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He grew very still and she felt him draw in a deep breath. “I remember now. I was chasing you through a forest of thorns. You were in danger, but every step I took cut me up a little more. I was bleeding and in pain and knew I could never reach you because you were moving too fast and you couldn’t hear me call to you.”
“Are you sure it was me you were chasing?”
“I know it was.”
“What was I wearing?”
He met her gaze. “That’s the odd part. You wore an amber trimmed tank and black leathers.”
“Like your wolf pack. Was I injured or anything?”
“No.” he shook his head, but she could see the wheels turning. “You represented something in the dream.”
“I’d like to think I’m someone or something you care about very much. What were you thinking about when you fell asleep?
“You and the Gordion Pack. The future.”
“But what else?”
She felt his hold on her diminish and though she didn’t want to let him go she drew her hands from around his neck and took a step back.
He started to pace. “Do you remember the sniper incident while you and I were being shot at outside Warren’s compound?”
“Of course.” She repressed a shudder at the memory of Fergus almost getting killed again.
“The part of me that has new fae senses could feel something bad moving through the entire territory. You told me you felt it as well.”
“You’re right, I did.”
“That’s what I was thinking about as I drifted off, something terrible that’s here, in our world. I guess it took hold.”
“Fergus, I hate to say this, but in real-time you’re not facing up to something critical, life-threatening even, and I don’t think it’s about me.”
He looked like she’d slapped him across the face. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Don’t you get it? Something’s going on here with you, something astounding. And I guess I think it’s the same for me, I just haven’t figured out wha
t it is for either of us.” She shook her head slowly, then continued, “When I got home earlier, I saw all the pictures I’d left on the floor of my family room. My sister and my parents are all gone and this is Five Bridges where I’d been called to fetch a near-dead wolf from the Graveyard because a psychopath tried to kill him.” She tossed up an arm. “I don’t know what I’m saying or even what I mean. But I suspect our coming together is meant to be bigger than just oh-so-fabulous sex, don’t you think?”
His expression softened. “Well, I’m not sure. It’s been great with you, so why can’t that be enough?” He glanced around. “We could keep meeting like this, in the dreamglide, the way we used to.”
He tried to take her in his arms again, but she wouldn’t let him. Instead, she held tight to his shoulders to keep him at a distance, but she met his gaze straight on. “We were both living in denial back then. Now we each know more. You’ve walled yourself off from intimate relationships to keep your pack safe, I get that and I understand why. And I’ve … well I’m still not sure what’s going on with me. Also, you’re lying in a bed of sweat-soaked sheets. That’s why we can’t go back to our secret dreamglide sex.” She huffed a sigh that sounded hoarse and wolfish. She pulled away from him at the same time. “And I’m sensing my life is about to pivot a full one-eighty any second now.”
Fergus was scowling again, that look he’d get when he was thinking hard. “I don’t want to let you go. That’s what I know in this moment, in the dreamglide. I feel as though my life depends in every possible way on being with you. That any happiness I can ever have in Five Bridges is about my relationship with you.
“But once I leave this space, I know my real-time self will take over and my commitment to the Gordion wolves will become everything again. And I’ll have to let you go.”
Mary took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Fergus, you do whatever you feel you must. I’ll do the same. Be well.”
With that, she dissolved the dreamglide. She watched him reach out his hand to her and probably protested with a loud, ‘No’. But she felt the need to disengage. They were connected, yet not well enough. And each of them had to figure this out.
As she returned fully to her couch, she realized again that she hadn’t been unconscious at all. She felt the power of it as well, that she had no problem being fully aware of her surroundings in real-time while she was in the dreamglide. It was an amazing ability to have. Fergus, having been asleep when she drew him into the dream-world, had remained asleep. Otherwise, he too would have been conscious in both places.
Still lying on her back, she stared up at the dark wood beams angled at the apex of the ceiling. A French, bird-cage lighting fixture hung above her.
When she’d become an alter fae woman and had moved to Five Bridges, she’d created her home to be at ease as much as she could. She’d set up a veterinary practice, had kept a low profile, and assisted Officer Brannick of the Crescent Border Patrol in helping abducted women escape Revel Territory. She’d grieved the loss of her sister, but she hadn’t made any real friendships and she hadn’t dated seriously at all.
She’d lived a ghost’s life, a very small life since she’d come here. So small, she hadn’t even been willing to acknowledge to herself in real-time that she’d had an affair with Fergus for several weeks before she rescued him in the Graveyard.
