Ghost

GHOST

A bel gasped, heart pounding, eyes blind in the intense afternoon sunlight. It was the wrong time for him to be up, sleep scattering in the face of—

Don't think of that yet , he cautioned, wrenching his mind back to the physical world.

Long-conditioned discipline held him perfectly still, taking stock of his surroundings even as his skin itched with urgency. He knew better than to heed the impulse and start running South, toward the human settlement on the Southern Horn of the continent. His life had taught him that action without thought was deadly. It was a lesson he'd learned well, and had been branded into his being at a young age. It was the only reason he was still alive.

The air he ran across his tongue was dry with mineral and earth, red clay and the rough bark of spindly trees. A stark contrast to the damp nettles of his usual grounds. It reminded him just how far he was from home.

Home , he allowed himself a small snort. He hadn't had one of those in over a decade. Or was it closer to two now? That old pain still throbbed in his chest, still wept and wished for the impossible.

Or maybe not so impossible. He opened his eyes and squinted against the glare. Maybe waiting for him, yearning like he was, over the next rise.

Anticipation electrified his body, made him clench his jaw and take a slow breath. Impulsiveness was foolish. Now, more than ever, he needed to be calculated. Measured. Intelligent.

Stars Above, but how could he be intelligent with his blood refusing to move toward his brain? He snarled, frustrated with himself, and rolled to a crouch. The practical tasks of breaking camp would make it easier to ignore the desire that still pulsed through his veins and made his skin feel too tight. He was no stranger to restraint and denial, after all.

It didn't take long. He reorganized his pack, hid his tracks, and lashed his spear to his rover. Well, to the rover he was borrowing ; he had every intention of returning the vehicle to its rightful owner in Terrah. The slight detail that he'd commandeered it to trek across the continent was one he'd have to sort out with The Chemist later. Not that he regretted the decision. He could feel it the same way he could feel the waning of seasons as they turned from one into the next: time was running out.

He crept toward the edge of the young forest. The trees on the Southern Horn were pitiful in comparison to the Ferox-Nettles he was most accustomed to, thin and stingy with their shade. He longed for better cover and the darkness that best suited his eyes. The annoyance was one he'd gladly suffer, though, as he got closer to her .

"I must be out of my mind," he muttered, gazing down the rocky slope. Across open fields and toward thicker trees in the distance. Leagues that he still needed to cover. That he would cover, no matter the cost. "Completely out of my mind."

It had been months since their first encounter. He'd first thought she was an apparition, some figment of fatigue and loneliness, a marker of his unraveling grip on reality. Why would he dream of a city-dweller , unless he was fracturing? They were marauders and murderers, never acknowledging that their rightful place in the predatory hierarchy was, in fact, not at the apex. To prove that he wasn't entirely mad, he'd staunchly ignored the female who'd materialized at the edge of his dream, morose and grieving.

Or, at least, he'd tried to. It was a difficult task when everything about her called to him on an instinctual level.

Despite his lack of experience, he'd dreamt of women before. His imagination had spun together combinations of features he'd seen over the years, enhanced by the desperation of a youth eking out an existence on the outskirts of society. Thank the Stars he'd outgrown those frantic fantasies which, ultimately, only reminded him of how much he hated his own skin. He'd wipe his spend away harshly, the same hands that longed for companionship being the reason he was, and always would be, utterly alone.

"Great," he'd growled at her in that lucid, dream-like state of almost wakefulness. "I've created an imaginary friend."

One that reflected the isolation he lived with on a regular basis. She had to be a subconscious mirror, like the specters of guilt his mother had warned him about when he was young. He'd clearly been wallowing in self-loathing, a frequent pastime, and some corner of his psyche had cracked and given him a sympathetic character to practice forgiveness on.

"You disgust me," he'd spat, accepting the vitriolic words with barely a flinch. Knowing he was saying them to himself.

"I disgust myself," she'd replied, shocking him. "Stars Above, I need help."

"You're just part of a dream," he'd insisted. "And I hate you."

"More like a nightmare." She'd taken a shaking breath, her image growing stronger. "I'm not sure where it all went wrong. Stars, help me."

And in that moment, he'd realized that she was real , because he couldn't have created her himself. She didn't look like anyone he'd ever seen, anyone he could have imagined. She was one of them . A human from the settlements behind the walls. And she should have been revolting, the embodiment of everything wrong with the world. But instead of being cowardly or cruel, she was something else. Something that stole his ability to think and evaporated the words from his mind.

She was ethereal, but that was far too soft for the determined cut of her shoulders. He needed a word that spoke of hidden things and secrets. Mysterious. Her dark eyes, like the night of a new moon, held depths that spoke to the broken pieces of his own soul.

The curve of her mouth was shaped for generous giving and taking. She made him catch his breath and hold it, afraid of what he'd feel when he exhaled. Astonishment, temptation, tantalizing desire. She was confusion and satisfaction together, exquisite and staggering.

