Circle of Dreams (The Quytel Series Book 1)

by Jane S. Morrissey

  He needed to harden himself to her otherworldly effect on him. He’d never been so attracted to a woman that he thought about compromising his team and his freedom. She was no innocent and he couldn’t deny the mystical connection between them now.

  The car finally stopped, and his body breathed a sigh of relief. He’d lost their location a while ago. Given the darkened sky, he figured they must be well into Canada by now. The moon glowed brightly, and from his vantage point in the backseat, he caught sight of an old two-story farmhouse built into the hillside.

  “I’ll make sure the house is secure,” the man rumbled. “Stay here. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  The flash of the dome light was momentarily blinding, before the interior was plunged once more into darkness as the door closed behind him.

  Bri turned around. “Look, I’m sorry . . .”

  He didn’t trust the pearl and didn’t trust a thing about why he was there, but damn, her voice was like music singing in his veins.

  “Why am I apologizing anyway?” Her eyes suddenly flashed in the darkened interior of the car, shifting like quicksilver. “I don’t know who you are or why you were in my house.”

  She was right. And how would she react once she discovered his true nature?

  In the past he’d only been close enough to one woman to share his secret, and he almost had. She’d ultimately cheated on him. In the end, he’d felt lucky to have escaped with his identity concealed, although it had taken his heart far too long to heal.

  “So who’s the guy?” He surprised himself with the question. He didn’t care for the bitter tinge of jealousy on his tongue. Whatever supernatural spell drew him to the beautiful Bri, it was a hell of a potent thing.

  “Mack.” Bri supplied his name, hesitating. “It’s complicated . . .”

  “I’ll bet it is,” Cole muttered under his breath, flinching as he attempted to move. His arms had long since gone numb and his head throbbed a steady tempo to the beat of his heart.

  Wisps of Bri’s long blond hair framed her face, the rest still contained in a thick braid. Clear green eyes met his.

  “You were saying, about Mack,” he prompted.

  “He’s my father’s bodyguard and has been around . . . kind of all my life. He’s essentially an uncle . . .” Bri started, her glance darting away when Mack opened the rear door.

  She met the man’s steady glare over the seat. “Let’s get inside,” she said quickly, jumping out of the car.

  Cole wondered what kind of power this honorary ‘uncle’ had over her.

  Mack leaned in to the backseat to unfasten the belts holding Cole in place. “Have a comfortable ride?” he asked, his voice mocking.

  Cole didn’t bother to respond. Instead he kept his eyes steady on the man. Though he wondered whether he would be able to stand on his own, because he couldn’t feel his legs at this point. He didn’t have to worry long. Mack simply hauled him out of the backseat and tossed him over one shoulder as though he weighed nothing at all. Cole resisted a growl of pain as his body protested the shock of a new position.

  The wolf roared to tear his way free. He calmed the beast and breathed out the rush of pain into the earth. Biding his time, he’d gather information and wait for the right moment to escape.

  Hanging upside down with his hands still bound, Cole caught glimpses of the dirt road they’d traveled, protected by a dense forest of trees, dim in the twilight of the fading evening. By the thin, yet crisp and fresh air, they were in the mountains, probably no one around for miles. He savored the forest calling to him to run free, to play, to hunt as he was meant to.

  Breathing the night air deep into his lungs, he pushed past the pins and needles shooting through his limbs as feeling returned.

  Cole surveyed the small bedroom which served as his holding cell. No longer restrained, he could walk around freely although the room was completely secure. Not that it really mattered. He had no immediate plans to leave.

  Gazing out at the beauty of the night and the starlight glancing off treetops, he stretched his long limbs just to feel sensation bursting through them. He wasn’t sure how long he could hold the wolf in check when its every instinct demanded it fight for freedom. Being around Mack and Bri wrought havoc on his carefully cultivated control.

  His team would be searching for him. If anyone could track him, it would be Nathanial and Maliha. He needed to make sure it would be safe to risk a rescue. And he needed information. He’d caught bits and pieces of Bri’s conversation with Mack, enough to know she had a difficult relationship with her father, and Mack didn’t particularly care for her chosen profession. She’d written about his case, but that wouldn’t likely prompt a kidnapping attempt. Maybe the father’s business? He was wealthy and could have gotten involved in something shady.

  The pieces just weren’t fitting together.

  The door creaked open, the room’s threshold filled with Mack’s large form. The man was a tall hulk of solid muscle. His sharp, angular features reminded Cole of a hawk. Power clung to him.

  “Ready to talk?” Mack’s voice, deep and threatening, grated on his already raw nerves. The wolf raised its head in challenge, and Cole felt the snarl and snap of teeth deep in his soul. This whole situation, the last forty-eight hours, had shaken him in a way few things had over the years.

  Cole turned to face his captor, finding himself instantly drawn to Bri’s smaller form as she slipped into the room behind Mack. Desire settled in his gut. The pearl, his constant companion now, throbbed and glowed with his body’s growing need for her. If the plan included using her as a way of torturing him for information, it might work.

