by Melissa Haag
“Are you okay?” Michelle asked.
“No. I’m not,” I snapped, sighed, and then apologized. “The dreams I have are less than pleasant, and they won’t let up.” I changed the subject back to the issues at hand. “Gabby, you pinpointed me enough to send Luke. We need you to do the same for the other two.”
She zoned out for a minute. “We can get to one, but not the other. The one in the north is surrounded by the other ones.”
If the redhead was Peace that meant...
“The one in the north, the tall blind one that Blake has, must be Courage.” If they didn’t know Peace’s location, we could still get to her. I tried not to dwell on the impossibility of getting Courage. That just left the threat at hand. “Have there been any attacks here since we arrived?” I asked, recalling my warning to Luke. Both women shook their heads. Why hadn’t they attacked? What were they waiting for?
“Are there any Urbat here?” I asked Gabby.
She shook her head at me. “But I’ve seen them before. A few of them attacked us. And then there’s Elder Joshua.”
An Elder. I looked up at the ceiling and tried to think. We needed to expose the traitors and remove them before we could even consider making a move toward Peace.
“He was the one I contacted.”
Luke’s voice surprised me. I’d forgotten he was there.
“Someone betrayed us on the way here,” I told them. “That’s why there were so many attacks.” But why not bigger groups of them? If the werewolves already had three, why would they risk me, the fourth, joining them? “There’s a lot more to discuss, but I’m about to pass out,” I admitted when the dreams nudged me again. My time was almost up.
“Gabby, keep an eye on the Urbat. If they start grouping and heading this way, we need to give everyone a warning.” I sighed and tried not to remember what the Urbat had done in the past. “The children should be evacuated, now.”
A sharp knock sounded at the door. A moment later it pushed open.
“Time’s up,” Clay said.
Gabby grinned at him and waved him in. Emmitt followed closely behind, elbowing Luke on his way past. The dream’s tug grew more insistent.
“Please keep quiet about all of this,” I said, standing. Then, to impress on them the seriousness of our situation, I repeated what I’d told Luke. “You have no idea what’s coming our way, but I do. I’ve been raped, beaten, cut,” I lifted my shirt to show them all the stitched gash, “starved, drowned, blinded, burned...you name it, I’ve lived it. We’ve lived it. You just don’t remember. Don’t trust anyone with your safety. When we do, we die. And I’ll be the one who has to remember.”
Turning, I left the silent room. Nana Wini stood just outside the door. Her expression told me she heard what I’d said.
Luke stole my opportunity to say anything to her by scooping me up into his arms. I shot him a disgruntled look still upset with his use of a pet name on another girl. But his angry, clenched jaw kept my mouth shut. I’d been too recently abused to have reminded him of all the other abuses I’d suffered. I rested my head against his shoulder and let him carry me.
“It was just a name,” he said after a moment.
I didn’t answer, keeping my head on his shoulder. But I felt better knowing he understood his mistake.
He gently set me on my feet just inside the tiny apartment’s door, and cupped my face in his hands. “There’s no room for anyone else in my heart,” he said softly. “Only you.”
“Then why?” I pleaded. If I was in his heart, then why did I have to wait to Claim him?
“Because I promised I would protect you,” he said. His eyes burned with fierce resolve. “Even from myself.”
The dream tugged, and my next blink turned into a three-second nap. A fingertip traced my eyebrow.
“You need rest,” he said, wrapping an arm around me and guiding me down the hall.
I did. I promised myself I would argue some more about the logic behind letting me Claim him now. But after a nap.
Fully dressed, I crawled up on the mattress, eased onto my side, and curled up protectively around my aching stomach. Stupid idea to cut myself. Didn’t work and now the pain lingered. Always pain. With that thought, the dream pulled me as Luke’s weight depressed the mattress next to me.
