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He backed away until his ass hit the Humvee. He stared at Derek’s body, at the dark pool of blood seeping into the sand below him, as his lion snarled and growled. Derek couldn’t be dead because Wes made the wrong fucking turn.
Sand blew in his face, blinding him and clogging his throat, and he choked and coughed, brushing at his mouth and his eyes.
“It’s your fault, Wes.”
He looked up, terror icing his veins. Boone, Cooper, and Grayson were gone. Derek sat alone in the dusty sand, slumped over with blood drooling from his mouth.
“Derek?” he whispered.
Derek lifted his gaze, and Wes shrieked at the decay on his face. Derek’s dark eyes were milky white, and the tip of his nose had rotted away. Worms squirmed in and out of the rotting holes in his cheeks, and when Derek grinned, Wes could see the nest of worms wiggling on Derek’s tongue.
“I’m dead because of you, Wes. You knew we shouldn’t have gone left, didn’t you? You knew it. But you went left anyway, and now I’m fucking dead. Because of you.” Derek climbed to his feet and shuffled toward him, golden tufts of fur stuck awkwardly to his degrading skin like thick tumbleweeds.
Wes held his hands out in front of him. “Derek, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I was… I was distracted, and I -”
“Dead because of you,” Derek growled as his fangs, once white but now a dull mustard yellow, appeared. They sliced through a worm squirming near his lips, and half of its wriggling, squiggling body fell to the sand at Derek’s feet. The other half slid back into his mouth.
“I didn’t mean it, Derek,” Wes moaned. “I’m so sorry.”
Wes, wake up. Honey, please wake up.
“Dead because of you,” Derek’s voice was like a ghost in the wind.
“I’m sorry,” Wes moaned again.
Wes, baby, open your eyes.
Her soft voice rang in his head. His lion cried mournfully and strained toward the sound of her voice. Wes wanted to follow him, oh how he wanted that, but he was frozen against the Humvee, mesmerized by the hate in Derek’s milky gaze.
His lion made a low whimper. Our mate calls us. Please.
“This is your fault.” Derek’s cold finger reached out and traced Wes’s cheek. “All your fault, Wesley.”
He opened his mouth to scream, he had no choice but to scream, and then she was there in the desert. Her worried face, her warm brown eyes, the welcome scent of his mate obliterating the stench of decay and death.
“Wes!” Warm hands touched his chest and then stroked his face. “Please wake up, honey. Please.”
Her voice and her touch pulled him entirely from the depths of his nightmare. He blinked groggily, staring up at Eleanor’s face as she rubbed his chest again. “You had a bad dream.”
“I’m okay,” he rasped as he pushed himself into a sitting position. His hands shook wildly, but Eleanor took his hands and squeezed them before he could hide them under the quilt.
“You’re not okay,” she said. “You’re shaking and,” her fingertips traced his cheek, and she showed him the moisture on them, “crying.”
He sucked in a deep and shuddering breath. “What time is it?”
“Just after nine,” she said.
“In the evening?” He stared at her in confusion.
“No, the morning. It’s Sunday morning.” Eleanor cupped his face and pressed a kiss against his mouth. “You were moaning in your sleep, and then you - you made this awful cry and…”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s all right.” She pressed her forehead against his. He pulled her into his lap and clung to her with panicky tightness until his breathing evened out.
“Wes?” she said.
“Yeah?”