  “Let’s go.” Mack grabbed one of his arms, not bothering with the cuffs this time. Maybe he was trading on the fact Cole wouldn’t hurt Bri, or maybe Mack really was as badass as he appeared to be and didn’t think Cole posed much of a threat. He couldn’t wait to prove the bastard wrong.

  Mack pushed him forward down the wide hallway, his shoes clicking against the hardwood floor. Cole eyed the expensive-looking art lining the walls, very aware of Bri trailing behind him.

  He’d noticed the flush on her face and the scent of her heightened desire when she’d entered the room. It teased his senses. His guard dropped a little more. Appalled, Cole realized he reacted to her as though she were an animal in heat. The wolf snarled and pawed the ground.

  Patience, old friend. We need to keep it together for a while longer.

  They brought him to a room at the end of the hallway, a typical interrogation room if such a thing existed outside of the movies. Stark, no windows, two chairs, and a bright overhead light. They knew what they were doing.

  “Have a seat.” Mack shoved him into a chair, then stepped more fully into the room and gestured for Bri to settle along the back wall near the open door.

  Good, she could make a quick escape if she needed to. Not that she could hide from him. Cole had her scent and the pearl. He’d be able to find her anywhere.

  Cole waited, his patience wearing thin. He wanted to know what the hell was going on, and he had to take advantage of their complacency while he could. He might not be unbound and in an unlocked room again anytime soon.

  “Cole Courtland.” Mack turned one of the chairs around and straddled it in one motion, resting beefy arms along the back. “We’ve been monitoring you and your team for a while now. We know about your sister too. Why don’t you start talking and make this easy on all of us.”

  Desire evaporated as fear spiraled through Cole at the thought of Mali in danger, of their secrets exposed. He held out hope that Mack only knew their cover story-an elite psychic team, efficient and clean, rarely leaving collateral damage behind. They chose their loyalties and contracts with care.

  Few knew they had psychic abilities, and no one outside of their team
knew about the wolves. Cole took a deep breath and reached for his center, for his connection to the earth, allowing his fear for Maliha to wash over him, through him. Calming the beast, he focused on the man in front of him.

  Mack still hadn’t bothered to tie him up, the arrogant bastard.

  “We can do this the easy way.” Mack leaned forward. “Or the hard way. And believe me I’ve had a hell of a lot of practice. I can make it very hard.”

  “Mack,” Bri protested from the back of the room, her hand going to her throat.

  “Leave it alone, Bri.” Mack’s voice was cold and commanding. His eyes never left Cole’s face.

  “Is this really necessary?” she persisted.

  The wolf rose. Cole wanted to warn her, but his throat constricted on a low growl.

  “Bri!” Mack gestured for her to shut up.

  And Cole snapped. A red haze settled deep in his gut, and the wolf roared to the surface. Man and beast embraced the change. Thought flowed into pure sensation, two halves reaching for each other in the moment of the shift. Bones popped and his face lengthened into a muzzle. He didn’t have time to rip off his clothes. They shredded as black fur streaked with silver replaced his skin. Sharp teeth filled his mouth, and a snarl burst from within.

  With blurring speed, Cole launched into the air, going for Mack’s throat.

  Bri froze as the scene in front of her played out, a horror film of snarls reverberating in the room. An enormous wolf appeared where Cole had been sitting only seconds earlier. In the next breath, he leapt across the room in full attack.

  She couldn’t move or think. Her brain couldn’t process the impossible. Mack was about to be mauled by a beast, which meant she was next.

  Out of nowhere, Mack’s hand appeared like lightning, blocking the mass of fur and teeth flying straight for his neck. The wolf latched onto his forearm, teeth sinking all the way to bone. She heard the sickening crunch and winced.

  Blood gushed from the wounds, but no hint of pain crossed Mack’s face. Instead, fury lit his eyes, and he grabbed the wolf’s neck. With enormous strength, he ripped his mangled arm free. Pieces of flesh scattered as the animal flew across the room, hitting the wall with a hard thud. Bri flinched and tried to convince her feet to move, but she stood rooted to the floor, afraid to even blink.

  The wolf landed in a crouch. Hackles raised, its snarls blasted through the room.

  Mack moved so quickly he was a blur. No mercy. He simply backhanded the wolf across the muzzle, knocking him flat.

  The metallic smell of blood filled Bri’s nostrils, and her stomach heaved. Unable to tear her eyes away from the fallen wolf, her brain tried desperately to process what she’d just seen. A man had become an animal right in front of her, in less time than the beat of a heart. The black and silver wolf was huge, motionless on the floor, yet still wild and dangerous.

  And Mack? No one moved that fast. Ordinary people didn’t go around slapping wolves. The beast had to weigh well over two hundred pounds, and Mack’s backhand had sent him flying clear across the room.

  “Mack.” Bri took a step in his direction. He halted her with a single flick of his uninjured hand.

  “He’s still moving.” Mack’s attention focused on the downed animal. “He should have been knocked out completely by the shock I gave him. Don’t come any closer.”

  Shock?

  Bri watched in fascinated silence as the animal twitched, fur receding into skin, face morphing back into the chiseled features of a gorgeous man. He lay on his side, which didn’t hide his six-pack abs, muscular arms and legs, or anything else.

