Awake in Shadows

by Eve Langlais

  One day, she’d march over to Logan and toss a collar around his big, shaggy neck and bring him to her next appointment with her psychiatrist. Find out once and for all who imagined things.

  Because perhaps she was crazy. Vampires and werewolves and demons didn’t exist.

  Yes, they do. Even on medication, Adara recognized what was real and what wasn’t.

  Demons did exist, and everything she dreamt had happened.

  I used to be a different me.

  Still playing around in her dream world, Adara dropped the flower and watched it flutter past her legs to her feet covered in supple leather, the material a gray so light it was almost white. Since this was before the battle in the woods, her leggings remained clean.

  In the real world, Adara wouldn’t wear white, and she stuck to jeans and baggy sweaters. She also kept her dark hair just past her shoulders. In the dream, she had utterly impractical, waist-length platinum tresses.

  I was told more than once I should cut it short. Yet it is my vanity. I’d rather wake earlier than the rest to braid it than sheer it off.

  But she didn’t have it braided in the dream. She wore it loose—because that was how he liked it.

  Outside the dream, Adara now had a token of that platinum streaking her dark hair. A gift from her time with the necromancer. Nasty fellow thought he could use Adara for evil purposes.

  He failed.

  I survived him. Barely.

  But the necromancer didn’t give her nightmares, and he wasn’t why she was visiting the field. Adara was here to take control as Dr. Bevin suggested.

  “It’s your nightmare. You don’t have to let it run its course. Think of it as a television show, and you hold the remote. Pause it. Rewind. Or hit stop.”

  Adara took those words to heart. She began to examine her dream for clues. Somewhere inside her head, the secrets of her past hid. It was up to Adara to find them.

  Knowing she could pause and rewind was how Adara could walk into the demon battle without fear now. She decided when that fight stopped. Some nights, she didn’t relive that moment at all.

  This is my dream. And she wanted to explore it.

  Standing in the field, she made a conscious decision to turn away from the woods and travel in the opposite direction. She moved, with her extended stride, towards a strange hillside. Farther than it looked. She walked what seemed like a long time to reach it.

  Once she arrived, she craned to take it all in. The hill this close proved to be more mountain and almost sheer. Yet, rather than a rocky surface, the expanse hosted a messy mass of vines. The thickness of the branches varied from thin tendril to thicker than her arm, which she might add wasn’t tiny. In her dream, her biceps bore a bit of brawn.

  I must work out.

  The vines were naked. No leaves clung to the brown stalks. Not a single bloom provided a spot of color.

  As she approached the tangled wall, a sense of caution filled her.

  Don’t touch these. They’re dangerous.

  Did they have poisoned thorns? She saw no knobby protuberances. She moved cautiously towards them, noting how the grass ended several paces before the vine wall, the bare layer of it lumpy and covered in a thin, spongy lichen.

  She took a cautious step onto a mound. It crunched, and she glanced at her foot. Registered the sight of the yellowed bone of a skull.

  Further inspection of the ground showed some of the lumps also poked with bones, distinct femurs and radiuses. Some still knobbed at the end, others jagged splinters.

  This entire strip before the wall appeared to be a graveyard—and not a voluntary one.

  What killed them?

  She stared upward at the vines and wondered. She reached down and grabbed a chunk of bone. She pulled back her arm before launching it.

  The makeshift missile soared and hit the vine wall. For a second, nothing. The bone bounced off and began to fall.

  It was snatched midair! The vine squeezed the shard of bone, cracked it in two, and then released it. It fell to the ground in a clatter. She imagined it wouldn’t be long before the lichen covered it, too.

  Given she wasn’t keen on having her own bones crushed, she wouldn’t be climbing to see the other side of the mountain in this dream.

  She sighed. Another failure to leave the damnable field.

  Each time she tried, she ran into a different obstacle. An ocean with no boat. A ravine that couldn’t be spanned.

