by Eve Langlais
What if she stopped thinking the worst?
They walked several blocks in silence. This time of night, darkness cloaked everything, yet Adara knew no fear. Logan’s steadying, solid presence would keep the predators at bay.
After a while, they left the slums behind and entered a neighborhood that, while old, appeared well maintained. He led her up the lit walkway to one of the larger homes, a sprawling thing that looked to have started life as one type of house—a tall, two-story brick home—but had been added on to through the years, the jutting expansions at odds with the original structure. The lines didn’t quite match up; neither did the siding. The wide porch ran the front of it, the wood worn with age. It only lacked a pair of rocking chairs.
What she couldn’t picture living in this house was Logan.
“This is your house?”
Something in her tone must have sounded incredulous because he asked her suspiciously, “Why do you sound so surprised?”
“It’s just… I didn’t picture you as a picket-fence kind of guy.”
“There’re a lot of things you don’t know about me, honey.”
“Why does that sound ominous?”
His teeth flashed in the gloom. “You already know my deepest secret. From here on out, the worst thing you could find out is that I like to drink orange juice from the carton.”
“Horrifying.”
“I sometimes like to lick peanut butter from a spoon.”
A smile pulled at her lips. “Someone call the cops.”
“Speaking of cops, I have a fetish for bacon.”
“That was a wildly inappropriate leap.”
“I know.” He winked. “Just don’t tell my cousin. He’ll probably arrest me again.”
He ushered her into the house, the front door unlocked because, as he explained, “Who’d be the dumb fuck trying to steal from me?”
He flicked on light switches and dispelled the gloom. The interior, she discovered, while not new and modern, seemed extremely clean and homey looking, the parquet floors worn but straight. The rack of hooks at the door hung with sweaters and coats. Shoes were left in a pile under them.
A lot of shoes. Did he live here alone? He’d said no girlfriend or wife. What about a roommate?
He tugged her into a large living room, overcrowded with sofas. Four plus a few chairs. He must have lots of friends. Sitting her down, he left for a moment and came back with a blanket, which he tucked around her.
The kindness more than the fabric helped with the chill in her body. “Thank you,” she said, smiling shyly.
“Don’t thank me for doing the right thing, honey. Can I get you anything else? A hot drink? Food?”
The kindness assailed her, and she shook her head. “You’ve already done enough.” More than enough. He’d saved her.
She tucked her legs under her and looked around. “Doesn’t look like a pack of wolves lives here.”
“Because they don’t. It’s just me most of the time. Although I do get a lot of visitors. Part of the whole alpha deal.”
“Will your pack be mad you brought me here?”
“They don’t question my actions.”
Which skirted answering the question. She yawned, a jaw-cracking stretch that insisted on coming out.
He chuckled. “You need some sleep.”
“Not sleepy,” she lied. She didn’t want to close her eyes. What if she dreamed? What if she woke?
He stood from his crouch. “Listen, can you sit tight here for a few minutes while I make some calls? If you need anything, just holler.”
Adara nodded, amused at the way her big, bad wolf attempted to mother her. She was finding it harder and harder to assign nefarious purpose to his actions when all he seemed concerned with was her wellbeing and comfort.
She lay back on the plush couch and snuggled deeper into the blanket. She could hear the rumble of his voice from another room. Exhausted and lulled by a sense of security, she fell asleep—and dropped straight into her nightmare.
Chapter Sixteen
Heading away from Adara—resisting the urge to snuggle on the couch with her—Logan pulled his phone out of his pocket and hit the number one on his speed dial.
“I need a cleanup,” Logan said as soon as his second answered. He stood in the kitchen and resisted the urge to peer through the archway to see Adara. Apparently, it wasn’t enough that he had her in his home; his wolf wanted him in the same room, too. He fought the magnetic pull.
“Where?” Kevin knew better than to waste his time with stupid shit like asking what happened.
Logan gave him the location of Adara’s apartment. “I’m also going to need rotating pairs to watch my place.”
