There was another noise, kind of a bark, kind of a protest, and Eden came back inside shaking her head. “Honestly. I think Jancis got all the brains when they were in utero.”
Mala blinked. “The wolf is Jancis’s twin?” No one had told her that was the relationship between Jancis and her brother, but Eden implied as much.
“Rory, yes. He was supposed to watch over you, make sure you were all right, not frighten you half to death.” At Mala’s look of disbelief, Eden added, “He’s a big lug and doesn’t always think things through. But he’s good-hearted.”
Big lug? Good-hearted? It was hard to reconcile these descriptions with her dreams. “I thought he was chasing me.”
“Yes, well, you made that clear.” Eden’s expressions ranged from scowls to frowns to those of worry, and now it was the latter. What had happened to yesterday’s Eden who hated her? “You’re shivering, dear. Get in here and drink something warm. This is a B and B, after all, and I serve breakfast.”
Mala hadn’t the energy to do anything but Eden’s bidding, so she sat down with warm tea and porridge and scrambled eggs and ate them all. The cold, or something, had made her very hungry.
The phone rang, and Angus went from sleep to full awake as he picked it up.
“I’ve been kicked off duty,” said Rory.
“Says who?” Angus scrubbed his face. Rory had been tasked with watching Mala until she arrived at his place. “What happened?”
“Mala went for a walk and I frightened her. She thought I was chasing her or something.”
“Did you chase her?”
“No,” Rory scoffed. “C’mon, Dad.”
“Well, I’m wondering how she’d get that impression—”
“I followed her. But don’t worry.” Rory grunted softly, which didn’t fit with the conversation. “Eden’s got her. She’s the one who booted me off Mala patrol. Thought you might want to go over.”
Angus heard a rumble, as if Rory was holding in laughter. He sighed. “Can you two wait until I get off the phone?”
“Yes, we can wait,” said Rory too loudly, the words clearly directed at his boyfriend. He cleared his throat. “Sorry, Dad. Mala’s fine though. Eden went all mother hen on her, which is maybe good.”
“Okay, okay, I get the picture. Talk to you later.”
“Bye, Dad.”
Angus pulled on his clothes. Eden was dependable, but she wasn’t going to prevent Mala from leaving town. Fortunately the first bus didn’t arrive until later in the morning. Still, he decided to make his way over to the B and B.
By the time he arrived, Eden was in her kitchen and Mala was nowhere to be seen. With one glance at him, Eden said, “She’s in her room.”
“How is she?”
“Looks like she didn’t sleep last night.”
“What?” He cocked his head, overplaying his question. “Why, Eden, is that concern I hear in your voice?”
She slid him a look, a hint of a smile with it. “Sure. I find it hard to see her as a threat when she’s shaking in her boots just because Rory was down the road from her.” She put the dishtowel down. “What is she doing here anyway, and how is she related to Caleb?”
“We don’t exactly know.”
“Uh-huh. You mean, it’s best that I don’t know,” Eden said.
Angus shrugged in reply, an acknowledgment of Eden’s statement. He wasn’t going to get into dreams and wraiths and all that shit with her. Angus had gotten hold of Trey last night, and while Trey didn’t dismiss what he’d been told—he was a cautious kind of guy—he’d said it was new to him.
“Worrying,” Angus had replied to Trey’s silence as he mulled over Angus’s news.
“Well, more unusual abilities may come out of the woodwork, now that the world knows about shifters and Minders.” Trey paused. “I’ll dig deeper, without putting Caleb and Mala in danger.”
“Thanks, Trey, I appreciate it.” Angus had hung up and stared at the phone, wondering just what they were about to discover.
She’d meant to lie down for a few moments, recover from her scare followed by her breakfast feast. Eden’s food had been surprisingly delicious. Or maybe not surprising. But given Eden’s poisonous looks yesterday, Mala hadn’t expected to enjoy her food.
