Chapter 13

S hadows play around me, some lighter and some darker, shifting and dancing. They sweep above me and stream beneath me and coruscate past me, wreathing me in layers of darkness.

I feel Caleb. I taste his blood in the shadows and scent his skin. His prana calls to me. Something rushes past me, causing the shadows to eddy like fog. I sense his amusement. Something sharp nips at my hip, tearing my slip.

Hey, I just put that on! I snap, irritated.

Your perfection should not be hidden. Even though the words toll in my head, I have a sense of them coming from behind me. And then I feel him, towering behind me, heat billowing against me.

We are nowhere—we are in The Dreaming, surrounded by fog and shadows—Caleb's particular version of The Dreaming, it feels like. His nose presses against the back of my neck, and his finger traces a hot sharp line down my spine, and the slip parts, billowing to my feet and vanishing in a pool of shifting shadows, leaving me naked once more.

My nipples pebble as his hands rest on my hips.

"I missed you," he murmurs.

"I wasn't gone for even a day, Caleb."

"Time moves differently here. And it's too long."

I spin in place, glaring up at him, grabbing his hands and holding them away from my body. "You marked me, Caleb. A mate-bond."

His amber eyes glow brightly, his expression pleased. "I did. You are my bonded mate, Maeve."

"You didn't ask."

"I didn't have to. You are my mate."

"I already have a mate." I swallow hard. "I've betrayed him."

"No. You have not. You have gained a mate. He has lost nothing." He cups my face in both hands, tipping my face up to his. "Do you love him less because I have marked you as mine?"

"No," I whisper.

"You are mine. You are his. It does not need to be mutually exclusive."

"How does that work?"

He shrugs. "I do not know. We will have to figure it out. You will have to figure it out."

"I wasn't ready for another mate."

He tugs my lower lip down with his thumb. "We are never ready for a bonded mate."

"Were you bonded to Susannah?"

His eyes darken with pain—literally, the amber glow dims. "No. We were pack-bonded, but not mate-bonded. I did not love her less for that, however."

"Of course not," I hurry to say. "I didn't mean to imply you did. I was just curious." I peer up at him. "So…what happens with us, now? I know basically nothing about shifters."

"I must mark you in The Waking. We will be connected, linked mind to mind like you are to Caspian. I will feel what you feel, and you will feel what I feel." He frowns. "Although you are Vaer, not shifter, so I cannot say for certain because no shifter has ever mate-bonded with someone who was not a shifter."

He turns me in place and trails his fingertips along the five deep grooves—electric sparks and fierce heat billow through me at his touch, making my sex clench, suddenly drenched with need.

"I did not mean to mark you, Maeve, truly. I had no understanding that it would mark you. I was…I was caught up in the heat of the moment." He steps into me, his huge thick strong arms descending over my shoulders to pull me back against him. "I have not shared a mating experience with anyone since Susannah died. Twenty-three years. And with you it was…" he sighs. "I don't know how to put it. More . It was more. So much more than I ever knew could be."

"You deserve someone who can give you their whole heart, Caleb. " I lean back and let him take my weight.

"I have that, Maeve."

"How can I give you my whole heart when I've already given it to another?"

"You still don't understand? Your heart, your metaphysical heart, Maeve, it's not a thing . It is not a bowl full of water—and loving someone, then, is not pouring some of that water into someone else's bowl. It's a clumsy metaphor, perhaps, but you follow my meaning. We are infinite, Maeve. Our minds, our spirits, our hearts—we are infinite and eternal. You can completely love Caspian and completely love me. It may not be natural or simple or easy at first. It will be a complicated journey. But you must think beyond mortal conceptions of love and relationships. Do not limit yourself."

"How are you so wise?" I ask, turning in his arms.

"Loss teaches you many lessons, and I have lost much in my life."

I rest my chin on his chest. "I don't know anything about you."

He gazes down at me. "Come. Hunt with me."

In a flash of amber, he is Wolf, loping away into the fog. I trot after him and find myself able to keep up easily. We move through shadows and fog, and they swirl and solidify and resolve into tall thin shapes—trees. Leaves flutter in a wind I can't feel, and then the trees have bark and I feel things crunching and shifting underfoot even though I can't see through the fog eddying around my ankles.

We run and run and run through the hallways of the forest, following an ancient trail, and slowly the forest becomes more and more real until I feel dirt and bits of leaves sticking to my feet and wind in my hair and I smell his fur.

He slows, crouches. Ahead, I see a form shrouded in a cloak of shifting shadows that obscures the figure's shape and details. The figure is moving—flailing, kicking.

Dreaming.

Wolf inches forward, slowly, gradually. I wait and watch. When he's within a few yards, he pounces, tackling the figure to the ground. Shadows swirl thick around Wolf, and his form twists, becomes lost in a haze, mixing up between man and wolf, and then a dull, faint amber light swells at the center of the cloak of shadows surrounding the figure. The amber light lessens the shadows, thins them as the light brightens, brightens, streaming into Caleb/Wolf, into his open maw. The flailing, kicking figure thrashes, and then stills.

