Luke (Bear Shifter) (New World Shifters) (21 page)

I lay beside Darius when we’d finished, my arm draped across his barrel chest as I rested my head on his bicep. Part of me had been expecting our lovemaking to be interrupted by the Bear. I was still surprised that his throaty growl hadn’t rumbled across the wilderness when Darius had shuddered beneath me.

It had felt like my own orgasm had been strong enough to shake the bees from the wildflowers, but the Bear hadn’t arrived.

I didn't really know the Bear away from Darius, and so it was difficult for me to anticipate what he would do next. Would he stalk us? Ignore us? It was a dream after all, so no matter how long Darius and I were stuck here, each of us with our own injuries that seemed to be keeping us in this shared vision, it wasn't as if the Bear could go away, right?

Darius had never really been able to explain what being a Shifter was like. I got the sense that it was like trying to explain to someone what it was like to run, when they’d never thought to use their legs for anything more than walking. It was like trying to explain a color to a woman who couldn't see…

I sighed, and felt a chill make goosebumps break out along my arms and the back of my neck. As beautiful as this dream was, with Darius beside me and our goals interlocking, I knew it would end soon. I'd be thrown back to the darkness, stuck in a broken body, my thoughts locked within a mind too afraid to go out the front door and face the world head on.

I still hadn't told Darius I was blind. It was easy to say that it didn't matter. After all, it felt as if I'd known him for years. For the last decade or so whenever I’d dreamed him, I'd been able to be with him. The blindness had come on so suddenly that it was easy to pretend with him that it didn't exist at all.

It was easy for me to lie to myself, too. When I slept I wasn't that sightless woman in California. When I slept I was a master of my dreams, a woman in love with an incredible man or myth who was unafraid to love her back.

If that was true, then why did I feel so dishonest for not telling him?

“Darius?” I was going to do it. Suddenly, with unflinching certainty, I was all too aware that I was going to spill the beans and admit to him that in the real world I couldn't see.

I knew right away it was a foolish thing to do. That information wasn't necessary right now, and all it would do would drive a wedge between us. I worried that he'd constantly be thinking that beyond the dream, when we hopefully both woke up, there was no way we could lead a real life together. Not was me the way I was.

Darius stiffened beside me, his muscles suddenly tense. “He's here,” he told me quietly.

I sat up slowly so that my view was blocked by the wildflowers that surrounded us. I didn’t want to give us away, but at the same time I couldn’t help but try and catch a peek at it. “Where?”

“Not far.”

“Is he angry?”

Darius shook his head slowly, frowning. He reached over and put his arm around me. There was something sad about the way he held me. Something final. “Not angry, my love. Not anymore. He’s dying.”

I gasped, and Darius quickly got to his feet and pulled me up to mine before pointing in the direction of the tree line. At first I didn't see exactly what I was looking for, but a movement up on the ridge drew my eye and when I focused on it I saw him.

Even from here, I could tell that the poor thing was torn and bloodied. He was limping badly as well, favoring his right forepaw. Red tinged drool dripped from his maw and coated his jaws, though from the way he was carrying himself it was obvious that it was a mix of both his own and his enemy’s.

The closer he got the more I could see. His pelt was shredded in more than one place. A wide swath of claw marks scored his flank, and deep rows of bite marks made by sharp, gnashing teeth lined his face and shoulders.

I looked at Darius, wondering what this meant. Was it possible that an injury to the Bear would hurt him as well?

It didn't look like it, at least not physically. Darius took my hand and we hurried to the Bear, who let out a long, ragged sigh as he lay down on the soft ground just before we got to him.

“It's going to be okay,” I panted, desperately looking around on the ground, slapping my pockets in search of something that could help. Sometimes I can make a dream supply me with things that made the situation easier to get through, but not this time.

No bandages or antibacterial injection to stave off infection. No aspirin, even.

“What should we do?” I asked.

Darius lifted his gaze from the Bear and swept the tree line with it once again, clearly looking for whoever had done this.

“Is it safe out here?” I asked, deferring to his better judgment.

“No. It isn't.”

“How can we help the Bear?” I asked.

“There isn’t anything we can do for him,” Darius said softly. “I can't remember a time when he and I were apart. This isn't the way it's supposed to be. None of it is.”

The snow around the Bear was red and getting redder. Darius and I knelt beside him so that we could lay our hands against his pelt and feel the heat of the great beast.

Those eyes… They were so big and brown and solemn, so unlike the fierce power they’d showed me earlier, when he chased me from the cave. It was certainly the same Bear, but it had clearly come to terms with me. I don't know if its injuries were to blame for the sudden change of heart. More likely, he could smell the scent of Darius on me and vice versa. Maybe that made him understand that I truly did love the big man beside me.

Maybe that made it okay.

“Wolves,” Darius said, practically spitting the word. “These marks were made by a pack of fucking Wolves. Luke is supposed to make sure that the bastards can’t find their way into my dream.”

“Can we heal him?”

