Whoever was out there was well-trained. The scraping metal stopped abruptly, and she heard a couple of soft footsteps as though someone had taken a couple of rapid steps backwards, but there was no sound from them. Another long silence stretched out, making her whole body vibrate with terrified hope. Was the would-be home invader gone? Had she scared them off?
“This is the police, ma’am. Open the door.”
No such luck. Her heart sank as a low, masculine voice reached her through the door, gruff and authoritative. The police, she thought faintly. Why hadn’t she called the police when she heard the lockpick? Too late now. “What do you want?” she demanded, pleased to notice that she’d managed to keep her voice from shaking.
“You’re in danger. Open the door.”
“What kind of danger?” she demanded. Her phone was in her pocket—she fished it out, grimacing at the way her hands were shaking.
“We can discuss it when you open the door,” the voice said, a hint of impatience in it now. She heard the handle rattle. “Don’t make me kick it down.”
“What’s your name, Officer?” she demanded, her blood running cold. “Name and badge number, please.” It was a bluff—something she’d heard on television—and she wasn’t surprised when the man didn’t even bother answering her. She unlocked her phone with shaking hands, her eyes fixed on the rattling door, hoping against hope that the hinges would hold out for as long as it took to dial 911—
There was a terrifying thud, and the sound of splintering wood. Mira screamed despite her best efforts, stumbling backwards away from the door and scanning the living room furiously for some kind of makeshift weapon… something, anything. She had a friend who kept a baseball bat in her room for this very purpose. But what good would that do? Her phone slipped out of her hands and she went to retrieve it—but a final, splintering crash froze her in place as the door finally flew open, the lock giving way before the hinges.
There, outlined in the doorway, was a figure straight out of her nightmares. A tall man, wearing nondescript dark colors—a pair of black pants, a tight-fitting dark gray T-shirt, a dark denim jacket around his shoulders. He was younger than her by the looks of him and much taller. One look at the muscle on him told her she was looking at a man who knew how to fight. Mira felt time slow to a crawl as she took him in, her mind racing with increasing desperation as she ran through her rapidly diminishing list of options. What could she do here? Dive for her phone and hope that her 911 call went through before the man could grab her? Run into her bedroom and try to barricade the door? Grab the TV remote from the coffee table and do her level best to bludgeon him to death with it? There was something about going out fighting that appealed to her, doomed as the effort would no doubt be.
But something strange was happening. The man, triumphant in the doorway, wasn’t looking down at her any longer. He was looking right past her, and the look on his face had shifted from the grim half-smile he’d been wearing when he’d first broken the door open to a watchful, suspicious, closed expression. The look of a man who was assessing a new threat. Mira turned in what felt like slow motion to see what he was looking at, and if her jaw could have dropped to the floor, it would have.
There, standing outlined in the light from her bedroom doorway like some kind of angel, stood a tall man with sandy blond hair and a pair of piercing blue eyes. She didn’t have a name to put to that face, but she didn’t need one… she’d know him anywhere. The man of her dreams had come to save her. Did that mean all of this was a dream, too? No. The hammering of her heart, the pain of her fingernails digging into her palms as she clenched her fists tightly… she was awake, she was really here.
And so was the man from her dreams.
Chapter 8 - Conrad
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Lana had said.
It had been good advice, Conrad reflected in the split second before he made the most reckless decision of his long, long life. Very good advice from his close friend and Queen. Advice which on any other day he’d have found very difficult to ignore. But after hours of discussion, it was getting harder and harder to shake the image of the woman from his dreams, lying there fast asleep as a nameless, faceless danger came closer and closer to her. He’d spent his whole political career advising patience in others, but right now, every single instinct he had was screaming at him to act, not think.
It was getting dark before Lana made another attempt at summoning a portal. They’d agreed that it would be a simple test, nothing more—confirmation that she could restore the connection between the worlds at will, then they’d turn in for the evening and start fresh again the next day. Communication, that was the next step. A careful attempt to talk with the woman from his dreams through the portal, likely for only a few minutes at a time. After all, the effort of keeping the portals open wore heavily on Lana. It might be days or even weeks before they got to the stage of bringing the woman through the portal.
It all made sense, Conrad knew that. It was the best course of action available to them. But when Lana opened the portal in the Fog and he peered through to see the familiar little room beyond the swirling mist, something came over him that he’d never felt before. The bed was empty, the covers thrown back, even though there was still nothing but darkness in the window beyond the bed. Why had she gotten up in the middle of the night? Lana was saying something behind him, but Conrad wasn’t listening. And casually, as though he was simply taking a step through a doorway in the Palace, Conrad stepped into the portal and felt the Fog envelop him.
