She heard Micah’s low scoff from somewhere beside her. Lucan heard it too, of course. His gaze traveled the group, those thundercloud eyes managing to look both relieved and censuring at the same time when they landed on Micah. “Glad to see you on your feet again.”
“Commander Thorne.” His stance rigid with attention, he gave the Order’s leader a deferential nod. “I wish the rest of my team could be standing here with me too.”
Lucan grunted soberly. “We all do, son.”
With a quiet exhalation, Gabrielle moved from her place at Lucan’s side and drew Micah into a brief embrace. “We were all so worried about you.” The big warrior stood unmoving until she released him, about as accepting of the affection as a giant oak tree. “Your poor mother has been beside herself ever since you left for Budapest a few months ago. All the waiting for word about you these past several days has been torture, especially for her.”
Micah actually looked contrite at the mention of his mother’s worry. His tawny brows knit. “Is she here?”
“She’s on the way,” Tegan answered. “Chase and his team in Boston will be picking Elise up in New York and bringing her with them.”
“They should be arriving within the hour,” Gideon added. His smooth voice contained the traces of an English accent. “Nathan and Jordana will also be making the trip.”
Micah frowned at the news, raking a hand over his head. “I didn’t expect to come back to a full-blown family reunion.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, brother.” Darion chuckled as he gave Micah’s shoulder a light punch. “They’re all curious to meet Phaedra as much as they’re coming out of concern for your sorry ass.”
Phaedra’s cheeks burned with the heat of the glower Micah sent in her direction. As friendly and inviting as everyone else was to her, his disapproval lingered. It burned. And although she might never succeed in convincing him she wasn’t his enemy—that it was fate that dropped her into the barren forest with him and the white doe—there was a part of her that hoped she could persuade him to believe her.
After spending most of her life taking care of people, to earn Micah’s unwarranted contempt for something as heinous as the attack that killed his comrades cut her deeply. It wounded her down to her soul.
She could probably blame that feeling on fate too.
As for the other persistent feeling that had put her senses on alert since her arrival moments ago, it hadn’t let up for a second. Her instincts continued to buzz with the suspicion that Jenna wasn’t quite human, but not Breed either, despite her visibledermaglyphs.
She had countless questions crowding her thoughts, but she couldn’t bite back the one that rose to the tip of her tongue.
“I’m sorry, Jenna, I don’t mean to stare. But I have to ask—what are you?”
“She’s my amazing mate,” Brock interjected, as he moved in close and wrapped his arm lovingly around his female. “That’s the only definition I’ll ever need.”
Phaedra wished she could crawl into the floor. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to be rude.”
Jenna smiled and shook her head. “You’re not rude at all. I was born your basic garden-variety human, but some things . . . changed a while back.” She paused, giving a nonchalant shrug. “Now, I’m sort of what you’d call a work-in-progress.”
Micah smirked, gesturing toward her with a chin bob. “Seems like you’ve got a few moreglyphsthan you had when I left for Budapest earlier this year.”
“Oh, yeah, a lot more.” She glanced at Brock, her expression cryptic. “Thedermaglyphshave been coming in fast and furious for about the past week now.”
“So have the dreams,” Brock said, a sober edge to his voice. “At the rate they’ve been coming, we’ll need to expand the archive room to a full wing of the compound just to make space for all the new journals of notes you’ve been taking.”
“Dreams?” Phaedra had swallowed at the mention, her curiosity piqued. “What kind of dreams are you having, Jenna?”
She could feel the weight of Micah’s gaze on her even though she wasn’t looking at him. His attention sizzled through her veins like an electrical charge. Was this strange sensation part of whatever bond their time in the Dreamscape had awakened in them?
Or was it simply her intense awareness of him as a man, that unwanted attraction she felt every time she looked at him or heard the low growl of his voice?
Either way, she was sure she didn’t want to know.
“They feel like dreams when I’m seeing them,” Jenna explained. “To be more accurate, though, they’re memories. Very old ones. And they’re not mine—at least, they shouldn’t belong to me, yet they’ve become mine. The same way all theseglyphsshouldn’t belong to me, yet they do.”
The explanation only raised more questions, but Phaedra figured she’d already pried more than she had a right to. Although Jenna seemed to be a frank and open type of person, she was obviously dealing with something serious if it was not only changing her physical appearance but also invading her mind.
“If you start seeing a white deer in those visions, Jenna, do yourself a favor and kill the fucking thing,” Micah drawled. “If you don’t, you’ll wish you had. Trust me on that.”
Outraged, Phaedra swung an offended look at him. “Is everything a source of mockery for you?”
“No. In fact, I’m deadly serious about most things.” His lavender eyes pierced her, just as they had back in the barren woodland of her dream that wasn’t a dream. Phaedra wanted to look away, but his gaze held her in an unyielding grasp, as if they were the only two people in the room. “If I had known what would happen if I followed that animal into the Deadlands, I would have strangled it with my bare hands. I damn well should have. Maybe then my team would still be alive.”
