“You really saw him?” Jessica asked. “You saw Richard?”

“Yeah, I think so. I think…I mean, if it wasn’t all just a dream.”

I’d shaken her awake when I came to, wanting to let her know her husband was still safe. At least, well, I thought he was safe. To be honest, I still wasn’t completely sure it hadn’t all been in my head. But, God, how could it have been? It felt so real, so genuine. The feel of Peter’s lips on mine, the feel of his strong arms. That kiss hadn’t even been like it was when we were first together. There was something more powerful than what I’d first felt when we were younger.

Now, as we sat there on her bed, the last of our afternoon light streaming in through the tower window, she looked into my eyes. I knew she was searching them to see if I really believed it happened or not.

“Do you think it was, though? A dream, I mean?”

I shook my head, the tips of my fingers coming up subconsciously to my lips again as I smiled. “No, I really don’t think so. I think it was real. I think they’re all safe.”

“At least for now,” Jessica added.

“Right,” I said, nodding, my grin fading away as her words brought me back to reality. No matter what had happened while I was napping, no matter what magical kiss or connection I’d felt between me and Peter, or that I’d seen Richard and Jake safe and healthy, it didn’t change the fact that we were all still in danger. “You’re right.”

“But that doesn’t mean this isn’t cool,” she said, laughing. “I mean, if it’s real.”

I turned away and got up from the bed. Not knowing what else to do with my confinement, I began to pace the area between the beds, avoiding the little table they’d brought in earlier for our lunch.

If the dream hadn’t been just a dream, and it really was real, what did it mean? Could I communicate with Peter anytime I wanted, even when I was awake? Was the weird link between us, like the one I’d felt back in the Curious Turtle, somehow growing stronger and more intense? I mean, I knew there were strange connections between mates, like twins sometimes claimed to have, but nothing like psychic powers. That all just seemed ridiculous, like UFOs or unicorns.

Suddenly, though, it occurred to me how silly I was acting.

Hadn’t I been the one who’d gone to Peter with stories of giants and immortals just three months ago? Of his being able to turn into a different creature than he could normally?

He was the one who was supposed to be shooting these ideas down, doubting their veracity. Not me. I was supposed to be the wide-eyed believer at this point. The one who’d wanted to listen to old wise women about the powers of our blood. About the long forgotten myths that had been only passed down by word of mouth from old woman to old woman.

Despite myself, I let out a low chuckle, shaking my head.

“What?” Jessica asked, getting up from her bed.

“Oh, nothing,” I said, still shaking my head as I waved a hand.

“Come on, tell me,” Jessica said, looking around the room. “Not like we have anything better to do.”

“Well, it’s just that, I realize now how this all must have sounded to Peter months ago. This is just getting bigger and weirder to the point where I’m even doubting myself on whether or not it can be real. For me to just practically show up at his door and start telling him all this stuff, I must have sounded like a crazy person to him. Like I’d disappeared for fifteen years and ended up in a nuthouse somewhere.”

Jessica grinned. “You know, I felt the same way about shifters being real the first time I saw them. The first time I saw my husband turn into one. I had no idea he was anything other than human, and to see him suddenly shift into a wolf was a little, um, disconcerting.” She walked over, pulled her chair back from the little table, and took a seat. “At this point, I’m pretty much resigned to the fact that I don’t know everything and probably never will. There’s a huge world out there and I’ll never really understand it all.”

“Must have been a shock, seeing him like that.”

“Yeah, it was. I ran away from him when he was distracted in a fight, told him he was a freak and a monster.”

“Well, it still worked out, didn’t it?” I asked, going around to the other side of the table and retaking my chair from lunch. I pushed the plate full of half-eaten food away as I went to sit. “In the end, I mean.”

“Not before I ran straight into the arms of a crazy psycho who wanted to torture me to death.”

“You guys seem to have a problem with that, don’t you?”

She laughed a little. “Seems like it, doesn’t it? Thank God Frost Security was in town or else I’d be pushing up daisies already.”

We sat there for a few moments, not saying a word to each other. Jessica, though, was the first one to speak again.

“Hey,” she said tentatively, like she was testing the water of a bath with just her toes. “Here’s a thought.”

“Go on.”

“What if we try and experiment? Why don’t you, you know, try contacting him again. Maybe it’s not a one-off thing? Maybe you can, you know, actually reach him.”

“Just go to sleep?”

“Sure, why not? I mean, that’s how it worked the first time, right?” A grin on her face, she reached across the table and touched my hand. “And like I said before, girl, what else are we going to do?”

I laughed, shrugging my shoulders. “You know what? You’re right. What else are we going to do? Make a Ouija board?”

She gave me a nod. “Let’s get to it, then.”

I went over to my bed to lie back down. I closed my eyes as I hit the pillow, trying to calm all my frayed nerves and release all the stress from my body—which was definitely not easy, especially on a day like today.

As I lay there, my eyes tightly shut against the light of the room, counting my breaths and trying to clear my thoughts, Jessica began to rummage through the nightstand.

I opened one eye and looked over at her. “What’re you doing?”

“Trying to find one of these,” she said, passing me a silk sleeping mask. “Figured a hoity-toity place like this would have one.”

I took it and slipped it down over my eyes. Blessed darkness descended, plunging me into the black. Perfect midnight.

“Better?” Jessica asked.

“Better,” I said, nodding.

“I’ll leave you to it, then.”

I don’t know how long it took me to finally go to sleep, how many minutes or hours before I crossed the veil between the waking world and whatever place I could connect with Peter, but I eventually did.

Like slipping into a warm pool of water, darkness seemed to envelope me, suspend me as I released myself into its grip. It felt weightless at first, then I felt a gentle tug on my mind, like I’d somehow strayed out into the strong current of river that was taking me downstream. But there were no rocks here, just a perceived rush of movement, as my consciousness seemed to drift from my body and sail out to a great, unexplored sea.

All above me and around me, even below me, a billion stars seemed to shine. They shined brighter than any night sky I’d ever seen, more points of light than even the milky way could provide as it stretched over the earth on a clear, crisp winter night.

Somewhere below me between my feet, a bluish-green light began to grow, pulsing and expanding. All around me, the stars remained stationary. But below me, that pulsar of a blue-green began to grow exponentially.

I stared in awe, watching as the light became clear and defined. It wasn’t a light or a star. No, the pulsating light was Enchanted Rock.

And, my mouth hanging open in shock, I realized it wasn’t growing.

Instead, I was rushing toward it.