in nearly every other way. She found the door locked so she knocked on the window. He looked up and her eyes widened at the sight.

Julian?

Oh my, he sat there dressed in medieval britches and a long shirt, his face handsome framed with dark hair and wearing a mustache and some serious five o'clock shadow. He looked a little tired but still appeared to be every inch the man she had just been talking to a few moments ago. She just couldn't figure out why he was inside this tower. But then again, she didn't know why she was here.

He smiled at the sight of her and went over to help her open the window so she could crawl inside, putting the crossbow she had slung over her shoulder on the floor.

"Julian…what are you doing here?"

He got up and just shook his head.

"It's Queen Dianne, she needs to marry and produce a heir before she can be anointed queen of the kingdom."

Alexis remembered seeing the stylish woman dressed all in leather down to a whip attached to her hip, prone to temper tantrums during royal processions through the village where she worked as a barrister of sorts to represent villagers when they appealed their scheduled beheadings or time in the stocks before a rather biased judge, the queen herself.

"We have to get you out of here."

"There's no escape," he said, "The wedding is set for the hour before sunset which is…"

Alexis looked out the window and estimated that there were only several hours until that time which left little to act.

"We have time..but you're going to have to help me…"

Instead he drew her into his arms and his lips brushed against her own and she forgot about the pending rescue. His lips clung to hers as he placed his hands on her face while he worshiped her mouth.

"Julian…"

But he ignored her running his hands beneath her tunic, touching bare skin which sizzled under his fingers. She broke the kiss and placed her hands on his wrists.

"We can't do this," she said, "We have to get out of here quickly…"

He pulled off his shirt and showed off his impressive muscular chest sprinkled with dark hair…the man kept in shape doing something…maybe engaging in sword duels when he hadn't been pushing the wheel back in the village.

"I can't leave…you're too damn beautiful…"

She felt his fingers in her hair after he had pulled his hands from her grasp and she looked at his chest right within reach before she sighed, and began stroking it with her hands as they kissed again….

"What is this…."

A shrilly voice broke their interlude and they turned to see Queen Dianne shooting deadly lasers at them with her eyes.

"Noooo….," Alexis said before…

She woke up on the couch with a start wondering how she got here…which was, oh yeah the secluded beach house where she and Julian had been staying. She must have been dreaming because she and he…had been somewhere else in very different clothing…in each other's arms.

Where was the star of her latest dream anyway?

"Julian…"

He looked over at her from where he sat working on a computer.

"I'm here…you must have been having some dream."

She nodded back at him, struggling to sit up but at least feeling more refreshed.

"Yeah…must have been from the Scotch…"

He looked over at the mostly empty bottle and raised his brows.

"Yeah I'd say so," he said, "but it sounded exciting and somewhat…passionate?"

Her skin flushed, how in the hell did he know that? Lucky guess on his part?

"How…"

He smiled back at her.

"Did you ever know you talk in your sleep?"

She furrowed her brow trying to remember.

"No…what did I say…nothing embarrassing I hope."

He shook his head.

"Not that I'm not very flattered by what you did say," he said, "You kept telling me that we couldn't…well I guess one of us was wearing less in your dream."

She frowned.

"Oh god…It was just a silly dream. I was rescuing you from an evil queen…I think she was that rival of mine and sometimes friend Dianne…and you started getting a bit amorous."

His brows arched at that.

"Sounds like a wonderful dream…how far did we get?"

She shot him a pointed look.

"I'm not saying…but I woke up just in time."

He settled back in his chair.

"That's too bad," he said, "because it would have been great between us."

She shook her head.

"Julian it's just a dream, there wouldn't have been anything going on between us. Not really."

He nodded.

"Yes that's right, because dreams are wish fulfillment that we engage in including what we don't dare think about when we're awake."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I took psych at Harvard," he said, "and we studied dreams. Freudian, Jungian and sometimes just ordinary dreams."

She sighed.

"I know what you're doing but it's not true," she said, "A part of me…just forgot how foolish I felt after you played me that's all. When I woke up it all came back to me soon enough."

"What's going to happen with us once we're done with this," Julian said, "is going to change your mind about everything."

Damn, he sounded so sure of himself, how could that be when her own feelings were tangled in such a contentious knot, one that she felt in the pit of her stomach when she was around him.

"There might not be anything," she said, "I don't ever want to feel the way I did again."

He narrowed his eyes at her hearing the emotions in her voice.

"We won't…it will be much better with us than it's ever been."

She shook her head and got off the couch.

"Just forget it. I am so not going there with you. I'm going to do whatever it takes to get my life back and figure out what to do next."

"You sound sure about that?"

"I am…look you're the one who walled off parts of your life," she said, "I guess some of us were a little late to seeing the real you in action."

"I don't think so," he said, "The only wall is the one that you're trying to put up now."

She sighed, and continued walking.

"That's not true but I'm not getting into this with you," she said, "How's your investigating going?"

He looked up at her from the computer.

"While you were napping, I called my contact and he's going to meet us at the diner later on," Julian said, "Shawn did decide to come up with a hefty reward for your safe return after all."

"What did Carly have to say about that," Alexis said, "I don't imagine she was thrilled."

Julian clicked some keys on his computer.

"They've also opened up another investigation into your fiancé for two killings in Miami about six months ago."

She nodded.

"I remember…he said he had some friends there that he often stayed at to escape the rigors of the business...how could I have been so gullible?"

Julian believed she was being way too hard on herself. After all, the guy had been smooth enough to pull this identify of himself as a hardworking, blue collar business man who managed a popular diner very well. The killings were done discreetly, mostly involving members of society that not many people cared about and he had slipped away quickly enough from the scene of his jobs to get paid.

"He's under investigation in 10 cities in five states and also in Mexico, Canada and Brazil as well."

She sighed at the news.

"Wow, I wonder where he found the time for our relationship. Either time."

"The good news is that the walls are closing all around him and they'll indict him soon enough I suspect," Julian said, "I called that friend of mine with the federal prosecutors and he didn't say much but that they were looking at a list of players in a sweeping probe."

"That's vague…did he miss you at all?"

Julian just looked at her.

"I didn't ask… …we were both very busy people with mostly different agendas."

"I'm not saying anything," Alexis said, "Like I said, I envy you that...separating them all out."

He shook his head at her and then returned to his work and she went to the kitchen. She had to get away from him because her dream still lingered as did the sensations that it had generated in her body. Looking at him just then had caused her to go weak in the knees because in the dream…

She sighed, at the complexity of her life. Here she had been engaged just earlier this week, about to walk down the aisle before running off with Julian and now she had these feelings for him, that felt like they had been kept under wraps for far too long, and she didn't know how she would rein them in but knew she had to do that. She had told herself she was done with him for all his lies, the secrets he'd kept from both her and Sam just to…well it made the revelation that he was also a mobster seem not as pressing.

It was the personal betrayals that impacted her the most in her life beginning when she'd been a little girl on Cassadine Island, tucked away so the evil villains couldn't find her.

Suddenly, her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the front door. She walked out to the living room and Julian had motioned for her to be quiet. Perhaps it was a neighbor who might not pursue it further if they believed the house to be empty…so they waited.

But then came more knocks and Julian and Alexis knew then that someone already knew that the house was occupied and perhaps even by who.