The light fades, and the shadows recede totally, leaving the form of a woman.

Middle-aged, pretty, with red hair and freckles. She's wearing a white T-shirt with Eeyore on it, and black underwear. Her eyes are closed, and she looks at peace.

Wolf sits back and looks at me, panting, and then licks the woman's forehead, between her eyes. Slowly, she sinks down, down, down and the ground seems to melt, becoming fog and shadows, and her form is swallowed and then only the trail remains.

I look at Wolf. "What just happened?"

She was a dreaming mortal. She was experiencing a nightmare—I devoured her mana, and she woke up. His eyes glow brighter than ever, and I can feel his power swelling.

"You didn't answer my question," I say.

"Yes I did," he says, shifting out of fur into flesh.

I arch an eyebrow at him. "Don't play semantics with me, Caleb. I want to know about you."

He huffs a laugh. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

"That's a lot." He holds out his hand, and I take it, and we walk the trail together, both of us naked.

The forest around us is endless and ancient and primeval; it feels like we are Adam and Eve, alone in a newborn world.

"I was born in 1766, in New Orleans. My father was a fur trapper and trader whom I only met four times in my life. My mother was a prostitute and herbalist—many thought her a witch for her knowledge of herbs. She raised me well, taught me to shift only in the forest, where no mortals could see, and how to keep my greater physical abilities hidden from mortals. See, unlike fae and vampires, we are born as we will be—fast, strong, damn near unkillable, with greater senses, and able to shift. We do not come into these powers upon puberty but at birth. So we must be taught how to use them safely in a world that was then, as it is, now, unkind to immortals.

"My father returned to New Orleans, as I said, four times. The last time, I was twenty, and he gave me some money, a sword, and some advice. And then he left and I never saw him again. My mother was killed in a hurricane when I was twenty-two."

"What was the advice?" I ask.

"‘The world is a violent place,' he told me. ‘Learn to be more violent than anyone else when necessary. But when you can be kind and merciful, be that instead. Survival is knowing the difference.'"

I consider. "Seems like pretty good advice, honestly."

He nods. "It is. I have followed it all my life." He sighs. "I left New Orleans after Mother's death. Found a pack of other shifters in the mountains of New York. I lived with them for, oh, twenty, thirty years. We lived as wolves most of the time, occasionally venturing into a town or village in our Waking bodies to trade for things we needed, and keep abreast of the goings on in the world."

"Did you fight in the war?"

He shakes his head. "We went west. It was a pack decision, not mine. And it was a mistake. Most of my pack were killed by mortal hunters—mountain men." His voice goes dark and dangerous and cold. "It was murder, plain and simple. They knew what my packmates were—shifters. They hunted them down and killed them one by one until only I remained. Me, they could not kill. I slaughtered them and scattered their bones. I didn't venture east again after that for nearly a century. Until I met Susannah. She tamed me, after that loss. I was…savage. Nearly feral. And then I lost her too, and nearly lost myself to the wolf once again." He looks at me. "Now. Tell me what you came to tell me."

I frown at him. "How did you know?"

His fingers skate over my back, making me shudder all over. "I feel you. I hear you. This mark binds us here, in The Dreaming."

"Why can I not feel you, then?"

"You are not listening." He pauses. "It is not like speech. It is feelings. Senses. You must attune yourself to me."

"With Cas, it was instant. Like, boom, I could hear him and feel him."

"It will be that way when we mate in The Waking and I mark you there."

"Seems like some chauvinistic bullshit that you mark me , but I can't mark you ."

He laughs out loud. "You are not a shifter, Maeve. You must mark me as Vaer would mark me. And I do not believe it can happen here in The Dreaming, because you are not of The Dreaming in the way I am."

"How does a vaer mark?" I ask.

He shrugs. "How should I know? I'm not a vaer."

I laugh. "Well, I've only been one for, what? A month? Two? I don't know either."

"You will when the time comes."

I focus on him, and I feel a sense of his presence. It's distant, though, so I draw nearer. Pull him to me. I feel his wildness—he is not a tame wolf, much less a domesticated dog. He is a creature of nature, a being of both worlds, animal and man. I sense the duality in him, the drive for the hunt and the love of running, scenting, tracking. I sense the man in him, the fierce power, the unbreakable spirit, the lust for life…

For me.

I pull all of that into me, and it settles in me—somewhere between my belly and my back.

He smiles. "See? Easy."

"You're distracting," I say, walking away from him.

He catches up easily and walks with me. Waits.

"I think I know what I have to do," I say, eventually. "Just not how."

He takes my hand. "Tell me."

I let out a breath, stop, and turn to face him. "I have to escape through The Dreaming. I have to come here, in my body, and find my way out— through it. My grandfather thinks it can work."

He regards me without expression for a moment or two, and then frowns thoughtfully, nodding. "It is within the realm of theory, at least. It has never been attempted that I know of."

I turn to a nearby tree, a towering, pungent cedar. "It is the only possibility. The ward is simply too powerful. I could throw myself against it until I die and never make a dent. From what Aeldfar said, it is a huge risk."

