CHAPTER EIGHTEEN || JEREMY
T he dream started simple enough. It was Lake Elizabeth again.
This time, it was fully night, and the motes of magical light I’d seen before—clearly a manifestation of the dreamscape—were gone.
Instead, a sliver of moon glimmered over the still, flat waters.
The wind didn’t stir. Everything was completely, eerily silent.
Dread pooled in the pit of my stomach.
This absolute stillness wasn’t normal. It was as though the woods, the lake, the sandy shore, and even the mountain beneath the starry sky were all holding a sharply drawn breath, afraid to move.
And then, a moment later, my dream turned into a nightmare.
Ian crashed out of the trees beside the lake. He was half-naked, covered in scratches, clutching his side as blood poured between his fingers. His breath came in gasps.
But he was still one of the most beautiful men I’d ever seen—tall and slight of build, which I preferred.
Not delicate, though; his body was lean with flat, hard muscle, the kind earned through constant labor.
His soft brown hair had been cut short but was starting to grow out.
His skin was burnished gold from the sun.
He wore cut-off jean shorts and nothing else.
Wolves don’t tend to like too many clothes.
His simple, reassuring beauty was like a knife in my chest.
He dropped to his knees beside me, but I knew he couldn’t see me. He wasn’t really there. Less than a ghost.
But his hold on my heart was still total.
A strangled sound escaped me. I had to fight not to grab him, to hold him close, to protect him from what was coming.
What I hadn’t been there to stop. What I had caused.
I knew if my hands passed through him—and they would, no matter how solid he looked—it would break me beyond repair.
Thierry might be the mate destiny had picked for me, but Ian was the only man—hell, the only person, apart from Lindsey—I’d ever truly let myself love. I’d given him my body and soul. And I had failed him. Because I hadn’t been there when it counted.
He’d faced his death alone.
The branches behind us rustled, and I froze.
Panic tore through me. I knew what was coming next, what I was about to see.
I’ve witnessed many things I wish I hadn’t. It’s easy to get desensitized. But this was different. I couldn’t watch this.
I wouldn’t recover.
A creature burst from the tree line, streaking toward us.
Or, no.
Not us.
It wasn’t really here either. It went straight for Ian.
It moved quickly, far faster than any human or animal. Yet it still somehow seemed to move in slow motion.
My throat closed with revulsion when I saw it.
It was a creature made of wood and vines, vaguely humanoid, towering seven or eight feet tall.
Its arms were so long that its spindle-like claws scraped the ground.
Grotesquely, it had a face: the skull of a deer, with vines grown around it.
Then its jaws opened, revealing rows upon rows of three-inch razor-sharp teeth, dripping an angry violet fluid that smoldered when it hit the ground.
The jaws were far larger inside than outside, as though it had displaced reality.
It could bite a person in half.
It shouldn’t exist. Every part of my inner wolf rebelled, sensing it as an affront to nature, to the natural order.
I knew instantly it was one of the nightmare creatures from the darkest corners of the Otherworld—the realm of the Fae and the old powers, existing alongside ours.
Magic originated there, as did nearly every being from mythology.
The place could be impossibly beautiful.
But from its deepest pits came slavering monsters who craved mortal flesh.
It must have wriggled through a nearby bleed.
And it went straight for Ian.
If I didn’t move, I’d watch this happen again—right here, right now. But I couldn’t leave him.
I couldn’t let him die alone.
Not again.
Ian clearly intended to fight. He showed no fear, staring it down as he began to transform.
But there wasn’t enough moonlight, and the process was too slow. Fur sprouted on his face. His fingertips curled into claws. His eyes went from brown to pale gold. But the rest of him stayed human—horribly fragile.
The creature leapt.
It never reached him.
Before I could move, before I could process what was happening, Thierry was suddenly there in a blur of speed.
He tackled the thing, wrenched its head back, and the monstrosity vanished in a puff of smoke.
I turned back to Ian, just in time to see him vanish too.
I’d never known exactly how he died. The dreamscape had never shown it to me before. I realized now what a kindness that had been.
Now I knew. And it made his death so much uglier.
“Jeremy!” Thierry hissed, dropping to my side.
In a daze, I looked at him. His face was scrunched with concern, his whole body vibrating with tension.
“What the hell was that thing?” His voice went high at the end, losing some of its usual coolness, like he couldn’t understand how the world had tipped so far off its axis. “Are you injured? Are you okay?”
I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure I could make my mouth work. Physically, I was fine. But what happened to Ian was worse than I’d ever understood.
That had been a memory, imprinted on the dreamscape itself. There was no stopping it.
Ian was gone.
