by Athena Blaez
Ryder hooked his arm around Sean’s shoulders. “I think it’s highly unlikely. In fact, I bet he’s just a money-grubbing opportunistic bag of shit, coming to take advantage of the confusion of her last days.”
After taking a few breaths and pressing his fingers to his eyes, Sean relented with a nod. “You’re right. I just want him to suffer like we suffered, Ryder. To feel the pain of everything bad done to him like he tormented us for all those years. He broke my mother’s heart.”
“What caused her to leave him?” This was probably treading on dangerously hurtful memories. “Do you know?”
“Me,” Sean said. He slumped on the couch to rest his head against Ryder’s shoulder. “When I was younger, I had zero control over my dreamwalking. One night, I ended up in his. The things he dreamed about…they were vile, Ryder. Vile and illegal and disgusting. About me.”
Okay. Ryder wasn’t ready for that, but it put Ernie’s dog reference in a little more context. “Did you…were you there in the dream while he did it?”
“No, funnily enough. But it was me he was doing them to. Or someone like me. I don’t know. I got out of the dream and went straight to my mother with it. It scared me so much. She was appalled and disgusted and immediately took us away.”
“God damn,” Ryder said quietly. “I’m so sorry. That had to be…I can’t even imagine what that was like.”
“Every so often, I’d slip into his dreams. The depths of perversion he stooped to…” Sean folded the policy and put all the papers back in the box to lock it away. He handed Ryder the key. “Hold on to this a while longer. And the box, too. Just in case this friend of his…what is his name, Charlie? Just in case he decides to come around for it.”
Ryder nodded when Sean handed them to him. He didn’t think Charlie was interested in this but it was better to be safe. “I have a place to hide it.”
For the moment, he sat it aside. “When was the last time you ate?”
“I did eat this morning. Jeremy stopped by on his way to his shop and brought me something.”
“It wasn’t sugar, was it? It’s a wonder he still has any teeth. Unless he has a really good dentist.”
That made Sean laugh and his body relaxed against Ryder’s. “He’s surprisingly health conscious. He runs every morning and eats well through the day. Donuts are his kryptonite, though.”
“Are you hungry now? I’m famished.” Ryder dislodged Sean to go into the kitchen. “Can I rummage through your fridge? Or is it too soon for that?”
“Leftover meatloaf sandwich actually sounds good,” Sean called from the living room.
“Are you up for that? Hot or cold?”
“Hot please.”
Ryder went back into the living room. “How did I end up making you lunch?”
“Lucky, I guess. I’m exhausted. I didn’t sleep worth shit last night.”
“At least come keep me company as I blunder around your kitchen looking for shit.”
With a tired sigh, Sean rocked to his feet and immediately dropped into a dinette chair when they were in the kitchen. “Want me to do it?”
Ryder shot Sean a smile over his shoulder. “I don’t mind. After lunch, you should crash for a bit. I can hold off anyone who comes over to offer condolences.”
Sean waved him off. “No one will. We really didn’t know many people in town.”
“This is Aurora. Word will spread fast. Wolf-express.”
“Is that like pony express?”
“Only with wolves.”
“You guys really are connected in town.”
Ryder, with guidance from Sean, managed to cobble together two meatloaf sandwiches. “Generations of families. We’ve learned to coexist.”
“Right. Open secret.”
He set Sean’s plate in front of him. “Something to drink?”
“Water.” Sean grabbed Ryder’s hand before he stepped away. “I can’t thank you enough, Ryder. If I had to go through this alone…Jeremy means well and he’s my best friend but…you know.”
Ryder kissed Sean’s hand before he went to get their drinks. “I’m glad I can be here for you.”
They ate their lunch in silence. Exhaustion was taking its toll on Sean. His eyes blinked slower and slower until the jaw cracking yawn put an end to his lunch. “I can’t stay upright any longer. Will you be here while I take a nap? I don’t want to be alone. Arthur’s a nice guy, for a wolf, but he’s not you.”
“You and Arthur been talking, have you?”
“He’s alright. Thinks the world of his alpha.” Sean beamed at Ryder. “And I can see why. His alpha is a solid rock of support.”
Ryder’s cheeks heated beneath the praise. “Get upstairs. I’ll be down here watching The Price Is Right. I always thought I’d like to be on that show. I was pretty good at it when Bob Barker was the host.”
Sean slowly dragged himself up the stairs. “You’re telling your age, you know.”
“I was a kid then. It wasn’t that long ago.”
Sean’s laughter echoed back down the stairs.
He got comfortable on the couch and left the television on mute. The images of some show were enough to keep him awake. He didn’t want the sound to interrupt Sean’s sleep.
Noise outside the kitchen window brought Ryder to full alert. He eased off the couch and quietly stalked to the door. The scents of his pack. They must be changing shifts.
When he opened the door, both wolves turned to face him. He smiled. “Just checking. Who’s leaving?”
The white wolf stepped forward. The gray wiggled into the hole they’d dug in the bushes against the back of the house. Ryder motioned for him to come in. “Report,” he said when he shut the door.
The wolf shifted and Arthur rose to two human feet. “How is he?”
“He seems to be doing alright. There’s a lot on his plate right now. Anything unusual?”
Arthur hesitated. “It’s stupid, Alpha.”
“The only stupid is if you don’t tell me what’s on your mind.” Ryder crossed his arms. “Just say it. Let me judge if it’s stupid.”
“Right, Alpha, sorry. I let you down, Alpha. I left my post and that man managed to get into the house.”
“You were doing what you were told to do. From what I can piece together of the timeline, it all happened very quickly. I think Charlie lured me away, knowing that I’d send you back to keep searching the neighborhood. Sean’s father broke in and waited for a chance. I don’t know if he expected Sean to lock himself in his mother’s room, but when she took a turn for the worse and they removed her to the hospital, he saw his chance.” Ryder scratched at his chin. “So the only stupid thing that happened here was that Ernie tried to make a run out the front door, right past all the uniforms that were here. I guess that’s because you had already returned to your spot by the back door.”
Arthur ducked his head. “I guess so, Alpha.”
“Looking at it that way, your actions made it possible to catch that shithead and you kept someone important to me safe.”
Ryder saw the smile and the nervous set of Arthur’s shoulders relax. “Thank you, Alpha. I only want to serve the pack.”
“Well, you do and you have. Where are your clothes?”
“They’re just outside.”
Ryder ducked out the back door and grabbed the bag. He tossed it to Arthur. “Now you need to get home and get some rest. Tell your mother I said hello, will you?”
“Yes, Alpha. Thank you.”
The young wolf dressed hastily, stomped his feet into his shoes, and was out the door in a flash.
The creak on the stairs announced Sean’s coming back down. Ryder glanced at the clock. “You’ve only been asleep an hour.”
Sean appeared in the kitchen, his hair sticking up at cute angles. He scrubbed at his eyes as he headed for the stove to put the kettle on. “Tea?”
“No thanks. I’m a coffee man.”
“I heard talking. Were you talking to yourself?”
&nb
sp; “It wouldn’t be the first time. I was getting a report from your guardian angel.”
“Anything new?”
“No. Just a confirmation of what happened the other night.”
Sean tossed the cabinet for a box of tea bags. “He’s not in trouble, is he?”
“He did everything he was supposed to do. The wild card was Ernie. Frankly, it was either luck on our part or incompetence on Ernie’s that he was caught. He really wanted that box desperately enough to hatch a bad plan.”
While Sean waited for the water to boil, he eased into the chair. “Ryder, I want to talk to you about something.”
Ryder joined him at the table. “Shoot.”
“I want to try to find Charlie for you.”
“What?”
“You’re having trouble finding him, right? He’s around but no one can get close, do I understand all that correctly?”
“Yes,” Ryder said, stunned at Sean’s offer. “But no. No. You don’t need to be traipsing around in that wolf’s head.”
