“No . . . no.No!”
“Phaedra?” Soft pressure landed on her shoulders, giving her a little shake. “Phay, wake up.”
Her eyelids flew up and she found herself blinking up into the sky-blue eyes of her friend, Tamisia. The platinum-blonde Atlantean female frowned, her beautiful face filled with worry. “Are you all right?”
“What? Oh, yes. I—I’m fine.” Phaedra sat up in her chair, embarrassed by her outburst. “I’m sorry, I must’ve dozed off.”
She and Sia had been enjoying some tea and a light lunch on the rooftop garden area of Phaedra’s little house in Rome before her friend had stepped away to take a call from her mate, Trygg. She couldn’t have been gone for more than a few minutes, yet it was evidently long enough for Phaedra to drop into a thick sleep.
A disturbing and awful one.
Sia lowered herself into the chair next to Phaedra. “That must’ve been some nightmare. You’re as pale as a sheet.”
Phaedra swallowed. “I dreamt about the scorched forest again, and the white doe.”
For more than a week now, it had been a recurring theme every time she laid her head down to sleep. The dream had played out roughly unaltered, until now.
“It started the same way it always does,” she murmured, still caught in the weblike strands of her sleep. “I followed the doe into the charred woods, but someone else was there too. Sia, the dream changed into something terrible this time. And all of it felt soreal.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“No.” Phaedra shook her head. The anguish of what she’d heard and imagined behind her closed eyelids as the wasteland went bright with annihilating power was still too fresh in her senses. She didn’t want to think about it any longer, much less try to put the nightmare into words. “It was just a silly dream, that’s all. I don’t want you thinking your friend has gone mad.”
Tamisia’s gaze was sympathetic, her expression gentle with concern. “Do you want to know what I really think? You’re working too hard, Phay. Running the shelter here at the house is a twenty-four hour obligation. It’s too much for just one person to handle, even for you.”
“It’s not work,” Phaedra insisted. “Looking after the women and children who come here looking for safety and protection never feels like an obligation to me.”
“I know it doesn’t.” Sia knew that better than most.
Very recently, she had helped Phaedra run the shelter for a few weeks after Sia had been exiled from the Atlantean colony where she’d once been a high-ranking member of the Council of Elders. Sia’s misplaced alliance with one of the colony’s own had cost her dearly, but she had since redeemed herself. Now, she lived at the Order’s compound in Rome with Trygg, the Breed warrior she’d fallen in love with and taken as her mate.
For Phaedra, an immortal who’d lived for as many countless centuries as her friend, the shelter had become her life’s purpose.
It was all she had left in this world.
“I’m perfectly fine, Tamisia. Please, don’t worry about me.”
“I’m your friend. Worrying about you comes with the territory.” She placed a tender hand on Phaedra’s arm. “You need a break. Actually, what you really need is a full-time assistant here at the shelter. I’d be more than happy to help you find someone trustworthy and qualified. In fact, I’ll manage the shelter myself while you’re gone.”
“No. It’s really not necessary.”
“It’s the least I can do for you, and besides, I’ve already worked with most of the residents. They know me. And if anything should come up, between Trygg and me, I’m sure we can handle it.”
“I appreciate the offer, Sia, but—”
“Wonderful. Then it’s settled.” Sia gave her a look that invited no argument.
While Phaedra had once been part of the Atlantean royal court with her parents, those days were long past. Tamisia had only been exiled from her station as an Elder for a matter of months, and it showed in her unwavering gaze.
“First, we’ll have our tea and lunch, and you can tell me what happened in the dream this time,” Sia said. “Then we’ll start making plans for you to take a well-deserved, and much needed, break. Someplace relaxing and stress-free.”
Phaedra knew better than to argue once Tamisia had made up her mind about something. And she had to admit, if even to herself, that the idea of getting away from the crowds and bustle of Rome for short time did sound appealing. She wasn’t sure where she might want to go, nor did it matter.
Wherever she went now, she knew nothing would ever deliver her from the soul-shredding cries of the men who had perished so horrifically in the terrible light of her dream.
CHAPTER 2
One week later . . .
