Chapter Thirteen
Camber woke up the next morning feeling rested and comfortable. She was lying on her front near the edge of the bed. She must have been moving about a lot during the night.
Then it came to her—the dreams, nightmares more like. About her friends, her brother and sister monks being on Danus with the Abnobians, and Camber didn’t know what they were doing to them. Then there was Vorka. She was like a grandparent to her.
Surely even they wouldn’t torture an elderly person.
Then in her dream, she saw a golden road stretching across a black abyss. When Camber looked down it was so dark—if you fell, it would be into nothingness. That was terrifying.
But the trackway was lit with gold. When she got to the end, she said some words she couldn’t hear.
Then suddenly the room opened up with lights and an ethereal glow, which soon dissipated. Now she could see a portal at the other end. It looked like the golden road.
Camber took a step and walked carefully down the trackway and into the portal. When she did, Camber was hit with the sounds of a million, billions, trillions, she didn’t know but voices all scrambled together.
She put her hands over her ears. There were portals on each side of the trackway at regular intervals, looking as if they were hanging in the air.
She could see vistas of planets, moons, empty space, people going about their business, and suns exploding, and the trackway appeared to go on and on into infinity.
The vistas were moving at a high rate of speed, and Camber felt her brain was scrambled. She was so overwhelmed she fell to her knees, clutching at her head.
Then she heard a voice telling her to find a particular planet called Cresa. Camber was now watching from outside her body. She watched herself raise her hand and it glowed. One of the portals started to slow.
It slowed until just one planet appeared in the portal. It was a dusty red planet and looked devoid of life. A voice gave another command, and it was then she noticed numbers either side of the trackway.
Camber’s body reached out and used her hands to spin the trackway and the numbers backwards.
As she did, the red planet was changing from dusty bare rock to a desert planet with sparse vegetation, to oceans and green plants and forests.
Then buildings and monuments, and artificial light coming from dwellings.
The voice told her to stop. Then she was grabbed from behind and was dragged kicking and screaming from the portal.
After that nightmare she felt calm, not fear.
She dropped her hand to the side of the bed, and she felt a furry pelt. She looked quickly down by her bed and found Brogan’s wolf. Camber smiled and ruffled her ears. “You were keeping watch, weren’t you?”
Brogan made her feel safe, and after the kiss they shared last night, Camber knew she had feelings for her, but she was going to have to let her go sometime, when she found her way home.
As she stroked her fur, Brogan started to move and waken, and she let out a big yawn and stretched her limbs. Then she remembered she had fallen asleep guarding Camber. She jumped up and found Camber smiling back at her.
Thank the Great Mother Camber didn’t mind her here.
Camber held Brogan’s head in her arms and rubbed her ears and stroked her snout. “Did you hear me having nightmares and fall asleep, Wolfy?”
Brogan nodded. She wished she had telepathy with Camber in her wolf, it would help them on their mission, but only the mate bite could give you that. She pictured herself in human form, standing with Camber at their mating ceremony.
That made too many feelings surge inside her. She indicated with her snout that she was going to shift. Brogan ran back to her room with her dressing gown in her mouth, then shifted to skin.
She looked into a full-length mirror and rubbed her neck where a mate bite would go. Brogan had never imagined a mate bite with anyone, not any of her previous girlfriends, even one she had taken home to meet her pack.
Now, after flying through a portal who knew how many light years away, she found an argumentative Map Keeper, and she fantasized about mate bonding.
Brogan lifted her dressing gown and put it on. What do I do with this? Brogan thought.
Emotions were not something she was much in touch with. It was better to remain unemotional. As a lone wolf and a tracker, it was best for everyone to keep unattached. If you’re training to find someone, you need to be clear-headed and sometimes cold.
But then there was her art. She put all of her unwelcome emotions into her art. Maybe that would help her sort her feelings out?
She pulled on her boxers and T-shirt quickly and went back to Camber’s room.
“Sorry for intruding,” Brogan said. “I couldn’t sleep, so I took my wolf for a run in the RR, and I heard you having a nightmare. And I just wanted to make sure you were safe and calm you down if I could, and guard you. I must have fallen asleep there.”
Camber smiled. “That is the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“I want to protect you. It’s who my wolf is.”
“You did, you protected me from my nightmares,” Camber said, “and I remember them.”
