Cole was the first to return from the dense trees behind the house, stalking like he was pissed off at something, but as he came closer, there was an oddly calm, almost happy look on his face. Complicated bastard.

“Good flight?” I asked him as he let himself in through the sliding door to the back yard. I’d been working on my computer at the table, and it was pure coincidence that I was facing the trees that Kit had disappeared into with the Romanians some hours earlier.

Okay, fine. I was waiting for them.

“The best,” Cole responded, never one to mince words. “Heading to bed. You should too; it’s late.”

“Ah yeah, just got a few more things to do,” I hedged, running a hand through my hair even as I glanced at my blank screen. I hadn’t done any work in at least half an hour, since I’d started worrying that they’d been gone a really long time.

Cole narrowed his eyes at me, and a tiny smile curved the edge of his lips. “You couldn’t spy, huh?”

My traitorous cheeks flamed with heat, but I still denied it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was just doing some background research that River asked for.”

“Hah, sure. You’re pissed because Vali and I scared all the crows away from the area, and you have no eyes or ears to keep an eye on Vixen.” Cole patted me on the shoulder. “Go to bed, Wes. They could still be a while yet, and she is perfectly safe with him.”

At a loss for words because he was fucking spot-on correct, I huffed and closed the lid of my laptop, pushing back from the table and standing up.

“Not fair, dude,” I grumbled, following him out of the room and heading for the stairs to reach my room. “I have no surveillance set up out here. You couldn’t have left the crows alone?”

Cole barked a harsh laugh but didn’t reply as he disappeared toward his own room and closed the door. Sighing, I pushed my glasses up my nose again and made my way upstairs. My contacts had been getting a bit gritty, so I’d swapped back to glasses to give my eyes a break.

Once inside my room, I got changed for bed but stayed up a little longer, fucking around on my phone near the window until I saw Kit and Vali emerge from the trees. They were holding hands, and Kit was laughing at something the Romanian dragon had just said.

Relieved to see she was okay, I could finally go to bed. Something had been nagging at me, telling me something bad was coming, but I just didn’t know what. Until I could work it out, I would be nervous and paranoid anytime Kit was out of sight.

Flicking my light off, I climbed into bed and braced myself for whatever my dreams would hold this time.

“Hello?” I called into the mist, looking around me cautiously. This was a new one, that was for sure. Often my dreams allowed me to pop into other people’s dreams. For the most part, they never knew I was there, but sometimes they did... like with Kit. The dreams we shared were my favorite reason to sleep.

It almost felt naughty when we met in our dreams, especially when I knew she was sleeping in the arms of one of my friends. But it was all the more exciting for that fact.

This dream was different though; I could tell instantly. Something about the way the mist clung to my skin like it was a sentient being.

“Hello?” I called out again. One thing that remained constant in all of my dreams—I was never alone. Even when the dreamer couldn’t hear or see me, they were still present. So the question now was whose head I’d ended up inside.

“Wesley,” a voice said from close behind me, and I startled, spinning to face... my brother?

“Grant?” I puzzled, confused as all hell. How did I end up in my little brother’s dream?

“Not exactly.” My little brother’s form melted into a blur of mist, reforming into my mother. “Is this better?” I gaped, not totally sure what the hell was going on. “Ah, I see it’s not. How about this?” My mother faded into mist and reformed as Kit.

“Stop it,” I demanded. “Show me your real form. Stop hiding behind the faces of my loved ones.”

“Ah, no. I don’t think so. But perhaps this is a more comfortable form for you.” The creature faded and reformed once more, this time wearing the face of the old shop clerk in town.

“It’ll do,” I conceded, still on high alert. Whoever this was, they couldn’t be good. Why else would they refuse to show their form to me?

“Oh, don’t look at me with such suspicion, Wesley,” the old man scoffed, flapping a hand and creating a worn looking armchair out of the mist to sit in. “Sit down, young man. We have much to discuss.”

Glancing behind me, I found an identical chair had just formed behind me, so I cautiously sat.

“Who are you?” I snapped, narrowing my eyes at the old man, who I doubted was an old man at all. With everything going on, with Kit’s magic and all the people wanting to use and abuse her, no one could be trusted outside our team.

“Who? That’s for me to know and you to not. The ‘who’ does not make my knowledge any more or less valuable to you.” He blinked his eyes at me, and I noticed they were an unnatural shade of rust-red, rather than the blue the shopkeeper’s had been.

“Fine,” I gritted from behind clenched teeth. “What should I call you?”

The man grinned, and I saw a hint of razor sharp teeth within his borrowed mouth. “Ah, you’re not as clueless as you look. You may call me Gaelin.”

“Gaelin,” I repeated. I really wasn’t as clueless as I looked. I’d played plenty of Dungeons and Dragons in my time and had enough of a grasp on the theoreticals of magic to bluff way way through. Whatever the case, I sincerely doubted Gaelin was this creature’s real name.

“Why am I here, Gaelin?” I asked, looking around us and finding nothing but more mist. Experimenting, I tried to create a table from the mist the same way I’d been able to manipulate the scene whenever Kit and I met. Nothing happened.

“Oh, well here is your first lesson, child. I brought you into my dreamscape. You can’t influence anything here unless I let you. Same as if you had brought me into your dreamscape, you’d have been the one in charge.” Gaelin clicked his tongue and folded his legs.

“So you’re... what? Here to teach me?” I frowned. This guy—at least I was going to assume guy for now—didn’t look particularly interested in helping me.

“Apparently.” He sighed and rolled his eyes. “You’re the first of our kind to surface in the human realm for a very long time. The higher-ups are worried you’ll make a mess of things, and I drew the short straw. So here I am.”

“Our kind?” I exclaimed. “Wait, what the hell is our kind? What am I?”

Excitement, anticipation, fear, and frustration battled for supremacy within me, and I struggled not to reach out and throttle this weird man. I needed something from him, though, and my mother had always taught me it was easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar. Reluctantly, my death grip on the arms of the chair eased, and I forced my face neutral.

Gaelin snorted, watching me with mocking eyes. “Well, I’m not telling you that. Where’s the fun in just handing you all the answers on a plate? No, Wesley. You’re going to bumble around in the dark for a bit longer to make up for me getting stuck with this bullshit assignment.”

I took a few slow breaths, calming myself so I didn’t wring his wrinkly old neck before speaking again. “Well, Gaelin. Thank you but no thank you. If you’re just here to be an annoyance, I can work this all out on my own.”

“Hah, like you have a choice, foolish child.” His rust-red eyes hardened, turning mean. “I have no choice in this, so neither do you. I will bring you here every time you try to dreamwalk until I am relieved of my assignment. That means no more chasing away the boogeyman for your girlfriend at night. Is that clear?” He didn’t wait for me to respond before sneering. “I don’t care if it’s clear or not. It’s what is happening. Enjoy the rest of her dream tonight, child. It’s the last you’ll be seeing for a very long time.”

Gaelin snapped his fingers, and the familiar pull of the evaporating dreamscape deposited me back into normal sleep.