Dreamwalker (Stormwalker #5) (7 page)

Mick had pointed out constellations to me, showing me what humans saw—Orion, Cassiopeia, Andromeda. He even had powerful binocs so we could study the stars and moon more closely.

After that, we headed sleepily into the next town and found a motel with a vacancy. There were other bikers here, normal humans, fellow vagrants of the open road.

Mick, who didn’t know a stranger, soon made about twenty new friends. We shared beer with them, then finally went to bed.

Was Mick too tired to make love? Of course not. He never was.
 

He loved me far into the night, then held me as we drifted to sleep.

I woke in the small hours to the whisper of my name. I opened my eyes in the dark, puzzled, but the call wasn’t repeated. Mick hadn’t spoken—he lay heavily next to me, sleeping so hard he didn’t even snore.

I lay quietly and listened to the sounds of the night. I heard wind in the trees, the constant rush and roar that was a staple of mountain country. Out on the highway a lone truck rumbled by. Far beyond it came the ghostly drone of a train’s whistle.

A coyote was howling in the woods. Yip-yip-yip-yip-owoooo …

Coyotes were trouble, Grandmother always told me. They killed sheep, they dragged off lambs, they carried disease, they got into garbage. Basically they were overall pains in the ass, though Grandmother would never use those words.

I’d always envied the coyotes, running free and wild but never alone. They had packs, took care of each other, and adapted to changes in the world without missing a stride.

Yip-yip-yip-yip owoooo…
 

The coyote came closer. I hoped it stayed away from the motel, because some of the guys we’d met last night had guns, and they might think it fun to shut up the animal permanently.

Yip-yip-yip-yip owoooo … Janet!

I opened my eyes again as the howl coalesced into the syllables of my name.

Mick apparently heard nothing. He lay on his back, one hand behind his head, his hair a pleasant mess, and slept on.

I slid out of bed, snatched up Mick’s big T-shirt to cover my naked body, and padded to the window.

The curtains were open. Strange—Mick always made sure to close them before we went to bed. While he enjoyed making love to me in various and exciting ways, he had no intention of letting anyone else see. I knew the curtains had been shut.

I peered out to the back of the motel and a view of a big garbage bin, a slope of rocky soil, and the woods beyond.

Moonlight turned the view stark white with sharp-outlined shadows. The trees were black, lifting evergreen limbs high into the sky. The thick, lush vegetation was vastly different from the dry, flat lands around Many Farms, with its monolithic hills rising into blue, blue sky. Both were beautiful, but in distinct ways.

Janet …

The whisper floated among the trees.
Just the wind,
I told myself.
My imagination.

A coyote came out of the woods. It trotted along as though minding its own business, then it looked up and saw me.

Moonlight touched the animal as he stood poised, every limb firm, his gaze finding mine. His coat was silver in the pale light, his eyes dark and intense. So beautiful.

He started for the motel, moving slowly, sauntering almost. Every paw was deliberately lifted and pressed down, his movements mesmerizing.

He reached the edge of the gravel. Stared at me.
Probably wants food,
I told myself.
He knows humans leave it behind.

The window pane in front of me wavered, then dissolved and was gone. I blinked, wondering what had happened, but I was strangely unworried.

Behind me, Mick began to snore, a soft, comforting sound, telling me I wasn’t alone. Mick would never leave me alone …

The coyote walked right up to the window. A breeze stirred my hair, strands floating about my face. The coyote put his paws on the windowsill, hoisted himself up, and sniffed me.

I didn’t move. It was a magical moment, human woman and wild animal connecting, acknowledging.

Then it licked my face.

Rabies,
my grandmother had told me.
Some coyotes carry rabies. Or they’re just up to no good. You can never trust a coyote. That god is all-powerful and complete trouble.

“Ew!” I shoved the coyote away. He jumped back up on me, licked again. I shoved him harder.

The coyote growled and launched himself through the window. Paws met my shoulders, shoving me down, the coyote landing on top of me on the carpet.
 

“Mick!” I tried to yell. My voice was a whisper, stuck in my throat.
Mick …

The coyote was licking, licking, nose and tongue all over my face. I twisted and turned, but I couldn’t get away from him.

Janet.
The voice returned, edged with a growl.
Time to wake up.

