Southern Shifters: Bearly Dreaming (Kindle Worlds Novella) (7 page)

He lied.

I paced faster, desperate to find my reality, no matter how shitty it had become. Trying hard to ignore the hate-filled voice wreaking havoc in my mind. Trying and failing to block the visions I didn’t want to believe.

He doesn’t want you.

He thinks you’re damaged.

He will never come for you.

He will allow you to be claimed by Secor.

He has abandoned you.

He has left you to die of your mating call.

He is gone forever.

Days passed slow and lonely, my mind unraveling with every minute spent trapped in the cage of my death. Nothing to relieve me, nothing to speed up the end of my life. For the first two times I slept, I tried to dreamwalk to Kian, hoping for a glimpse of his dark eyes. Both times, I failed miserably. I couldn’t feel him, had no real sense of him. It was as if there was something in between us, some field my Tallan couldn’t cross. The morning after the second try, I woke up and saw him standing outside my cell. The vision was so clear, so real, that I jumped up and stumbled toward him. But his face twisted into a sneer and he turned away from me. Not before signing one last word, though.

Broken.

And I was; I was broken. Each day was a constant struggle to stay in the present, to not let my mind play tricks on me. