Yet itwasa day of mourning and should be respected. So they spent the remainder of it amongst their people. Around men, women, and children who seemed like they were her own. Like she had somehow known them her whole life.
“Have you seen Tréan?” she asked him when they eventually drifted away from the crowd and walked out onto the dock she had jumped from her first night here. The sun was setting, and the sky splashed with deep melon. “I haven’t seen him, and he hasn’t responded to me telepathically.” She scanned the shoreline, seeing it from a better vantage from here. “I’m worried about him.”
“As am I.” Liam shook his head and eyed the forest beyond the castle. “But I get the sense he’s not alone. That the animals of the woodland keep an eye on him.”
“I agree.” She pulled her fur cloak tighter around her shoulders at the biting wind. “Which is strange, considering he’s a predator by nature. One not native to this land anymore.” She frowned and arched a brow at him. “So why would they ever protect him?”
“Because he’s your familiar, I would say.” He pulled her back against him and wrapped his arms around her to keep her warm. “Though I think ‘tis more that they watch over him than protect him. Keep him safe for you.”
“And you.” She cozied back against him, certain she was right. “He’s grown fond of you in no time. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d say he likes you as much as me now. And while I understand it, it’s definitely strange for his breed. For him in general.”
“Because he has never taken to anyone but you.” Liam saw things clearly enough. “Not until now.”
“Not until you,” she echoed.
And there was something to that. Something important. She felt so close to understanding it too. So close to seeing what lay just out of reach. That seemed like a dream.
Something that became somewhat clearer moments later.
Chapter Twenty
“IDREAMT ABOUT Tréan before I met him,” Shannon exclaimed. “I was running after him through the woods when I was a little girl. Trying to catch up. And I thought I had until....”
Almost as if her memory triggered it, Liam remembered standing in this very spot on the dock when he was much younger. The sun was just as it was now. It had sat low on the horizon when he swore he saw a huge ghostly white wolf standing on the shore looking at him. Moments later, a girl around his age appeared as well, and Liam and her locked eyes.
“Tréan led me here.” Shannon blinked and looked at him with recognition. “I remembered seeing you standing here looking back at me.”
“And I, you.” Liam shook his head, amazed he had forgotten such. He fingered the material of her druidess gown. “While much different, you wore a dress this very color.”
“Not a dress but a white nightgown.” She looked from the ghostly image already fading to the sunset. “It only looked that color because it reflected the sunset.” Her eyes grew moist. “My dress is this color because of that moment. How important it was.”
She was right. He recalled how he’d felt the first time he saw Shannon. How pretty he had thought her. How eager he wasto say hello before she faded. “There was more to it, though. Something made that moment so much more impactful.”
“I suspect it had to do with Tréan’s presence there as well,” she replied. “It had to have.”
He agreed but had no idea why. What he did know, what he remembered more by the moment, was Shannon returning after that first time. She didn’t come to this castle first, though.
“Come.” He led her back down the dock. “Let us walk and see if we can’t remember more.”
“Because there is more,” she murmured, clearly sensing the same. “And it didn’t start here. Not beyond what we just saw.”