No! Let me stay.
Mick was here, loving me without restraint, and I loved him, unconditionally, not knowing the pain and heartbreak of the future.
I want to stay.

The voice and the coyote started to fade. I smiled, relaxing. I would remain here with Mick, and we’d ride forever.

Fire.
It started in my hand then snapped through me, pain kicking aside sweet contentment.

“No,” I moaned. “No, leave me alone.”

“Wakey-wakey, Janet!”

I knew that voice. Belonged to a shit of a dragon called Colby. But I wasn’t supposed to know him. Not yet.

The coyote pinned me down, licking my face, getting it disgustingly wet. His mouth opened, bathing me in roadkill breath and letting me see very large teeth set against his scarlet gums.

“Janet.” A deeper, very familiar voice slapped at me, and along with it came another rip of fire in my hand.

I screamed.

“Janet!” The voice roared. “Come back to me!
Please.
”

The coyote bit my face. But it was the voice that jolted me from the haze of deep comfort and rocketed me toward pain.

Mick’s voice. The call I’d always answer.

I coughed as air poured, dry and hot, into my lungs. Darkness slammed into me, and I groped my way through it. Electricity crackled in my fingers. A storm …

Thunder cracked, and a flash of light penetrated the darkness.

My eyes flew open, my gasp sending more grating air down my throat.

I levitated up a foot and then slammed back down—into a mattress on a wide bed, in a white room I knew. I was surrounded by people, both human and supernatural, and my hand still held fiery pain.

Chapter Seven

No more cool woods, Montana, motel room, moonlight. It was full day at the Crossroads Hotel, light glaring through dark clouds outside my window. Thunder rumbled through hot, humid air.
 

Colby, a man with straight black hair and a tatt-covered body, stood at the foot of the bed, peering worriedly at me. Cassandra, pale and rigid, stood next to Colby, her arms folded across her gray raw silk jacket. Next to her was a rangy-looking woman with her black hair in a braid.

The coyote was the only thing that came with me from the dream. He was on the bed next to me, having backed off being right on top of me when I jerked upward.

And Mick. He was sitting on my other side, fully dressed, his blue eyes gone black, hands hot with his dragon fire. When Mick realized I was conscious, he hauled me to him, wrapping his very strong arms around me until I couldn’t breathe.

“Janet.” His commanding voice went hoarse, filling with tears. “Gods, I thought I’d lost you.”

I heard a crackling sound, then the weight on the bed changed. The giant coyote was gone, but a man’s broad hand landed on my back, warm through my T-shirt.

“Welcome back, Janet,” Coyote’s voice rumbled. His tone held relief.

“Yeah,” Colby said. “Welcome back, sweetie. You know it’s a bad day when Micky calls
me
for help.”

Memories of my life now rushed back at me, hitting me all at once in a body slam. I wheezed, cramping with the pain, and realized my hand was bloody. A shard of magic mirror had cut my skin, and now my blood smeared its silver. The same hand wore my engagement ring, back in place where it should be. It was the mirror and the ring that had burned me in the dream, I realized, reality finally cutting through to me.

Janet, honey,
the mirror cried.
I missed you!

Mick gently took my face in his hands, as he had in the past, and looked deep into my eyes.

I rarely had this many people in my bedroom. I was dressed only in one of Mick’s T-shirts, and I couldn’t feel any panties on my butt. I self-consciously tugged the T-shirt down.

“What the hell happened?” My voice was a croak. “Last thing I remember is fighting at Flat Mesa last night. That guy, John, smacked me, and knocked me out. Where’s Gabrielle? Is she okay? Why are you all staring at me? I had some weird dreams, but I’m fine …”

Mick gently opened my hand, which was still squeezing the mirror, cutting into my skin. He set the shard aside.

“Sweetheart, you’ve been out for two weeks.”

Disorientation smacked me between the eyes. “No way in hell.”

The grave faces of those around me told me Mick wasn’t kidding. Cassandra looked particularly worried.

“Then why aren’t I in a hospital hooked up to machines?” I demanded. “How am I still alive?”

“Micky kept you going,” Colby answered. “And Cass with some wicked-ass spells.”

