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)
What else could I do? I couldn’t bring them back. I couldn’t trust a stranger to watch over me. The only safety was in solitude, no matter how much I craved the company of people like my coven.
Eventually, I managed to convince myself that my sleep each night was deep and restful.
Now, as I fall into a vivid dream, I know that it was not. With him here, I am protected. I know this to be true.
I am deeply certain of it, down to my bones. This is a dream, thick as honey in my tea.
In my dream, I’m walking in the fields I have called my home for years. I know each dip in the earth and each tree on the horizon. I’m at peace with my fingertips grazing the tall grass and the warmth of the sun soaking into my skin.
I move a few more paces across the lush grass and realize in a blink that these are not the same fields that surround my cottage. I know every inch of those fields like the back of my own hand, and this place is different.
Although my heart skips a beat, I do not fear it. I am at home here. Comfortable. It is my waking mind that feels the difference so sharply. The dream-version of me feels nothing out of the ordinary.
I stroll through the fields, in no hurry to get anywhere, pausing often to fill my basket with flowers whose names I do not know. I bend to pick another, then another, and they blow in the breeze, their stems curving gently as the wind moves over them. They seem happy to see me, somehow—they reach their petals toward my fingers and come easily from the earth, content to be gathered. Everything I touch is warmed by the sun.
I straighten from plucking a violet flower and shade my eyes with my hands. Everything about this land—the hills, the wind, the trees in the distance—whispers welcome home.
The skyline is not the same. There are unfamiliar mountain peaks and patterns in the trees that do not belong to my forest. The scent I inhale is one I know intimately, yet I have never smelled it before this moment. Before this dream. It is not the scent of my valley in any of the seasons. It is totally new to me, but in this dream I know it so well and find it comforting.
I’m meant to be here. It’s missed me so. I was always supposed to be here.
A white cloud moves across the sun, hardly dimming its light.
I become aware of a person next to me. He’s nearby in my waking life. In my cottage. And he is at my side in the dream, though I do not turn my head to see his face.
Out of the corner of my vision, his form shifts, becoming larger and more muscled, on four legs, and then he is a man again. He is a wolf shifter, and his scent is on the wind. I know that scent as well as I know the scent of the earth under my feet.
Ryker. My love.
Then this must be Ryker’s home. This must be where he traveled from, or where he intends to go one day when he is no longer a soldier.
I marvel at the landscape. At the feel of him beside me. At the sunlight and the mountains and the sky, which is so different from the sky above my cottage…and so similar. There are the moons that remain visible in the daylight. They are in slightly different places in the sky from what I would expect, but I can still find them and name them. Of course, my moon shines down with such happiness. Such blessings that we are together. Tears prick at the back of my eyes.
It is possible that I am seeing Ryker’s land as it really is. The dreams of witches are oftentimes visions of the future or glimpses of one’s fate. They are not always the imaginings of a mind at rest. This possibility makes my heart race with excitement and anticipation and…delight?
Yes. It is delight I feel. I am delighted in the dream as well as being deeply content. I want to be happy. I want to be loved. So deeply loved. I didn’t realize what was lacking. I didn’t know the loss truly until I felt it now.
“Thank you,” I say, without turning to face Ryker.
“For what?” he asks. His voice is a deep rumble that seems to come from everywhere at once.
“For watching over me.”
He laughs. “How could I not? You are my shelter, my peace, my love… My mate.”
“Where is your home?” I ask, but there is no answer from Ryker.
The wind rustles the grasses and the flowers at my feet. It is a stronger wind—too harsh for the flowers. They bend farther, petals coming loose. An uneasy feeling makes my skin prickle with goosebumps. The light changes, growing darker, though it cannot be midday.