Circle of Dreams (The Quytel Series Book 1)

by Jane S. Morrissey

  She stood, stumbled, and backed away, numb. Crossing her arms over her chest, Bri faced a man she thought she knew. “So, there are psychics and shape-shifters. Werewolves?”

  “Did you forget what you saw?” he reminded her patiently. “A man turned into a wolf, and not just any man, but one who appeared in your dream. How do you imagine he did that?” He pointed to the man cuffed to the reinforced steel bed along the wall.

  Her mind ground to a halt, reality colliding with what she’d seen and sensed in her dream. Mouth dry, she whispered, “Do you think it will really stop him if he shifts again?”

  “I’ve magically reinforced it,” he explained. “He won’t be able to shift unless he’s unbound from these cuffs.”

  Bri’s sudden bark of laughter surprised them both. “Magic?”

  Mack raised an eyebrow, and she lifted her palms in acquiescence. “Right. I’m sorry. Magic. Go on.” She pressed a hand against her churning stomach.

  “We need to figure out who’s behind this. It’s a rare talent to be able to enter the dreams of another.”

  “Of course it is,” she retorted, exasperated. “Mack, do you have any idea how crazy all of this sounds? I don’t believe in magic or psychic power or people who turn into animals. I don’t.”

  Mack suddenly disappeared. One moment he stood there, and the next he was gone. Bri grew dizzy, almost nauseous. Then, he reappeared before her in a flash, all six and a half feet of muscle and power back in its place.

  “What . . . what are you?” She edged away, temples pounding, heart racing.

  He simply replied, “We’re Quytel. We are charged with maintaining the balance of power on earth by protecting and policing people with psychic and paranormal abilities.”

  “On earth?” Bri’s head really started spinning. “Implying there are other planets people live on? Aliens, Mack? This is too much.”

  “It’s true, although the beings who live there aren’t technically human,” he mused.

  “You . . . you aren’t human, are you?” But she already knew the answer. “You haven’t aged a day since I’ve known . . . How old are you, Mack?”

  He cocked his head to one side and gave her a sad smile. “I’ve been alive for six hundred and eighty-four years.”

  Tears pricked her eyes. “Does Jonah know?”

  He nodded and took a step in her direction. She scrambled back defensively. Danger seemed to glint in his golden eyes. She’d never felt threatened by Mack, but now she wasn’t sure.

  “Is he . . . the same as you?” Her voice cracked through her dry throat.

  He nodded again.

  “This can’t be real,” she mumbled to herself. Jonah hadn’t been an ideal father, but to find out he wasn’t even human . . .

  Boy, I thought I had issues before now.

  Mack moved in, too fast for her to get away, and pulled her into a big bear hug as he’d been doing since she was a child.

  “We’ve been here in front of you all of your life,” he rumbled.

  She stiffened in his arms, but he didn’t let go. He’d always been there, a loving uncle, a friend, sometimes a confidante when she couldn’t talk to her father. She relaxed as he stroked her hair, the caress so familiar.

  “It’s been a long day, and this is a lot to take in,” he said gently. “Why don’t you call it a night, and we can talk about all of this in the morning?”

  She nodded against his chest, hoping this was another nightmare she would wake up from, yet guessing that wasn’t going to happen. Magic and psychic powers and hot men who turned into dangerous animals were in her world to stay.

  Disengaging from his hug, she put distance between them. “I need time to clear my head. I’m going to take a walk. I won’t go far.”

  Mack frowned. “I’d prefer if you didn’t. Clearly you are in danger. Until we know more, I think it best if you stay in the house.”

  After all of this she’d nearly forgotten how her day had started. Feeling suddenly tired, Bri acquiesced. “It’s late.”

  “Go take a hot shower,” Mack suggested. “You’ll feel better.”

  “Yeah, good idea . . . Well, goodnight, then,” she said in a rush. Before he could stop her, she darted out of the room.

  Chapter 8

  Eyes burning with fatigue, Bri stared at the ceiling. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw images of Cole turning into a wolf and Mack disappearing right in front of her. Her new reality now included psychic powers and magic people who could live for hundreds of years.

  The most upsetting by far was how Jonah and Mack had been lying to her, all her life. Why hadn’t they told her the truth when she’d been a child? Certainly a child would be far more open than an adult to the bizarre and unnatural.

  Swearing, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and rested her hands on her knees. She told herself she would go downstairs and grab a snack, yet she knew where she’d end up. Cole was a mystery, a gorgeous, dangerous mystery. Giving up, she pulled on the green corduroy pants and soft yellow sweater she’d found in the suitcase Mack had provided for her.

  Bri peeked out into the hallway. The house was silent. Luckily, Mack’s room was several doors down. Tiptoeing on bare feet, she didn’t make a sound.

  They held Cole in a small room in the other wing upstairs, a part of the house they’d never used—the servant’s quarters when the ranch house had been originally built in the early 1900s.

  Jonah and Mack had been alive then.

  Bri pressed her fingers to her temples. No wonder their ideas, particularly about women, were so antiquated.

