Reluctant Mates - 21 Paranormal Romance Stories (Werewolf, Vampire, Minotaur and Monster collection) (42 page)

Pushing myself off the ground and onto my knees, the stone hurts a little, but reassures me. The feeling between my legs – aching and sweet – makes me think for the first time that I didn’t dream it all up. I couldn’t have. Not feeling like this. I twist back and forth a couple of times, popping my back and my neck. My arms go high above my head, my shoulders prickly until I stretch out the kinks. I yawn, pop a couple more times, and then blink.

“Sebastien?” I call out again.

“Leroux? Remy? Logan? Anyone here?” Another shiver wracks me and I reach down for the fur I’ve tossed to the ground. Wrapping it around my shoulders, I realize I’m still naked, which makes me smile. “Where is everyone? Is anyone here?”

The wolves that captured me, dragged me to my present abode, and had their way with me – they’re gone. I’m completely alone, standing naked except for a grey fur in a slightly wet cave that should by all rights, not exist. Bayous aren’t exactly known for their caverns, after all. The thought occurs that I’ve entered some other, weird world, but that’s ridiculous and I push it from my mind.

I’m always a little disheveled when I wake, but this feels different. The first twinges of a headache are threatening, and I know that means that at some point during the night, I dreamed.

My dreams only recently came back, after many years without any and with them came the headaches.

Sitting down by the still-smoldering fire and leaning back against the white stone, I push my thumbs into either temple, clench my eyes shut and try to fight off the pain. When I was a little girl, I had these dreams that seemed like living someone else’s life all in one night, sort of like watching a home movie. The next morning, I’d get a horrible headache, and forget about the whole ordeal. A couple days ago, I had another one, the first in a whole lot of years. And then the wolves took me, and...

“Ugh, the light,” I groan as my brain pounds inside my skull. “Why’s it so bright?” The sun outside my little cave is diffuse, low on the horizon. Still, it burns my eyes. And then everything goes green. Sparks creep along the periphery of my vision and the pain vanishes as quickly as it appeared.

The entire world flares to life, but doesn’t hurt my strangely sensitive eyes. Just like before, right as the wolves were using me for their pleasure, my senses explode, and things I should never be able to see – that little roach coming out of a crack in the pitch-black part of the cave – are as plain as my hands in front of my face.

“We had to go.”

“Who-?”

“It’s Sebastien, Jaz. Your head, it’s on a rock, yeah?”

“Yes, but...”

“No time. Last night you were taken in, claimed by my pack. You can’t escape. Not like you wanted to.” I hear the smile in his smooth, practiced voice. I imagine him to be a man, muscular, naked, silver-haired, as he was last we were together, although I know he’s almost certainly a wolf again.

“Listen carefully. You’ve got to go and find someone for me. He’s holding something that I – we need. It’s early still. Walk straight into the sun. There’s danger. Stay out of sight. Whatever you do, don’t lie down. And, if you see anything looking like green Christmas lights, don’t touch them. Don’t look at them.”

“Okay, but,” I sigh heavily, “what am I looking for?”

I wait for a moment. No response. He’s gone. Not in the cave, not in my head.

Sebastien’s gone, and I’m alone.

My clothes are a pile on the ground. I slip on what’s left of my torn hiking shorts, my t-shirt and sweatshirt, shaking them to make sure there’s nothing at home in my pockets.

“The dream,” I ask myself, “what was the dream? If there was a headache, then you had to have a dream. That’s how it works.”

The connection with the wolves, or at least, with the alpha wolf, was something I couldn’t deny. It made absolutely no sense, but then again neither did anything else that happened in the last couple of days.

I close my eyes and try to remember what it might have been. I search the depths of my mind for any clue, any hint.

Nothing.

Just nothing. No sights, no sounds.

Standing up and stepping out of the safe haven, the sun seems pale, almost like the hint of light that follows a ghost as it disappears into darkness. My vision doesn’t recoil, it doesn’t hurt anymore. Usually along with those headaches comes a nasty case of light-sensitivity that makes me want to hide out inside for a day or so, but this time it fades much quicker.

The ground outside the cave is warm and inviting. It feels nice under my feet. I take a couple of steps and look back to where I awoke, and everything seems absolutely normal. A tiny fire still smolders, with a little tail of smoke curling up to the ceiling.