Chapter Fourteen
I sat up, shaking from the details of the dream. More death! Sweat coated my face, not from a fever, but the memory. Why had I dreamed that? I turned and noted the empty cold spot next to me. He’d left me, that’s why. After his sweet comment about holding me in his heart, he’d left me. He knew what I suffered. I weakly swiped at my face, removing the moisture and wishing I could remove the memory. Exhaling slowing, I reflected on what I’d learned. My sister Courage always died young.
Light still shone through the room’s window. I glanced at the numbers on the digital clock. Less than an hour had passed. Two pills and a glass of water waited on the small lamp stand next to the bed. Without hesitation, I swallowed them down. I could have cared less what they were at that point. I’d have taken anything from painkillers to cyanide. I definitely hadn’t gotten the rest I needed.
My stomach ached from sitting up so quickly. I gingerly rolled off the bed and rose to a crouched stand. I hobbled out of the bedroom to look for Luke. I found Michelle waiting on the couch in the living room, but no Luke. She stood when she saw me. Her concern for me was evident on her face.
“Luke asked me to wait here so you wouldn’t be alone. I know you said the dreams were bad, but...”
I looked away from her uncomfortably and wondered how much I’d yelled.
“Luke said he left you some pills.”
“Yeah, I already took them. What were they?”
“Something for the pain.”
Darn.
“Nana and Sam want to talk to you when you’re up.”
“I’m not up yet,” I said as I shuffled toward the bathroom.
Michelle followed me to the door. “They want to know what’s going on. Gabby and I haven’t said anything. But after you left, Sam tried talking to Gabby and they ended up yelling at each other. Clay looked all bristly like he wanted to hit Sam.”
I rolled my eyes, finished up, and opened the door. “And I care why?”
“Sam’s an Elder. Gabby’s—” The door opened with a bang stopping Michelle’s words.
“Gabby’s getting annoyed,” Gabby said, striding into the room and closing the door behind her. “They let you go because you’re hurt, but as soon as you were gone, we were bombarded with questions. They even sent for Luke to grill him.”
I couldn’t help the panicked look that crept into my eyes. It was too soon to reveal everything. It explained his absence, though.
“We didn’t say anything,” Gabby assured me again. “Look, I wasn’t sure who to trust before you got here, but after talking to you, I don’t think we can do this alone. I think we need to talk to the Elders. At least some of them.”
Michelle nodded her head in agreement.
We were all thinking of Elder Joshua. “I’m sorry I left you. I can’t control when the dreams come and go anymore.”
“It’s okay,” Michelle said. “Luke explained that to us.”
“Us?”
“Me, Gabby, Clay, and Emmitt. They didn’t trust Luke alone with us,” Michelle said with an apologetic shrug.
“What did he do to deserve all of this hostility?”
“He stole Emmitt’s bike.”
“And he and some of his friends ganged up on Clay before I Claimed him,” Gabby added. “Luke’s your mate, right?”
“He is a possibility,” I agreed.
Her frown grew more pronounced. Her eyes flicked around the room. “I’d really like to talk to you alone, again. I have so many questions.”
The door opened. “As do I,” Nana said softly. “But I think it would be best if you sat while we discussed this. I don’t like how pale you are.” She motioned me toward the couch.<
br />
“This would be better in the soundproofed room,” Gabby said quickly.
“Of course,” Nana agreed.
As we walked to the room—at a very slow pace because of me—I contemplated where I wanted to start and what exactly to explain. I couldn’t completely trust the Elders with everything I knew. Not yet. I didn’t have the right answers to explain our purpose fully. Sure, we were here to maintain balance between the three groups, but how? I wasn’t sure I was ready to share the who. At least, not until we weeded out the Urbat hiding in the pack. I believed wholly that the Taupe Lady’s warning was serious. The world would burn if we failed. Though I trusted that knowledge, I doubted that anyone else would.
The door to the room stood open. Two other men sat inside. I recognized one. He’d brought up my bag.
Nana made official introductions as we sat. “Bethi, this is Sam and Grey, Elders. People you can trust. Elder Joshua is on his way here. We are missing two others, who are currently assisting in Europe, but we will communicate with them through our link.”