  Dr. Bevin said it was her mind trying to keep her from a difficult truth.

  Adara had a different opinion. Magic.

  Someone had purposely kept those memories from her. The Forsaken have no past. No future.

  The ghostly claim didn’t sway her. She would get them back.

  Already, she was stronger and remembered more. She had the ability to change the course of her dreams. Which was more than she used to be able to do.

  The first few times she’d tried not to enter the woods, she’d pivoted to see only a thick mist. A mist she couldn’t ever escape. It always led back to the same spot in the field.

  More than once, she’d screamed her frustration to a violet-hued, uncaring sky.

  But she didn’t stop trying, and the nightmare weakened. No longer could it drag her into the fight and the torture after. If she fought, it was because she wanted to. But she never went past that moment. Not even for information.

  No one should ever have to relive the torture she’d endured.

  Tossing another chunk of bone, which the vine caught quickly and turned into dust, she growled, “One day, I will find out who I am.”

  A warm breeze brushed past her cheek, whispering, “It’s best if you forget, for you are forsaken.”

  Her chin lifted. “Maybe, but I won’t be forgotten.”

  Someone had done this to her.

  Perhaps the person she’d gone to meet that fateful day in the field. Who did she go to meet? She had yet to see a face.

  Dr. Bevin theorized she’d been on her way to meet a lover.

  “Maybe that lover is who put you in the hospital,” the doctor had suggested.

  What lover would betray by setting an ambush with demons? “Why would I have to go out of my way to meet a lover?” was her reply.

  “Forbidden love. It still exists in this day and age.”

  Words that resonated. Made her wonder if Dr. Bevin weren’t on to something. Maybe Adara had forgotten someone important in her past.

  Someone who’d left her scarred and frightened by intimacy. Love hurt. About the only thing she could say with certainty.

  That was part of the reason she shoved Logan and Titus away, two men determined to care for Adara. Care for someone who was broken. They shouldn’t have wasted their time.

  Yet, time and again, they came to her rescue. When they saved her from death after the necromancer, they’d even shared their blood with her.

  Shared their monster essence.

  And they wondered why she was angry. What have they done to me?

  When she told Dr. Bevin that Logan and Titus had given her blood, dripped it into her mouth and wounds to save her life, the doctor—her eyes blinking in astonishment—exclaimed, after freaking at their actions, “Please tell me you got your blood tested.”

  Dr. Bevin meant tested for disease. She didn’t understand that they’d done something worse. Not only did Adara have monster blood running through her veins now, they’d also bound her to them.

  Bound her very spirit. Even now, she could feel a connection, a tie linking them together. They were inside her. Listening to her. Knowing how she felt. Where she was. Seeing things she didn’t want to share.

  She hated that feeling. This is my body.

  She wanted them out.

  Adara yelled to the sky, still in the dream world with someone else’s body, but it was her own voice. It boomed from her thicker, taller dream self. A far cry from the real world.

  At least she no longer appeared emaciated. She now managed to eat r
egular meals. The women’s shelter that had helped her find a job and get off the streets offered her a meal every evening. She just couldn’t sleep there. Too many women, their eyes haunted by their own misery. Adara found other accommodations.

  Thinking of food brought a craving for some. Dream Adara’s stomach rumbled as a bell began to chime. Her morning alarm. Time to get up for work.

  Her eyes popped open, and for a moment, she stared at the ceiling. Open beams and plywood overhead, the panel of one dark and stained from an old leak.

  She sat up in her bed. Although, bed might be a misnomer. More of a nest, comprised of two sleeping bags, one layered atop the other to provide a slim cushion for her body.

  The church basement she’d chosen to squat in did have an old mattress propped in the corner. However, Adara couldn’t stand the smell of it, and as for the brown stain…

  She ignored it and chose the floor instead.