But still something is very obviously wrong. I can’t put my finger on it. Near the ground, hidden behind a couple of leaves blowing in the wind against an outcropping near the cave’s entrance, I think I see a flicker.

Movement? A spark? What’s...?

Squinting and crouching, nothing jumps out at me. I begin to think I just imagined a dragonfly or my strange new senses picked up a little more than was actually there.

“You’ve got to get a handle on this thing, Jaz.”

There it is again. A glimmer three shades below what I should be able to see, a faint green.

“What on earth is that?”

Not wanting to frighten the fireflies, or whatever I’m seeing, I crouch down and creep back toward the cave on all fours, hands and feet moving gently over the ground.

There, a flicker. And another
.

The color is nothing I’ve ever seen, I can’t make my mind bend around exactly what this is. It’s almost like I’m staring
through
reality and into something completely different. Something that’s liquid, moving, and very bright. Not fireflies at all, but little tears that dart around.

Holding my breath, I push aside the leaves that caught my attention in the first place.

“Don’t,” Sebastien says. I can’t figure out if he’s talking in my mind, or my memory is recalling something. “Don’t forget.”

It’s a memory, I just know it.

“Try to remember the dream, Jasmine, try to remember. This could be a little important.” I grab the sides of my head, frustrated, and rub my temples. “Think!”

I feel the warning again. When I look back at the strange little light, it drips away from the center of my vision like oil bouncing around in water. I look away and the warning fades.
If only I could remember...

Suddenly a name appears in my mind. It starts with a D, but is very strange. I can’t place it. Can’t remember.

A blade of grass stirs up and covers the little pinprick that I keep chasing around with my eyes. I let it sit there for a second before I go after it again. This time when I try to steal a glance, the little dot moves, then stops and oozes toward my finger. As though it were dripping down glass, a droplet forms at the end of the curious visitor and slowly creeps toward my finger.

Unconsciously, I draw in a breath and hold it in my chest. Fear grips me, for some reason, and I feel the need to reach down and grab a handful of the dirt by my knees. The warm earth in my palm seems to center me, but then I don’t sense the earth anymore. My legs aren’t on the ground anymore, they...

There is no ground. Get a grip, Jaz, get a grip.

Pulling my hand away from the drip that’s now a trickling faucet, and now a tiny stream, I feel myself fall backwards. I can’t take my eyes away. The yellow-green light acts like water pouring endlessly through the air and disappearing right below my hand. Then it’s on me. It looks and feels just like turning on a sink and sticking your hand in the pour.

“What’s happening?” I look back and forth. Curiosity turns to panic.

My fingers flicker the same color as the mysterious ectoplasm and then vanish. My arm does the same. The liquid pours over my shoulder and when I look back, there’s nothing behind me. The forest is gone, my body is gone, and then the light is gone.

I hear Sebastien’s voice in my mind again, but there’s no sense to it, he’s just making sounds that aren’t words, just strange, grunting noises. The world turns yellow, then green, then a color I can’t describe, but that seems to be halfway between orange and purple. Sounds wash over me. I feel hot, then cold.

Clenching my eyes shut, I think that I must be living in one of my dreams. There’s no other explanation.

“You’re fine, Jaz, just you imagination running away with you. You’re gonna sit here and count to ten, then you’re gonna open your eyes and see that picture of Bob Dylan you’ve got in the corner of your mirror. Your mirror in Baton Rouge. In your apartment, that’s in Baton Rouge. None of this stuff is real. You’re dreaming.”

One...two...

My body feels soft. I want to open my eyes to see what these sounds are that I’ve never heard before. I want to see what I smell that seems to be lilac, but made out of metal.

Three...four...five...

It’s so hard to keep from looking. That weird lilac smell turns into soap, then pipe smoke that smells like my granddad’s house. I feel water, and then the ground.

“See? Everything’s fine.”

Six...seven...

I’m on something soft. A bed. Pillows. Or a cloud? Not a cloud, a bed. That’s real. Laying on clouds isn’t.

Eight...nine...

“Oh, so good of you to join me!” A woman says.

I keep my eyes clamped shut.
Just my imagination. That’s all, just my imagination. A dream.