But Mala began lightly dozing, where her thoughts were all over the place—wolves, Angus’s blue eyes, Caleb’s voice, cold wind across her face—and made a point of keeping herself in limbo between wake and dream. She didn’t want to go further into sleep. She didn’t want to have a night terror away from home. That would have to wait until she reached her own bed, where it was safe to let go. Or as safe as it got.
Though she didn’t know how long she could last without sleep. She refused to travel much for this exact reason.
The sleep pulled at her again. She’d resisted it enough that she sometimes felt that she and sleep were in a tug of war, a battle she usually didn’t have much trouble winning, to be honest. She knew how to stay awake. But the last twenty-four hours had been an emotional drain and when she dozed deeper, she could no longer drag herself up and out of it. She tried to raise her internal alarm, the one that shook her awake with the warning to stay on guard. But the weariness blanketed her, softening her thoughts, and she tumbled into the darkness of sleep. She went deep.
It was hard to know how long she’d been out, but when the sky bleached to white, a precursor of a beacon, she became aware. Dreaming.
Not here, a part of her demanded, not here, though the reason wasn’t entirely clear to her. The dreaming didn’t listen, and the beacon, it called.
The beacon of fear. She’d spent years fighting its call and losing. And the stronger she’d become, the stronger the beacon’s lure. Besides, now it was important, for reasons that eluded her at the moment. All she knew was she’d done important work recently. So she focused, aimed herself downward through white mist, through shapeless landscape, and jolted when she landed, anchored in…
…a wolf. Female.
Unusual. Her dreams were dominated by male wolves. She used to wonder if it had anything to do with being estranged from her father.
No time for thoughts of her father, of herself. There was immediate danger here. Occasionally she reached the fear before the danger was a full assault. Not today.
The female was cowering, ears back, teeth bared, furious and afraid. Mala hated coming in near the end like this, when it was so much harder to take control, to help. But at this juncture, there was no turning back.
The wolf jerked away from her attacker, barely aware of Mala who began fashioning her weapon, pulling the female’s emotions to her, though the wolf didn’t want to let them go. In her panic and her conviction she was going to die, it was all the she-wolf held on to.
Sometimes it was like that, but they hadn’t much room to maneuver. The monster lunged and once again the female jumped backwards, out of the way.
She understood she was being played with, and Mala thought, “Yes, let him play with you.”
Confusion raced through the female, her first awareness of her intruder. “Friend,” Mala assured her while she worked furiously, weaving in the anger, the fear, the terrible sorrow. The she-wolf wanted her life back, she wanted to never have met her attacker.
Mala made her weapon strong, sharp. She knew how to forge fear into a harsh, bright jagged edge.
How had it come to this for the female wolf? Not now, don’t ask now. Mala simply didn’t have time. She pulled on the wolf’s emotions, and after her initial resistance, the female released them to her, lacking the will to fight within, when the real danger bore down on her in the form of a large male wolf.
As she sharpened the brightness, Mala became more strongly aware of who this was—a female wolf older than her, terrified and angry. And far too alone.
“I’m here,” Mala told her.
Unlike Caleb, the female didn’t accept that Mala was something apart from her. She just gave in to the sensation of shedding the worst of h
er emotions so she could duck and weave while the monster nipped and bit her on this path where she’d been cornered, the morning light incongruously cheerful.
The she-wolf was bleeding. The pain made it difficult to focus.
In turn that made Mala angry and she wove her own emotion into the blade, once, twice, thrice. Then she looked up and out, through the she-wolf’s eyes.
Into golden pupils. The eyes of a brown-furred wolf. Caleb’s father.
He came at her then, and Mala thrust, no hesitation, letting her own anger feed her attack on him.
Upon entry, she felt his shock first, followed by fury and a recognition that this had happened to him before, even as he fought against her invasion, even as she anchored inside him. He couldn’t believe this was happening once more, had thought the other instance a one-time aberration, and Mala could taste his rage, it was so strong within.
