*
A tree shaded path stretched before me. Miles and miles of it. The rounded stones embedded deep in the earth were covered in places by the greenest of moss—a color so deep it practically glowed. The trees were covered in a carpet of moss too, creating a faery land of impossible colors.
I walked along the stone path, my feet whispering over the ground. So pretty. I looked up at the bare branches above me as their interlocking limbs swayed with the wind.
“This reminds me of Ireland,” a cool voice said next to me.
“It is Ireland,” I said with a small smile. “A part of it anyway.”
“You’ve been?”
I gave a wordless nod. Once. When I was young. Even ten years later, I still saw those impossibly green trees in my dreams.
“It’s taken me hours to wind my way through your psyche,” Aiden said. He was the Patriarch I’d met at the vamp club. The one who was a telepath. “You have quite the fortress set up. It’s good that I started infiltrating it the last time we met or you’d be in hotter water than you already are.”
My feet took me off the path, the bushes and trees just magically parting to let me pass.
There was a curse behind me and then crashing as Aidan chased after me, forcing his way past the vegetation that suddenly sprung up in his path.
“Here now, stop that. I’m not going to hurt you.”
I kept going. Where, I didn’t know. Just away.
He was a minor buzzing irritant that my mind refused to focus on.
“Stop that.” There was a buzzing sound. He cursed again.
“Stop. Hey! I said stop,” he roared the last words.
I wheeled to a stop, panting.
I focused on him for the first time since I became aware I was walking down the path.
“Aidan, what are you doing here?” I looked around. “Where is here?”
He glared at me, his handsome face scraped and cut with welts swelling on his neck, cheek and hands. I gave him a puzzled onceover and then looked down at myself. My clothes gave no sign that I’d been traipsing through a heavily wooded forest. My bare feet didn’t even have a speck of dirt on them, and I was surprisingly uninjured. Not even a cut.
“Hereis your mind.”
“And what are you doing in my mind?” I asked, my head lifting.
I looked around. Yes, I recognized this place. It was part of the forest I visualized when I was trying to shield my thoughts from mind readers. Except it was a little more jumbled and realistic than any image I’ve ever used.
“Doing my best to save you.” He gave me a sour look. “Even if you keep attacking me while I do it.”
I raised one eyebrow. “I’ve yet to attack you.”
“Try again, sweetheart. You have internal defenses that have been giving me the runaround all day.”
Internal defenses? I wanted to ask how that worked and if I could make them stronger. You never knew when you’d need a little help protecting your mind.
“Think of them like an immune system. Everyone has them. It’s just that some are stronger than others. In your case, your defenses act like white cells that descend on suspected intruders and try to tear them apart.”
That made sense. Sort of. My definition of plausibility had been stretched in recent years. Facing the impossible every day in the mirror had made the nay-sayer inside me keep her own council. I was just glad my internal defenses, as he put it, were good at keeping people out of my head.
Still, it was a little difficult to believe we were having this conversation. More likely it was a dream conjured to give me comfort before my impending death.
“Doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.”