Camber crawled down the bed, and Brogan’s eyes followed her the whole way. Her blood was hot and her heart booming, especially when Camber made an extra stretch for her satchel, and her sleep shorts rode up her behind.
Brogan gave a low growl, the slapped her own face. Stop it.
“What was that noise?” Camber said.
“Just clearing my throat. What have you got?” Brogan changed the subject.
“My map.”
Camber got it out and unfolded it. She looked up to the top of the map. There was a gap at the top with two curved borderlines, each side of the blank space. In between the two curved lines: The Beyond.
Camber pointed to that part of the map and said, “That’s it. That’s what my dreams were about. The Beyond.”
“What’s that?” Brogan asked.
“No one quite knows, none of the Map Keepers knew as far as I know, but I know what my dream told me it was, and I trust my dreams.”
Brogan ran her hand over the space on the map. “Have your dreams given you information before?”
“Yes, when I was younger and on my own, not knowing what to do next,” Camber said.
Brogan’s heart ached for Camber. She had to face life alone, and this life wasn’t even her choice.
“I dreamed of a golden bridge going from where I stood to infinity,” Camber said.
“Are you sure you want to tell me this? I could be an Abnobian plant,” Brogan said, joking.
“As sure as I am about the dream, I am about you.” Camber took Brogan’s hand and trailed her fingertips across the back of her hand.
Camber did this without thinking. This was new, wanting the touch of another, not any other, Brogan. She felt compelled to touch her, be close to her, and hunger for her.
She hadn’t broached the subject of the kiss, but she would need to sometime. That was hunger and why she got spooked and ran.
Camber squeezed her hand. “You kept guard of me all night. No plant would do that.”
“I’m here to protect.” Brogan gave her a kiss to her hand, and Camber’s heart fluttered.
“I…” She couldn’t form words at this point.
“Go on.”
“Um…there was a big portal barrier. Only the Map Keeper could open it. A menacing voice told me to walk through, but I didn’t want to.”
“It frightened you?” Brogan asked.
“Map Keepers know it exists, but not what it is, and never to enter it. The ancient ones thought it was too powerful for even a Map Keeper to know about.”
“So what did you do?” Brogan asked.
“I had no choice. I separated from my body and was watching as observer. I watched myself walk through, and I stepped onto a bridge that’s crystal clear. On the walls are portals, and I can see regions of space, suns, planets, everything whirling by so fast. Then the voice said to find Cresa.”
Brogan frowned. “Find Cresa? Have you heard that name before?”
“No, never. So I held my hand up to one of the portal windows, and then everything slows down, bit by bit. Then I’m left with a dead world.
Red rock, no water. Then I notice numbers on the clear bridge.
I’m told to spin them back. I seem to know what I’m doing, and as the time spins, the planet rejuvenates until it looks like a healthy blue and green planet. It was alive again.”
“So The Beyond is a place where you can find all the places in the universe, and turn time backwards or forwards?”
“Yes, I think the ancient ones made it. They were peaceful people, that’s what Vorka told me. They probably realized what harm could be done.”
Brogan stood up angrily, her yellow eyes burning bright. “That’s why this Davor and his people want you.”
“If they get hold of me, Brogan, the Abnobians will be unstoppable.”
Brogan kneeled down on one knee and cupped her face. Her eyes had changed from blue to yellow. “I will never let them get you.” She moved forwards to kiss Camber, but then instead rested her forehead against Camber’s.
Those dangerous, yellow eyes lit a fire inside her that felt impossible to tame.
Camber had found people attractive before, but this was like a deep need to touch, to possess. This second, she wanted to run her fingers into Brogan’s hair roughly and pull her into a kiss.
But they hadn’t even talked about the first kiss, and she was frightened by the intense feelings. Brogan’s head moved, and her lips glided down to Camber’s ear.
Brogan’s breath and the feel of her lips made Camber shiver and goosebumps erupt all over her body.
“Are you okay?” Brogan breathed.
“Yes,” Camber croaked.
“I want to breathe you in so I never forget the scent of the most beautiful woman I’ve met.”
Brogan moved her hair to the side and slid her lips down her bare neck and inhaled her skin.
On instinct Camber grasped Brogan’s hair and pulled her head in closer.
Brogan then kissed her neck, and Camber was rattling inside—
Then they heard a knock at the door. They pulled apart quickly, and Brogan stood up.
“Who is it?” Brogan growled.
“Ziggy. I have your clothes for tonight.”