No one stops me. His thought, his declaration.
She didn’t speak to him, hiding herself within the white blade that held his heart still as she worked deeper into the muscle, stopping its beat until he had no choice but to collapse to the ground.
I won’t let go this time, she told herself.
Before today, these attacks had been all about her and her need to take control of the dream. But now she knew different. And while she didn’t know if her dream blade could slay Caleb’s father, she would stay here forever, if necessary. She wanted the she-wolf to go free.
“Who are you?”
Blearily, Mala tried to focus on where that thought came from. She couldn’t look out through the eyes of Caleb’s father because they had closed, his body shutting down. But he was still there, still aware—and aware of her.
The female who’d been cornered, who’d called Mala to her, was gone. She’d fled as soon as Caleb’s father had stopped his attack, Mala had seen that much. The escape was good, but just as important was that Caleb’s father be in no shape to follow her.
“You’ve been here before.” It was a struggle, Mala recognized, for him to communicate with her. But it also indicated that Caleb’s father was not dead, not even unconscious, no matter what he might look like to the outside world.
He wanted to know her, and she tried to stay hidden in the white shine of the blade.
“Time to leave.”
He was right, she wanted to leave. Desperately. The old panic clawed at her, the fear she would die in the body she’d attacked and never awake from the dream. He scented her fear.
“You will die.” This pleased him and he used it as threat, but he didn’t know what he was talking about. This was all new to him and he was guessing. She thought of Caleb and fought to hold on.
Surprise flowed through her and that surprise came from him. “You know Caleb?” he asked.
She went as still and small as possible. That feeling of being watched crawled through her consciousness, somewhat akin to when she’d boarded the bus in Toronto to travel north. She tried not to think, tried not to give things away. If staying longer and sharing her thoughts with this monster endangered Caleb, she would have to float free.
His thoughts were getting muddier, darker, in his effort to remain conscious. His energy was draining, because of her. “I’m Caleb’s father, John. Give me your name.”
She resisted his demand.
“Your name,” he insisted, relishing her fear, despite his dire situation. For he was used to delivering commands, ultimatums. Used to getting his way. His will seemed to assail her. He was fighting for his life, and she did not want him to have it.
“Wraith, leave me now and I will forget you. Otherwise, I will know your name.”
She blanked her mind, refusing to think it, yet it came anyway. “Mala.”
But she had not said her name. She was hiding from it, hiding from the sound. Someone was betraying her identity.
Her world shook, her grip loosened. The blade began to slide out and her with it.
“Mala.” This time more insistent. “Wake up.” She absorbed sound.
“Yes, wake up, Mala.”
Caleb’s father’s body strengthened, and he fought to push her out. Her world shook again and she could not stay within him. She slid out with the blade and rose above his body, John’s body. As her world turned to white, she watched the monster breathe, eyes closed but body faintly stirring. All too soon, he would clamber to his feet yet again. She hoped the female wolf had enough time to flee to safety.
Chapter Eight
Angus had been prepared to wait for Mala to descend from her room. After all, he wanted to give her the impression he was her friendly host, not her jailer trying to keep her under lock and key in Wolf Town.
And he did wait, for over an hour. Then, as he sipped his second cup of coffee, a keening noise came from above. Yes, he had great hearing, he was a wolf, but that distressed sound carried far. The hair on the back of his neck rose.
His gaze rested on Eden’s for a brief moment. “Get the key in case her door is locked.”
He ran to the stairs, took them two at a time, and reached her room. Through the door, he heard smaller noises of distress. Once it sounded like a yip of pain.
Christ. What was going on? The door was locked, the lever stuck at horizontal with no give, and Angus considered breaking the door in. But Eden was on his heels, key in hand, so he moved aside and she slid the key into the lock and turned the handle down.
He barreled in to see Mala lying ramrod stiff on the bed, her body frozen with tension. She was breathing loudly, as if under duress.
