Tangled Dreams

by Cecilia Dominic

  Thanks again!

  - Cecilia

  About the Author

  Cecilia Dominic wrote her first story when she was two years old and has always had a much more interesting life inside her head than outside of it. She became a clinical psychologist because she's fascinated by people and their stories, but she couldn't stop writing fiction. The first draft of her dissertation, while not fiction, was still criticized by her major professor for being written in too entertaining a style. She made it through graduate school and got her PhD, started her own practice, and by day, she helps people cure their insomnia without using medication. By night, she blogs about wine and writes fiction she hopes will keep her readers turning the pages all night. Yes, she recognizes the conflict of interest between her two careers, so she writes and blogs under a pen name. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia with one husband and two cats, which, she's been told, is a good number of each. She also enjoys putting her psychological expertise to good use helping other authors through her Characters on the Couch blog post series.

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  Cecilia's books available everywhere e-books are sold. Look for paperbacks in select brick-and-mortar stores.

  If you'd like to get a peek at the next full-length book in the Dream Weavers and Truth Seekers series Web of Truth, please continue reading for an excerpt.

  Please enjoy this preview of Web of Truth, the next story in the Dream Weavers and Truth-Seekers series…

  One more week.

  Morgan crossed October 31 off her calendar. Sure, it was only noon, but the revelry in her normally quiet - if there was such a thing - neighborhood just outside New Orleans said people were already partying like night-time, so she may as well count it. She hoped she wouldn't have to hose too much vomit off the sidewalk in front of her magic store the next morning. But it was Halloween, one of her busiest days, so she didn't dare close.

  She'd need a source of income once she retired from being the Fey queen's bounty hunter in, oh, a week. While calendars may have changed and shifted, she always remembered the day ten centuries ago a week after Samhain when she'd made her bargain. Not with the devil, although the Fey queen was close enough, and her messenger handsome as sin.

  Just one more week, and she'd be free. Ten jobs or ten centuries, whichever came first. Then she'd have her powers and her retirement, and she could finally live life without always looking over her shoulder.

  The bell over the door tinkled, and a dark-haired young man walked in. Morgan's heart joined her stomach in a free fall of despair, and she barely kept herself from letting out a disappointed moan. Of course she wouldn't get off that easily.

  Ten centuries or ten jobs? Ten jobs it is.

  She leaned on her elbows on the glass case that displayed the objects that were either nicer or small enough for easy shoplifting, typically crystals, fossils, and wands. Their magic auras wafted up to her through the glass, steadying her.

  "Decided to skip the drama today, Elric?" As much as she hated what his appearance meant, she fought a sly smile. Fine, she liked the adventure, both of the chase and of him in bed, and it had been a long time. "Since when do you come in the door like a normal person?"

  He grinned, his teeth perfectly straight, and the thoughts of what he did with his lips made her cross her legs where she stood. He always dressed congruent to the century he appeared in. Today he wore skinny tan corduroy pants, pointed toe boots, and a dark green cashmere sweater under a brown faux leather jacket. Although he appeared neat, he'd allowed his hair to grow long enough to cover the pointed tips of his ears, which made it shaggy and gave him a bohemian air. Or rebellious.

  She liked, and she licked her lips at the thought of getting him out of the outfit and raking her fingers through his hair.

  His intense expression - was he as hungry for her as she was for him? - gave his words a delicious double entendre. "I have a job for you."

  "From you or the queen?" There was always the possibility he'd missed her, after all. Maybe he wasn't here for official business. Maybe they could finally be -

  "From the queen." He nodded, but his gaze flicked up and left before he returned it to her, his smile more dazzling than before. Yep, he was walking sex, and her mind clouded with both memories and hopes for what would happen when she got those pants off him--

  She waved away the glamour. The power to see through Fey spells had come back after job number six, much to Elric's irritation and her relief. But she'd always been able to sense when he was lying. "And this will help me fulfill my deal with her."

  "This will count toward your ten."

  "As my tenth." She stood so she could look him in the eye. She'd made it through nine jobs so far by ensuring there was no Fey trickery.

  "As your tenth," he agreed through clenched teeth. He didn't look nearly as pretty now that she'd irritated him. She almost sighed as the ache between her legs eased. Good.

  "And after this, my obligation will be finished, and I'll get the rest of my powers back," she pressed.

  He gave her a curt nod.

  "No, say it." She leaned forward and pressed her palms to the counter, heedless of the hand-prints she'd have to clean from the glass. Otherwise she'd grab his shirt and shake him. "I need your word that this is it, Elric."

  He sighed, and she almost applauded the drama of it. "Fine.When you deliver this bounty to the queen, you will fulfill your obligation to Queen Maeve, and you will get your powers back."

  "Once I deliver it. Say it again."

  "Yes, once you deliver the bounty to her, he repeated." He rolled his eyes. "Do we have to go through this every time?"

  "Yes." She rubbed her hands together, already pondering what she would need to do with the store while she chased down whoever or whatever had caught Maeve's interest this time. Sometimes there were insults to avenge. Sometimes it was simply a matter of the queen seeing in someone a pretty, shiny thing she wanted. At the beginning, Morgan hadn't understood the queen's whims or how she could treat living thinking beings as objects, and in truth, she still couldn't. Morgan made it a point of pride that she hadn't let her almost-immortality make her unsympathetic to those whose lives were but a blink. Well, assuming they didn't get in her way.