  The accommodations were sparse but safe. Located in a church basement, it provided a good place to hide given the pastor and his volunteers only ever came down here a few times a year to drag out dusty ornaments for Christmas and Easter. It was October, so plenty of time before she had to worry about being discovered.

  Stretching, she rose from her makeshift bed and headed for the far corner where an old sink hung on the wall beside an even older toilet on a pedestal. Why someone had bothered putting plumbing down here, she couldn’t fathom, but it worked, and that was all that mattered.

  The irritation at once again failing to rewind her dream faded as she splashed water on her face. No mirror to stare at her reflection. On purpose. She’d torn it off because she couldn’t stand not recognizing the person she saw. It didn’t help that real-world Adara didn’t resemble at all the dream version. Which represented the true her?

  Maybe neither.

  Washing with the cold water and promising herself a hot shower at the local YMCA later, she layered on some clothes and prepared to head to her job.

  Apparently, having recently been the victim of a necromancer, as well as having amnesia, didn’t mean squat when it came to putting food in her belly. A girl had to work if she wanted to eat. The one meal a day at the shelter wasn’t enough.

  She pulled the broom out of the handles for the two barn doors leaving the cellar. Her version of a safety lock. Opening the door a crack, she took a quick peek before emerging. She couldn’t lock it behind her, not without screwing herself, but, thus far, it hadn’t proven an issue.

  What was an issue was the Dunkin Donuts bag sitting on the ground along with a Styrofoam cup. Still hot.

  Just like the pastries in the bag were fresh.

  Someone kept leaving her treats. She should have turned her nose up at them, but a hungry tummy didn’t care who was trying to get in her good graces.

  Especially since she knew who was responsible. Logan, who—when he wasn’t barking at cats—was a handsomely rugged guy.

  As she tore into the donuts, the powdered sugar sticking to her lips and requiring a lick, she wondered if he watched. In the morning light, she couldn’t spot green eyes in the alley, nor did her nape tickle. However, she had a sense he lingered nearby.

  She didn’t feel Titus, however—her other wanna-be guardian. With the sun already risen, the vampire would be ensconced in a dark hidey hole, waiting for that vicious daylight to disappear.

  But that didn’t mean he didn’t manage his fair share of stalking.

  She knew Titus also watched her, and like Logan, he knew better than to interfere when she went hunting.

  Hunting for what, you might wonder?

  Evil.

  Don’t think she was some kind of altruistic crusader. Adara didn’t go seeking the forces of darkness to make the world a better place. Screw the world. She didn’t owe it anything. She went searching for answers.

  When she told Dr. Bevin during their last session about tracking down demons, the doctor had mistaken it for something else.

  “Perhaps it’s best you leave the demons of your old life behind. You could get hurt, and what will it accomplish? You already said the police can do nothing.”

  Because the good doctor was convinced Adara spoke of a gang. A human crew.

  If only it were that simple.

  Adara sipped at her hot beverage as she headed for work. The warehouse position she’d scored, picking items and packing them for online orders. It didn’t prove much of a challenge, but she welcomed it because it required no thought. She worked five days a week from seven a.m. until three o’clock. At four p.m. every Tuesday and Thursday, she saw her shrink—and wondered each time anew if she were actually crazy.

  Chapter Two

  This is crazy.

  Logan understood his actions crossed all kinds of lines, and yet that didn’t stop him from standing vigil over Adara.

  The inward snort of his other half made him amend that to stalking her because of his obsession.

  What could he say? Wolves, even the Lycan type, were much like dogs in that they could get attached to one person.

  She was his person.

  A fact his wolf had howled during the last moon outside the church. Totally emasculating.

  Yet that didn’t mean Logan could stop himself.

  Daytime, when she worked at that warehouse, was about the only time he wasn’t hounding Adara. When the sun shone, the monsters that might cause her harm were tucked away. He took those few hours to attend to other things such as showering, feeding himself, and managing his pack. The joys of being the alpha werewolf.

  An alpha who’d neglected his pack of late.

