Luke (Bear Shifter) (New World Shifters) (23 page)

We ate the pizza together in relative silence for the next few minutes, but by the time I was finished with the second slice I had an idea. Halfway through the third, it had to crystallized into much more than that. It was no longer a matter of whether I should or shouldn't follow through. I had to.

I didn't have a choice.

“Lupe?” I asked, setting down the crust. I never ate the crusts. My grandmother had told me long ago that I’d get hair on my chest if I did. Not wanting to look like the abominable snowman, I had gotten in the habit of discarding them. Thankfully I managed to get it back in the box on the first try.

“Yeah?” she answered, around a mouthful of pizza.

“I'm going to ask you for favor. But before I do, just know that you don't have to do it. Okay?”

“I’m in.”

“Just listen, first.”

She snorted. “I'll do anything I can for you, you know that.”

I shook my head. “You say that now, but I won't say another word until you agree to be willing to say no.”

“Grace, come on, you don't have to be like that. I'll always-”

“Just promise,” I said, cutting her off mid-sentence. “But you also need to know that I'm doing it whether you say no or not. I'm not asking for advice. I don't need a guidance counselor, and I'm not supposed to see my doctor for another week or so yet, so I don't need a shrink. I just need a friend to help me, but only if she's willing.”

“Okay,” Lupe said, and she swallowed so hard that I heard the pizza go down. She was obviously nervous about what I was going to say next, and I wondered if she thought I might do something crazy like hurt myself.

Had I really been acting that erratic?
I asked myself.
Had I really been so strange as to make my best friend think that I may want to end it all?

“I'm going to Alaska,” I told her with as much certainty as I could push into my voice.

“Alaska?”

“Today.”

“You’re going to Alaska today? Like, on a plane?”

“Yes. There's a guy up there that needs my help, and I need to…” I let my voice trail off. I'd been about to say I need to see him, but no matter how much that was true, I knew that was never going happen. “I need to be next to him,” I said instead.

“Can I ask who it is?”

I frowned. There it was, the only question that made sense for her to ask and the one that I had dreaded. Which was worse, to tell her that I was seeing someone I met in my dreams, and risk sounding even more crazy than she already thought I was? Or should I admit that I didn't really know who I was journeying to visit?

“Grace?”

“An old friend,” I said at last. “Nobody you know. I met him years and years ago, but I got an email that he was sick. They don't know if he's going to pull through, and I want to be with him, to hold his hand and let him know I’m there before he goes.”

“And you want me to fly there with you?”

I hadn't really thought of that. Sure, blind as I was, Lupe's help on the trip would be immeasurable, but my initial request had been about to be for her to make the travel bookings and get me a cab. I needed to go in a hurry, and I didn't want to screw around with the narrator program on my computer as it tried to navigate the airline website. With my luck, I'd end up headed in the wrong direction and not realizing it until I landed in the Bahamas or something. “No, that's okay.”

“They owe me some vacation time, you know. Human Resources is always nagging me to take it. And I've always wanted to go to Alaska…”

I dithered. I didn't want her to think that the fact that I was hesitating with my answer meant I didn’t want her to join me, but I didn't want to drag Lupe along simply because she felt bad for me either. “I don't know how much fun I'll be having,” I told her. “I'm not even sure where he is at the moment, to be honest.”

“All the more reason for me to go with you. Listen, it's decided. I've got vacation time and frequent flyer miles, and you need somebody to get you to your friend. Did you really think I was going to just put you on the plane and cross my fingers that you got there safely?”

“Well, kind of…”

Even though I couldn't see, I could feel her glare at me. It burned a little, and I shifted in my seat on the couch. “Goddammit Grace, when are you going to work out that it's okay to ask for help? Everybody needs somebody else, whether they're willing to admit it or not. Now let's get the hell up to Alaska, and see what there is to see.”

Her last words didn't sting. I knew she didn't mean any harm, and I’d decided halfway through my pizza that if I was going to go to Darius, I'd be leaving my regret and whatever ill will I felt for the universe behind in California. He needed me. He needed a mate to be beside him, and I was that woman. My love for him didn't leave any room for the hurt that my blindness had caused me. If I was going to be the person that he needed me to be, I'd have to set the bullshit aside and grow up.

There was another thing my grandmother had always told me.
Tough times never last. Tough people do
.

“You’d really do that for me?” I asked Lupe.

“In a heartbeat.”

“Thank you.” I let all of my hurt and frustration leave me in those two words, and when I reached out to hug her I felt her arms wrap around me. She’d been my salvation more than once in my life, and it looked like she wasn't finished.

“Now,” she said once the hug was broken. It was clear from her voice that she was all business. “Let's get you packed and get to LAX.”

“What about your stuff?”

I felt the couch shift a little, and I’d known her long enough to know that she’d just shrugged at me and shook my words away with a defiant toss of her head. “Are you kidding? I don't have anything to wear in the cold. I need some new clothes anyway, I'll hit the shops once we arrive. I think I’ll look good in a snow suit, don't you?”

“I do,” I said with a laugh. “I don’t have anything to wear either, but that isn’t going to stop me.”

“Okay, let's go up to your closet and throw some stuff together.”

She let me lead the way, and I walked unerringly to the stairs where I could grab the railing and head up.

It was happening. It was really happening. I was on my way to the man of my dreams. If only I knew where he was.

It turns out that it's expensive to fly to Alaska, especially last-minute. Lupe’s frequent flier miles covered her trip, but the airline wouldn’t let them apply to me as well.

