Burned

by Dean Murray

  Despite my lack of practice recently, the seeking filaments—threads of pure energy that were spun out of the center of my body—shot out with an ease and speed that were nothing short of remarkable. I would have been worried about how quickly my strength was pouring out of me, but after only a second or two I felt the first of the threads find what it was looking for.

  The thread snapped as Alec's ability sheared through it, but I reabsorbed what was left of it, and other threads headed that direction. I lost a few more, and then suddenly one of them hooked onto him and it was time to absorb all of the rest of my filaments.

  I poured strength into the line that connected the two of us, and then anchored myself as I pulled on the thread—now a cable—that would guide him directly to me. I expected it to be hard—pulling someone into my dreams was always hard—but this was different.

  I'd never pulled Alec to me before this. The one time that we'd shared our dreams had been inside of his world, but I'd expected it to be much the same as pulling anyone else to me.

  It wasn't. Alec felt…heavier…than anyone else I'd ever pulled to me. It was like uprooting the Empire State Building. It should have been just as impossible, but here in this place, what I believed was more important than anything else. I believed—no, I knew—that I was capable of forcing Alec to come to me, and I poured my strength out to make that belief a reality.

  By the time Alec hit the invisible wall between our realities, he was moving impossibly fast. Each time I pulled someone into that barrier it felt like I was tearing a hole in reality, but this time I half expected the universe to shatter in protest at what I was trying to do.

  It was like trying to shove an elephant one molecule at a time through the world's smallest keyhole, but the momentum that he'd built up before he hit the wall was enough. I once again got the feeling that for one impossibly brief instant—too short even for a shape shifter to register—he was in some kind of in-between place, a place that was nothing more than a sea of light and warm energy.

  It happened too quickly for me to get more than a sliver of an impression, and then Alec was sliding into my reality and everything went terribly wrong.

  At the very end of him colliding with the wall, I'd felt something that I'd never experienced before. Alec wasn't just an inanimate object being hauled from one place to another, he'd reached out to me and added his strength to mine. I would have welcomed the help but for the fact that I could feel him somehow sliding up against my soul as he came into my reality.

  It was hard to explain. I hadn't been really convinced that humans—or shape shifters—had anything you could term a soul until that instant, but there was no arguing with what I felt. I wasn't reading Alec's mind—I didn't get anything as formed as thoughts out of the experience.

  I got something though. It was like I was experiencing Alec on a much deeper level than even he realized existed. He felt like a warm, shiny sphere of light. The beauty of him in that form was even more incredible than how he looked in the flesh, but that wasn't what stayed with me the most.

  Alec felt good in the way that very few things had ever felt to me before. Touching him reminded me of the love of my dad, my mom when she actually slowed down long enough to remember she was a mother in addition to being a photographer, Cindi when she wasn't too immersed in sibling rivalry, and Taggart.

  Nearly everyone was capable of that kind of selfless concern for others, but usually it was restricted to only those closest to them. With Alec I was getting that same feeling, but I couldn't tell if that was because he cared about me or if it was something else entirely.

  Part of me was curious about that feeling, about just how selfless Alec was capable of being, but mostly I just wanted distance between us. People were never meant to be that close to each other, to have so many of their most precious illusions stripped away. I knew that I should be excited about the chance to get a look at the real Alec, but I was too busy being worried that he might be getting the same kind of up-close, no-holds-barred look at me.

  I finished hauling him into my dream with an expenditure of brute force, and then distanced myself emotionally and mentally as quickly as possible.

  "I thought that was you, Adri. What happened? You and Taggart were supposed to come to my dream."

  "Change of plans. Had Taggart arrived there at your dream already before I pulled you here?"

  Alec shook his head, and for a moment I was nearly overcome by just how amazing he looked. Already my mind was retreating from the memory of the pulsing silver light I'd just experienced—it was like I needed to dive into the physical masterpiece in front of me as a way of forgetting what I'd just experienced.

  Alec was taller—something over six feet—and his shoulders if anything had gotten broader since I'd first seen him in his dream so many weeks ago. He'd been big and muscly before, but the rigors of fighting for his life so frequently since then had hardened those muscles in a way that no gym ever could have hoped to.

  He was wearing nothing but his ha'bit—the loose stretchy pants that were designed to survive the transition from human to hybrid and back again—which meant that I didn't have to imagine the chiseled abs or the biceps that were as big around as my thigh. His body was nothing less than amazing, but it was his eyes that I couldn't seem to look away from.

  I'd always liked blue eyes, but his were stunning—especially against his dark hair. It was like looking into two clear pools that went on forever. I felt a quiver building inside of me as tears started trying to work their way to the surface.

  I wanted to throw myself at him again, but unlike the last time we'd seen each other, I wanted to bury my face against his chest and hope that he would wrap his arms around me. Part of me wanted things to be like they were before, but the rest of my emotions were too much of a tangled mess to act on the urge.

  Alec would probably do exactly what I was hoping, but it wouldn't be fair to him. Right now I wanted to hug him, but in a few moments I might want to shoot him. The anger and guilt was just too much of a swirling mess, and for once Alec's innate goodness was a liability.