She was warm and brown, and the errant thought that he wanted to taste her, run his tongue across her throat and see if she felt as different as she looked, had erupted in his mind and refused to be banished.

Snap!

Abel hissed a curse and spun around, a rivulet of blood beading across the back of his hand, eyes scanning the eerily quiet forest.

He knew better than to let his guard down out of cover. Especially when he was exploring a new territory, still learning about the ecosystem on the lower half of the continent.

He swiped his knuckles against his pants, leaving a bright smear on the fabric. The cut wasn't too deep, already clotting. More of a nuisance than a concern. What was concerning was that he didn't know what had attacked him.

He thought of the Hollows that stalked the forests farther north; hulking, ravenous creatures that buried themselves in detritus between the roots of ancient trees. There they would wait in a sort of hibernation until large enough prey stumbled across them.

He rubbed his eyes, shielding them from the overbright world with his hand. He might not know where his attacker was, but he could at least track the scent of his own blood. A few drops there on the dry ground. A wet streak across the leaves of a low-hanging branch.

Abel frowned at the tree. It didn't look like any of the others in the cluster around it. Where the rest were dry and brittle, this one was…oily. Dark bark covered its main body, its crown full of vines instead of branches. As he watched, the vines quivered softly. Almost as if it were more animal than plant and might decide to pounce.

Intuition had him giving it a wide berth as he pushed the rover down the rise.

"Meat-eating trees," Abel groused, wondering what other ways the Executors had fouled nature around their cities.

"Mother always said that nature was fierce in the best way. To protect what belonged to it." The memory of Pen's words slipped through his mind, checking his temper.

"She would know," Abel had replied, sitting beside her in a dream. Remembering his past brought on the old ache of loss in his chest. Though, for once, he didn't even try to ignore it. It felt right to offer the strange woman who kept appearing in his mind a glimpse of his grief since she had been so candid about her own.

"How do you mean?"

"Nature is the mother." He'd shrugged, sliding his hands to the ground. Was she as curious as he was about their differences? Would she be tempted to reach out in the dream and touch him, if he were close enough? "Your mother was wise. She would understand."

"Mother was…" her words had trailed off, a watery laugh behind them. She'd slid onto her back, arms over her head, and smiled at him in a way that had his chest seizing around his lungs. "Stars, this one time, she—"

Abel felt himself mending each time they shared a dream plane. Her stories reminded him of life as a member of a clan, before he was a wandering nomad. She resuscitated him, bit by bit. And then he was appreciating the stars again, feeling the night wind across his cheeks and thinking that maybe there could be more to his life than denying death as one day bled into the next.

He pushed the rover into the next patch of forest and let his aching eyes fall shut. The dregs of sleep pulled at him, their latest dream still whispering temptation to him.

The curve of her back against his chest.

The way her laugh lit her up inside, the sound gripping something tender in him almost to the point of pain.

The hunger he'd felt prowling inside of him when he'd rolled over her, caging her with his body. As she'd accepted his assistance, and his offer, and bound them together.

"Promise?" she'd whispered, looking up at him all soft and trusting.

"I do," he'd said. And, Stars help him, he meant it.

He'd already been on his way toward her, unable to stand the distance between them. Even before she had decided that she would, in fact, leave her old life and let him show her the world outside her walls.

She was his moon, shifting everything inside of him when she stepped into his orbit. Haunting. Singular. Constantly changing. He was caught in her gravity and wouldn't change a thing.

City-dweller, the term worried at the back of his mind. Executor.

And yet, not. Over the weeks of their dream encounters, he'd begun to shift his perspective on the humans he'd always hated. Maybe they weren't so different from his kind. Just trying to carve out a living in an unforgiving world. Not intent on harming others.

Some, but not all of them. Not Benjamin Joshen, commanding officer of the Arberdon Executors.

His spear was out, whistling in an arc, before he realized he'd moved. The trunk of a nearby tree shuddered, a Macrocheira bug pinned sloppily underneath the force of his swing. Abel curled a lip, scowling. The stink of its blood would attract the rest of the hive, not to mention other scavengers. He would do well to be far away when that happened.

But the spear had sunk deep into the heart of the tree from the force of his swing, the wood imploding around the impact. The chitinous legs of the Machrocheira scrabbled around his weapon, fraying the red fabric that usually hid the blade.

"Stupid," he muttered, wrenching the weapon free. The vermin didn't deserve his anger. There was no satisfaction in its slow, unclean death. Just the thick slime of guilt that always seemed to clog his chest. At least the tree would probably survive. He closed his eyes, taking a large breath and trying to stuff his fury back down. He couldn't do anything to help Pen by tearing up the slow-growing flora that surrounded him. No, what she needed was for him to get to her, guide her through the wilds and into a new life…together?

Maybe he was more of a fool than he'd thought.