“Have the teenagers been acting up again? I thought you scared the piss out of them the last time they tried to jack your truck.”
“It’s not the teens.” They knew to avoid his place. “There might be trouble. So send pairs with fighting experience.”
“Trouble over what? What did you do? I hope you didn’t tell that witch on the east end to shove her broom up her arse again.”
“Not yet.” But he and Mirabel would undoubtedly clash again at some point. The woman had a complex. How was he supposed to know that the cat his wolf chased belonged to her?
“Dude, you gotta give me something because I’m dying over here.” Kevin’s curiosity over the strange demand came through clearly. While removing evidence was a common occurrence among lycanthrope packs—sometimes, a member’s wolf got out of hand—a request for protection was out of the ordinary. Not too many beings messed with established packs, especially not one as large as his. And usually, Logan was the one to mete out his brand of justice.
“In a nutshell, I’ve got something a necromancer wants.”
Kevin sucked in a breath. “Jeez, how’d you manage that?”
“I’ll tell you after you get the mess cleaned up. Come by early enough, and I’ll even make you breakfast.”
“With bacon?”
Logan’s cooking skills were well known. “And home fries.”
“You’ve got a deal. See you in a bit.”
Hanging up, Logan sighed then dialed another number.
“Calling to gloat?” answered Titus after only one ring. “I see you took the girl home with you.”
It didn’t entirely surprise Logan that Titus already knew. The vamp owned an expansive spy network. “I didn’t have much of a choice. Two more grave walkers were waiting inside her place.”
“Inside?”
“Yes. So, not a one-time thing. Someone is after her.”
Titus swore. “I assume they were taken care of and Adara unharmed?”
“She’s shaken, but doing okay. She knows what I am, though.”
“And?”
Logan could hear the unspoken question—Can she accept our differences? “She hasn’t run screaming yet,” he replied, feeling a sense of satisfaction from the small fact.
“Interesting,” said Titus pensively. “But I’m more fascinated that someone is targeting her.”
“If they want her dead, why not just have her shot or knifed in the street? Sending zombies seems a little extreme.”
“Unless they aren’t planning to kill her.”
“No necromancer is strong enough to control their bloodlust.”
“Because you have so much experience with them?” taunted Titus.
“Don’t be an asshole. If you know something, tell me.”
“What is there to tell? When it comes to necromancers, their control depends on the level of skill and power. So, while difficult, it wouldn’t be impossible. But there are easier ways to kidnap a girl if that were the purpose.”
“Why her? What makes her so special?” Logan wondered.
“That is the million-dollar question. And I am still working on it. You, on the other hand, should hang up the phone and see to her.”
“Why? She’s not in danger,” said Logan, turning around to peek through the archw
ay to see her sleeping soundly on the couch.
“Not all dangers are physical. The nightmare is upon her. I can hear her screaming. Trust me when I say you need to wake her now.”
Logan hung up and moved quickly into the living room. He stood over Adara and looked down at her. She looked so beautiful and serene with her smooth, unblemished skin, her dark lashes, and her pink mouth slightly parted. I think Titus is wrong. She looks fine. Unable to resist, he stroked a callused finger down her soft cheek.
One simple touch, the barest whisper, was all it took to draw him into her nightmare.
Chapter Seventeen
The car ride from his place to Logan’s took an eternity. During it, Titus drummed his fingers on the armrest, resisting the urge to yell at his driver to hurry. Speeding wouldn’t get them there any quicker if the police pulled them over. And he couldn’t exactly mesmerize his way out of it with today’s technology. Law enforcement personnel logged everything these days to dot their I’s and cross their T’s.
The girl had Logan with her. She wouldn’t come to any harm. Except that reassurance did nothing to stem the psychic screams plaguing Titus.
Why is she still in pain?
He’d hung up with Logan almost twenty minutes ago. Surely, he should have woken her by now. Calls to the wolf’s phone went unanswered, and the wailing continued.
