Page 4 of Dark Dragon’s Wolf

Then she was somewhere else—a stone corridor, with more ghosts. Save us.

Then somewhere else again—a dirt-packed enclosure lined with dilapidated shacks.

And again, ghosts reaching out to her, demanding help and hope and rescue. Save us.

She tried to come back, back to her body, to her own bed in her own room. But she wasn’t home; she couldn’t wake up.

Now she was in the castle where she was born, rubble half-filling the hallways, surrounded by the stink of smoke and dragonfire. And there were bodies—human and Draken and Lion Guard—and the ghosts of all the members of the House of Al-Maddeiri who died there, on that one terrible day.

Everyone thought she’d been too young to remember. But her dragon remembered, because the Al-Maddeiri had powers. Prophecy, magic, dreams and memory. Their minds were even mightier than their dragons.

Ghosts rose around her, but her ancestors didn’t speak, didn’t cry out. They knew she couldn’t help them.

No. I won’t live in memories. I won’t live in guilt. I won’t live in regret.

Once more, she tore herself out of the dream-space, looking for home.

Home. Her safe harbor, with her brother who’d always protected her, and his new mate Trish, who was her friend.

And then she was home, walking the halls of their castle. But it was haunted too…

She saw her brother, in dragon form, locked in a cage. And the wizard Ragnor, who’d saved them and raised them out of the wreckage of their family’s castle, only to use them for his own dark magic.

She watched him drip a deadly toxin into the raw and bubbling wound in her brother’s side. Saw Emon fight, saw him try to scream through the silver muzzle that imprisoned his jaws.

And she saw herself, magically chained to a chair in the middle of Ragnor’s lab. Drugged, her mind ripped open with Ragnor’s magic, just so he could see the extent of her powers. Her mouth sewn shut so she, too, wouldn’t scream.

But their silent screams, hers and Emon’s, echoed inside her mind. She saw more ghosts—her and her brother as children, as teenagers, as dark and brooding survivors of their tragedy.

No! she said, gritting her teeth. No ghosts. No tragedy. No dwelling in the past.

I want now. I want today.

And suddenly she was walking down the hallway in the castle towards her brother’s rooms, the smell of popcorn in the air. She smiled. Movie night. With Emon and Trish and the red dragons.

And Tristan.

The white wolf—her healer, her friend. Maybe more than a friend.

As she thought of him, he appeared in the distance—way down the long, long, corridor. So far away. But she’d know him anywhere—lean, muscular build, the strong, graceful stance of a warrior, long blond hair that had made Emon give him the nickname “Elf Lord.”

She walked faster, wanting to see his blue eyes—burning with all the passions and emotions he kept inside, but that sometimes went so soft and gentle when he looked at her, or lit up with humor when she gave him crap about something.

Somehow, he didn’t seem to get any closer.

At his feet, circling him, she could see a ghost with yellow eyes.

Tristan! She tried to call out, to warn him, but she couldn’t make a sound.

More ghosts came out of the stone walls, reaching out. Angry. Accusing. She brushed them aside. Something was wrong with Tristan.

She ran down the hallway but everything was slow, so slow, she couldn’t make any progress. The roar of the ghosts was deafening, and she was surrounded by white mist creatures and more glowing yellow eyes.

And then Tristan crumpled to the ground, and the ghosts closed in. She fought her way past them, but it was too late. He lay with his skull split open, blood pooling under his head as he stared sightlessly up at her.

Tristan’s headache was getting worse. He thought he heard someone calling. Someone he needed to save.

He tried to block it out. Shit. That was all he heard lately. All he saw when he closed his eyes. The people he was supposed to have saved, and didn’t. And there were a lot of them.