Veronica Nunez ran.

In her dreams, she always ran.

In this one, she dashed through a lush green field with the sun shining above.

She didn’t have to look back to see if the dogs were following her - she felt their presence instinctively. The pack of sleek German Shepherds trailed behind her joyfully, their paws beating the dewy grass in a steady rhythm.

Though the running order of animals behind her might appear to be random, it was actually an elegant physical manifestation of their intricate emotional hierarchy. The canine closest to Veronica’s heels was the matriarch of the group. The other dogs trailed out behind like an inky ribbon. At the end capered the enormous omega, whose long legs would have put him rightfully at the front of any race.

But this wasn’t about speed.

Veronica was running as fast as she could, but the dogs were still in first gear. They respected her as their leader. They chose to fall in behind her.

When she stopped, she knew they would streak across the field, as sure as she knew the clouds would soon veil the sun, and the rain would fall hard and cold.

Even in her dreams, the other shoe always dropped.

But she loved to see the animals run. In the real world they had no opportunity to really open up and move the way they were meant to.

She stopped on a dime and waited for the rush of canines to thunder past.

But nothing came.

Cold panic washed over her and she felt the hair on the back of her neck lift.

She still sensed something behind her.

Not the dogs.

Something… different.

Slowly, she turned.

The field was empty but for a mist that carpeted the blue-green grass.

A shape rose from the wispy fog and moved toward her.

Veronica stood frozen in place, her heart pounding.

The figure was a man.

Tall, lean and muscular - handsome in a rugged way, with sharp cheekbones and deep blue eyes.

Veronica trembled, fixed in his indigo gaze, as he strode toward her until he stood before her, only inches away. A simmering heat poured off him, warming the air between them.

He didn’t speak, only extended a hand to place it gently on her shoulder, as she would have done to calm a frightened rescue animal.

Peace washed over her at his touch.

She closed her eyes and felt warmth soak into every pore.

When she opened her eyes again, he had moved even closer, his head tilted slightly as he observed her.

He slid his hand from her shoulder to cup her cheek.

Veronica waited with bated breath. She didn’t know this man - who he was, where he came from - yet somehow she knew that she needed him to kiss her, craved it more than anything else she had ever wanted.

But he only studied her with those clear blue eyes as her body shivered with waves of longing.

He caressed her cheek with his thumb and she felt it between her legs, an ache of pleasure so strong it was almost like pain.

She gasped in surprise and he pulled his hand away.

Cold air swirled around her.

The clouds had covered the sun as she stood hypnotized by this man and his seductive touch.

The sky opened and the rain hammered down as if it were angry, pelting so hard she could barely see.

---

“Veronica.”

The familiar voice of her roommate confused her and for a moment she was caught between the real world and the one of her dreams.

“Bad dream, huh?” Brooke asked.

“That’s awfully rich coming from you,” Veronica groaned, untangling herself from her sheet and sitting up.

Her roommate chuckled and tossed her blond braid over her shoulder.

Brooke woke them all with her night terrors from time to time. It was a good thing their other roommate, Trinity, had a good sense of humor. She had trained them to turn Brooke’s occasional middle of the night scream-fests into an excuse to eat ice cream sandwiches on the fire escape while she regaled them with tales of the officers and their foibles.

Trinity was the computer tech genius for the academy. Brooke trained the cadets in hand-to-hand combat. And Veronica ran the K-9 training program.

The three women shared a dorm suite in the former police academy building. With its rusted casement windows, asbestos tile floors and lack of air conditioning, the building had been determined obsolete, and the students were moved into the old monastery the department had purchased from the city two years ago.

The monastery was undergoing a huge renovation so that it could be a cutting edge training facility for cadets.

Meanwhile, Brooke was renting the old building from the academy. She was in the process of converting the first floor into a gym. And she was living upstairs in one of the dorm suites and renting the other rooms in the suite to Veronica and Trinity.

Given that the little town’s housing market was booming and rent prices were soaring, the three women were lucky to have a place to live in the heart of the village and right next to the new campus.

But Veronica still longed for central air conditioning.

“Hope you weren’t trying to sleep in,” Brooke said.

“Nah, I forgot to re-set my alarm,” Veronica replied. “Thanks for waking me.”

She didn’t have student training sessions until nine today. But the dogs thrived on routine. They fretted if she was late.

Anyone who thought German Shepherds couldn’t tell time was a fool. Maybe they had an internal clock, as Veronica suspected. But certainly they knew that when the national anthem played over the loud speakers, they should be eating their breakfast.

In any case, she didn’t like to be late.

She headed to the shower. There was still time for her own breakfast if she hurried.