Darius shrugged sadly. “I don't know, Grace. The only person that can heal a Bear Shifter is his Mate. I’ve certainly seen Bears healed when in their shifted form, but I don't know how it’d work now. Not here. Not in the dream.” He leaned forward and ran his hand gently over the Bear's head, and when I heard the creature whimper I realized just how close he was to the end.

“Are we… I mean, aren’t you and I mated now? You're the only one for me. Don’t you feel like that to?”

“Of course I do,” Darius said fiercely, “but it's not really a rule that has a gray area. No matter how much we love each other, you and I have never met in the waking world. I've never touched you, not for real, and you’ve never really looked into my actual eyes. Hell, I don't know what you see when you look at me, but for all I know I'm not the man I appear to be to you. We aren't Mates, not yet.”

I tried to look away, but couldn’t. Even though he’d hurt me, I didn’t want to ignore the Bear just because Darius had hurt my feelings. It wasn’t easy to know how to handle it when he said such hurtful things.

I knew he didn't mean to break my heart, but hearing him say something so trivial as the fact that he may look different in my dream meant that he must be thinking that I may look different in his.
Of course we’re not mates yet, you fool,
I practically screamed inside my own head.
Why would he want to be? He’s getting cold feet already, and he doesn't even know you're blind. Just give it up girl. The dream was fun while it lasted, but when you wake up you better sort your life out, and fast
.

I ignored my own dark thoughts and pressed my palms flat to the massive Bear’s fur, just between the shoulder blades. I closed my eyes as tightly as I could and reached out with the remaining senses that I’d had to make do with these last six months. I hadn't been good at braille, but my fingertips were more sensitive than they had been six months ago. Through them I felt every fur and fiber of his being, the beating of his heart rolling up through my arms and meeting in the center of my chest like a second pulse. I could feel his muscles shift under my hands, and I had the impression that he was looking up at me. Watching me.

I didn't open my eyes, but I hope that he approved.

The copper smell of his blood became stronger in the air. It caught in the back of my throat, tasting the same way that pennies had when I'd been a little girl and too dumb not to put them in my mouth. It was a hot, terribly cloying taste and it made my mouth dry with fear.

I reached out to him with what I thought of as my soul, trying to reach into him with whatever power lay inside of me. Desperate and uncertain, I tried to drag the Bear back into the dream as his consciousness slowly faded away.

I felt his spirit leave him. One moment he was a solemn, powerful creature fighting back the pain the same way he must have fought off the pack of Wolves, and the next he was gone. All that was left behind was a vessel of meat and sinew and bone. It was no more the Bear than the grass was, and I fell forward against him, exhausted. I held him, my arms wrapped as far around him as they'd go, and the only thing between he and I were the tears that wouldn't stop falling.

I don't know how long I wept there. Ten minutes? More? As I’d explained to Darius, time moved funny in dreams. I could've been there for next to forever, for all I knew. Eventually though, Darius reached out and put a strong hand on my shoulder and slowly pulled me a step or two away from the Bear's body. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to, and what words would have sufficed anyway?

I opened my eyes and stared at the body of the Bear, trying not to drown in the questions that swam away with every logical thought in my head. It was a tidal wave of uncertainty, and it crashed over me.

What now? Should I try to wake up, back in the real world? Was the Bear really gone? And how would this impact Darius?

I took what little solace I could in the fact that, amongst all that uncertainty and with all of those swirling questions, the one thing that never crossed my mind was “do I still love Darius?" I knew I did. Over the years my love for him had never wavered, and now that we were looking at a loss that neither one of us could seem to grasp, the only thing of any substance I could do was slip my hand into his and step a little nearer to his body in a show of support.

I don't know if Darius realized it, but I felt his weight shift toward me as he leaned against me. We stood there like that as the sun crawled toward the horizon and the dark grew more powerful around us.

“We should go,” he said eventually.

I nodded. I knew he was right. The Wolves that had killed the Bear were certainly still out there, and if they could do that to some massive beast I shuddered to think they would do to Darius and I. Even though it was the right thing to do, I would've stood there until I became part of the meadow itself before I was the one who brought it up. After all, it was Darius that was saying goodbye to part of himself, and neither one of us knew if it was permanent.

I wasn't about to rush that.

I knew it was silly, but I had the urge to do something for the poor thing. I took a few steps away, careful not to turn my back on the Bear out of respect, and let Darius spend a few moments with the body on his own. He seemed grateful for that. I couldn't hear what he was saying when he bent down and spoke into the Bear’s ears.

When I returned, a garland of bright wildflowers in my hands, he helped me lift the Bear's head and drape it over its neck.

“I'm sorry,” I said to them both. “I came here to heal you, and I can't.”

Darius didn't say anything. I knew he wasn't stupid. He may be a man of few words, but he used those words well. When he’d told me that we weren’t mates yet, that I couldn't heal the Bear because we’d never met in the waking world, he'd been telling me the truth about our future together as gently as he could as well.

If Darius was trapped in this coma until he got healed and only a mate could heal him, then I wouldn't be able to help him.

No one could.

Darius started walking and I followed. He seemed to know where he was going, and I was happy to let him take the lead. There were too many thoughts in my head to worry about a destination.

“What did you mean when you said that Luke was supposed to protect your dreams from the Wolves?”

