Luke (Bear Shifter) (New World Shifters) (17 page)

What had happened? Why had he attacked me?

There was no doubt in my mind that Darius had been the Bear that had rushed at me. I'd seen him in that form for too often for me to pretend that it was someone else. But he'd been wild… Feral, even. Fiercer than the true Bear that he always said lived inside of himself, and that was really saying something.

Had I done something wrong? I shook my head, trying to get my breathing under control as I lay on my back on the couch and stared up at a ceiling I couldn't see. The last time I'd been with him had been only a few days before, and the contrast between the sensual embrace he'd given me and the rough reception I had just received was night and day.

So what was going on?

I got up and picked my way slowly upstairs in order to have a shower. Maybe once the water was the right temperature and I was standing underneath its spray, I was hoping that I'd be able to put things in perspective.

But it didn't work out that way. As I soaped my body and lathered my hair all I could think about was Darius. I was hurt, and that made me realize that Dr. Isaacs was probably right about a lot of things. Even though I’d never shared spoken of my dreams to him, he had made it perfectly clear that it was unhealthy to indulge in fantasies of escape.

Perhaps it really was time to come to terms with the fact that Darius didn't exist. None of that other world was real, no matter how much more vivid and bright it felt to me now. It was all a hallucination of my mind, and I told myself that the only reason I clung to it with such passion was that I missed my sight more than I wanted the rest of my life.

But that didn't ring completely true. Yes, the blindness had devastated me. And yes, I was willing to admit that I'd become a shut-in instead of rising to face this new adversity the way my doctor would've liked me to. But there was so much more to it than that.

Darius had been a constant. Through fleeting, fickle boyfriends and a prom that hardly lived up to my expectations, through college and the big bad world beyond, I'd always had an ace up my sleeve. No matter how bad things got for me, I couldn't think of a time when I wasn't able to retreat to my dreams and find solace in his arms.

I guess I couldn't really say that anymore. After all, I'd failed to find him just now, although I guess even that wasn't really true. I’d found him, but the Bear part of him had driven me away.

So what did that mean? Was he gone forever?

I couldn't help but chuckle at myself a little, the dry sound bouncing off the tiles back at me as I shut off the water and fumbled for a towel.
Darius can’t have left you, idiot
, I told myself angrily.
He was never there in the first place. Maybe it's time you put on your big girl panties and stopped running to your imaginary friends whenever things get too tough in the real world, don't you think?

But thinking was exactly the thing I didn't want to do, so I did something I hadn't done since I'd lost my sight. It would take my mind off of it, at least. I threw on some clothes once I found them and walked carefully back down the stairs to cook dinner.

There'd been a time not so long ago that I'd loved to cook. I suppose I was even good at it. Other people assured me that was the case, but all that had mattered to me was that I'd taken an assortment of assembled ingredients and turned it into something worthwhile. The satisfied look on their faces and the contented way they'd pat their full stomachs had been a bonus, but the real magic came from taking many things and turning them into one.

It had come easy to me, like a lot of things had. It was a blessing and a curse, of course. I hadn't had to try that hard to make things taste the way I wanted them to, but I suppose that was because on some level I was doing it intuitively.

Well, that was no longer the case. Now, I could hardly find the saucepan on the third try, and the spice rack may as well have had sixty ingredients instead of ten for all the good it did me. In order to find the right one I had to pick them up and shake them, and even then it still involved a lot more sniffing and tasting than I wanted. You try making lasagna for one and still be interested in the end result after you've accidentally eaten a pinch of cinnamon and thyme and coriander and cayenne pepper along the way. It makes your stomach turn, I assure you.

It was yet another reason to finally learn braille. I had a couple of practice books in the other room, but I hadn't touched them since I brought them back from the hospital. I resisted, primarily because it would be an admission. Blind people knew braille. People who would never see the world again needed to read via a series of raised bumps against their fingers, and somehow cracking those books open was simply too final.

It was like giving in, and if there was one thing I didn't do it was give in. Not now and not ever.

Unfortunately, that meant that it was hard for me to come to terms with the fact there'd be no miraculous recovery for me, no shining story in the back half of a women's magazine. No light at the end of the rainbow, or anywhere else for that matter.

Everything else would be darkness forever.

What it did mean though, is that no matter how many times I burnt my fingers or almost hacked off a knuckle during the preparation, I pushed through and made the meal. I set the egg timer with an almost ridiculous attention to detail, since now I had to go on time and not sight. There'd be no more opening the oven and checking on anything, and when I wasn't wearing the oven mitt correctly and the pan caught the inside of my wrist for one hot moment, I simply grimaced instead of swore.

This was my life now. Maybe it was time to start accepting that.

Okay
, I told myself grudgingly,
I can live with that if I have to. But Darius isn’t gone. I’m going to get him back, just you mark my words
.

I ate slowly. It was strange… Half of me was proud of myself for finally having the guts to accomplish something that had at first seemed so daunting. Cooking when you're blind isn’t easy, after all. My burnt and cut fingers were going to remind me of that for some time to come. On the other hand though, it was hard to take pride in so small a victory. It felt pathetic that I had to hang my hat on that little success, when there were three meals in a day and seven days in a week and four weeks in a month and twelve months in a year. It was as if my whole life stretched on ahead of me, and where only a few short months ago I had seen promise now I couldn't see anything.

Literally.

But I wasn't supposed to be thinking like that. It was exactly the sort of negative behaviors that the coping mechanisms were supposed to drive away, but that didn't make them any less powerful. Every time I found a quiet space in my head it was full of that same nagging, wretched little voice telling me that I'd already lived through the prime of my life and that everything else was downhill from here.

