Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 48193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 241(@200wpm)___ 193(@250wpm)___ 161(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 241(@200wpm)___ 193(@250wpm)___ 161(@300wpm)
“Idalis!” I scream her name but there’s no sound.
Idalis’s cottage is no closer as I sprint, my lungs aching and sweat pouring down my back. The night air hardly stirs. It is too still. All the land around me is too still. Why didn’t I notice before? It is as if I am running through a painting of the land and not the land itself. A land like this should be alive with birds and insects and creatures in the forest, but it makes no sound.
Am I alone here?
I cannot be alone here.
“No,” I say aloud to the stillness. “No. This is not real. This is a dream. You cannot keep me from her! She is mine!”
With those words, the land comes to life around me. A nightbird calls from some nearby tree, and a small animal bounds across my path. Idalis’s cottage is closer, then closer again, and in a matter of steps I am slowing to a halt by her front door.
I put my hand on the handle and pull.
It swings open, and there she is, standing just inside, a bundle of white cloth in her arms. Her eyes brighten when she sees me, and her face flushes.
“Ryker, my love,” she says, and a shudder of sheer arousal goes through me. No one has ever said my name like that before. With such devotion. There’s some other magic in it—there must be. It is a claiming, somehow. The air is thick with it. With peace. Even though we are not married yet, there’s something in her voice that makes me think we are bound by fate. Meant for me. Mated.
My dream-mind is not surprised by this at all. My dream-mind knows that she is my mate, and always has been. My dream-mind knows that a wedding ceremony is not necessary to tie our souls together, but it is a celebration that means something to Idalis, so we will have one, even though we are already mated. My dream-mind is amused by the idea of a wedding ceremony and enchanted by it, too—not because I have any special fondness for wedding ceremonies, but because I have a special fondness for Idalis, and anything my mate wants, I will give her.
“Mate,” I say. It is the only word that comes close to describing this feeling.
“Did you find the florals?” she asks, blushing as she steps closer, hugging the linen to her chest.
“I found them all.” I swing the pack off my back and let it rest on the floor at my feet. “I found you.”
“Of course you did.” She laughs again, an enchanting, sweet sound. “Why wouldn’t you have found me? This is our home. I’ve been here always, waiting for you.”
Any uneasiness I felt melts away. What she says is true. It is real. The strange distance before was a trick of the dream and nothing else. We were always meant to be.
“Come here.” I reach for her. “I need my mate in my arms.”
Idalis offers me a simper, her eyes darkening with her palpable want, and shifts the white cloth she holds into one arm so she can extend her other hand to me.
Her fingers are inches from mine when the color begins to fade. The edges of the dream close in until Idalis’s face is all I can see, and then she’s gone, too.
I’m back to staring at the darkness behind my eyelids.
This time, I don’t immediately sink back to sleep. I lie still on the bed for a few beats, listening. My heart pounds and my body thrums with life. My wolf, content and sated.
The cottage is quiet. No humming. No footsteps. Idalis’s scent is still in the air, but this is her home and I am covered in her blankets, so it may not be a sign that she’s here.
Cautiously, not trusting what I’ve dreamed, I stretch my legs out quietly as I open my eyes. I’ve been sleeping so long that they do not open quickly. I roll each wrist, finding them limber, slow to wake, too.
Then I push myself up. And that’s when I see her, my heart beats in a different rhythm.
Idalis has not gone anywhere. She’s moved to a seat by the fire, where the light kisses the curves of her face and she is fast asleep, some cards held in her hands atop a knitted blanket.
I watch her for a minute or two, my chest filled with a feeling I cannot name. Her position on the chair by the fire cannot be comfortable. Once that thought has passed through my mind, I cannot spend another second in Idalis’s bed.
Quietly so as to not disturb her, I take the cards out of her hands and place them on her worktable. Then I carry Idalis to her bed, place her carefully in the spot I just left, and tuck the covers over her. Her body is soft and warm and my gods, her scent. As I carry her across the room I realize it’s the first time I’ve touched her, although still not skin to skin. So close to heaven. That’s what it’s like being so close to her.