I didn't care. As long as I had enough in my bank account to cover the cost of a one-way ticket, I was happy. I did, and when Lupe expressed concern that I couldn’t afford a round trip, I told her that I didn't know when I'd be coming back. A week, or a month, I just wasn't sure if it would be easier to book a return flight once I knew a little bit more about how my friend in Alaska was doing.

All of that was technically true, I suppose. But the reality was that I had no plans of coming back at all. I’d come to California for the sun and the surf, and those things meant less to me now. The only thing I could concentrate on was Darius, and I told myself over and over that if I could simply find him I could fix him. I didn't know if that was right, but it felt good to be doing something instead of sitting at home and praying for sleep.

Lupe drove us to the airport and checked us both in. Getting onto the plane was easy, especially since we got seated first. I didn't like to use a cane, so I'd left it behind. No matter how many times the doctors had insisted that I think about a seeing-eye dog, I hadn't bitten that particular bullet yet either, which at least meant that I could travel quickly and I could travel lightly. Perfect for a last-minute, seat of my pants flight out of LAX and into Anchorage.

Lupe was, as always, the perfect companion. She offered to read me the fluff articles in the in-flight magazine about snowmobiling and sled dogs and the curious way Alaskans have of firing cannons up into remote mountain gorges to knockdown snow and remove the possibility of avalanches. It was all interesting stuff, and I got the feeling that she was calming her own nerves as much as mine in the process.

A couple of hours into the flight though, Lupe got quiet. I listened to her breathing, and then felt her head slowly drift to my shoulder as she faded off to sleep.

I was jealous of her, and not just for the usual reasons one woman envies another. I'd always thought she was prettier than me, and her bright and vivacious personality Latina spitfire attitude was a man magnet. Lately I'd been envying everyone who could see, but I was determined to put that sort of shit behind me.

No, this time I simply coveted her ability to sleep. I wasn't tired at all yet, and even if I had been I probably shouldn't doze just yet, in case my head injury became something worse. That would be just my luck, wouldn't it? To slip into a coma on the way to meet a man in a coma, so that both of us could be lost in our dreams forever.

I wondered what Darius was dreaming of right now. When I'd left him he’d gone into the Den on his own. Had he seen his father killed again? Had he watched himself take part in the fight, or had he thrown himself into the fray in a fruitless attempt to try and aid them?

I knew firsthand that would be a dangerous thing to do. I hadn't been lying when I’d told him that he had to worry about getting caught in a loop. I'd run the dream forum on the net for years, and seen uncountable posts from people who had recurring nightmares. The details varied with the dream of course, but one thing didn't change. They dreaded sleep. The scene that played out in their heads was a sick and consistent terror, and the fear that they felt while their eyes were closed and their bodies were safe in bed didn't go away when they woke up.

They were haunted by their own ghosts, and it broke them down.

I didn't want that for Darius. I didn't want that for
anyone
, but especially not him. He’d gone through so much that even when he did wake up, I wasn't sure how well he’d cope. His father was gone, and it sounded like the territory he and his Clan had protected was still under a cloud of darkness. He was without a home, and without the head of his family.

I shook my head fiercely, causing Lupe to stir as I tried to force those thoughts away. She whispered something under her breath, and I cocked my head to try and hear what she’d said again.

“In the middle of the seven hills,” she repeated. “Seven hills surround me.”

Lots of people talk in their sleep. A lot more than know it, if the stats have anything to say about it. Something about the way she was saying it told me that she wasn’t just spouting nonsense. The words carried a power, and they made the hair on my arms stand up. “Where are the seven hills?” I asked her softly.

“Far from here and long ago.”

I held my breath for a second, trying not to wake her up. I was sure that a little wrinkle of worry marred the space between her eyebrows. She was concerned, and I didn’t want to think that her dreams were a place of torment too. “If it’s in the past, maybe that’s where it should stay,” I told her, trying to put her at ease. “We’re headed to Alaska right now, just like we planned. We’ll be there in a few hours.”

“We’re headed into your future,” she said with a sad little sigh, sounding like a petulant child, “but it’s the past for me.”

I frowned. It didn't sound like she was having second thoughts about the flight, but it was obvious that her heart was heavy. What had changed? I frowned, careful to keep my shoulder still so that Lupe could fall into a deeper sleep and hopefully be able to ignore whatever thoughts she was having now.

What was she talking about? No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t push Lupe’s words away. It felt like she was whispering wisdom to me, and I was simply too dense to understand. It didn't make a difference whether the knowledge came from her dreams or her waking mind. Maybe it had been selfish of me to drag her up here with me, after all.

Lupe’s life was back in California. She was an up-and-coming choreographer, hard-working and tireless in her pursuit of beauty. The work she did was only just starting to grab people’s attention, and once that flame grew into a fire the sky would be the limit for her. Her traveling to Anchorage with me was a waste of her own time, and even though I loved her for the sacrifice, I knew that the best thing to do would be to turn her around at the airport and continue on my own.

And that was just what I should do. I had a connecting flight, a charter that would get me north to the forest where Darius had said his Den was located. I knew that Rachel was a Ranger up there, which should make her not very hard to find. Sure it was remote wilderness, but if you can find anyone in a Federally protected forest, I figured it would be the people in the Ranger station.

I was grateful to her for getting me here, but my own sense of selfishness might not her do anything more for me. I made a pact with myself that, as soon as we disembarked from the plane, I’d gently but firmly send her back to her life in California.

“Seven hills for seven sisters,” Lupe mumbled at me. “It’s like it was meant to be.”

I shushed her quietly, and for once she listened to my advice, smacking her lips in her sleep and changing positions against me before she softly began to snore.