He nods. "It is. First, you must discover how to bring your Waking self here into The Dreaming, and then you must find your way out again with your Waking self. If you fail, you will be trapped in The Dreaming for all time."

"It's all I can think of, short of an all-out assault on the Tribunal base from the outside."

He shakes his head. "Impossible. I do not use that word lightly, but it is truly impossible. Just the exterior doors alone…no. That would be an assault requiring D-Day logistics. Without you leading it, I mean. You, I believe, can breach the doors. But an assault to rescue you from within the mountain? It is impossible."

"So…through The Dreaming it is, then."

He sighs. "It is a massive risk, Maeve. It is within the realm of theory, yes, but in practice…I confess I'm not even sure where to start."

I swallow hard, cheeks flushing. "Well, you marked me, Caleb. Physically. While I was here with you. Those marks transferred to my physical body in The Waking. Which is what gave me the idea. Somehow, I think I must have brought my Waking self here, physically. Right now, this feels real."

He shakes his head. "You must stop thinking in terms of real and not real, Sparrow."

"Exactly." I slap the tree. "There is something about you, Caleb. Something you do, or are, that makes The Dreaming become…not real, but physical. Whatever separates Waking from Dreaming is less…or thinner, or something, around you. I don't know. My magic and yours together is clearly a very potent combination. If you can mark my Waking body while we are, ummm, together, here in The Dreaming, we could…I think it would work."

His eyes heat, glowing amber. "Are you ashamed of what we did, Maeve?"

I swallow hard again and look up at him. The heat in his eyes makes my skin tighten and my blood race as I remember, viscerally, how exquisite it was, with Caleb. "No, I'm not ashamed."

"We fucked like gods," he rumbles, power flaring amber in his eyes.

"We did."

"Do you regret it?"

"I worry about Caspian's feelings and the way forward for all of us together, but…no, I do not regret it."

His hands rest on my bare hips, and lightning strikes my flesh where his hands touch. "You forge an unknown path, Sparrow. None have walked where you tread. You must be bold and fearless. You must claim your power. You must take authority by force. It will not be given to you."

"I'm just a nineteen-year-old girl."

"Was Boudicca just a girl? Joan of Arc? Cleopatra? Zenobia? You are more than your age, Sparrow-mine. You must make decisions, and you must face the consequences of what you choose. You will err. People will die because of your decisions, right or wrong. The Fates have chosen you and it is not up to you to ask why, only to rise up and meet the moment as the warrior queen you are."

"You don't know me, Caleb. How can you believe in me with such confidence?"

"I do know you—I told you. You have drawn me to you in The Dreaming your whole life. Every night. Every dream you ever had, I tasted. I have supped upon your mana night after night since the day you came screaming into this world. The mana which runs in my veins beside my rakta is yours. It binds us."

"Were you waiting for me to come of age?"

He shakes his head. "No. I only knew you in your dreams. I never saw you in The Waking and never had reason to think we should ever meet. It wasn't until I caught up with you in that alley and scented you that I knew you as the Sparrow from my dreams. In The Dreaming, you were not…" he squeezes my hips. "This. The woman. You were mortal, then. I was confused as to why you kept drawing me to you because that is highly unusual for a mortal. Once, perhaps, a mortal might delve deeply enough into The Dreaming to catch the attention of a hungry shifter. But every night for twenty years? It only made sense once I saw you in The Waking and understood who and what you are."

"Which is what?"

"My true, bonded mate, destined by the Fates." He slides his hands up my waist, and my skin tingles, prickles, heat rushing through me. "Female shifters are rare, Maeve.

"Okay?" I ask, unsure of his purpose in sharing this tidbit with me.

It's hard to think of anything when his hands skate lazily over my back and shoulders, sift through my hair, and then blaze a fiery path down my spine to cradle my ass.

"Thus, in most TwiceBlood communities, it is common, even standard, for a female to have multiple mates. Not true bonded mates, perhaps, but chosen mates. Most packs, in fact, are a single female with her mates. My pack is an outlier in that none of us are mated, even though my pack boasts two females."

I rest my hands on his massive chest, tracing the hard lines of his pecs. "Okay? So…why are you telling me this, Caleb?"

"I have never been a part of such a thing, but I tell you this because it is not a strange thought at all to me for you to have more than one mate. I do not know all the ins and outs of vampire culture, but I do not believe it will be a huge stretch for him. A shock at first, perhaps, but I believe he will come to accept it."

"But, how will it work?"

He pulls me flush against his body, his hands caressing, kneading, and squeezing my ass with possessive affection. "That is a worry for later. Right now, there is only you and me, here and now."

"I think…" I lose my train of thought as he bends and kisses the side of my neck, lips trailing hot down to my shoulder, and then up my throat, and I tilt my head back, gasping, searching for what I was saying. "I think…I think I have to feed from you. Prana and rakta. I think I have to be as full of both as I can be."

"I am yours, Maeve. Take from me, for whatever I am and whatever I have, it is yours."