Wait. That wasn’t right.
If she was hallucinating then taking something in the dream wouldn’t keep her stoned. Or would it? This was becoming a little too much like a sci-fi movie-of-the-week. Take this pill and wake up, or take this other pill and keep living the hallucination. Hell, she didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t anymore.
And wasn’t that the very definition of being insane?
To weary to grind the beans, she pulled her backup tin out of the cabinet. After slamming the cabinet door shut, she put the ground coffee down on the countertop with more force than was necessary. As she went through the automatic motions associated with her task, she glanced out into the living room.
Zane sat on her couch looking utterly defeated. His confident demeanor replaced by subjugation. With shoulders hunched, his handsome face hid in his hands.
Well good, at least someone besides her was having a bad day.
Maggie watched the liquid caffeine pour through the machine into the waiting pot below. She concentrated on the flow of the coffee, imagining it turning into an entire river that would course through her kitchen. Having always been able to manipulate her dreams before, she half expected the river to appear, cutting a path through her linoleum floor.
She tried to make it snow in the living room, pictured the wet slush pouring over Zane. Imagined the air growing colder, heavy. Any minute now it would start to snow.
Wait for it. Wait. Concentrate, Maggie. Cold. Snow. She concentrated on changing the home, not exactly sure how she felt when it did not change from her thoughts. It wasn’t the first time she had tried to change a nightmare and failed.
Maybe if she heard what he wanted to say, this bad dream would play out and she’d wake up. It was worth a shot. At least he wasn’t trying to hurt her, like had happened in so many of her nightmares in the past months.
Maggie poured a cup of coffee and joined him in the living room, sitting in the recliner rather than next to him on the couch. She took a sip of coffee before she spoke, eyeing him over the lip of the cup. “All right, Zane. Tell your story.”
The fanciful tale he wove could be described as interesting, she’d give him that. By the time the story came to completion, she had downed the entire pot of coffee. She felt antsy, but she still hadn’t awakened from the nightmare.
“Let’s say I believe you,” Maggie said.
“Do you?” Zane sounded hopeful.
“Not really, but let’s just pretend I do for a minute.” Maggie crossed her legs, readjusting her robe as his face dropped. “Let’s say I believe you are from another dimension. And let’s say I believe you rescued me from this . . . stalker, was it?”
“That’s correct. Amnon was the Dream Stalker who gave you the horrific nightmares.”
He looked like he expected her to be grateful he had supposedly saved her from this Amnon. “And let’s say I believe you love me enough to want to be with me.”
“I do,” Zane vowed, sounding rather sincere.
“Then how long can you remain here?”
“I do not know.”
“A week? A year? And you said you are immortal, well I hate to break it to you, but I’m not. So while I grow old, where will you be?”
“By your side . . . if possible.”
Maggie narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “You love me enough to take care of me when I’m old.”
Zane leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs and waited until their gaze met before he spoke. “I will love you forever, Maggie. Old. Young. It doesn’t matter, as long as I have you.”
“You say that now.”
“I speak the truth. I’ve told you the whole truth, even though I could get in serious trouble with the Ruling Council for doing so.”
“Why take the risk?”
“If you don’t take extraordinary risks, you’ll lead an ordinary life. I’ll willingly risk their wrath, if it means I can be with you.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you, Margret Shea O’Connell.”
“How do you know my full name?” Maggie watched an emotion pass over his features. Concern, despair, she couldn’t be sure which.
“I pulled it from you during a shared dream.”
Her brow furrowed in suspicion. “What else did you glean from my dreams?”
Colorful curses flowed through his head. How was he supposed to answer that one without earning more of her ire?
The sound of a gunshot kept him from having to answer when the bullet buzzed through the door of her home. Zane dove from the couch, catching Maggie around the waist. His momentum toppled the recliner, spilling their bodies onto the floor in a heap of limbs.
Zane pushed her down as he peer over the toppled chair and witnessed the door explode into the house. His eyes widened in recognition, when the man wearing a gray hoodie pushed his way through the wreckage.
The man’s eyes were crazed; it was the only way to describe them. They were wide and bloodshot, like he had not slept in days. Perhaps months.
His body looked spectrally thin. His clothes hung from him as he looked around the room. His boney hand held a gun that looked identical to the one from the previous day. When the man swung it in their direction, Zane leapt into action, bounding over the chair.
He grabbed the man about his waist in a fierce bear hug, sending the two of them stumbling backwards out of the door. They fell down the steps to Maggie’s home, and the gun went off when they landed on the concrete walkway below.
The man squirmed in Zane’s hold, like a worm unearthed from the ground. With more effort than he thought it would take, he straddled the man, feeling the sharp outline of his ribs through their clothes. Zane focused on the gun still held by the flailing man. His large hands lashed out, reaching for the arm holding the gun. He grasped the man’s wrist in a crushing grip, and used both hands to pin the man’s forearm and gun to the ground.
Pain shot through Zane’s left temple and he turned to find the cause just as the man was about to deliver a second blow with the large rock held in his opposite hand.