A strange, disorienting feeling rushed through him. He closed his eyes against the incomprehensible patterns he was seeing, an odd rushing sound in his ears causing him to suspect that the distance between the forest where he’d been standing and the little room might be a little farther than it appeared… and then his eyes were open again, and he felt a jolt of surprise and recognition go through him. This was it. The forest-green walls, the enormous bed, even the ornaments that decorated the top of the dresser were all familiar to him. This was her room.
He was here. But before he could marvel any more at the incredible achievement that his presence here indicated, he heard a crash from the next room. The bedroom door was ajar, and he moved to it, automatically reaching out to push it open, opening his mouth to call for the woman and realizing as he did that he still didn’t know her name. Every time he woke from one of their dreams together, he’d wish that he’d thought to ask her name, then reflect that he could simply give her one. Somehow, that had never seemed right.
This was why, of course. She wasn’t a dream, she was a real person. A real, flesh-and-blood woman… who, Conrad realized with another jolt of adrenaline, was not alone. There was a man standing in the front doorway, his hard eyes fixed on Conrad’s face. An eerie calm came over him as he took in the scene. He knew without any further consideration that this was the danger he’d been worried about. This man, this situation… this was what his instincts had been warning him about. And though he could feel the woman’s golden eyes resting on him, there was no time to waste. He moved confidently forward, drawing himself up to his full height, sizing up the man in the doorway. Startled, though he was hiding it well. He’d anticipated that nobody else would be here, that he’d simply overpower his target and be gone. Hot anger burned in Conrad’s stomach, but he kept his face serene as he moved between the woman and her attacker.
The man growled something at him that sounded like Lana’s strange language. Of course, he thought faintly. This was no dragon, this man… but nor did he have the bright eyes of a wolf. None of them had ever met a human until Cato had come to visit. It felt strange to know he was encountering another one, a man who had no second body to shift into. A man who was imprisoned permanently in that shape. He repeated whatever question he’d asked, his eyes narrowing with frustration at Conrad’s refusal to speak.
“You aren’t welcome here,” Conrad said, seeing from the flicker of confusion on the man’s face that he didn’t understand him, either. Well, that was fine. He didn’t need language to be threatening… he took a few menacing steps towards the man, who squared his shoulders but didn’t move from his position. “Leave, and don’t return.”
The man’s eyes flicked to something behind him, but Conrad knew better than to turn his back on an enemy. He felt warmth at his side regardless, caught a glimpse of the woman’s chestnut curls in his peripheral vision, felt his heartbeat accelerate despite the intensity of the situation as a giddy joy he couldn’t quite suppress made itself known again. That was her. She was here, standing right beside him, close enough to touch… and as she lifted her arm, he caught a glint of steel in his peripheral vision. A long, sharp knife, held aloft in a hand that didn’t shake. The man in the doorway took in the blade, took in Conrad’s clenched fists and unwavering expression, and seemed to come to a decision. With one last little comment—it sounded mocking, though the words remained as strange as ever—the man stepped away, moving cautiously backwards until the darkness claimed him. With every step, though, his gaze remained fixed on the woman at Conrad’s side.
The message was clear, even without a shared language. That man wasn’t going to be gone for long. And when he came back, he wouldn’t be alone.
“It’s really you, isn’t it?”
That voice. Conrad felt a thrill run through him as he turned at last to take a proper look at the woman he’d been dreaming about for years. She was staring up at him, her expression as intent as he’d ever seen it, the knife still clutched tightly in her hand. Her golden eyes shone the way he remembered, though there were worried lines creasing her forehead and she was pale with fear and shock, too. That made sense. In his dreams, they’d never had to face down an enemy side by side before.
“It’s really me,” he replied softly. It felt strange to speak to her aloud. In dreams, the speech had an ethereal quality—but here, he could actually feel the sound bouncing off the walls.
“I don’t even know your name,” she said faintly. Her eyes were dark with wonder, as well as something a lot more like fear. Fear of him, he wondered? Or fear of something else?
“I don’t know yours, either.” This was beginning to feel like a dream, too. He fought the urge to laugh at how awkward he suddenly felt, standing in her living room with his hands hanging useless at his sides. “I’m Conrad.”
She nodded, her gaze cryptic as she filed that away. “I’m Mira.”