“I want to help. I can help.”
“This wolf is unhinged, Sean. He’s not the normal selfish, criminally deviant waste of space that your father is.” Ryder’s gut twisted at the thought of Sean trying to get into the man’s dreams. “No. No.”
Sean’s chin lifted stubbornly. “I can do it without your permission. You can’t control what I do.”
“Sean.” Ryder wanted to be reasonable about this. “I love that you want to help. It comforts me that you think enough of me and mine to want to do something that dangerous.” He touched at Sean’s head where he still had the stitches. “But we saw what happens when you’re discovered and attacked.”
“I wasn’t ready for that then. I am ready for it now.”
“You said you can’t always control when you dreamwalk.”
“But I can dreamwalk when I want. And I can get out when I want, too. Ryder, you’ve done so much for me, you’re doing so much for me. Let me do this for you.”
Ryder believed that Sean would do it without his approval. He didn’t want to put Sean at risk. Even for sorely needed information.
He nodded. “Okay. But I want to be there beside you when you try.”
This was such a bad idea. Such a bad, bad idea.
Chapter 17
Ryder’s displeasure with Sean’s offer was obvious. He wasn’t doing anything to hide it. Despite what he thought, Sean knew the man had his best interests at heart and that was his objection.
That walking into Charlie’s dreams would put Sean in danger.
He might be right. Sean could be walking into a dangerous situation. Whoever hit him on the head while he was in someone’s dream proved the danger could be very real.
Ernie was working with this guy, Charlie. Jeremy’s freaked reaction to the hidden man when Ernie was at Sean’s shop was all the proof he needed that Ryder’s belief that dangerous elements were in play and it hinted at something bigger was right.
He wanted to know. He wanted to know how deep Ernie was in it to have endangered his mother with his involvement.
How far did the hole go?
“I’ll be right here.” Ryder was stretched out on his side with Sean. It was in the early morning, a time when Ryder said most wolves settled for rest. The house was fully dark to allow him the ability to fall into sleep without distraction.
There was a chance he wouldn’t catch Charlie immediately. In fact, Sean was ready to attempt this as many times as necessary to finally meet up with Charlie in his dream and try to find something to help with the search.
“I’m not undergoing surgery, Ryder,” Sean said lightly. He flattened Ryder’s hand over his stomach and rested his on top. Their fingers intertwined. “I’m just falling asleep.”
“Yeah, and you have the reminder of what happened last time, too.”
Sean smiled weakly. “I’ll be careful. I promise.”
“I hope so. I have no way to get you out if you get stuck.”
“Just wake me. It’ll be fine.”
Ryder’s dubious frown was the last thing filling Sean’s mind before he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
This wasn’t someone else’s dream.
Sean sat up. Ryder was not there with him. The neighborhood sounds were conspicuous by their absence. It was as quiet as a graveyard.
With a hard swallow, Sean risked getting up from the bed. He was dressed in his pajamas. Feet were bare and they sunk deeply in the mossy green carpet beneath him. The air was hot and close, definitely not the temperature he liked in his bedroom.
He was alone in the house. That was the sense he had. He knew he was the only one inside. Stretching his senses, trying hard to hear something. Anything to indicate that he wasn’t alone.
No breathing, snoring. No sounds coming from downstairs.
Walking down the stairs, there were no lights outside. Porchlights were off. The street lamp at the corner was dark. He didn’t even hear barking of dogs that went on at all times of the night.
Sean was dreamwalking in his own dream.
The alarmist in him warned that he needed to wake up. Don’t go any further. He’d never had this happen before, who knew what kind of damage he would do to himself. All he needed to do was wake up.
He wasn’t ready. There was something out there, just beyond his consciousness. It pressed against him, like two bubbles meeting.
Compelled to look out the window, Sean drew back the curtains and peered out at the darkened neighborhood.