I’m about to wake up with a headache and all of this will go away.

Ten
.

“This isn’t my apartment.” I say as my eyelids peel back to reveal a woman, shimmering, wrapped in dragonfly wings. “And you’re not Bob Dylan.”

Her eyes narrow.

“No, I suppose not. Who is Bob Dylan?”

She flutters her eyelashes at me. One second, she’s wrapped in samite and then she’s unfurled eight wings that stretch out, revealing her naked beauty. Every motion the woman makes seems jerky and insect-like, as though it’s too fast for me to register. When she lifts her feet off the ground and hovers near me, I realize that’s because that’s exactly what she
is
.

I stare, unable to process anything going on. Reaching down, I get a handful of dirt.

“What’s happening?” I say with a gulp to punctuate the end of my question.

The insect woman moves so near that I can smell her. Lilac fills my nose. Lilac that has a strange, metallic after-whiff. My head swims, like it has done so often recently.

“You’re a pretty thing, aren’t you?” She sticks her face very near mine. Her entire body seems to shrink and expand. It feels like I’ve been drugged somehow and I’m feeling the effects. I know that’s not the case though. “No wonder Sebastien’s gotten so protective so quickly.”

“Wh-what do you mean?” The mention of the alpha wolf’s name prickles my ears. Something flares in the back of my brain.

The memory, the dream, whatever it is, I hear a name –
the
name.

“Desmelyna?” I say without any reason to have done so.

She cocks her head.

“Pretty, and talented.” She leans it the other way and comes in close again. It feels like she’s looking past my eyes inside my mind. Maybe she is. “Hmm. This just won’t do at all. No, no, not at all. We can’t have him taking you. That could ruin everything, couldn’t it? Yes it could. What to do, what to do?”

Her finger curls against my chin but I look down and see both hands by her sides.

“Oh! I know! What a wonderful plan, Dezzy! And to think. All I had to do was see you. You gave me all the answers I need. Needed? I don’t know. Time’s a bit funny here, don’t you think? No, you probably don’t.”

She turns and I feel myself pulling back even though I’m not moving.

“Bob Dylan. What a strange name. Pretty, funny and talented. And such expressive eyes, too. And dreams.” She laughs, fluttering away, and doesn’t look back.

The sound of her voice pulls at me too. Everything pulls, in three directions and then another. I feel a sucking sensation, like I’m going down a drain, then a great push. I hear a giggle. She looks back as my vision fades. The forest becoming real again, my fingers sinking deep into the rich, earthy, brown mat on the ground and grasping for an anchor.

“Oh, and if you see Sebastien again, thank him. Even though he turned on me, I’m glad to see you’ve grown up so nicely. I was worried about that. It is so terribly unbecoming for royalty to have ugly children.”

***

“U
h, what’n da hell is this?”

I feel the toe of a boot poke me in the head, right where my hair parts. My eyes fall open, expecting green and yellow and samite covered dragonfly women, but I see nothing but a pair of swamp loggers.
Water? You’re not close to the water, Jaz, that cave was nowhere near a marsh.

“How you suppose’n she got here, Pa?” The man speaks who I heard right before getting jabbed in the head. He has a thick accent, so dripping with the swamp that it was hard to understand, nothing like the mellifluous Cajun drawl of Leroux and Sebastien and the other wolves.

“That’s enough, kid.” A hand whistles through the air and meets flesh with a meaty thump. The second one, the younger man, yelps in a way that vaguely reminds me of a coyote fighting over food. “You don’t give up on the questions right now-like, you’ll get another shot across the mouth. Get me?” This time I hear an older voice full of jagged rocks and broken glass.

“Yessir. Sorry about that.”

The older one doesn’t respond directly, but he crouches down in front of me and I feel his fingers in my hair.

“Wait a minute,” he says. “I can’t be sure, but I think this might be...”

“Din’t she just show up outta nothing, Pa?”

Milton must be the older one. But why are they so perplexed about me? No I didn’t just show up out of nothing, I was teleported here by a dragonfly queen...okay, maybe that story is a little wild, but...

“Yeah, I think that’s about the size of it. Listen, Whiskey, you go back to the rest of the litter. Get your big brother and come back. You remember the way? This is important. Get me?”