  She stopped outside Cole’s door, heart pounding too fast and loudly in her ears. He was dangerous and unpredictable, not human. She could only tell herself it was her reporter’s curiosity for so long. No, I need to see him. Her body flamed with an intensity she’d never felt before, the draw far too intense and compelling.

  The knob turned easily in her hand. Bri slipped into the room and closed the door softly behind her. Cole’s motionless form lay on the bed, illuminated only by the moonlight shining through the trees outside. Face sculpted out of hard granite in the pale light, he was beautiful, stretched out and restrained, hands and feet carefully tied to the bed frame.

  A thrill of nervous excitement chased across her skin, and she was thankful for the reassurance of those bonds.

  If he had regained consciousness, which he should have by now, there was no way he hadn’t heard her open the door. Being some sort of an elite psychic for hire—according to Mack—who knew what his particular abilities included? He hadn’t moved at all, so she inched closer.

  His eyes snapped open and focused on her.

  Her breath caught in her throat and she paused, feeling the surface of her skin tingle as she forced herself to keep walking. Fear and desire mingled in her belly, a complex brew both nauseating and exciting.

  Bri couldn’t look away from him. With his hands stretched above his head and secured to the bed frame, he seemed helpless when she knew he was anything but. Her mind suddenly filled with erotic images of straddling him, naked and teasing, a slow, pleasurable torture. She flushed as moisture gathered between her legs, a thousand tingles in the pit of her stomach.

  Cole inhaled sharply, the sound close to a gasp in the silence of the room. She was near enough to see his jaw tighten.

  She cleared her dry throat. “I . . .” she stumbled on her words, not sure where to start, what to say after such a strange and torturous day. “Are you all right?”

  “Come to check on me?” His voice, smooth and deep, ran over her skin like gentle fingers.

  A hint of a smile curved her lips. “Something like that,” she replied. What am I doing here?

  “I’ll live.” Cole’s laugh was strained. “Did I scare you?”<
br />
  Standing a few feet from the bed now, Bri stared down at him. She’d been afraid, but he was human again, cuffed to a bed, and so sexy. She had a difficult time concentrating. No, it certainly wasn’t fear she felt.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that,” she answered honestly, trying to calm her wayward body.

  “I haven’t lost control in a long time,” he admitted.

  She crossed her arms over her chest protectively. “What made you?”

  He gave a harsh sigh. “You did.”

  The intensity of his gaze trapped her, and her heart tripped. “I don’t understand.”

  “Don’t you?” he demanded suddenly, straining against the cuffs, his voice harsh, nearly a growl. “You feel it. I can smell your desire.”

  Her body responded to his crude comment with a wash of heat, and she fought the blush she knew stained her cheeks. In the pale moonlight, she could see the evidence of his body’s response to her, a bulge under the blanket. Torn between wanting to jump him on the spot and make a run for it, she backed away.

  “This isn’t natural.” She stopped at the wall, flattening herself against it, the length of the room now between them.

  He growled and turned away. “Yeah, I feel that too.”

  Her pulse beat an erratic tempo in her neck at the sound of his deep, smooth voice-definitely not normal. If magic existed, they could both be victims of some strange spell. And apparently he could smell her desire, which was alarming as well as embarrassing. She tried to think about anything else, but he looked so damned hot.

  Clearing her throat again, she asked, “What do you think is going on here? What’s happening to us? And how did you happen to be at my house yesterday?” The questions tumbled out. Mack had told her it was a psychic ability to enter into someone’s dream. Is that what he’d done? And if so, why?

  Bri thought she saw a flicker of doubt crease his brow, although she couldn’t be certain.

  “It’s complicated.” He closed his eyes. “My response to you is . . .”

  His voice played over her skin. Desire loosened the tension in her stomach. “Is what?” she prompted.

  His lids flicked open, flashing silver and locking on. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  She raised a staying hand. “I don’t have any idea what’s going on, believe me.”

  “And yet, I am the one who is a prisoner.”

  “Why did you come to my house?” she repeated.

  Desire flashed like electricity between them.

  “I had to,” he shot back, breathing hard. His body went rigid, the impressive muscles in his arms and across his chest bulging as the cuffs bit into the flesh of his wrists.

  Bri pressed herself against the wall and watched as his breathing shifted, becoming deep and rhythmic. His body slowly relaxed. After far too long, he opened his eyes. Silver-gray and tired, they met hers.

  “I had to,” he repeated.

  Cole had known the moment she’d approached the door. His sense of smell was acute and intact. Whatever Mack had zapped him with had worn off about an hour earlier, and he’d woken to find his wrists and feet once more bound, this time to the industrial frame of a rather comfortable bed. More than handcuffs kept him in place. The wolf could have made quick work of the bed frame. Powerful magic ringed the cuffs, and he needed to find out more about it.

  That Mack had soundly defeated him was shocking. The deadly strength of his wolf had never before been taken down so efficiently. The shift had come on him so fast he’d had no way to stop it, yet another disturbing fact.

  Then she was visiting him, afraid but determined.

