Dani didn’t mind being ignored. Today, she found the press of oblivious people reassuring. Almost as though they were a shield against what hunted her.
The cemetery had provided her with a safe place to spend the night, but unless she wished to bathe in the river again, she’d risk leaving tracks. Here, on the downtown streets, she was confident the sharks wouldn’t come at her. At least, not during the day. The snarl of people in the Old Market Square area would make tracking her scent difficult at best. But if she wanted to be alert tonight, she needed to sleep today.
That wasn’t as easy to accommodate in the daytime. The shelters were a good bet. Had her hunters already twigged to her living on the street? They likely wouldn’t have reached that conclusion so soon.
Deciding it was safe for today, Dani scoped those standing around the Siloam Mission with care before entering. She kept her eyes averted and her hood up while she signed in with an alias. The man behind the desk barely looked at her.
Her hand shook so badly her writing was as illegible as a doctor’s. Her reaction frustrated her. With what she’d been through lately, it was no surprise she was shaken up. But was this any worse than the other things that had happened to her?
Her life had never been easy. But the last three months had taken it to new depths.
Dani went straight to the showers, hoping that at this time of day there would be lots of hot water. She stank of the river. The shaking just continued to get worse, even while she showered. The water was wonderfully hot, and she stood beneath its blast until her skin turned red from it.
The dirt, and smell of the river, flowed away. But nothing could eliminate the hole inside of her. The hole left by Remy. Her pack alpha. And a vicious piece of work.
She hadn’t wanted him to touch her, but he’d done much more than that. She also hadn’t wanted him inside her head, but that part of the deal hadn’t been explained ahead of time.
All through it, she’d told herself that Remy was just a means to an end. Another had made the promises—the bigger bastard. The one who’d lured her off the streets. The one who ran the show.
A monster named Rindek.
She’d dared to believe, for a moment, that she could be part of something much bigger than herself. In exchange for that promise, she’d given up her humanity, and embraced the beast.
It had almost worked before it all got torn to shreds. Now Remy and the rest of the pack were dead. She didn’t miss the alpha, but his death, and that of the pack, had left a horrid, gaping hole inside her.
One that she didn’t know how to fix.
She’d like to say she’d been through worse. Despite many challenges, she’d survived. To get through it all with her mind and body relatively intact.
But as she dressed, and then curled up on a cot to sleep, the shaking only increased. She folded her arms around her, trying to stop it. A staff member passed by, and paused.
“Is there anything I can get for you?” she asked, concern in her voice.
There were good people here, people who cared. This woman no doubt thought Dani was suffering some kind of withdrawal.
Withdrawal. From a bastard alpha who had lived in her head.
“No. No, thank you. I just need to sleep.”
The staff member nodded, her brows low, but acceptance in her features. She’d likely seen it all while working here.
As she moved off, Dani gritted her teeth. There was nothing anyone could do for her. She had to deal with this. And move on.
Eventually, the shaking eased, and Dani’s body relaxed into sleep.
And she dreamed:
She was standing beneath the giant trees.
The forest realm hadn’t been like anything she’d seen pictures of on Earth. The trees were beyond massive, with trunks a few hundred feet across suspended forty feet above the ground by strong roots. Beneath the circles they formed were grassy meadows, their phosphorescent flowers glowing softly.
At first, she was afraid she was about to relive the battle that had left her with holes in her soul. But she was alone in the meadow. The forest rang with the cries, hums, and mutterings of thousands of resident species, each sound an indication that a normal day was unfolding around her.
Then something strode from the dense bush that grew between the trees. A human figure, but much taller than most, with shoulders so broad he had to turn sideways to slip between the roots. His glossy, blue-black hair was braided back from his face, but it flowed down to his waist. The skin of his naked upper body gleamed in the dim light, the muscles rippling as he moved. The broad, powerful pectorals spanned between the shoulders, and his torso tapered in a series of prominent abdominals to a flat stomach and narrow hips. From the waist down he was clad only in shiny blue-green scales, and they hugged every contour.
Tattoos chased along his arms—Dragons, of course, twisting around them as though alive. His ears glittered with metal along the outer curve—how did he shift through those? But the most remarkable—and inhuman—thing about him were his eyes.
They gleamed metallic, sparkling with blues and greens, the irises huge with almost no whites showing. They were mesmerizing, those eyes.