Zane had no choice, but to release one of his hands to block the blow. When he did, the man managed to wiggle his gun hand free and got off another round, while he struggled with Zane for dominance.
The man fought like the third gorilla on Noah’s ark—ruthlessly and without mercy—surprisingly strong for one so thin and scrawny.
Zane shook the rock out of the man’s hand and pinned it to the grass. He leaned most of his weight against the downed arm which set his body off balance. His opponent twisted and raised his hips, bucking wildly to dislodge Zane.
Using the fighting dexterity he’d honed over the centuries, Zane tucked into a roll, coming to a stop on the balls of his feet and rose to his full height in a fighter’s stance.
The man threw a fist full of grass and dirt in Zane’s eyes. Temporarily blinded, he heard a shot and a scream. His blood went cold.
Wiping the debris down his face, he forced opened his eyes. They stung from the dirt, but he had to see. The man in the gray hoodie had turned sideways, his gun pointed at the house.
Zane’s gaze flew to the home. Maggie stood on the steps of her home hugging her side. The warrior watched Maggie sway, his eyes registering the wells of blood rising through her spread fingers. Panic gripped him in its suffocating hold, making it difficult to draw air into his lungs.
But the panic was short-lived, for it quickly turned to anger—an anger he channeled into his muscles to give them strength. Rage rolled through him, soliciting a roar from his throat as he bound toward their assailant.
Forsaking all form in his pursuit of retribution, Zane charged. Bullets ricocheted around him. Something hot bit into his stomach, but he didn’t spare it a second’s thought.
; His focused solely on his enemy, the one who had injured his woman.
He reached the man in the blink of an eye. Their bodies went down in a mass of flesh, limbs tangled in their struggle for supremacy. They rolled over the dewy grass until they came to rest with his opponent lying on top of him. The man’s back to Zane’s front.
Zane locked his legs around the man’s waist to hold him there and grabbed the arm that held the gun. Zane knocked the scrawny hand hard on the ground, dislodging the gun. It skittered just out of reach over the lawn.
The gun would not be how Zane would end this. Hand to hand, a fair fight would be the way this altercation would end. The honorable battle, though hard fought, was about to come to an end. With fatigue pushing down on him, he knew he needed to end this fast.
Zane gathered his waning strength and wrapped his arm about the man’s neck. His other arm wedged between their bodies, so his hand fisted on the back of the man’s greasy hair. A brutal snap and the man fell limp over him.
Zane ruthlessly pushed the body off of him and tried to stand. He made it to his feet, but as he went to straighten, the world tilted on its axis. He lost his balance, tumbled sideways a few steps before dropping to the ground.
Maggie ran to him, holding her side. She knelt beside him, and cradled his head on her lap.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his sole concern for her wellbeing.
“I’ll be fine. It’s a scratch.”
“Don’t lie to me,” he warned. Pain lanced through his body, taking his breath. He looked at his stomach. A crimson puddle pooled atop his flesh, spilling over his sides. Zane instantly realized the grave injury would mean his life. As long as she lives, that’s what’s important.
“A few stitches and I’ll be good as new, Zane. The bullet went right through, just under the skin.”
He heard the sound of sirens in the distance and knew she’d be okay. That was all that mattered. Weariness closed his eyes.
“Don’t you leave me,” she demanded, her fingers smoothing his hair. “You said you love me. You better prove it. You better stay with me.”
Zane forced open his eyes, looking up at her tear-streaked face. He would have loved to stay with her, wanted to tell her he loved her, but as his stare rolled up to the sky above, he found himself unable to speak.
She leaned over him. “I love you,” she whispered against his cheek, before placing a kiss there.
A feeling of welcoming peace came over him as the darkness settled in to take his pain.
Chapter 34
Zane heard buzzing, it hummed in the background like a corona discharge from an electric power line.
No light registered in his sight. His arm was cold, but the rest of him felt comfortable.
Was he dead?
If this was the afterlife, it wasn’t the way humans described it. No bright light or people he knew coming to welcome him.
Was this what happened when one of his kind died while in human form? Maybe there was no afterlife for Dream Weavers, just this darkness on the other side.
The buzzing changed, became clearer like the soft sound of fluttering wings in a flock of humming birds. Two distinct pitches vacillated back and forth.
Zane listened harder, tried to make out the tones. They softened into two distinct voices.
“So you are a friend of Zane’s?”
Maggie, he realized when the sweet sound of her voice finally registered.
She spoke to someone in hushed tones. Was she dead too?
Fear flooded him, bringing with it a cold panic. He had done everything he could to save her. He tried, really did. But maybe it hadn’t been enough.
She told him her injury was not serious. Perhaps she had been wrong. It could be like that with a gunshot. A small, benign looking hole could mask internal damage too great to survive.
The sound of a second voice quieted his thoughts. This one too was familiar.
“Yes. I have known Zane for a long time.”
Gracyn?
She couldn’t be in the afterlife. That would be impossible.
