Malia—call her Lia—Burner arched in her sleep, her hands fisted by her sides, but it didn't make the dreams go away. Nothing did but time, and not enough of it had passed for her actions to mean anything but pain.
She'd never been able to make sense of her dreams—at least when she
dreamed like this and not hot fantasies of a sexy wolf that didn't give her
the time of day. And because she was weird as hell, she always knew when
she was dreaming, even if she couldn't wake up. It was as if she were part
of the experience that led her to a path she knew was important even if she
couldn't understand, rather than dreaming of unicorns and rainbows and,
later, maybe constant humping with Hunter.
No, she got the weird.
Because she was the weird.
And she wouldn't wake up until the dream was ready to let go of her.
Each dream was different, even though sometimes it felt as if there were
a theme. She drowned in fire. She burned in ice. Every element surrounded
her, pulled at her, took her to a new dream, a new level. She'd never been
able to make sense of the visions, but she lived them nonetheless.
This one, however, had more than the elements. A woman held a crying
child, an infant. Lia couldn't make out their faces, but she knew there was a desperate kind of love that spoke of something far greater than what she knew and what she could see.
There was a couple holding each other, no fear or angst running through
their body language. Instead, there was a sudden joy that Lia felt even
though it couldn't touch the older woman holding the infant. She didn't
understand it, but when the flames finally came, and the dream tilted on its
axis, the couple wasn't there anymore. The old woman wasn't there either.
Instead, a child stared up at her from her own cradled hands. Bright eyes.
But there was something missing. Something had been taken from the child.
And she didn't understand it.
Now, she stood in the middle of an empty room, her body draped in
white linen, a breeze that seemingly came from nowhere making the dress
she wore flutter. Her hair did the same in an unseen wind.
Then the fire came again, and she was no more.
Lia sat up, her body drenched in sweat, her thin tank top sticking to
her skin. She was no longer dreaming, of that she was sure. Because, even
in her dreams, she never felt the fear that she did when she woke. She never
felt the exhaustion that crept into her bones from her lack of restful sleep.
And for some reason, in her dreams, her hair always seemed to be blowing
in a wind she couldn't feel. Now, some of her hair stuck to her face in
sweaty strands, and the rest was piled on top of her head in a messy bun.
She glanced over at the clock. Since she only had about half an hour
before she was due to get up, she got out of bed, turned off her alarm, and
decided to start her day. Like usual, there would be no more sleep after a
dream like that. She may not have them every night, but they'd come to her
often enough throughout her life that she had her own pattern, and her own
routine when she needed to deal with the ramifications and the feelings that
came after.
Because when she dreamed things like in the one she'd just woken up
from, that meant something was going to change for her. It could be small; a tiny thing like a new brand of coffee. Or, it could be life-altering.
To say she was weird was an understatement.
She'd never told her friends about her dreams. She wasn't quite sure
how she could start the conversation. Or tell them that it always felt as if
she were going crazy when she couldn't really figure out what she was
dreaming about or why.
One of her best friends, Dannie, had kept her own secrets, but the fact
that Dannie was a wolf shifter and now mated into the Halo Pack seemed a
far bigger secret than weird dreams that she might have off and on. Another
of their friends, Emmy, had kept the secret that something was wrong with
her, that she was dying, from the others. But then again, she'd had her
reasons.
Dreams that made no sense and were of no consequence other than
perhaps connections to other things in her life didn't seem like something
Lia needed to share. Having her friends know wouldn't change anything
except perhaps their perception of her.
She could only wonder what their other friend, Chinenye, kept from
them, as it seemed the four best friends who thought they could tell each
other anything, each kept something close to the heart.
With a sigh, she stripped out of her sweaty clothes, tossed them into the
hamper, and studied her reflection in the mirror. She didn't like how pale
she was and the fear that was in her eyes even though she didn't know what
she should be afraid of. She turned to the side and lifted her breast ever so
slightly so she could look at the scar that had been on her body since she
was a baby. She called it a scar rather than a birthmark because it never felt
as if she'd had it since birth. The knowing was just one more thing that
made her feel off. But it wasn't as if she could explain it.
On her ribcage, right below her breast, was a long scar that looked like a
wisp of flame. The mark had grown as she did, and it had forever piqued
her curiosity for how she had come to get it. No one could see it unless she wore a very tiny bathing suit, which was something she didn't often do. Or
when she was in bed with another. That meant that only a few close people
had ever seen her scar other than her parents when she was younger and her
doctors.
The red mark didn't hurt, and it didn't do anything. It was just there to
remind her every time she looked at herself in the mirror that something
was different about her.
Or maybe she'd been spending too much time with one foot in the
world of the paranormal that something as innocuous as a scar seemed far
more important than just a mark on her flesh.
Of course, thinking about the paranormal made her think of Hunter. She
couldn't believe she'd actually gone up to him two nights prior and told him
flat out that she knew they were mates. She wasn't a wolf, and she wasn't
supposed to have that knowledge at all. But then again, that sense of
knowing was loud in her mind when it wanted to be. After she had said the
words, he had just stood there like a deer in headlights, rather than the wolf
that he was. Then she had walked away, a sway in her step as if she hadn't a
care in the world. That was so beyond the truth, but she hoped she'd put on
a better façade than what was going on in her mind.
She had no idea what she was going to do if he actually came after her
and said that, yes, they were mates, and he wanted to do something about it.
She also didn't know what she would do if he never came after her at all.
What she did know was that she was tired of standing back and waiting.
But the ball was in his court. And she guessed she would just have to
wait it out.