Even though Titus had heard all types of shrieks and pleas in his extremely long life—some because he’d caused them—for some reason, the pain he felt from Adara touched the heart he’d thought dead. It also made him anxious and angry.
Why hasn’t Logan woken her? She’s suffering needlessly.
The mental connection between Titus and Adara had strengthened it seemed since he’d discovered her the previous eve. How strange since he had yet to taste her blood. But even without imbibing of her essence, her emotions washed over and into him, such as her fear earlier when she’d suspected—rightly—that he was using coercion on her. A vampire trick he often used on humans, usually without getting caught. However, in her case, her more-than-human status clued her in to his attempt to glamour her. Her fear of him was why he’d let her go off with the overgrown dog. He wouldn’t force her to like him. Well, not now that he knew his tricks wouldn’t work. Given that she reacted much like a skittish mare, he’d have to coax her gently. If he wished to gain her trust, he needed to do so slowly, on her terms. He looked forward to the challenge.
The screaming in his mind continued. Enough. Titus could no longer bear knowing she suffered such horrific pain that it made even him clench his teeth, even though he experienced it secondhand.
The car pulled to a stop, and he was out the door, striding toward the house. His senses prickled as he felt eyes watching. None of them human, drawn by the keening cries and yet none venturing to see what or why.
He stalked up the steps to the front door. He didn’t bother knocking. He let himself in, twisting the knob hard and snapping the lock. For those who believed vampiric legends that his kind could only enter by invitation: surprise! The stories were completely bogus. The rumor of their supposed restriction was initially circulated by vamps to give the humans a sense of security, a false one, but they didn’t know that.
“Logan,” Titus called out, trying to warn him that he’d entered. The last thing he needed was for the mutt to pull a guard dog pounce on him.
No reply. But the screaming continued.
Moving from the entrance through the first opening he found, Titus discovered the wolf kneeling beside Adara, his face slack-jawed, his eyes wide and horror-stricken.
“Logan?” Titus halted at the sight of the strange tableau. He snapped his fingers in front of the man’s eyes. Nothing. Not even a blink.
He noticed that Logan’s hand rested lightly on Adara’s cheek. Was the skin-to-skin contact how she’d drawn him into her nightmare? It seemed farfetched. After all, lycanthropes weren’t known for their psychic abilities. Yet, there was no mistaking that, while Logan lived, he definitely wasn’t present.
Just how strong was the nightmare—and Adara?
Titus felt a rare thing: trepidation. The situation would require that he tread carefully. If she had the power to draw a shifter of Logan’s strength in—alphas were notoriously immune to most types of magic—then the possibility existed that Titus might inadvertently find himself caught, too. Trapped in her mind, unable to escape.
I could walk away. Leave them to their unpleasant dream.
It smacked of cowardice.
And I am not a yellow-bellied cur.
Sigh.
Since it appeared as if skin-to-skin contact was the conduit, Titus removed a leather glove from his pocket and encased his hand—people long dead should always show care before leaving fingerprints behind. He braced his mind—just in case the leather layer wasn’t enough—before grabbing Logan’s hand and moving it away from Adara. The glove provided the buffer needed, and Titus breathed a sigh of relief when he avoided becoming drawn into her nightmare.
Contact broken, Logan snapped out of the trance quickly, but not before he let out an unearthly howl, the sound chilling in its misery.
A shiver went down Titus’s spine, not something he’d often felt the last few centuries. “Quiet, dog. We don’t wish the neighbors to get involved, do we?” said Titus sternly, trying to hide his own shaken state. What had Logan seen or felt to make a fearless warrior like him howl so mournfully?
Eyes wide and wild, Logan shook his head as if trying to clear the lingering effects of the nightmare. “What the fuck happened?”
“You tell me. When I came in, you were drooling and catatonic.”
