Just like that, he was gone.
She was about to protest when it was as though she was falling from the Cloister Garden through the grass. She screamed as she fell, but she wasn’t really falling. Instead, she opened her eyes and she was lying in her bed safe and sound.
“What the hell?”
Then she understood exactly what had happened, which made the situation all the more astonishing. Seems the shoe was on the other foot, or paw maybe.
~ ~ ~
Grant had no idea what just happened or how he’d suddenly returned with a jolt back to his bed of furs deep inside his burrow.
He lay on top of the soft pelts and clutched at them as though seeking something tangible to ground him. He couldn’t make sense of what had just happened or how, by lifting his arm, he’d done exactly what he’d wanted to do: to leave Natalie’s dreamglide.
He sat up and slid off the edge of the bed. He was in his burrow home, the one he’d carved out of the earth and kept expanding.
He didn’t need a clock to tell him what he already knew. It wasn’t even noon yet. Alter creatures were most
ly night-dwelling. Even though he was a wolf, he couldn’t go out in the daytime. The sun hurt him and would kill him if he remained outdoors for any length of time. It was one more loss he’d had to endure after becoming an alter creature. He’d come to think of his first three years as a period so grief-stricken, on so many levels, he wasn’t sure how he’d found the strength to keep going.
Except one thing hadn’t changed when he’d gotten sick with the alter serum. His drive for life had remained unabated. If anything, he loved life even more as wolf.
He slid his head into his hands and squeezed his eyes shut.
He let the recent experience of being with Natalie in the dreamglide replay itself over in his mind. Of course, being a man the images that hit him first were of how he’d felt when he’d kissed her. My God, he hadn’t felt that way since the time when he’d first kissed Renee. Holding Natalie in his arms had felt like home and the kiss that followed had bordered on magical.
He tried to recall what he knew about dreamglides. Alpha Fergus could build them. But Grant had no idea how he did it, especially being a wolf.
But Fergus and his alpha-mate Mary, also a fae, had used the dreamglide more than once to save their fellow pack-mates. Fergus had even helped Alpha Warren out not long ago.
Grant felt as though he’d fallen into a mystery he had no idea how to solve. Mostly, he was sickened that another alter individual had been able to invade his dreams and pull him into a dreamglide. If she’d wanted to hurt him, she could have. More than anything, Grant hated feeling vulnerable and that’s what was bugging the shit out of him.
He stood up abruptly and moved around the side of the bed. An arched opening led to a running track on the same level as his burrow. It was the first thing he’d dug out when he’d made the decision to leave the pack compound and move to his own residence. He wasn’t doing anything unusual. At least half the pack slept in separate domiciles.
But his decision had been made to keep him in a location as far from Kryder as possible. Still, he made sure he showed up each night for first-meal in the compound’s belowground dining hall.
He stepped out of his pjs and as he jogged through the opening and down the hall, he let his wolf come. He needed to be on all fours. He needed the release.
As soon as his paws hit the sand, he felt better.
He ran and ran until his sides were heaving and his tongue lolled from his mouth.
After a half hour of solid running and still in wolf form, he padded slowly to his expansive bathroom and leaped toward the handle. He hit it square then dropped to all fours. The rain-shower beat down on his fur and his mind began to settle.
He knew one thing more clearly than anything else: He had to confront Natalie about what she’d done. If he couldn’t get a straight answer from her, he intended to pursue her through the courts. There were reasons why the Tribunal had laws on the books about not violating other alters in their dreams.
~ ~ ~
That evening, when Natalie had gotten Grant’s call about demanding a meeting, she’d put him off for two hours. She needed time to think and to prepare.
He’d sounded adversarial on the phone and why wouldn’t he since he was under the erroneous belief she’d invaded his dreams. In his boots, Natalie would be pissed off as well.
However, she had no idea how he’d react to the truth.
She’d told him to meet her at her studio. She didn’t know or trust Grant well enough to let him into her home.
The wolves of Savage Territory had proven their characters to her over and over. She’d been an active participant in the Fae-Wolf Wars when her best friend at the time had died at the hands of several out-of-control wolves. But her body had never been found and she was presumed cremated, without being reported, as many were during this time.
Several fae officers had retaliated by making use of her futurist gift, along with at least a dozen other gifted fae women, and had ambushed the same wolves. Two of them had died and the others had escaped.