Once I finished eating I put the rest of the lasagna in the fridge and washed the dishes. Then I got out my laptop. I was determined not to give up on Darius. Real or not, it was time to try and work out why I couldn’t get back to him.

Nothing convinces you that you need to learn to touch type like going blind, and I'd gotten pretty good at it. There is even a program that would read my own words back to me, or narrate my emails or the sites that I visited. It was a help, but of course it wasn't the same.

Nothing will ever be the same
, that voice told me again, and I heard a wicked little spark of glee in it. It was as if something inside of me took joy in putting me down, reminding me that the best times were behind me.

I ignored it and checked my email. It was probably closing in on evening, and if I could just find a way to burn a few more hours I'd be ready for sleep.

But now even sleep scared me. I'd never tried
not
to dream of Darius, and the thought of facing that Bear without him, or rather that Bear that
was
him, filled me with dread. What if I couldn't get away next time?

I was scared to not dream of him too. After all, I've never been able to explain why I dreamt over and over again about the same recurring character. It had happened for so long that I simply took it for granted, but the people I'd asked about it in the past had assured me that it wasn't the norm. If I tried not to dream of him and succeeded, maybe I'd break whatever spell I had cast over myself.

But maybe I’d lose him forever that way. The thought made me shudder, and I felt goosebumps break out along my arms as the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Without this man I had invented, I'd be truly alone.

It took a little bit of doing, but the voice narration program and I sorted through the emails. Most of it was crap. Maybe I couldn't see, but I knew I could rest easy tonight secure in the knowledge that the Internet was willing to provide me with cheap Viagra, exotic Russian brides, and the UPS delivery that was simply awaiting an email confirmation of my Social Security number.

One by one I deleted them all. It was junk mail of the worst variety, but the thing that made my heart sink even lower was that I was stopping to listen to a little bit of each one. That's how desperate I was for something more, that this robot voice struggling through a poorly worded email about little blue pills was better than the silence that would follow when I shoved the last email into the ether to disappear forever in the void.

“Congratulations,” the program said.

I hit the delete button.

“Dear Sir, we have an exciting-”

I hit the delete key again, a little bit harder this time.

“Grace, I'm not sure if you remember me.”

My finger was already about to stab the delete key out of habit, and the best I could do to stop it was to shift in my seat and throw off my aim. I missed the button, at least. I held my breath as I let the narrator continue.

“You might not remember me,” it said out loud, “but my name is Rachel. We used to talk a lot on the dream forums you run, but lately I've been so busy with work that I've kind of let that slide. I'm sorry. I'm also sorry to write you out of the blue like this, but here we go. Best to jump in I guess, since you probably won't believe any of this anyway.

I'm with this guy. His name is Timber. He's a Park Ranger like me, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that his brother is hurt. He's gone into some type of hibernative state, though to my untrained eye it looks pretty much like a coma to me. Timber assures me that he's dreaming, though.

Here's where things get weird, so I hope you're sitting down. I remember reading way back when on the forums about those dreams you used to have all the time. Do you still have them? The ones with the Bear? Because the guy in the coma, I think it might be him. I mean I think you might be dreaming of him, specifically. I haven't seen it for myself yet, not really, but Timber assures me that both he and Darius are Bear Shifters. What's more, it sounds like he’s been describing dreams that are exactly like yours.

I’ve got to go. I know this hasn’t answered any questions and has probably thrown open a whole lot of doors, but maybe if you notice something strange in your dreams, if you still dream about that guy that is, maybe this'll help.

Maybe you can reach him. Heal him, even.

Please try Grace. You're the only one that can save his life, I'm more sure of that than of anything else.

Rachel”

I sat there stunned. Then I pushed the button to make the narrator read it to me again, and once it had worked its way to the bottom of the email I listened to it a third time from start to finish.

Darius. I was positive I'd never told anyone his name when I’d written about him on the Internet. I was so certain that he came from my own brain that it seemed silly to speak about him as if he were real, especially to virtual strangers on the web. I'd already spent the better part of ten years trying to work out if I knew anyone by that name, if my subconscious was dragging in a real person and using it to teach me a lesson, but I'd never found the source.

It was crazy, but Rachel was saying that this guy could be a Bear as well as a man. Just like Darius.
Exactly
like Darius. What were the chances that she’d guess that name?

Slim to none, I'd say, leaning in the direction of the latter like a drunk that had one too many.

Contrary to Rachel's belief, I did remember her. I remembered her well, in fact. It'd been a couple years ago now, but she and I had a few pretty deep conversations about the meaning of dreams. If I was open and honest with myself I would admit that I’d been using her as a sounding board for my own crazy theories about why I kept coming back to the same man.

And she had listened, even added a few details of her own about who he could be and why he was lodged in my head so often. In fact, now that I thought about it with a little more clarity, I was fairly certain it had been her that suggested that he was actually a real person whose dreams I was somehow linked with. It had seemed farcical at the time, but no less so than a man that could become a Bear.

I quickly flipped through the rest of the emails, frustrated at how slow the narrator worked. It took me ten minutes to get through the rest of them, but I didn't want to rush it. I needed to be certain that I hadn't received anything else from Rachel, any clue as to what had happened with Darius or how he'd been injured.

Nothing. There was nothing else.

There was only the man of my dreams in a moment of need, and this time when I walked out of the room it was with my back straight and my shoulders square. I ignored the couch where I’d been sleeping for the past few days, since I've been scared of taking a stumble on the stairs that led to my bedroom above. I wasn't going to fall and break my neck. I was destined for greater things, I could feel it in my bones.

Darius needed me, and I wasn’t going to do whatever it took to reach him. I slept better upstairs, and right now sleep was exactly what I needed.