  If he'd been the terrible person I kept wanting him to be, then I would be free to hate him and start moving on. Eventually I probably would have even gotten to the point where I realized that what happened with my parents wasn't his fault.

  That couldn't happen though because part of me knew that he was one of the best guys I'd ever met. I kept wanting to hate him, but I knew it wasn't fair, which meant that the only person I could hate was me.

  My feelings were all screwed up, but I couldn't just cast them aside. I'd tried, but they were with me for better or worse. Until I figured out a way to work through them I was going to have to accept that there wasn't some kind of easy answer that would allow me to just flip a switch and go back to feeling nothing but love for Alec.

  "Why did the plan change?"

  Alec's question brought me back to the present, and I responded without thinking. "Because I don't want to be alone with you inside of your dreams. If I have to be with you I want it to be here where I have the most control."

  He recoiled like I'd slapped him. It was more than just a mistake, it was deliberately hurtful. Alec had never done anything to intentionally harm me. He didn't deserve the venom in my voice, but the fact was that he had hurt me whether he'd meant to or not.

  His face went distant and cold. Even Alec wouldn't accept an unending stream of abuse. He was a shape shifter—his beast's anger at how he was being treated would eventually bleed over into all of our interactions and once that happened there wouldn't be any going back.

  Maybe that was what I wanted. Maybe I would feel better if he was hurting as badly as I was.

  There was no way of knowing what would have happened next if Taggart hadn't shown up right then. He looked back and forth between the two of us, and I could tell that he sensed the tension. I checked my scent, respiration and pulse, but they were all non-existent. Either he was being cued in by somethi
ng else I was doing or Alec wasn't doing as good a job hiding his unhappiness.

  "I guess Adri changed the plan. Are you ready to go, Alec?"

  Alec nodded. "Let's get this over with. You still want to try to get the names of the rest of the Coun'hij before we kill him, right?"

  "Yes, but only if it doesn't threaten our ability to end his life. That is the most important thing. Killing him will eventually force the others out into the light. Without him to interact with the packs, the Coun'hij won't have any choice but to appoint another of their members to be a spokesperson for them."

  "Okay, let's get him here so we can get started."

  "Don't you want to double-check that you're still able to use your ability here inside of Adri's dream?"

  Alec looked over at me and a wave of weakness suddenly crashed through me. A second later my knees hit the featureless off-white ground of the plain we were standing on.

  "It looks like it still works. Let's get started."

  I knew I probably deserved that after everything I'd said in the last few minutes, but that didn't stop me from being mad. I bit back half a dozen nasty comebacks, and just closed my eyes to focus on finding Kaleb.

  "Are you sure you can do this, Adri? You must have used a lot of energy bringing Alec here…"

  "I'll be fine—assuming that the two of you can be quiet for more than twenty seconds at a time."

  Taggart probably should have taken me over his knee like the spoiled brat I was acting like, but he just went quiet and a few seconds later I didn't have any other excuses to delay what I knew was going to be an exhausting undertaking.

  I took a couple of deep breaths and then focused on the anger I always felt these days when I thought of Alec's dad. To hear Taggart tell it, Kaleb had been the rebellion's greatest hope for several decades. He'd been too cagey to do anything that the Coun'hij could use as an excuse for execution, but all of the smart money had been convinced that he was quietly building a coalition that had a chance of giving the powers that be a run for their money.

  He could have created an entirely different world, one where the Coun'hij was overthrown before I entered kindergarten, one where vampires like Jackson were executed by roving bands of wolves, one where the entire continent had been freed of the bloodsucking scourge that cost so many lives each year.

  He'd gone against everything good and right in order to expand his personal power. Even with my feelings for Alec being so muddled, it was still easy to grab onto the white-hot anger that I'd used the last time I'd needed to stalk Kaleb inside of his own dreams. He was just that evil.

  My seeking tendrils went out and found him without any problems. They drained my strength to the point where it was difficult for me to maintain the initial connection, but I managed to hold onto it until I was able to start reabsorbing the energy from the other tendrils.

  Part of me wanted to call the whole thing off. The smart thing would be to tell Taggart and Alec that I'd made a mistake, that we would have to wait until tomorrow, but I was too stubborn for that. I grabbed hold of the invisible link between Kaleb and me, and started pulling on it with everything I had.

  It was worse than pulling myself to someone else, worse even than when I'd pulled Taggart into my dreams, but it wasn't as bad as what I'd just experienced with Alec. I got Kaleb up to an unimaginable speed and then just as I felt like I couldn't pull any harder he slammed into the wall between our two realities.

  The immovable object and the irresistible force had met yet again, and somehow I managed to find the energy to give one last tug on the cable between us. The universe quivered from the strain of resisting Kaleb's transition, and then the barrier tore and I felt Kaleb go through the in-between space. Unlike Alec, there wasn't any sensation of tugging there with Kaleb. He sailed through the in-between and popped into existence ten feet in front of me.

