He was pretty sure he was having a lucid dream. A dream in which both the conscious and subconscious worked in tandem. The conscious mind knew you were dreaming, while the subconscious did the dreaming. He’d never experienced this kind of fractured consciousness before, but he’d heard of it.
The sensation of being simultaneously asleep and awake was weird as hell.
“The Shadow Warrior has cause for every action he takes,” Benioko corrected with a patient—I’m talking to a moron—tone in his voice. “My husk, and the mind it carried, was too weakened by the weight of its years to cross the veil as often as thewanatesasituation required. He needed a younger, strongerTaounaha. One able to cross into theTabenethaas often as required.” He paused, his face folding into lines of deep reproach. “He reached out to you, to relieve me of this burden, yet you refused to heed his call.”
Aiden glanced around the sunny little meadow. There were no white, floaty creatures with elongated mouths and eyes. Not that he believed the damn things were the elder gods, but it wasinteresting that Benioko was haunting his current dream, rather than the scream faces. Hell, the landscape even looked different: sunny and peaceful rather than misty and terrifying.
He turned his attention back to his self-styled interpreter.
“Okay, let’s say that for some brain-rotting reason, I believe you: what exactly are you supposed to be facilitating here?” It seemed like a fair question.
According to all the research he’d done recently on reoccurring nightmares, they were usually brought on by stress, anxiety, and trauma. Which made sense. God knew the looming apocalypse was one hell of a stressor, and you couldn’t get much more traumatic than watching your best friends blow each other’s heads off.
“Since you refuse to open your mind or your ears,” Benioko announced, a clear reprimand in his voice, “I will impart the Shadow Warrior’s wisdom to you.”
Fuck that attitude. Aiden pivoted and stalked away. He wasn’t gonna stand there while the dude scolded him like a child. Except the instant he turned his back, the dude popped up in front of him again. Another pivot, another Benioko pop up. And again...and again.
“Son of a bitch.” Dizzy from all the spinning, Aiden stopped to glare.
The hawkish face across from him smirked with amused satisfaction. “You cannot run away. Not here. You will face this, whether you believe or not.”
Shit. The asshole was right. If was impossible to avoid the asshole when every path led straight back to him.
Scowling, Aiden ran a hand over his head. “What the hell do you want from me?”
“To listen,” Benioko retorted. “And then inform theBetanee.”
TheBetanee?That was Wolf, if he had his Kalikoia terminology right.
“Fine.” Aiden tossed up his hands. “I’m listening. What is so damn important the Shadow Warrior killed you so you could pass the intel onto me?”
This crucial information wouldn’t make any sense anyway. Dreams never did. This urgent warning was probably something as silly as the tomatoes were flying saucers.
Benioko’s expression shifted from satisfied to worried. “The missing bot bomb is now in play. You must tell the others and prevent it from infectingHokalita.”
Chapter sixteen
Day 28
Shadow Mountain Base, Alaska
Wolf listened to O’Neill with a sinking sensation in his chest. He dropped his fork, the clink of metal hitting the ceramic plate, echoing in his ears. Appetite gone, he sighed and pushed the plate aside. “Your news does not surprise me.”
What in shadow’s name was going on in theTabenetha?
Shock lifted O’Neill’s eyebrows at Wolf’s words. “It doesn’t? Why the hell not?”
O’Neill seeking him out, followed by the bombshell he’d delivered, was not how Wolf expected to start his morning. Hescanned the cafeteria. Few of the cafeteria tables were occupied. No one would hear this conversation.
Even so, he lowered his voice. “Your daughter is not the only woman to receive a warrior’s spirit of late.”
O’Neill’s mouth froze in mid-yawn. “No shit? There are others?”
Wolf nodded and swallowed another sigh. “One other. Jillian was claimed by theheschrmal.”
Neither revelation would have been shared prior to their last mission. O’Neill would not have come to him with his concern, and Wolf would not have revealed such a personal secret.
The difference between two weeks was...surprising.