Horribly, I could remember his laughter, the way he used to wrap his arms around me, the way he’d put his head on my shoulder, the mischievous light in his eyes whenever he teased me.
He’d been one of the few wolves who dared to do that, given that I was his alpha.
But he had been more than that. He had been my everything.
And that thing had torn him out of the world.
“Jeremy!” Thierry said again, shaking me.
My head lolled to the side, eyes shutting. I couldn’t look at him or I’d start blubbering. Or screaming incoherently. Maybe forever. And Thierry was the last person on earth who’d have the patience for that, once he saw how I was really feeling.
I forced myself awake by sheer will.
The dreamscape shattered, and I bolted upright in my borrowed bed.
I let out a gasping shudder, the air too cold, too thin.
My stomach twisted hard.
I launched out of bed, barely making it to the bathroom before I vomited. I retched until nothing came up but bile.
I hadn’t seen it before.
I hadn’t known.
The dreamscape—which is perhaps an extension of the Otherworld, though no one’s proved it—isn’t quite sentient.
But it’s not insentient either. It’s a crawlspace realm between worlds, made of the unconscious thoughts and memories of every being, living and dead, across time.
If it had a sort of intelligence, it was the sum of all its parts.
And because those parts came from everyone who had ever lived, I didn’t doubt what I’d seen. I’d almost certainly just witnessed the memories of both Ian and the monster that killed him.
But why show me now?
It was years later. There was nothing I could do to change it. Ian was gone.
So why torture me with the truth? Why show me how alone he’d been? Was it a punishment of sorts? After meeting Thierry, I had almost forgotten there was a ragged Ian-shaped hole in me.
He had been so brave, even right up to the end.
But bravery had gotten him killed.
And I hadn’t been there.
I vomited again.
I might have stayed there until daybreak, but the front door crashed open.
A heartbeat later, Thierry was at my side.
“Jeremy, you asshole,” he hissed. “You scared the shit out of me.”
I looked up, and whatever he saw wiped the anger clean from his face.
“Oh. Right,” he breathed, blinking as he processed the scene. His brows drew together. “You knew him, I’m assuming.”
I nodded, unable to trust my voice.
Humiliation burned through me when hot tears slid down my cheeks. I turned away sharply.
A man like Thierry would expect his mate to protect him. To be strong.
But I wasn’t strong, was I? I was broken. I had been for a long time. I had just forgotten it for a while.
Thierry rose without a word.
“Right,” he muttered, leaving the bathroom.
Of course he left. Why would he stay?
My eyes shut. I didn’t move. If I did, I’d split down the middle. I had loved Ian. I had loved him so much.
Since meeting Thierry, I had almost forgotten my pain. But it was still there, waiting to drag me under. Waiting to make me into something monstrous—a person capable of yanking an ordinary man out of his life and tearing away his humanity just to ease my own grief.
Ian would have been disappointed in me.
Another wave of nausea hit, and I retched again.
An eternity seemed to pass.
But it wasn’t an eternity.
Thierry returned less than a minute later.
Gently, he pulled my hand from the toilet and pressed something cool and smooth into it. A glass of water.
“Drink.”
I gulped it down.
He took the empty glass, set it on the sink, and handed me a towel.
“Clean your face. You’ll feel better.”
Blinking at him, I obeyed, dropping the soiled towel beside me.
“If you were human, I’d give you aspirin and some pink stuff. But I doubt that would work on you.”
I said nothing.
From where he stood over me, face pinched with concern, the overhead light framed his head like a halo. Like he was an angel.
I let out a bark of laughter, closer to a gasp of pain.
“Do you need to vomit again?”
I shook my head.
“Right. Then let’s get you into bed,” Thierry said, hauling me to my feet without waiting for an answer. He frog-marched me into the bedroom.
When I hesitated—suddenly all too aware I was in only my underwear—Thierry pointed at the bed. “Sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning, I promise.”
Unable to stop myself from believing him, I climbed in. A part of me wanted to ask him to stay, but most of me was just grateful he was here. With him close, the dream lost its sharp edges.
He pulled the covers over me, tucking me in.
“You’re still an asshole,” he said softly. But through the bond, I felt his concern.
“Yeah,” I rasped. “I know.”
He huffed, looking marginally relieved, and turned to go. He didn’t slam the door.
And knowing he was nearby helped. It shouldn’t have, but it did.
The wolf in me—eerily silent all this time, as it always was around Thierry—let out a soft rumble. Our mate had shown up when we needed him. We hadn’t asked him to, but he’d cared for us anyway.
Even though thoughts like that were dangerous where Thierry was concerned, I felt safe enough to slip into a deep, dreamless sleep.