  "Who are we after this time?" She looked up at him through her lashes. "And when do we leave? I want to get this over with as soon as possible, although I need a day to get things settled here." She waved her hand. "One does not simply abandon one's magic shop on Samhain."

  But her mind already sorted through details. She could call Lacey, her assistant and a talented magic-wielder who had figured out Morgan was more than she let on. Killing people had gotten too messy in the twentieth century - damn forensics - so she'd decided to make the girl an ally rather than eliminate her as a threat. Lacey would be happy to help and to watch things while she was away.

  "Understood, although I don't see why you bother. Silly mortals, thinking that trinkets can make them into powerful magic-makers." After the seventeenth century, they both instinctively avoided the word witch, although it had lost some of its negative connotations since. He walked around. "What kind of wards do you have on this place? You've gotten better at them."

  Heat came to Morgan's cheeks and frustration to her chest that she still preened under his praise. Was that why he'd used the door rather than just appearing as he usually liked to do? Discretely, of course. He wouldn't just appear in the middle of a store or someplace else where humans would see him.

  Or was he complimenting her? Morgan sensed Elric wanted to be away quickly. That, the fact he'd apparently done some Earth-crossing before arriving rather than using
the connections between the Faerie realm and human ones to expedite his trip, and the sense of something being off, like milk just on the cusp of souring, made her delay. If there was a loophole that would allow her to not take the job and wait out her time, she aimed to find it.

  "And who are we after?" she asked his back, as he stood and studied the bookshelves to the right of the door.

  "Some vampire." His shoulders lifted and dropped in what she assumed was another sigh. "The queen wants a new pet."

  Morgan pulled the glass cleaner and a roll of paper towels from the shelves under the register to rid herself of the hand-prints on the formerly clean case. "What the heck does she want with a vampire? She doesn't typically bother with the nightmare creatures."

  "Indeed." He bent to examine a book more closely.

  "Let me know if you have any questions," she said automatically. Her mind worked as she cleaned the top of the case. Then the front, since no matter how much she tried, she couldn't keep fingerprints from gathering on it. She'd put away the glass cleaner and found the duster for the shelves inside when a weight on her shoulder brought her back to the present.

  "It's fine," Elric said. The impatience and irritation had gone from his tone, and now he looked at her tenderly. "I thought you'd gotten treatment for that."

  She put away the duster and clenched and unclenched her fists to distract herself from the gritty feeling on her fingers. "I did, but it's an ongoing thing, especially when I'm stressed. Maybe I'll go back for a booster course once we're done with this. Where are we going, anyway?"

  He put his arms around her, and she snuggled into his chest. Anything more than an ongoing fling was impossible, but she'd take what she could get. Even his smell contradicted itself - the odor of plants in a rainstorm over sun-warmed rock.

  "There's an island in the Caribbean owned by a man you may have heard of - Merlin. The vampire is being held there."

  "Merlin?" Morgan pulled back and looked up to study Elric's face. "We're going up against the Truth Seekers?"

  Elric traced a finger over her cheek. "Not necessarily. This vampire poses some sort of threat to them. That's why the queen wants him."

  Morgan shivered, both from the journey of Elric's hand, which traced down her cheek and along the line of her jaw, and the thought of what she'd be getting into. No one wanted to be in the middle of the ages-old conflict between the Truth Seekers, the self-styled supernatural law enforcement agency that more than a few paranormal creatures considered to be a band of well-organized vigilantes, and the Fey. She should've known her final job wouldn't be that easy.

  "Good, now make the cloud bigger."

  Audrey frowned as she focused on the cloud that hung above them in an impossibly blue sky. The grass she laid on tickled the backs of her arms and legs, and she had to keep from being distracted by the waving leaves on the nearby trees. Her spirit guide, a small silver dragon, made for a comforting weight on her belly. Maggie had explained that this part of the Collective Unconscious remained in a state of eternal summer, hence the green. But it was also a good place to practice a variation of what Audrey had done as a child, only this time she made the shapes in the clouds. Or tried to.

  The vaguely cat-shaped white and gray puffball above them suddenly expanded, then dissipated. Audrey sighed, and the dragon squeaked in protest.

  "I'm not very good at this." She turned her head to Maggie, who lay next to her.

  Maggie smiled and patted Audrey on the hand. "You're doing fine. You can't be good at everything on your first try."

  "But this isn't my first try." Audrey turned her face back to the sky. "We've been at this for a week, and I can barely manipulate the clouds. How am I supposed to be of any use?"

  "A week is nothing. It took much longer for some of us to master even the most basic magic on Avalon." Maggie snorted. "At least if you make something blow up here, it won't hurt anything."

  "True." Audrey turned back to her. "Tell me about Avalon."

  Maggie shook her head, but behind her, an island shaped cloud appeared. It looked like a semicircle with rectangular things sticking up at the top - standing stones? "It's gone into the mists, although there is likely a reflection here."

