Chapter 7 #2
“How is she?” Now that the healer was closer, the woman’s voice carried in easily through the open window. I instantly recognized it from the night before and sat up on the bed.
“Conscious,” the alpha answered.
“Really?” She sounded pleased. “That’s a good sign. The medicine must be working…and your presence, of course.”
A low grumble of skepticism followed. “I’m not so sure about that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her dreams. She has them, but they’re not the same as mine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive,” he said. “Has that ever happened before?”
“Not that I know of,” the healer answered. “But then again, we’re in uncharted territory. Who knows what’s normal when it comes to a kirre?”
“What do you think it means?”
The woman didn’t answer—not for a while. Long enough for the world outside the window to become so quiet that I could make out the sound of rustling leaves and faraway bird song.
And when the woman finally spoke again, her tone was low and serious.
“I’m not sure. I suppose it depends on what she dreams,” the healer said. “Did she describe them to you?”
“Not exactly.”
“What did she say?”
“Just that I…” The alpha cleared his throat, sounding deeply uncomfortable. “…that I kill her.”
“No.” The woman gasped, sounding far more horrified by the idea than anyone I’d told my nightmares to. “That’s impossible. Could she be lying?”
“If she is, then she’s the best damn liar I’ve ever met.
” There was a loud, dull thump, and the logs that made up the wall next to me trembled momentarily.
It seemed the alpha had rested his weight against the side of his house.
“You should have seen the fear in her eyes when she first woke up and saw me. She is terrified.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” the healer argued. “Why in the Fates’ names would she dream about something that can’t possibly happen?”
“I don’t know,” the alpha answered. “You can ask her yourself. She was asleep earlier, but she stirred when you called out to me.”
He’d heard that?
Well, apparently, I could add really good hearing to the list of things I didn’t know about the ferus. Right between actually, they can talk, and they know how to build houses.
I barely had time to mentally prepare myself before the cabin door swung open. Muted sunlight and a fresh green scent poured in from the outside just as I pushed my back against the headboard.
The alpha entered first, followed by the healer.
I tried my best not to gasp at the sight of her, but I’m not sure how well I succeeded. I couldn’t help it. Just like I’d never known a man who could compare to the alpha, I’d definitely never seen a woman like the healer.
She looked to be one generation older than the alpha—somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty if I had to guess—and it was clear that time had been kind to her.
Her eyes were bright, and her hair was long and white, organized into a simple braid that fell over her shoulder.
It was easy to tell that the few lines showing on her beautiful face had come from years of laughter.
This woman was a ferus?
I struggled to believe it.
She didn’t look like the big, bad wolf. With her seemingly gentle demeanor, she reminded me more of the grandmother from that fairy tale…the one who gets gobbled up.
But of course, that was my fate, I reminded myself.
Sure, she was tall. Not quite as giant as the alpha, but still well over six feet. But that was where the similarities between the two ended.
Where he was thick and heavily muscled, she was slender with long, graceful limbs. Her hands looked delicate, with long fingers and oval nails. Absolutely nothing about her gave off the raw, feral energy that seemed to be constantly radiating off the alpha.
Where he was brute force, she appeared to be grace itself.
If I didn’t know better, I might have mistaken her for a fairy queen, especially in her long, flowing linen dress.
Suddenly, I felt painfully plain in comparison.
The alpha angled himself into the corner near the shelves to make room for the healer, who stopped at the end of the bed. A warm, welcoming, and seemingly genuine smile lit up her face.
“Hello, Hannah,” she said, her voice as gorgeous and melodic nearby as it had sounded filtered through the wooden walls. “I’m so happy to finally meet you.”
“Finally?” I wasn’t sure how I felt about the sound of that. Even though there was nothing openly hostile in her demeanor, I still grabbed onto one of the pillows at my side and clutched it in front of my chest like a shield. “You make it sound like you knew I was coming.”
“That’s because we did.” The healer moved around the side of the bed, coming closer. And damn, if her movements weren’t as graceful as her looks. “My name is Calindra, and I’m a healer. I’m not sure what Tauren’s told you about your condition, but—“
“Tauren?” My heart started to race at the name. “You know Tauren?”
The woman’s finely arched brows pulled together slightly. She took a second to share a confused look with the alpha in the corner. “Well, of course.”
For the first time in a long time, real hope took root and started to bloom in my chest.
For some reason, I hadn’t been expecting to find Tauren in the Wilds, but it made perfect sense now that I thought about it.
My dream took place here, in this raw, primal wilderness. So, of course, the man I cried out to save me would have to be here, too.
Though I had no idea why. I’d never heard of a human crossing the wall and traveling into the Wilds. Especially not of their own free will.
But maybe it hadn’t been his choice. Maybe he’d been dragged here by a trespassing ferus just like I was. And maybe just like me, he was desperate to find his way back home.
“Can I see him?” I asked.
The creases on the woman’s brow deepened, her expression turning so perplexed that I wondered if she had misheard me.
“Um…certainly.” Her hesitation made her statement sound more like a question. “Go right ahead.”
She turned toward the corner…the corner where the alpha stood.
For a moment, all I could do was blink in confusion, then…
No!
I shook my head.
No. No. No! No!!
“That’s Tauren?”
Stuffed into the small corner, the alpha straightened his shoulders, pushing out his chest and taking up even more of the limited space in the cabin. His chin lifted in offense.
“You didn’t know?” the healer asked, her tone genuinely curious. “Interesting.”
No, not interesting. Crazy! That’s what all this was—absolutely, bat-shit crazy!
I clutched the pillow even tighter, so hard that my nails pierced the fabric and dug into the feathery fluff below.
“That can’t be Tauren,” I declared.
“No?” Calindra raised a perfectly arched brow. “Why not?”
I sputtered, momentarily tongue-tied. The truth—that I’d spent years imagining Tauren as some kind of golden godlike hero straight out of a movie—was too embarrassing to admit.
“Because in my dream, I call out to Tauren to save me from the monster,” I explained. “There’s no way he can be the monster.”
Both Calindra and the alpha flinched slightly at the brutal truth of my words.
“You think I’m a monster.” The alpha’s voice rumbled out of the corner. Draped in the shadows there, the hard lines of his face became even more dramatic. More frightening.
“You killed a man right in front of me.” The blood that had dripped from his fingers was now dried into fibers of my clothes. “You tore him to pieces.”
“He was hurting you,” the alpha growled—a primal sound that could never be mistaken for an apology.
It was hard to argue with that.
Franklin had tried to force himself on me. He’d hit me with a car. Broken my ribs. Pressed a gun to my head. If the alpha hadn’t found me, the chances were good that someone would be finding my corpse in a ditch right now.
But still…the man’s head had been ripped off. Just remembering the carnage was enough to make me woozy.
“Tauren,” Calindra said, her voice soft and calming. “Maybe it would be better if I had a chance to explain the situation to Hannah alone—woman to woman.”
Tauren gave a non-committal grunt…but didn’t move out of the corner. He just continued to stand there, staring at me through the shadows.
Even though I’d never considered myself the easily intimidated type, the intensity of his gaze was enough to chill me straight down to the bone.
“Tauren,” Calindra repeated. “Hannah is safe with me. I promise. We’re just going to talk while I check her injuries.”
He gave another grunt—this one somehow sounding more agreeable—and stepped toward the door.
“Fine,” he said. “But I’m staying close.”
“Oh, I know,” Calindra responded with an amused grin, and when the door clicked closed behind him, she turned back to me. “All right, Hannah. Now we can really talk.”