I didn’t say anything about her trust comment.
“Hello, Sam.” So, that was the man who Gabby argued with. He looked nice enough. Grey hair, neatly dressed. The memory of him eating spaghetti surfaced. He reminded me of my grandpa. I smiled and looked at the other one Nana had indicated. “Grey,” I added as an acknowledgement as he shut the door. “Thank you all for your help. I didn’t think Luke and I would make it here when they all came on us like that.”
Sam cleared his throat, his troubled gaze meeting mine. “We’d never seen anything like that. Our kind...we’re peaceful.”
I nodded. He seemed so sincere. Could the betrayal go deeper than Joshua?
“We’ve had instances where we couldn’t communicate with a few of our kind in the past, but never so many. Can you tell us why they were attacking you?” Sam asked.
Michelle glanced at me, but I didn’t meet her gaze.
“The simple answer is that they were trying to take me back to their leader. There are so many things I don’t know. Who their leader is and what they want to do with me when they get me.” I rested my hands on the table, took a calming breath, and began my careful tiptoe around explanations that would trip me up and darted to the ones that would get me the result I needed.
“But I think it has to do with what’s happening to me. I’m reliving past lives through my dreams. This had been going on for several months. Somehow, those guys learned that I had these dreams and started chasing me. When Luke showed up, I thought he was one. As you know, we were pretty much chased the whole way. Luke kept me safe.” I could feel Gabby’s eyes on me and struggled not to meet her gaze. “Anyway, he brought me here, thinking you might be able to help me.” I couldn’t come up with anything better without spilling that there was a definitive difference between the people at the table and the people who’d chased me.
“Why do they care if you are having these dreams?” Nana asked.
“I’m not sure. The dreams seem like pieces to a puzzle. Some of them are fitting together, but I haven’t fit enough of them together to figure out the big picture.”
“Tell us more about the dreams.”
I regretted that Nana had overheard what I’d suffered in them and hoped she’d let me get away with a vague answer. “Mostly they are the same thing. Something is chasing me or comes to my home. Usually it looks like a really large dog. Then it changes into the shape of a man. Those dreams always end with me dying.”
“You’ve dreamt of us killing you?”
No, it was the Urbat. But I couldn’t say that.
“Not just me,” I said looking at Michelle and Gabby. “I’ve seen their past lives, too. We all die.”
The room was eerily quiet for a moment.
“Why?” Nana asked looking deeply troubled.
I took an easy breath feeling as if I’d just cleared the minefield. “That’s why I was willing to come with Luke. Like I said, some things I pieced together, but there are a lot of ‘whys’ I haven’t figured out. I was hoping I’d find help here, that you’d have more answers.”
Nana, Grey, and Sam shared a look. “We need some time to speak,” Sam said slowly. “Is there anything more you know that could help us?”
He saved me from a complete lie by adding that last bit. There was plenty more that I knew but nothing that would help them. Not until Joshua arrived. Michelle and Gabby watched me shake my head. Neither of them spoke.
“After all of those dreams, I doubt everything I thought I knew,” I said with a shrug.
Sam glanced at Nana. The significant pause told me they were communicating silently.
“Michelle, Gabby, help Bethi to the commons for something to eat, please. Your men are waiting there for you,” Nana said.
“Sure,” Gabby said quickly exiting her chair and moving to open the door. Michelle offered a hand to help me stand. Neither said anything as we left, and I felt relieved. I’d given the Elders enough information to get them off our backs, for now. I just needed to figure out what to do about Joshua. If he had an unusual spark, we couldn’t trust him. But what to do about it?
When we entered a huge room filled with tables and chairs, I only caught a glimpse of it before Clay strode toward us. He stopped just in front of Gabby, preventing all of us from moving any further. The heavenly smells of Turkey and stuffing drifted to me as his eyes swept over Gabby’s face. My stomach cramped. This time from hunger.
“She’s fine, big guy, but my stomach’s really hurting. Would you mind—” I didn’t get to finish the sentence before Clay was jostled aside with a growl from behind.