Movement, just beyond the shadow of the trees. He couldn’t tell who it was. Or if it was a figment of his own dream, conjured images of needing to see something so he wasn’t wasting his time.
A dark figure emerged from the corner of the house across the street. It was a large black dog.
No…no. It was a wolf. The legs were too long to be a dog. How did he know that?
The wolf sat down in the middle of the neighbor’s lawn and watched Sean. It was very clear the wolf saw him. The wolf knew Sean saw him, too.
Sean opened the front door and stepped out onto the stoop.
A chill ran down his spine. His subconscious had summoned the evil wolf he saw the night of his mother’s death.
He took a step forward and collided with something invisible. His hands felt along this barrier. It didn’t give way when he pushed. Not physically, not even when he tried to project beyond it.
It was as if his reality ended there at that barrier and everything else beyond it wasn’t real. Or it wasn’t Sean’s dream. It was a different dream. Another dream.
The wolf shifted, the same process Ryder went through when he shifted in front of Sean in the kitchen. When done, he saw a man, clothed.
That wasn’t right. Ryder, when he shifted, had to shed his clothing. He left them behind when he went on the chase to find this man.
If so…then that part wasn’t Sean’s dream. Two dream worlds collided but didn’t merge. That meant one thing.
He had made contact with Charlie. That much he was certain.
But then, somehow, in some way…the other man blocked Sean out of his dream.
Sean inhaled sharply when he woke. Ryder jerked next to him, sitting up with eyebrows furrowed.
He traced Ryder’s chin and lips as if to erase the worry on his face. “What time is it?”
Ryder scrubbed his eyes and peered at his phone. “Four thirty. You were asleep two hours. What happened?”
“Nothing.”
Ryder flopped back onto the bed. “Good.”
“Well, not exactly. I mean, I think I found him. I saw him. I started off in my dream but ended up abutted against his dream.”
“Sean, that makes no sense to me.”
“It doesn’t to me, either. Or…maybe I should say, it worries me what it might actually mean.”
Sean rolled to mold himself to Ryder’s side. He rested his head on Ryder’s chest to listen to his heart beat. It was soothing to hear the man so vibrant and
alive.
“I think he was actively blocking me.”
“Can he do that?”
“I don’t know for sure. I want to get Jeremy’s take on it before I come to any conclusions. Maybe try again later.”
The two naps Sean took left him far more rested than he thought possible. He was wide awake and didn’t want to try to go back to sleep. As casual as he was trying to be about the failed experiment, the new knowledge left him disquieted.
No one had ever blocked him before. Not that he was aware of, at any rate. If Charlie really was there and had found a way to block him, it troubled Sean how he would have that knowledge. Unless his father had said something to him.
With a cleansing breath, Sean pushed all that aside. Too much trying to deliberately think on it would only lead to frustration. The answers would come in time. They always did. His mother taught him that.
Hooking a leg over Ryder’s body, Sean pushed until he was straddling Ryder’s hips. “Hi,” he said, looking down at the other man.
Ryder rested his hands on Sean’s thighs. “Hi. Not sleepy now?”
“Surprisingly not.” Sean drew his fingers over Ryder’s shirt. He caught the hem of it and pushed it up to expose the firm, muscled body beneath. “I have a lot of energy I want to burn off.”
Ryder worked at the button of his jeans, then guided Sean’s hand inside. Sean lifted his eyebrows to find Ryder was hard. “I guess I’m not the only one with excess energy?”
“Anytime I’m touching you, Sean, I have excess energy.”
“Then it’s a good thing we’re here at the same place. In the same bed. Convenient.” Sean flopped forward, catching himself on his hands as they braced Ryder’s head. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Ryder cupped his face and drew Sean into a kiss. The moment their lips met, the love and tenderness bled through their connection. Sean groaned softly as he opened for Ryder. Anything the man wanted, Sean would give him willingly.
He wasn’t sure when that happened. It was all so fast for him. His life turned upside down when Ryder entered his shop. By all accounts, he should have run the other way.