He looked at me. “We’ve spoken about this…”

I nodded. Years ago, when I first found out that he was a Shifter, I’d been full of questions. He'd given me as many answers as he could. For instance, I knew that he and his Clan weren’t the only people that could shift into animals, so I hadn't been surprised when he mentioned that there were Werewolves in the world as well. After all, I'd grown up on a steady diet of horror movies. I even thought I knew some of the rules, silver bullets and all that, but he told me that silver worked differently in every species. It hurt them all, but some it would kill and others it would simply cause wounds that couldn't be healed, except by a mate in the case of Bears.

Still
, I reminded myself,
this was a dream
.
Even if Shifters weren’t real, you could still dream about a werewolf. Tons of people did it
.

But that didn't explain why Darius was looking so worried.

“Dreams aren’t necessarily real, you know,” I told him. “Sometimes they’re just signs. Manifestations of fears and worries. They’re not always prophecy, and they certainly don't reflect the real world.”

He glanced over at me. “That's a funny thing for you to say. You and I have always told each other that our dreams were brighter than the world we saw when we were awake.”

I bit my lip at his words. I wondered if he knew how close to the real truth he’d been just now. My dreams will always be brighter, a stark counterpoint to the darkness I saw when I woke up and opened my eyes from now on.

But that didn't matter. Not right now. The only thing of any real importance was trying to find a way to heal Darius, despite what he told me earlier about a mate needing to meet him in the real world.

“Have you ever been able to wake yourself up from a dream?” I asked him, as casually as I could.

“Since I’ve met you Grace, I’ve never wanted to wake up any earlier than I had to.”

I reached out and took his hand again as we walked. The heat coming off of him in waves made me shiver. “This is different. I think we’re on the edge of getting in over our heads, here. I mean, what do you think is happening?” After all, we were in his dream. Sometimes felt like I was a passenger. I don't know how true that was anymore, but it felt like the perfect time to trust his instincts.

“Honestly? I'm not certain. But I think my Bear is dead. Before you tell me that isn't the way it has to be, or try to convince me of some cock and bull story about how dreams aren’t real, just hear me out. Being a Bear Shifter…” He opened his mouth and then hesitated, swallowing hard and trying again.

“Go on.”

“It’s fucking hard to explain, Grace. You know that voice most people have in their head? The one that tells you that you aren't good enough? The one that reminds you of all the little inadequacies that somehow seem to pile up in your life?”

I nodded. I knew all too well what he was talking about.

Darius sighed. “I think in most people that little voice has been there for so long that people just accept it. But not me. And not my brothers, either. The voice in
our
head is our Bear. At every thought, at every single opportunity it pushes its way into our consciousness. It can help us or hurt us, but it's always there. Ever present. I think of you and the Bear growls with satisfaction.”

“At least it did, is that what you’re saying? That there's no more growling in your head?”

“Yeah. Exactly. There's an empty spot, and around it is a swirling place of silence that leaves me off balance. It hasn't been replaced. There’s no little voice or internal narrator that pushes or prods me anymore. There's just nothing. It's almost deafening to hear your own thoughts without that counterpoint, you know?”

I didn't know what he was talking about. Logically, I could empathize, but I couldn't quite imagine what the world would be like without that type of conversation that seemed to bounce around in my head at practically every moment.

I didn't exactly want to change the subject, but I thought that going down this road so soon after the possible death of the Bear was dangerous. So I tried to change tact, just a little. “If the Bear growled with approval when you thought of me, why did it chase me off?”

“What you talking about?”

“A little while ago. In the cavern. You weren't there, but I could hear the Bear coming from a distance. It seemed to know where I was, and when it found me it charged. I ran. I woke up. I guess it was my way of running. It scared the crap out of me, to be honest.”

Darius shrugged. “Maybe he was trying to protect you. Maybe the Wolves were closing in even then, and it was easier to scare you off than try to find a way to keep you safe. Can't say for sure, but I know for a fact that my Bear always approved of you. If things had gone the way they were meant to, you and I would be Mates.”

“Then what are we now?”

I watched as he made a point of not meeting my eyes, glancing over my shoulder to the left and changing directions as we walked, bringing us closer to the mountain range we’d been walking alongside. “I think that makes us lost. Lost to the world and lost to each other. My body can hibernate for a while, but not forever. I don't even know where it is, and even if you found it, I wouldn’t be awake. There’d be no falling in love, not in the way that it has to happen. I don’t think either one of us can change that, and I fear that you wasting your time in this dream with me will only put you in more danger when the Wolves come.”

“I'm not going anywhere,” I told him through gritted teeth. “I’m staying right here with you.”

“I don't think you have a choice, at the moment,” he said, reaching out and laying a finger just below the wound I'd gotten in the fall down the stairs with such tenderness that I felt my eyes welling up again. “But you won't be unconscious forever. Eventually you’ll wake up.”

“What if I don't,” I said defiantly, my own voice in my ears sounding like a petulant child. It was a foolish question. If I didn’t wake up from the head wound, I’d be in a coma or worse.

“Then I'll be right. We'll both be lost.”