Page 109 of Blood and Trouble

When the roar of a bigger vehicle churned from behind me, I jumped off the hood and sauntered back into the woods, unsure if I would ever see her again.

Life went on, more of the same. Hunt, sleep, survive. Hunt, sleep, survive. Hunt, sleep, survive.

Until one day, the urge to wander farther than I normally would called to me. The presence had reached out to me again, beckoning me forward. With nothing else to do, I went. As I got closer, it grew louder, seizing my muscles, compelling me toward some reckoning.

The sounds of celebration greeted me from the edge of a clearing, and I sat at the treeline while Sol made vows to a tall, dark-haired man with white symbols painted on his chest. Her mating. She looked beautiful, as much as a monster like me could consider someone like her beautiful. Another tall ginger-haired woman looked on from the audience.

Guin, the voice inside me said. Guin. Guin. Guin.

I watched until the ceremony ended, and I didn’t feel that same pull again until weeks later, when it almost buckled me with its ferocity, insisting I wander on to land I’d promised never to cross. I went, tiptoeing, knowing the danger but forcing myself to ignore it.

The visions came faster after that—Sol in a white wedding dress, saying “I do” to that same dark-haired man. Maeve, Guin, Ava all lined up next to her. Maeve making eye contact with me from the bridesmaid line. The swelling contentment of happiness in my gut at watching it all unfold. And after that, Maeve and a different man making the same mating vows to each other.

It pleased me to see them content, to know they’d made it, to know it had all worked out for them…in the end.

This time, when I woke up, I stared at the ceiling and wept silently in the dark. Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I took deep, steady inhales to calm my racing heart. If I could lie to myself before, I couldn’t now. Something was wrong with me. Something was going on that I couldn’t explain, couldn’t understand.

I’d seen myself in that dream from the point of view of someone else. Something else.

But who?

“Ava,” Poe whispered.

I turned to look at him and forced a smile. “I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not,” he said. “I felt it. I could almost…I could almost see it.”

“Is it the nightmare again?” Lycan said.

I couldn’t keep it to myself anymore. I let it out. I told them about the dreams, how they started after the transition, how they’d been shifting and changing in the weeks since.

“It’s like it’s happening to me, like they’re my memories, but they’re not,” I went on, choking back cries as I detailed the bloody patch in the snow and the witch with the ritual. “I changed. I transformed and I…I didn’t shift back. Tonight, I was at Sol’s wedding. Except, I wasn’t. I was in the treeline, watching myself stand next to her in a bridesmaid’s dress. What’s happening to me?”

I pressed my palms into my eyes and tried to will back the tears. This wasn’t my grief. This wasn’t my pain to hold, but it affected me just as deeply, like a blade twisting in my heart.

“Hey,” Lycan said, wrapping an arm around me to pull me into his chest. I clung to him and let it out. “There you go. It’s alright.”

“Do you think Evelyn’s witch is putting a spell on me or…or…maybe she’s already inside my head, torturing me?” I couldn’t stand the thought of putting my family in danger. My sisters were here. The pack was here.

“No,” Poe said firmly. “It doesn’t work like that. If she was doing something to you, I’d feel it. I’d know.”

Lycan tightened his arms around me, almost in reflex to what Poe said.

“What do you think it means?” I asked, hoping one of them might have an answer.

“I don’t know,” Lycan said. “But we’ll find out, okay?”

“I thought I sensed something else.” Poe rubbed my back and kissed my temple. “That night in the cabin. It wasn’t your fear, your panic.”

“No,” I admitted, catching my breath. “But we had so much going on, I didn’t want to admit there was another damned thing to fix.”

“We’ll talk to Bridge tomorrow after the meeting with Fitz,” Poe said. “See if she has any magical explanation.”

“You can always tell us these things.” Lycan put a finger under my chin to lift my gaze to his. “It’s important that you tell us.”

“We can’t help you if we don’t know what’s happening,” Poe added.

I wanted to believe they’d always be there, that I always have them by my side for every battle I’d ever face, even if it was the worst kind of personal. And in the aftermath of my confession, when we lay back down and held each other until morning light, I let myself linger in that fantasy, if only for a little while. But as my eyes drifted shut again, I feared the dreams were trying to show me something, perhaps prepare me for the dangerous road ahead, one I might have to walk alone.