  Wispy gray clouds covered the island-shaped one, and it all blew away.

  "Do you ever try to go to the reflection, to see what happened to the people there?"

  "No." Her tone had gone flat, and Audrey drew back, stung. "I'm sorry." Maggie patted Audrey's hand again but didn't look at her. "I made one of my biggest mistakes there, and it changed the course of history."

  "I'm sorry for asking. By the way, nice cloud work."

  "What?" Maggie looked to where Audrey indicated. "I wasn't doing it." She sat, and Audrey did as well. "What did you see?"

  "An island with standing stones on the top, and then gray clouds covered it and took it away."

  Maggie grinned. "Avalon didn't have standing stones. That must have been your version of it."

  "Oh!" Audrey clapped. "But I wasn't trying."

  "That means you've been trying too hard." Maggie stood. "And you need a break." She helped Audrey to her feet, and the dragon made lazy circles around them.

  Audrey sighed. She'd never get used to this topsy-turvy world, which Maggie had told her was like a dimension. No one had figured out why humans could reach it in their sleep but no one else could. Or why they could stash their collective cultural memories here in the forms of gods, goddesses, and other mythological beings. Audrey wondered if she'd meet Thor someday, but she wouldn't rush it. She hadn't felt quite right since her encounter with Zeus, but she couldn't describe how except that she often had the sense of someone peering over her shoulder and waiting. For what, she didn't know.

  She followed Maggie to the edge of the woods, where the reflection of the sky filmed the surface of a small pool of water about three feet in diameter. The sky darkened, and Audrey looked up to see that dark gray clouds had rolled in. A cold breeze teased the hair at the back of her neck, and she remembered she wasn't the only one engaged in supernatural pursuit. Or, in Damien and Charlie's case, pursuit of something supernatural and nasty.

  "Time to check in on the boys?" Audrey asked. Maggie would never admit it, but they were both nervous about the guys hunting a rogue were-bat that day.

  "Yep." Maggie pulled her hair back and secured it with an elastic. "I wish I knew how the nightmare creatures keep getting through like they are.The barriers between the CU and the waking world should be mostly healed by now."

  Audrey had pictured the barriers as stone walls, but in reality - or what passed for it - they were more like sheets of elastic that could heal like skin. Or that's what she pictured after Maggie had explained their nature. "Is there another way?"

  Maggie shook her head. "Not unless a neighboring realm is letting them through, but the rulers like the nightmares as much as we do, which is to say, not at all."

  "Oh." She had to prove she wasn't a total failure. "Can I try to summon the vision?"

  Maggie smirked. "Feeling confident after your accidental cloud-work?"

  "Yes. Plus it's easier for me to do this because I truly want to see Damien."

  "Go ahead then." Maggie stepped back.

  Audrey took a deep breath even though she didn't need to breathe here and looked at the pool, allowing her eyes to blur their focus. "Show me Damien," she whispered, the desire to see him and make sure he was safe thick in her chest. The surface of the pool shimmered although no breeze stirred the leaves of the plants around its edge, and it cleared to show late fall woods, the trees almost bare. She could make out a couple of dark-clad figures crawling along, but a gray film covered the scene.

  "I think I have a bad connection." She huffed. "Is nothing going to work right for me today?"

  "There's no such thing here." Maggie stood beside Audrey and looked at the vision. "That's a cloud of obfuscation. Something doesn't want us to see them."

  Panic crawled up Audrey's throat. "They're
in danger?"

  Maggie squeezed her hand one more time and disappeared.

  Thank you for reading! If you'd like more information on Web of Truth, please go to www.ceciliadominic.com/web-of-truth-td. For more information about me and my books, or to be alerted when new books are released, please sign up for my author newsletter at www.ceciliadominic.com/PTDbooknewsletter You'll also receive a free short story (see below).

  Please enjoy this preview of Perchance to Dream, the first story in the Dream Weavers and Truth-Seekers series…

  Emma stood in the doorway and squinted into the peach-colored light that had appeared without warning to disrupt her sleep. She put a hand out to steady herself and snatched it back when she touched the rough-hewn wooden door frame. The walls of the room seemed to have just been put up, the beige dry wall barely set. Sawdust and wooden curls littered the plywood floor. The sounds of others murmuring and moving about reached her ears. She backed up until her back touched the wall and…

  Emma woke, her hands still clenched. She lay in bed, awakened by her husband bumping into her. He rolled away when she gently shoved him back. She snuggled into the flannel sheets, twitched her shoulder blades until they were comfortable, and closed her eyes. With a sigh, she slept…

  …and found herself back in the room, standing in the door. What kind of hella-vivid dream was this? The sweet-sharp smell of the wood filled her nose, but at least the sawdust on the rough plywood floor didn't make her sneeze. Normally in her dreams she had difficulty moving, but this was no different than her waking life. She walked through the room and found a door on the other side, also unfinished, and a hallway. More rooms lined the hall, some with only wooden framing, others further along but not complete.

  Voices carried down the hall, lively conversations and laughter. This comforted and frightened her simultaneously. Where were these people? She heard footsteps behind her and turned around…