A sigh, soft as a summer breeze, whispered past her lips, ruffling his fur.
Of what do ye dream, my Channa Leigh, he wondered, and closing his eyes, he covered her hand with his paw and let his mind meld with hers...
At first, there was only darkness and then, gradually, the world brightened and he saw her walking along the riverbank, one hand resting on the head of a huge wolf. And she saw the world through his eyes. He experienced her wonder as she watched a gray squirrel run up a tree. She stopped to touch the soft pink petals of a briar rose, stooped to run her hands over the green velvet grass. Now and then she paused and gazed up at the sky, and then she moved on, her head turning slowly from side to side, examining everything she passed - flowers, leaves, rocks, a fat brown caterpillar.
He felt her fingers in his fur as her hand stroked the dream wolf’s head. He had thought to change into his true form but decided against it now, afraid she might sense the change and awaken.
In her dream, she sat down in the shade of a flowering oak, and the big wolf stretched out beside her, its head in her lap.
As she stroked the dream wolf, he felt his own body tingle, his skin ripple with pleasure, as though she were caressing him and not the wolf in her dream.
“Isn’t the world a wondrous place, my dark one?” she said. “I had forgotten how beautiful it all was.” She ran one hand over the grass. “This is green. Tis a glorious color. And the earth. Tis brown, like Papa’s cow. Oh, and look at the sky. Tis a wondrous shade of blue. As blue as yer eyes.”
Time passed. An hour, a day...in a dream, time had no meaning, not that it mattered. He had all the time in the world.Man or beast, in this world or in the world of Channa Leigh’s dreams, he was content to rest there, by her side, to feel her fingers stroke his fur, to breathe in her scent, to imagine himself as a man at her side, his head cradled in her lap, his lips tasting hers...
As if she knew his thoughts, the dreaming Channa Leigh pressed her fingertips to her lips. “Tell me, dark one, do ye think I shall ever find a man to love?” She laughed softly, sadly. “I think Ronin has feelings for me, though he has never spoken them aloud.” She breathed a heavy sigh. “But even should he care, what man would want one such as I?”
What man, indeed, he mused. Just lying beside her, watching her sleep, made him ache with a need he had never indulged.
In her dream, the big wolf rolled onto its back.
He sucked in a deep breath, felt his desire stir to vigorous life, as she began to scratch the dream wolf’s stomach. In three hundred years, he had never known a woman, never felt such a sharp stab of desire....
A low growl rumbled in his throat as he took his paw from her hand, severing the bond between them. The dream dissolved, like a shadow running from the sun.
Witch woman, he thought.What are ye doing to me?
With a start, he realized she was awake.
“Oh!” Channa Leigh exclaimed. Her fear quickly turned to pleasure as she saw a ray of silvery moonlight filtering through her window, saw the huge wolf stretched out beside her. “What are ye doing here?”
He growled softly, then licked her hand.
She shivered with delight at the touch of his tongue, warm and rough against her palm. Sitting up, she glanced around her room, one hand clutching the wolf’s fur. There was her chair. Mama had made the cover in shades of blue, because blue had always been her favorite color. The cross above her bed wasdelicately carved from dark wood. Black, she thought. The color was black, like the wolf. The quilt on her bed was dark blue, the curtains at the window were white with tiny red flowers. Colors. So many colors. She had learned them early and never forgotten them.
She glanced out the window, her hand still stroking the wolf’s coat. There was so much to see. “Would ye like to go for a walk?”
As if it understood, the big wolf leaped to the floor, stretched, then moved to her side of the bed, waiting patiently as she stood up and drew on her wrapper. Then, one hand fisted in the long fur at his neck, she tiptoed quietly out of the house lest she wake her parents, who would certainly object to her taking a walk in the moonlight with the wolf.
The night was bright beneath a full lover’s moon. Awed by the beauty of it, Channa Leigh walked through the village, stopping at each cottage, each shop. As a child, she had been inside most of them, but the memory of how they looked had been lost.
The big wolf paced slowly at her side, stopping when she stopped, sitting patiently while she stared in wonder at the small stained glass window set high in the wall of the church. Lit by the lamp that burned from within, she recited the colors.
“Red. Blue. Green. Yellow. So beautiful.” She paused to study the summer roses that grew alongside the mid-wife’s house, ran her fingertips over the petals. They were soft, so soft.
“‘Tis just as I always dreamed it,” she mused as they walked on, leaving the town behind, “and it’s all so beautiful.”
She paused atop a grassy knoll and sat down on a log, her hand stroking the wolf’s fur. “Have ye a name, I wonder?” She tilted her head to one side, and her braid fell over her shoulder. “What shall I call ye, hmm?” She cradled his big head in her hands. “Magick,” she decided. “I shall call ye Magick, for truly, that is what ye are.”
He growled softly, and licked her hand.
“Like it, do ye?” she asked, and her voice was like music in his ears.
He laid his head in her lap, inviting her touch.
“Ah, Magick, isn’t it a wonderful world? Look at the stars, shining so brightly. And our village, there, below. See now, there is the house of Lazlo, the baker. He has a son, ye know.” She sighed softly. “I’ve not seem his face since I was a small child, of course, but he has a lovely voice. And he has ever been kind to me.”
He licked her hand in an effort to draw her thoughts away from the son of Lazlo the baker. He knew the boy. Tall and lanky, with a shock of wheat-blond hair and guileless brown eyes. It startled him to realize he was jealous of her affection for that callow youth.