Jesus. He went to her, unsure of what to do. He crouched beside the bed without touching her and murmured, “Mala.”
She didn’t respond and, carefully, not wanting to alarm her, he placed a hand on her shoulder. When she didn’t react, just seemed lost to wherever her dreams had taken her, he put both hands on her shoulders and shook her gently.
Was it this way for her every time she slept? He couldn’t imagine such a life.
“Mala, wake up,” he urged.
She was gasping, and he backed away, worried he’d done more harm than good. Her body started to relax and, all of a sudden, she jackknifed to sitting, eyes wide open, stark terror on her face.
“Mala,” he repeated a third time, and her chest heaved once, pulling in a long inhale. Again he reached for her, watching for her reaction, making sure his hand on her shoulder didn’t alarm her further.
She accepted his touch and he slid his palm down her back as she caught her breath. He settled in beside her on the bed, eased an arm around her slim shoulders and drew her to him, and she allowed it all.
If she’d been a wolf, she might have leaned into him more, seeking more comfort in touch, but she didn’t pull away, simply rested there, head against his chest.
He pushed hair off her sweaty brow and tilted her face up to look at him. “Tell me what happened.”
Her eyes were wide and dilated. She blinked, seemingly mesmerized, and he wondered if she was able to answer. But she swallowed and spoke. “He’s going to kill her.”
Angus froze. Dream wraith, he reminded himself. Little understood, more the stuff of myth than reality. Until now. If he was right, she had witnessed something real, something he’d woken her from. He didn’t know if his intervention was good or bad. But he feared it was the latter. “Where? Where is this happening?”
She shook her head, then appeared to recognize she was in a close embrace with Angus and stiffened up, pulled away. Rubbing her face hard, she looked disoriented. “I have no idea where. But it was him.”
“Who?”
“In the dream, the attacker. It was Caleb’s father.” She sagged wearily, staring down at the bed’s sheets. “Again. The worst ones always do reappear.”
Angus looked away and closed his eyes.
Fucking hell.
She should have wanted to disappear. Talking about her nightmares had always been a disaster, in every way possible, so a part of her reflexively wanted to flee. But
Angus was on the phone to someone named Trey, trying to locate where John Davies could be.
Angus was taking her dream very seriously.
“Did you get the woman’s name?” Angus asked her, breaking from his talk with Trey.
“She didn’t give it, she didn’t think it.” No time, Mala could have added.
Angus nodded, as if that made perfect sense, and waited to see if Mala had more to say.
“She was small, smaller than Caleb’s father.” In case it wasn’t obvious, she added, “As a wolf.”
“Hear that?” Angus said to the phone and Trey on the other end mumbled back while Angus nodded encouragingly at her. Any details you can remember, he’d said earlier before he’d called up Trey, might be helpful. The thought of her dreams being helpful to someone was dizzying, but she had to concentrate. She tried to remember back to that feeling of being inside the she-wolf.
“Maybe she was near Caleb’s size. It felt about the same. Though it’s hard to know if what I feel translates into…reality.”
“What was around you? Snow?”
“No.” The realization surprised her. “No snow. Not like here. It could have been near where Caleb was attacked by his father, the ground was similar, no longer icy though. But I didn’t have a lot of time. I didn’t focus on where I was. I didn’t realize it was him until it was almost over.” Right before she attacked.
Her voice had been rising at the end, and Angus’s hand came down on her shoulder in reassurance. She wanted to lean into him, drape herself over him. It was a strange sensation, this desire to touch him, and it alarmed her.
“Just a sec, Trey.” Angus placed the phone on the bed and crouched down to take Mala’s cold hands in his warm palms, chafing them a little. He looked up at her, intent. “We’re going to try to find the wolf who was being harmed, and I need to plan that. It might take a couple of hours for us to get everyone organized and prepared.”
She nodded. The idea that people were acting on what she’d gleaned from her nightmare, she couldn’t fathom it. Yet leaving that woman to be attacked again was plain wrong.
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