  Her long blond hair, out of its braid, fell in waves nearly to her waist. Her deep green eyes matched the color of the earth energy he was connected to. Cole’s throat tightened as desire mixed with the strange compulsion of the pearl as it hummed to life, joining with the building need pulsating through his body. The staccato beat of her heart tripped in his ears, and he smelled her confusion and desire.

  They stared at each other, breathing together. The fine features of her face, high cheekbones and small straight nose, illuminated how breathtakingly ethereal she appeared in this light. The similarity between her and the woman from his vision was startling.

  “Why did you come to find me?” she asked, her slender form silhouetted by the moonlight. “It’s an unlikely that by chance you arrived at my house at the same time as the attack.”

  Cole considered her questions for a long moment before responding, feeling ridiculous having this conversation while tied to a bed. “I don’t have many answers for you, which I know is not reassuring.”

  She rocked on her heels. “Not really.”

  “I have no idea who those men were or why we got to your house at the same time,” he began carefully.

  “Just luck . . . you stopping by?” she asked.

  “Although Mack was right behind me, so you would have probably been fine if I hadn’t been there,” he mused, which begged the question of why he had such a driving need to find her. To protect her? Unlikely, given the bodyguard. To kill her or bring her in? Also unlikely, especially given his intense attraction to her.

  “I’m having a hard time believing this is all a coincidence.” Her tone of voice was a musical mixture of hard skepticism and warm curiosity.

  “I would trust your instincts if I were you,” he advised, shifting in the bed, his body aching from being in the same position for too long.

  She angled her chin, staring right into his eyes as she approached the bed. Once close, she knelt until she was face to face with him. “I intend to.”

  He could lose himself in the deep green of those eyes. He tried to clear his mind and focus on the conversation.

  “I don’t know what’s going on here either.” Bri leaned in closer. “I came here for answers.”

  “And that’s all?” he asked softly.

  She frowned. “Did you ever have someone who resembled me in one of your dreams?”

  The question definitely dampened his desire and suspicion raised his hackles. He was tired of feeling as though he were a pawn in someone’s twisted game. Being at the beck and call of a mystical compulsion lodged inside him was one thing. To be captured as a result made him feel like a puppet with no idea who pulled his strings.

  Cole kept his face immobile and his tone light. “Why do you ask?”

  “The other night you were in my dream. Your face, your . . .” She hesitated, as if searching for the right word. “Your presence was familiar this morning when I saw you at my house. How did that happen?”

  His heart stuttered and his mind reeled with possibilities. How much would she reveal, and how much did she know?

  “I wish I knew,” he said cautiously. “Tell me about your dream.”

  She stared at him as if assessing his worthiness, and he saw the moment she decided to trust him with this. Her body relaxed, and she paced slowly away from the bed. Wringing her hands, she let out a slow breath and started to describe her nightmare.

  With the crystal cave and the altar, he recognized the terrifying pain and sorrow he’d also felt. And there was the woman—the witch—who bore a striking resemblance to her, in swirling robes, glowing with power. Bri perfectly described what he’d experienced two nights earlier, but provided no answers about why.

  “The last time I had the nightmare . . .” She paused, pinning him with wide green eyes. “Everything changed. And you were there.”

  She sat down on the bed, the heat of her almost close enough for him to touch, taste. He tried to focus on their conversation which presented a challenge given his instant distraction by her nearness, her scent, her heat. This was hell, and he was in it.

  “When did you have your last nightmare? Do you remember the day and time?”r />
  “A couple of days ago, early morning, around two-thirty.” She searched his face.

  She’d given him something—the truth as far as he could tell, and despite his better judgment, he wanted to do the same for her. “I don’t know how to explain this, but two days ago around the same time, I was on a stake-out in Southern California. I had a vision of someone who bore a strong resemblance to you.” He paused. “The details are too similar to the nightmare you described.”

  She tilted her head, a gesture of curiosity. Her expression grew serious. “So that’s not your ability?”

  She caught him off guard. “What do you mean?”

  “Entering dreams,” she replied patiently. “I know you’re psychic. In addition to being a werewolf.”

  “Do you now?” he responded slowly. The beautiful Bri was definitely not as innocent as he kept making the mistake of thinking she was.

  “Look, I’ll be honest with you. This is all new to me.” She stood, massaging her temples with shaky hands. “Until today I had a pretty normal life and it didn’t include magic, psychic powers, or men who aren’t human.”

  She could be telling the truth. He could usually scent a lie and sense another psychic was near, but he hadn’t known Mack had power and that hadn’t gone well. Cole weighed his options. She could be gathering information for Mack or whomever they worked for. The truth was, he needed as much intel as he could get about what had happened to him. And why.

  He smothered a sigh and his wolf growled in protest. Easy boy, she’s already seen you in action.

  The wolf sniffed and pawed the ground. When did we decide to trust her?

  Cole wasn’t sure, and yet he knew. Something in the earnest way she’d leaned toward him, the eagerness of her hunger for details, and the painful shadows in her eyes as she’d described her nightmare, ensnared him.