  A good thing his second in command could hold shit together. Kevin made the perfect beta. The guy knew how to get things done. Had enough furry balls to keep the members in line, and he felt comfortable enough to give Logan hell when he walked in the door.

  Dressed in a plaid shirt and jeans, Kevin wandered out of Logan’s kitchen. “Out all night again?” No missing the rebuke in his tone. Kevin regarded him from under a hank of dirty blond hair that matched the color of his beard. His brown eyes snapped with irritation.

  “What’s it matter to you what I do?” Logan asked, hanging up his knapsack that he used to stash his clothes for when he turned wolf.

  “What matters is you’ve not been around much of late.”

  “I’ve been busy.” Busy trying to find a way to get close to a woman determined to push him away. He didn’t know how to stop even as he recognized that his actions were wrong.

  Stalking was bad. Especially since Adara wanted fuck all to do with him. She’d made it clear. If this were a pack member pulling this shit with a woman, he’d kill ‘em. Knowing that didn’t stop Logan. He’d be watching outside that warehouse before she left for the day.

  Because Adara needs me.

  The lie he told himself because the truth was, she could take care of herself.

  When she’d run from him the night the necromancer injured her badly, he’d worried and chased after her.

  Didn’t find her, though. Somehow, a woman oozing fear and pain and anger had managed to erase her trail. His keen nose couldn’t track her and, somehow, during those first few days, she’d even stifled the blood tie between them.

  After almost a week of looking, when he finally felt that tickle, a sense of awareness not his own, he followed it. Found Adara doing just fine on her own. She’d hooked up with a women’s shelter. Found a job.

  Then moved into that ridiculous basement in the church. A dump compared to what she deserved, but she wouldn’t take help from him or Titus. She wanted to handle her life and shit on her own.

  She’d made that very clear. So why did he keep following her around?

  “You gotta let her go.” Kevin’s tone was serious.

  “It’s not that simple.” How to explain that he’d accidentally claimed her. He’d not known what would happen when he gave her his blood and the bite. Seeing her dying, bleeding, her pulse so weak, he’d panicked. He’d done th
e only thing he could think of to save her life.

  Titus did, too. A Lycan and vampire bite all at once. No wonder she’d freaked and wanted nothing to do with them.

  What had they done to her?

  Kevin slashed a hand through the air. “I don’t give a damn if it’s complicated. You need to simplify it. There are some in the pack grumbling.”

  “Let them. I’m pretty sure they can handle their own petty squabbles for a while.”

  “I wouldn’t call Tommie smacking Betty-Sue petty.”

  Logan gave Kevin a sharp look. “Are you implying I’m at fault for him being an asshole?”

  “No.”

  “I should hope not. And I don’t see why you’re even mentioning it because, way I heard it, Betty-Sue taught Tommie a good lesson on why you shouldn’t pick on a girl who grew up with four larger brothers.”

  “It shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Our feistier pups are starting to go a little wild without a firm hand keeping them in check.”

  “Then I suggest you apply that hand. You are my second. Or is that a position in title only, without action?” Logan’s low tone took on a quiet menace. He wasn’t exactly being fair to Kevin. He of all people knew how hard it could be to manage a pack.

  Kevin scowled. “I have been keeping the peace, but I’m not the alpha of this pack, you are.”

  “Then obey me, dammit!” Logan roared, his eyes flashing with his temper. He never even realized his hand had gripped Kevin by the throat until he blinked and saw he’d clamped his beta against the wall. Since he couldn’t exactly pretend it hadn’t happened, he added words to his actions. Harsh words. “I understand you’re feeling a bit neglected, but for fuck’s sake, deal with it.”

  Rather than bow, Kevin snarled. “How about you deal with it? Since you feel a need to have your nose up her arse, why not bring the damned woman back here so you can yell at the pack yourself and maybe get a better attitude sleeping in a bed instead of the street.”