“Yes. In the Dreaming, we can coexist, side by side—but we must remain close to one another. Always bear that in mind.”
“If you know that, then Carman will know that and try to separate us. Should we be like we usually are? I don’t want to give her any advantages.”
“This is better. I promise.” Litress rumbled with a low growl. “Mathison’s dragon kin destroyed Bansys before I could seek my revenge. Therefore, I shall visit it upon Carman.”
“Okay. So, how do I get the rest of the way into the Dreaming? Directionally, I’m at a disadvantage since I can’t even see my hand in front of my face.”
“Your mind controls everything. You must remember that. Think it and make it so.”
“But I don’t know what it looks like to think us there.”
“It looks, however you envision it. It is your mind, Calia. You must suspend what you know of the physical and rely on what you know in your thoughts.”
The wolfstone burned at the base of her throat, making her shift and roll her shoulders to relieve the insistent sting. Her fever must be heating the thing up. She closed her fingers around it and started walking as though she owned the place—because she did. Nothing was going to keep her from Mathison. The longer she walked, the lighter the darkness became until a foggy gray mist swirled around her knees. It was as if she were walking through a storm cloud.
As she moved, she envisioned her favorite handgun strapped across her chest and holstered under her arm. Its bullets were silver. Magical bullets that killed witches. If she believed it, it was so—and by damned; she believed it.
“The wolfstone is all you need.” Litress, strong and regal, with her coat of silvery white and her icy blue eyes, stood beside her, poised to attack. “It is time. Summon the hag.”
“Come to me, Carman, and bring my husband with you. I command it.” Calia poured every ounce of rage and sense of injustice into the words while seeing her beloved Mathison freed and walking toward her.
A low, chilling laugh echoed across the misty gray void. “Ye command it? Ha! ’Tis like a wee kitten challenging a lioness over a joint of meat.”
“Then what are you so afraid of?” Calia smiled. She could smell it—the witch’s fear. For the first time, she understood what Mathison had meant about actually smelling the enemy’s emotions.
Then Mathison appeared. On his knees, beaten and worn, leaning forward and staring at the ground with his outspread arms lashed to the thick wooden beam across his back. Then Calia realized they weren’t just lashed. Blood streamed from his wrists. The witch had driven spikes through his arms.
Forcing herself to reject that possibility, Calia jutted her chin higher. “Mathison is strong and whole and mine. Return him to me. Now.” She envisioned him as healthy and powerful.
In a crouch and prepared to spring, Litress gave another low, clicking growl of barely restrained outrage. “That is not your Mathison. That is not my Dubh. It’s merely an illusion to unnerve us.”
Calia sauntered forward, remembering how Mathison had looked the very first time they’d met. He’d been so handsome. So…alpha male. The perfect sexy Highlander. “Come on, Carman. We’re wasting time. Show yourself and release my husband and his wolf. Now.” She envisioned an ugly crone dressed in ratty black rags. One who limped along with a knobby walking stick that doubled as a magical staff. No. Not a magical staff. She wouldn’t give the hag that power.
A burst of energy exploded at her feet, sending the gray mist rippling outward like waves.
The wound on her chest burned with renewed intensity. She drew her gun and fired a round of magical bullets that never ran out. If she was going to dream something, by golly, she’d dream something useful. She sprayed the area while slowly turning in a circle to ensure she didn’t miss a square inch of the Dreaming’s gray void. “I’m not leaving here without Mathison and your dead body.”
A giantess, an enormous woman akin to an Amazonian warrior, with gleaming black armor and a pair of curling, devilish horns spiraling up from her forehead, appeared in place of the false vision of the kneeling Mathison nailed to the board. “Such a thirst for blood for one of yer kind. I could use one such as yerself. What would it take for ye to join me in my quest to destroy the Highland Veil and free the realities from the manipulations of the Weavers?”
“I’ve already stated my terms, and I don’t negotiate.” Calia struggled to envision Carman as a weak, spindly figure, but no matter how hard she tried, the witch kept her formidable appearance. “Give me Mathison. Now.”
With a twitch of her perfectly groomed black brow, Carman stared at a spot beside Calia. “He has been there all along, little one. Ye must work on honing yer awareness of the energies around ye.”
Stretched out flat on his back with his hands folded on his chest, Mathison appeared on a stone pedestal as though ready to be transported to his tomb. The deathly grayish tint to his skin threatened to make Calia retch. She clenched her teeth and tensed every muscle to keep from dropping to her knees and sobbing. No, this image could not be real. Once again, she remembered the sight of Mathison lying in bed beside her. His strength. His gentleness. The way he made her feel whole. But the vision of him dead on the pedestal didn’t change.
“This one is real, little one,” Carman said with an evil snicker. “Ye canna think it away like the other.”
“He is not dead.” Calia thumped her chest. “I would know it.”
“What do ye think that sickly feeling is at yer core, child?” Carman bared her teeth, revealing vampire-like fangs. “Yer soul knows that death has severed the mate bond.”
“That sickly feeling is your poison that I’m learning to use to my advantage.” Calia spat, impressing herself when it exploded into a flame. Interesting. Maybe she could use the burning of her wound, the lava of that poison inside her, as a weapon. The baby dragons had whispered to her many times that she needed to learn how to breathe fire and vomit lava. If there had ever been a time to listen to baby dragons, now was it.
As she took a step closer, she noticed something had changed in Carman’s expression. A different mix of shadows flickered in her soulless black eyes. “I’ve been nesting with dragons, you know. Don’t you find the way they breathe fire quite interesting?”
“Ye canna breathe fire. Ye are human.”
“I can do anything in the Dreaming. Anything my mind desires.”