  He was fast. He'd never been pulled into someone else's dream before—it wasn't something that Taggart was capable of—but you wouldn't have been able to tell that based on his response. He spun around and threw himself at me, in a ruthless bid to eliminate the one person capable of keeping him in the dream.

  If I'd been nothing more than the human girl I appeared to be I would have died right then. Luckily I now thought and reacted with the suddenness of a shape shifter. Even better, here inside of my own dreams, I could move with the same speed as well.

  I threw myself to one side, fighting to get far enough away that he wouldn't be able to reach me with his claws, and then two things happened at once.

  Taggart stepped in front of me, placing his body between me and the threat that Kaleb posed, and Alec cut loose with his ability. Neither effort would have been enough to save me without the other. Taggart hardened his skin to something that looked like obsidian, and that turned Kaleb's initial attack, but I saw Kaleb's claws shimmer before my eyes and somehow knew that he'd just done something to make them capable of piercing Taggart's reinforced exterior.

  He never got a chance to use them though, because a second later both he and Taggart went down in a boneless heap. I wasn't sure what to expect next, but Alec simply waved me back as he strode forward and grabbed Kaleb's massive hybrid arm with one of his human hands.

  No shape shifter could have casually moved so much weight inside of the real world while in human form, but Alec apparently was capable of simultaneously using his power and altering his strength inside of my dream. He hauled Kaleb back several feet, far enough that Taggart was no longer inside the sphere of Alec's power.

  "I'll bet you didn't expect that, did you, Dad?"

  I could count the number of times where I'd heard Alec refer to Kaleb as his father on one hand with fingers left over. This wasn't like him, but even more unusual was the sheer amount of venom in his tone.

  I was still trying to process the abrupt change in Alec's manner when he dropped Kaleb to the ground, shifted forms, and hamstrung him. The brutal savagery took me by surprise—especially since it wasn't going to slow Kaleb down for long. He healed at incredible speeds even in the normal world. Here in the dream he was nearly unkillable.

  "Alec! What are you doing?"

  I didn't realize it was me who had yelled the words until Alec looked up at me. "I'm testing the limits of his ability here. Taggart indicated that his power is magnified inside of the dream world, but that's based on you guys being inside of his dream rather than him being inside of yours."

  As Alec spoke he casually slammed his hand into the right side of his father's chest, collapsing a lung.

  "Taggart, anything you can do to counteract his efforts to heal more quickly would be appreciated—I'd do it myself, but I won't be able to maintain my ability, concentrate on that, and torture him all at the same time."

  Kaleb laughed—a mocking sound that told me that his lung had already reinflated itself. "I didn't think you had it in you, son."

  "You'd be surprised what I have in me, Dad. I should probably be thanking you for that. I spent my entire life scared of you, Brandon, Mallory and a dozen other bullies. It wasn't until you pushed me over the edge that I finally realized I was capable of doing what needed to be done to protect Rachel and stop people like you."

  Taggart stepped forward, obviously wanting to edge Alec out of the way, but equally aware that he didn't dare get close enough for Alec's ability to start draining him too.

  "Alec, let me do this. You step back and focus just on keeping your ability up and impeding your father's healing. I have more experience at this than you do."

  Alec didn't look away from Kaleb, shaking his head as he slammed his claws back into his father's chest again.

  "I don't think so—not this time, Dream Stealer. You may have more experience, but I'm never going to have as good an opportunity to learn as I will today. I can do just about anything to Daddy dearest without killing him. Besides, certain things should be kept in the family."

  Taggart must have started exerting his will to stop Kaleb's healing because when
the other man spoke again I could hear the terrible whistling of a punctured lung.

  "It's good to see that you've found your natural home with the world's most dedicated terrorist. I don't suppose that this is his real hybrid form, but who knows—I'll be sure to enter it into our database when I get back to the real world. Who's the lovely specimen over there? She's new."

  Alec grabbed his father's arm and slammed his fist against the back of Kaleb's elbow, shattering the joint.

  "You don't get to ask the questions here. I want names and descriptions of the rest of the Coun'hij. Let's start with Puppeteer."

  Undeterred by the pain he had to have been in, Kaleb flipped himself onto his back and shook his head at Alec.

  "You can't honestly imagine that this is going to work. You know that we don't feel pain the same way in this form. I'm not going to tell you anything."

  Alec smiled again, and this time the expression made me want to cry. "That's the thing about this place. Your reality here is whatever we want it to be. Make him feel it—make him feel it all."

  Without even waiting for any kind of acknowledgment from Taggart, Alec slashed his father across the stomach, and this time Kaleb screamed. Alec didn't even flinch.

  "I'll bet that you thought you'd be able to combat that particular change to your nervous system, but I've spent most of the last twenty-four hours thinking about how this needs to go down. Those injuries you're suffering from aren't just designed to hamper your ability to fight, they are also designed to start bleeding away your strength.

  "You might be Taggart's equal inside of your own dream, but here I rather suspect that you're not even in the same league. Between the damage your dream body has already sustained and the constant, unrelenting drain of my ability, you're even less of a match for him than you would normally be."