  She couldn’t help being distracted by Cole’s body. Scraps of his clothing had shredded and lay scattered on the floor around them. She blinked. Did that honestly just happen?

  “Bri, go get a bandage for my arm from the hall closet, and some clothes for him,” Mack ordered quietly.

  She hesitated to leave the room, afraid if she looked away the world would change again in ways she wouldn’t be able to make sense of.

  “Go.” Mack’s voice was soft, insistent, and not what she had expected, given Cole had just tried to kill him. “I’ll make sure he’s okay.”

  While she could function, Bri rushed from the room to get the bandages and clothing.

  Out in the hallway, she pressed herself against the wall of her childhood home away from home, watching the scene replay in her mind. Mack’s voice had been cold, menacing when he’d started the interrogation. As a bodyguard, she knew he could be deadly when necessary, and to him Cole was definitely a threat. After what they’d seen, he was probably right.

  Cole’s shift had been surreal, fantastical, and frightening. Her heart pounded. He’d been vicious. Fear warred with a stab of intense desire. Her treacherous body came alive with wild passion she’d never experienced before, and had even thrilled in a way difficult to differentiate from panic when he’d broken free. He’d viciously bitten Mack, her family. That alone should have made her distrustful; plus he wasn’t human. She should want nothing to do with him.

  Yet she did.

  There was something deeply wrong with her. Mack would certainly say so. Cole had somehow connected with her in the darkness of her worst nightmare and had brought her body to life in a way no one else ever had. Bri shook it off. She didn’t believe in the paranormal. Everything had a rational explanation. Everything.

  How could she explain what she’d seen? Cole had turned into a wolf. She didn’t imagine it. And Mack? Her mind must have played tricks on her. He’d moved too fast and had fully acknowledged he’d shocked the wolf. She’d known Mack almost her entire life, and . . .

  And physically he didn’t look any different from when she was a child.

  Bri paused, clutching towels and a first-aid kit. Her mind turned the information over a few times. He really hadn’t aged. She’d known him for twenty-five years, and he didn’t have a gray hair on his head, no wrinkles on his face. Neither did Jonah for that matter. They both appeared to be about her age. Why had she not noticed before?

  Her skin suddenly felt clammy, and the ringing in her ears had returned.

  Bri gave her head a shake to try to clear it. The door to the room, where Mack and Cole had engaged in their bizarre battle, loomed large. Reality was out here in the hallway, normal and predictable.

  She inhaled deeply and stepped across the threshold.

  Covered in a thin blanket, Cole’s limp body lay in a bed in the adjacent room. Bri’s pulse thundered just looking at him. Heat built low and deep, and she fought a blush. She focused on Mack to distract her.

  “Let me see your arm,” she insisted, pulling out the first-aid kit. They both remained silent while Bri cleaned his wounds. The bites were deep, but the blood had already stopped flowing.

  “Mack?” Her hand shook as she pressed sterile gauze to his wound, which seemed to be healing on its own. She couldn’t look at him. “Your bone should be broken. You should be losing a lot of blood right now.”

  A humorless smile touched his lips. “Well, I’m glad I’m not.”

  She dropped his arm. “You think this is a joke?”

  He grabbed her icy, shaking hand, his palm warm and rock steady as always. A strange paralysis seemed to take over her mind and body, and her unfocused gaze strayed to Cole. He appeared peaceful now in slumber, his bare muscular torso and abdomen exposed.

  “Have you ever seen anything so amazing?” She finally looked up into Mack’s unnaturally gold eyes.

  “Bri, I’m going to tell you something and it will be hard to hear,” he offered. “I want you to keep an open mind.”

  She swallowed and nodded. For some reason she was more afraid of what she was about to hear than she could almost bear.

  “There are many forces at work in this world. Magic, the paranormal,
people with psychic abilities,” he began, then paused as if waiting for her to catch up, proving he knew her well.

  “Go on.” If she hadn’t just seen a man turn into a wolf, she would have laughed at the ridiculousness of his statement. He remained stone-faced, serious.

  “Shape-shifters used to be more plentiful in the world, living in packs, every animal you can imagine,” Mack explained, his tone matter-of-fact, as though she’d already accepted the truth of their existence. “Packs were like families, close, insular, and protective of their own.”

  He paused and glanced over at Cole. “I honestly didn’t know he was a shifter. They don’t live outside of their pack as a rule, especially these days. It’s too risky. They aren’t human. They would be killed, and in fact most of them have been by now.”

  Bri saw his mouth move, heard the words he spoke, and knew she understood each one, just not the way he spun them together.

  “He’s one of the rare shifters with psychic ability,” he continued. “His sister has considerable psychic talent as well. Their whole team does. We’ve been monitoring them for a while now and found no evidence of a pack anywhere near them.” He held her gaze as he added, “They’re private investigators. People or companies with a lot of money hire them. They’ve been investigating the psychic deaths you’ve been reporting on, and they got too close.”

  She stared at Mack as her world spun right off its axis. She tugged on her hand, and he let go.

  “How do you know all of this?” she managed to ask, although her voice came out somewhere between a whisper and a squeak.

  “I’m not without my own talent, Bri,” he told her gently.