For having enough hope to search for a cure instead of accepting his isolation.

For somehow crossing paths with a Dream Walker from inside the walls and starting to want more.

For falling in love with his enemy.

Yet she was counting on him. She had accepted him, accepted his offer. She had bound them in a dream, despite the miles between them. So he would go. He would always go to her. And believe, like she did, that he was coming home.

The parched earth crumbled beneath his steps, leaving an obvious trail in his wake. He'd twisted a few branches around the end of his spear, letting the makeshift broom drag the ground and sweep them away. It wasn't particularly effective. Any decent tracker would find the path and follow it; fortunately, he was the only decent tracker for miles. Arberdon was full of armed Executors, but they were city-dwellers. They likely wouldn't know a game trail if they were walking on it.

The drum of his heart pounded in his chest, pumping adrenaline through his veins. Tonight was the night he would find her. See her with his waking eyes under the light of stars. The night she would slip quietly away and join him in the wilds.

Waiting for her to be on shift again was logical. It made sense. She would leave without notice, making it unlikely that any Executors would feel the need to explore the area outside the walls. At least not until morning, when the guard who came to relieve her reported her absence. And by that time, he and Pen would be long gone.

Still, the waiting was agony. To know she was hurting and there was nothing he could do to stop it, nothing he could do to protect her until she got out of those Stars-forsaken walls? He gnashed his teeth.

Keeping busy helped. He did all that he could while he waited for her in the forest outside Arberdon. He scouted the area, found a shelter and prepared it for them, and swore to himself that he would do everything in his power to keep her safe in their new life. That's what a good partner did, after all.

He breathed out, trying to control the nerves that bubbled beneath his skin. For the first time in years, he wouldn't be traveling alone. He would have a companion. His very best friend. The makings of his own clan, if he allowed himself to think that far.

As though he'd summoned her, a familiar pressure throbbed between his temples. He stopped, closing his eyes through the transition of her mind joining his. As always, the scent of warm sunlight, lush fields, and crackling embers tickled his senses. Stronger this time; was it because they were so physically close? His lips turned up, lungs expanding to savor her.

"Stars Above, Pen," he murmured, hoping she could feel his intent on the other end of their connection. "I'm almost there. Can you feel me, too?"

Her mind felt cautious, leafing gently at the edges of his consciousness. Like she was trailing curious fingers across his thoughts, exploring him. Seeking him.

He shuddered, stifling a groan. "Mere minutes, Pen. That's all that separates us."

That, and his ailment.

He ran a hand down his face, legs churning into a ground-eating pace through the underbrush. He didn't want to think about that. It wasn't even relevant, not really. They had their dreams, and he would find a cure by the time they were ready to…

Her thoughts grew concerned, distracting him from the pointless direction of his own. Which was a good thing.

He stilled his mind, making room for hers to wash over him. Rapid images from her flickered behind his closed eyes. Memories of lectures and training drills.

"What's got you thinking about that?" He chuckled, his chest feeling tight and warm and powerful behind his ribs. "Your mind is wandering."

She had gotten harder to interpret over the past few weeks, not conversing with him as much as sending impressions while she was awake. He worried that the rigid way she held her thoughts meant she was hiding something from him. Not about her decision to leave with him; their mutual dreaming was still vivid and clear. But she never wanted to talk about what had happened during her waking hours. The dreams were an escape. For both of them.

Until now.

Now, the escape was real. Tangible. He edged closer to Arberdon's Southern Gate, barely touching the scar of mangled earth the Executors maintained between the walls and the wilds. The line between his world and hers.

Stars, there she was. His hand wrapped around a nearby branch to steady himself, his eyes riveted.

She cut a bold figure in the dark, never mind that she was quite small. Shorter than he'd realized, actually. He doubted she would reach beyond the top of his shoulders if they were standing side by side. He couldn't help but grin, the expression feeling foreign on his face. The proud tilt to her chin. The determined press of her mouth. The confident carriage of her shoulders. She stood like she could stare down a storm and dare it to defy her.

"You don't have to stand on your own anymore, Pen," he pushed his words toward her through their connection. "Everything's fine, going according to plan. Are you ready?"

The tension digging trenches along the sides of her neck eased. Her arms relaxed under the weight of her Stars-forsaken Executor gun, the stink of its oil and gunpowder carrying across the distance to him.

And then she was turning, looking straight at him, and he felt like he'd forgotten where he'd put his legs. Though, they must have been somewhere beneath him because he was tearing off across the field. He stretched his stride, moving fast. Faster than he'd gone in years, not since he was young and stupid.

The sound of gunfire ripped through the night, ricocheting off of the trees and the walls and the thoughts that flew from his mind.

Pen's gun.

Pen was shooting at him.

Maybe he was still stupid.

Author's Note: Don't worry, their story is far from over! Start reading Unnatural, Dream Walker Book 1 by H M DuVal to find out what happens!