“You weren’t seriously injured,” Cassandra said. “Not physically anyway. Mick healed your burns and bites, but we couldn’t wake you up. I kept your body going with spells, but I was afraid I couldn’t keep it up much longer.”

Her voice wavered, and I saw her blink. My cool, all-business manager was on the edge of crying.

Coyote, who hadn’t bothered to dress himself, stood up. He was a big man, well muscled all over, his black hair pulled back into a tight braid. Why his hair didn’t come out of the braid when he shifted, I didn’t know, but he was a god, and they had their own rules. He saw no reason he shouldn’t stand among us without wearing a stitch, but again, gods do as they please.

“They found me when they got scared,” Coyote said. “I had my eye on you already, though. I was wondering how it would play out.”

My head was a place of fog and confusion. “Keeping an eye on me—in my dreams?”

“Sure,” Coyote said. “Why not?”

“What were you dreaming?” Mick asked me.

I looked right back into his eyes. “I was with you. A long time ago. In South Dakota, and then …”

I reached for the images, the happiness I’d been willing to drown in. It slipped from me, the vivid dream dispersing like a bursting soap bubble.

I screwed up my face, trying to hold on. Thoughts, feelings, and memories slid away. “It’s fading. I don’t remember.”

“Dreams do that,” Colby said.

“I’m hungry,” I started to heave myself up, eager to see what was in the kitchen, then sat back down and hauled the sheets over my bare legs. “Could you all, ah, give me a sec?”

“Of course,” Cassandra said smoothly.

She walked away after giving Colby a pointed look. Colby, with a wink at me, followed her out.

Pamela, the tall woman with black hair and wolf eyes, came to the bed. She was powerful, a Changer who could take the form of a black wolf. “Keeping you alive nearly killed her,” she snapped.

By
her
, she meant Cassandra. Pamela considered Cassandra her mate, and was very protective of her. If she’d thought she’d have to kill me to save Cassandra, she’d have done it. Mick would have tried to stop her, possibly killing her in the process, and then Cassandra would have taken out her grief on Mick. Good thing I woke up when I did.

“I’ll make it up to her,” I said to Pamela. “Tell her thanks.”

“
Thanks.
After she nearly drained herself dry.” Pamela’s mouth turned down and she clenched her fists, but she quickly turned and strode out.

Mick dragged the fiery gaze he’d rested on Pamela from the door, and looked at me again, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. “I’m staying.”

“Good.” I glanced at Coyote who’d remained, watching us, his hands on his hips. “Coyote, could you, you know … leave?”

“Why? You have nothing I haven’t seen before, Janet. I don’t mind seeing it again.”

Mick growled, and fire sparked in the hand that wasn’t touching me.
 

I didn’t think Mick would actually throw the fire at Coyote, and Coyote didn’t either, so we both jumped about a foot when Mick’s fire smacked Coyote in the side.

“Hey.” Coyote put a hand out and caught the next wave Mick threw at him.

I held my breath. Coyote could obliterate Mick in the blink of an eye if he wanted to. Then again, I remembered Coyote telling me that he and Mick had fought before, and Coyote had lost.
 

Truly lost? I wondered. Coyote was always going on about things happening for a reason—had he known how much I’d need Mick in my life and so had let him live?

“Just go,” I said, flapping my hand at him.

Coyote heaved a long sigh. “All right. I know when I’ve worn out my welcome. Janet—if you start remembering your dreams, you come and tell me about them.
All
about them. Got it?”

Behind his pain-in-the-ass grin was a serious look, one of profound worry. There was more to this than me taking a hit and having two weeks’ worth of strange dreams.

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll find you. Keep your cell phone on.”

“Gah, I hate technology.”
 

With that, Coyote turned his back and walked away. He didn’t shift, didn’t look for clothes. I hoped that, if he planned to parade through the hotel lobby, the guests were either out or used to shape-shifters enough not to be bothered.

As soon as Coyote had gone, Mick sent a sparkle of fire to slam the door and lock it. He was pushing me back down onto the bed in the next instant, over me on hands and knees, giving me his intense scrutiny.

“I couldn’t wake you up,” he said, his deep voice going scratchy. “I tried so hard. I healed your wounds, but I couldn’t reach
you
. Damn it, I thought I’d lost you forever.”