His mind flew to the only logical conclusion, and it gave him hope. Desperately holding onto what the possibility would mean for him and Maggie, Zane struggled through his groggy haze, trying to reason this through.
He must still be alive. He and Maggie must be in the human world and Gracyn had come over into the dimension. It was the only thing that made any sense.
His eyes started to open, but the sound of Maggie’s voice stopped them.
“Then you are a Dream Weaver too?”
A pregnant pause hung heavily in the air.
“Zane has told you about us.” Gracyn’s low voice was steady but carried a subtle hint of menace. “Yes, Maggie. I am a Dream Weaver.”
“How did you know my name?”
“I have heard much about you.”
“From Zane?” Maggie correctly guessed.
Zane heard the rustling of soft fabric. The soothing scent of lavender surrounded him, bringing with it a sense of peace.
“Yes. He’s quiet enamored with you.”
“I feel the same about him.”
Zane remained still, his eyes closed tight while he listened to the exchange. Did Maggie actually believe him? Did she care enough to remain with him even if he was not human? The temptation to find the answers to his questions kept him motionless.
“Do you care for him, Maggie?”
“I do.” Her confession came on a sentiment-laden voice. Hearing the play of emotions in her admission made Zane’s heart leap for joy in his chest.
“But he deceived you, lied to you.”
What was Gracyn doing? Was she trying to drive Maggie away? The answer to Gracyn’s question kept him feigning sleep.
“He did it to protect me. I realize that now. Zane saved my life not once, but twice, from the Dream Stalker and from a real stalker.”
“So you care about him because he saved you.”
“That, and other reasons.”
“Do you mind if I ask why? He has saved many over the centuries, Maggie. The Peacemaker is very proficient at his job. And yet, you are the first human who has affected him to such a degree. Tell me why it is different for the two of you?”
“I don’t know what makes us different. I can’t answer for him. All I can tell you is how I feel.”
The support he lay upon, gave under a weight. The slight depression lowered the left side of his body. Gentle fingers threaded through his hair as the smell of Maggie’s shampoo wafted over him when she continued to speak. “The first time he came to me in a dream, something tugged at my heart. There was a connection the moment our eyes met. I see a kindness in him few men have.”
“Please, continue on,” Gracyn prompted when Maggie paused.
“I started falling for him as we walked through the brightly colored meadow; by the time we made it to the waterfall I was his. Each time he came to me in a dream we learned more about each other and became closer.”
“But then he ceased his visits.”
“Uh-huh and it tore my heart in two. I missed him so much and thinking he wasn’t real didn’t change how I felt.”
Zane could hear the misery in Maggie’s voice. It pulled at his heart.
“And when you saw him in the flesh?”
“I knew my dreams didn’t do him justice. He was even more handsome in real life. When he stepped out of the shadows that evening, my heart stopped.”
“So you find him attractive, handsome. Is that why you like him?”
Zane hoped it was not the only reason, though to be honest with himself, he was glad she found him pleasant to look at.
“I think he’s very good looking,” Maggie continued, “but that’s not what
drew me to him. His personality drew me in, made me love him.”
It made his heart sing to hear her confession of love. He wanted to open his eyes, let them feast on the sight of the woman who loved him. The desire warred with the need to hear more. If he remained still, how much more would Gracyn cajole her into saying?
His curiosity won out, keeping the warrior stone still where he lay.
“And what will happen if he never wakes from his coma, Maggie? Will you go on with your life?”
There was an extended pause during which Zane held his breath as he desperately awaited her answer.
“It has been quite a week. A terrible week and I haven’t left his side. I will continue to come see him every day, even if he never wakes up.”
“I believe you, Maggie. I can see the truth of your conviction in your eyes. You should see it, Zane.”
The shock of Gracyn addressing him opened his eyes. Maggie gasped when he looked up at her.
She sat on his bed dressed in a pair of khaki pants and a red sweater that lovingly molded to her breasts. He ran his gaze over her, devouring her like a starving man does a meal. Her strawberry-blonde hair, pulled back into a braid, made her angular face and cleft chin seemed a bit more pronounced. Stark cheekbones shadowed the sunken flesh beneath. She looked tired, drawn, like she had not slept or eaten in days, and her petite body was a little smaller than last time he saw it.
Her eyes were the same, though, the same staggering shade of green with flecks of yellow thrown in to make them interesting. And in them he could see her love. It shown down on him with an undeniable truth.
“You’re awake,” she exclaimed, taking his hand in hers and placing it in her lap.
Zane gave her hand an assuring squeeze. “I love you, Maggie. I have since the first day I saw you in a dream.”
“Are you sure?” Gracyn asked from the other side of his bed.
Zane turned to look upon her in corporeal form. She was beautiful, with an almost ethereal look about her. Her platinum hair fell in long curls, flowing to her waist in waves. Her oval face and olive complexion were the perfect complement to her ruby lips. A petite nose sat between violet eyes which were outlined dramatically with kohl.
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