Logan peered at him with confusion and then looked sideways at Adara. His lips drew tight. “Last thing I recall, I touched her. Then, bam. Next thing I knew, I was in some weird place. And the pain. Holy fuck, the pain.” Logan shivered. “I felt it even though it wasn’t mine.” His gaze softened as he stared at Adara. His hand lifted to brush her skin, but Titus snatched it.
“Idiot. Do you want to return to her nightmare?”
Logan’s expression turned stiff. “No. Fuck. It’s like I can’t help myself. As if she calls to me.” His hand hovered before getting tucked behind his back. “What the hell is happening here?”
“A good question that we will have to answer later. I need to wake her. She’s still caught in her nightmare.” Titus braced himself and placed his gloved hand on her, feeling relief when she didn’t capture his mind. “Adara,” he crooned softly. “You need to wake, dearest.”
But Adara remained unmoving, the only visible sign of her pain the quiver of her lips, and the twitch of her lashes. She seemed almost peaceful. In his mind, though, she still screamed quite loudly, and this close to her, Titus caught an echo of the pain she radiated.
As if sensing it caught his attention, the echo intensified. The agony almost dropped him to his knees.
“Adara, you must wake.” Titus shook her and tried to reach her with a psychic whisper, but his mental push ran against a stone wall behind which the misery continued, a desolation he couldn’t bear to feel. He had to help her.
“What’s wrong with her? Why isn’t she waking up?” asked Logan as he paced behind Titus.
“I’m not sure. This nightmare of hers has magic mixed into it.”
“Magic?” Logan made a disparaging sound. “I fucking hate that freaky-ass shit.”
“And yet your change is based in part on magic.”
“It’s not a spell or anything, not like this,” Logan said with a wave of his hand. “How do you fight a dream?”
“I don’t know.” Which wasn’t something Titus liked to admit.
“Do you at least know how we can wake her?”
“Yes.” But Titus didn’t like the answer. “I think I might have to touch her and be drawn into her nightmare in order to wake her up.”
Logan looked at him with haunted eyes. “You’re bloody crazy. I don’t remember what the fuck I saw or exper
ienced, but I can tell you this: it fucking hurt. Surely, there’s another way.”
Pain that could make a werewolf cringe, definitely nothing to scoff at. But Titus couldn’t listen to her mental anguish anymore. Besides, in his life, Titus had endured torment. It wasn’t new, just unpleasant. How much worse can it get?
Peeling off his glove, and before he could change his mind, Titus touched her.
The room, the couch, and even Adara disappeared, instantly replaced by a swirling gray mist, the motes of it dry and light. A brief observation before the pain hit. Unbelievable, mind-shattering pain that made a lie of his previous assertion. It could get worse.
Titus staggered under the weight of the agony. Her anguish. How does she bear this nightly and stay sane? Titus now understood where her fear came from. Why she appeared so timid at times. A curse such as this would batter down even the strongest. And Titus would know. In his past, he’d experienced his share of torture and pain. He’d suffered for decades before his mind learned to deal with it. Those lessons never left.
Breathing deeply, Titus stood tall against the crushing weight of her torment. He grimaced and clenched his teeth as he fought back against the suffering. He would not let it control him again.
A cry came from the murk around him. Pushing the agony that battered at him in waves to a spot in the back of his consciousness, Titus took a step into the gray mist that swirled around him, fingers of fog that wrapped his body with an icy touch.
“Adara,” he called.
No reply, not that he’d really expected one. “Adara, you need to wake up.”
The answer to his softly spoken demand came as a piercing shriek, “Nooooo!” A loud sound that echoed all around him and made him shiver.
Titus whirled, searching for some kind of direction, but the fog hid her, or, should he say, her mind shielded her. If this were a dream, then, perhaps, since Titus shared it, he could manipulate it.
Closing his eyes, he imagined a strong wind blowing, the stiff kind that usually arrived in the fall and scattered leaves from the trees. His hair ruffled as a gust blew out of nowhere, parting the mists and revealing a barren landscape, the ground of it like smooth, dark rock, empty of all except a crumpled form that shook and sobbed.