I snap awake, my whole body jerking from the violence of the return to my body. Beside me, Archer sits up with a gasp and turns to me, his eyes wide. For a long moment, we stare at each other, both of us considering the ramifications of what just happened.
“Did that…” He shakes his head, blinking hard. “Did we just… share a dream?”
I nod as I whisper back, my heart hammering in my chest. “I think so. You came into Clint’s basement while I was there.”
“Then you took us somewhere else?” he verifies. “A cave? I didn’t get a good look.”
Trystan groans and flails his arms, still half-asleep. “What the fuck is going on? What time is it?”
In the darkness, Ridge grunts as if he’s just been elbowed or something, probably by Trystan. “Ow,” he grumbles, his voice deep and gruff. He was awake on watch, but he still sounds tired.
Dare growls and rolls away from us. The whole scene is so comical that it almost makes me laugh. It would if I weren’t still reeling from the dream.
On the other side of me, Ridge sits up straighter as he searches out me and Archer in the gloom. “What’s going on?” he asks, concern evident in his tone. “Is everything okay?”
Though Trystan and Dare don’t sit up, I can sense they’re both awake and listening, so I catch them all up on what happened with the dream.
When I’m finished with my fairly short tale, Ridge asks, “Have you been able to lucid dream before?”
“Lucid dream?” I’ve never heard the term.
“It’s when you control what’s happening in your dreams,” he explains. “Most people can’t control their dreams. They just are what they are. But some people are capable of lucid dreaming, which means firstly that you know you’re dreaming, and secondly, that you can manipulate and control every little thing that happens, no matter how deeply asleep you are. It’s not all that common.”
I think back. Sleeping at Clint’s house was an ordeal all on its own. I didn’t have a lock on my bedroom door, and if Clint got it into his head that he wanted to beat me, it didn’t matter whether I was sleeping or not. So for the longest time, I didn’t really sleep. I just dozed, constantly waking at every creak and groan in the house.
But I recall a handful of recurring dreams I’ve had over the years, and it seems like I was often able to do whatever I wanted in those instances. I can’t be certain, not really, but I think I was able to do exactly what Ridge described.
“Maybe I could,” I say carefully. “It just always seemed normal to me.”
“I don’t think that was a normal dream.” Archer clicks the bedside lamp on, and light floods the room to a chorus of masculine groans. Trystan throws a pillow at him, and I laugh softly.
But Ridge nods, looking equal parts grave and intrigued. “I agree. I think you essentially did what you’ve been doing with Cleo all this time. You took Archer into the astral plane.”
Taken aback, I blink. “How is that even possible?”
“The mate bond,” Archer offers. “Our connection mirrors the connection between you and Cleo. It’s just another type of bond, right?”
Dare’s still stretched out at the foot of the bed with sleepy eyes. He runs a hand through his thick dark hair, making it even more mussed than before. “I’ve thought for a while that our bond might be stronger and deeper than the usual wolf mate bond. Probably because you’re a witch too. Being able to connect psychically like that makes my theory seem accurate.”
Trystan, who’s slid up to the head of the bed to prop against the headboard, has a strange look on his face that has deepened while Archer and Dare have hashed out the details. He cuts in, a grin spreading over his face. “So what you’re saying is, you literally pulled Archer into the place where you go up against Cleo?”
I shrug. “It seems that way. It happened so fast.”
His grin widens. “Do you know what this means?”
I exchange looks with Archer, then shake my head. “Not really.”
Trystan’s grin widens into something almost bloodthirsty, and a gleam lights in his eyes. “It means you can take us with you the next time you face off against that bitch in the astral plane. You can take us to fight alongside you.”
My jaw drops, shock washing over me in a wave. A tense kind of excitement fills the air between all of us.
Could he be right? Is that really possible?
23
Archer
“Are you ready to do this?” I ask Sable as I sit on the ground across from her and hand her a fresh mug of coffee.