Logan (Wolf Mountain Shifters #3)

1. Emerson

ONE

EMERSON

“You need to get some shut-eye, Emmie.”

My colleague and bestie, Cora, was mother-henning me.

“One tiny yawn,” I griped as I stifled another one.

“Turn off your computer and put the phone on the other side of the room. The report isn’t due for two days. You’ve got this.”

“Fine,” I huffed, and I blew her a kiss.

But Cora understood better than anyone that me going to bed wasn’t necessarily a restful experience because I spent what seemed like a good seven hours dreaming. And, unlike most people’s dreams, mine were predictions.

Not all of them eventuated because I chose another path. Yeah, that mini skirt that was so short that dream me couldn’t bend over? I glanced at it in the shop window and kept walking.

Others were missed opportunities.

In college, I’d dreamed of being approached by a guy wanting me to screen test for the lead role in a movie. I’d brushed him off, thinking he was creepy and the movie was a ploy to get pics of me naked.

The following year, the internet was saturated with pics of him on the red carpet at a prestigious film festival with a young, then unknown actress on his arm. The accompanying movie reviews predicted the film would be an immense success and the actress the next big thing.

Damn. I’d never wanted to act, but I experienced a twinge of disappointment at the glitz, glamor, and her potential earnings.

My dream successes, as I called them, were finding my job and best friend as well as my current apartment, all of which I’d caught glimpses of in my nocturnal wanderings. Not that I sleepwalked, though my grandmother did her entire life. I inherited this trait from her. It was both a blessing and a curse because, on the nights I dreamed, I woke up exhausted and often spent days trying to interpret them.

Preparing for bed was a ritual I never deviated from. Falling asleep was never the problem, but I craved routine. Tapping an app, I dimmed the lighting in the bedroom to amber, as that was supposed to promote good sleep.

I showered, put on my pj’s emblazoned with my favorite childhood cartoon characters, lit a candle, made peppermint tea, and punched my three pillows into the shape I preferred before reading and sipping my hot drink.

When my eyes drooped, I blew out the candle and darkened the room. My bed was warm and cozy, and I drifted off. The last thing I recalled was a car screeching around a corner.

What seemed like moments later, I shot up in bed, my chest aching from my heart galloping and doing somersaults. But dawn was peeking under the curtains. I’d slept for almost eight hours. How was that possible?

My dreams were never nightmares. There was no blood or gore and no headless creatures chasing me. My friends described their bad dreams where they screamed but made no sound or tried to run but didn’t move. I counted myself lucky my dreams weren’t horror stories.

But last night’s was different. Not scary, more intriguing.

I padded into the kitchen to make coffee because I couldn’t process anything, especially my dreams, without caffeine.

Back in bed, huddled under the covers, I went over what happened while I was asleep. I’d been hiking in the woods alone. Me hiking? That was a nope. I was a getting-fit-in-the-gym kinda girl. Creepy crawlies and mud on my shoes were not my thing.

While I was huffing and panting, walking up a steep slope, the bushes beside the path rustled. Dream me didn’t pay any attention, but as I recreated what I’d witnessed, I yelled, “Nothing good happens in the woods when you’re by yourself!” My childhood fairy tales drummed that into me.

But I’d faltered after a growl sent goosebumps galloping over my skin. A guy appeared, one who had on not a stitch of clothing. My first instinct was to protect him. He was lost or injured, or I’d discovered someone who’d been brought up by wolves. But I gulped as my gaze swept over his arousal. Gods. It was huge.

Before I considered whether a naked stranger and his enormous cock posed a danger, fur rippled over his skin as though someone was rolling out a thick carpet, his face morphed into a snout, and a tail protruded from his rump. I blinked as he crouched on all fours, no longer a man but a wolf.

Dream me didn’t run or scream. Instead, I walked toward him and, as the wolf vanished, I walked into the guy’s arms.

“What the—?” Remembering there were young kids in the next-door apartment, I bit off the rest of my sentence.

If that dream had been a one and done, I’d have ignored it. But it niggled at me all day and, for the next seven nights, I dreamed of the wolf man. The pull to be near him, to sniff him and be enveloped in his arms was overpowering, and I was ready to quit my job.

He was mine, and, wherever he was, I had to find him.