“Move already,” Luke snapped at Clay, scooping me up.
Clay’s eyes narrowed as they settled on Luke. Gabby curled her fingers in his hand. He stopped his glaring and gave her his full attention. “I’m fine. Bethi’s not. We’re supposed to get her something to eat.”
I caught Clay’s nod before Luke turned, almost bumping us into Emmitt. Two little boys circled around him like satellites. Luke huffed, and I reached up to smack the back of his head lightly. “The decisions you make and the words you speak influence the people around you. Be aware of your influence,” I quoted.
His lips twitched, and he looked down at the boys. “Excuse me, please,” he said politely.
They scampered out of his way, and Emmitt stepped aside, his eyes on Michelle.
“Didn’t you take the pills?” Luke asked softly, carrying me to a cushioned chair.
“I took them.” My stomach cramped, and I tried to remember what I’d last eaten. “Nana mentioned something about food.” Instead of setting me in the chair, he sat and settled me on his lap.
“I’ll get it for you,” Michelle called moving toward the kitchen. Emmitt followed closely behind.
Clay moved to the chair across from us and sat, his eyes never leaving Gabby. Gabby perched on one of his knees and smiled slightly when he set a hand on her waist.
“How long have you two been together?” I asked. I really just wanted to know how safe she was. Claimed was good, but Mated was better.
“Clay has been living with me since the end of August.” Her smile widened. “But I just recently Claimed him.”
“Not Mated?” I wondered.
She shook her head. Well, crap.
Michelle returned just then with a sandwich. “Here you go.”
I accepted the plate with a smile of thanks. “How long have you and Emmitt been together?” Taking a bite of the sandwich, I listened to Michelle say they’d been Claimed for several months and were planning a wedding. Another one not Mated. Dangerous business. I glanced at Emmitt who was watching me closely. We were still all ripe for Urbat picking. I wished again that Luke would just give in and at least let me Claim him.
“What about you two?” Emmitt asked.
I shrugged and took another bite. Everyone continued to wait patiently for my answer. Even Luke, the jerk, was quiet. Fine.
“H
e has a problem with my boobs.” I took another bite of my sandwich.
Luke made a choking noise, and I grinned. “Secretly, I think he’s hoping if he waits until I’m eighteen they might grow a bit more.”
Emmitt’s face betrayed nothing as his gaze flicked between me and Luke. Clay’s whiskers split to show two rows of perfect white teeth. His eyes were on Luke. I didn’t want to turn around to see why. Michelle looked slightly shocked and worried. Gabby was frowning at Luke.
“They’re kinda like the elephant in the room. We’re not allowed to talk about them.”
Luke stood with me in his arms, turned, dumped me—gently—in the chair, and strode away. I grinned at the group.
“That’s usually how he reacts if I do talk about them.”
“So you haven’t Claimed him yet?” Gabby asked.
I snorted. “Nope. He won’t let me. He’s pretty quick to protect his precious neck. I got smacked in the face, like, at least fifty times on the trip here.” I polished off the sandwich with a sigh. That had to have been the best sandwich ever.
“That makes no sense,” Gabby stated. “I was so sure.” She looked in the direction that Luke had walked off and moved to stand. The content, happy feeling left my stomach.
Clay wrapped his hand around her wrist to stop her. I took a slow breath and tried to let go of the anxiety filling me. She was my sister. I would need to depend on her. So why was I so jealous of her and her relationship with Luke?
She turned and met Clay’s eyes. “It’s okay. I’ll be right back. I have to know,” she said quietly.
Michelle shifted uncomfortably in her seat. See, the restless part of me yelled. Even she sensed that Gabby shouldn’t want to go chasing after Luke. I shushed myself.
Clay sighed and let go, but surprised me by following her. She didn’t seem to mind.
“Do you want something to drink?” Michelle asked quietly, pulling my attention back to the remaining two.
“Sure.” I stood to go with her since I didn’t want to sit and dwell on what had just happened.
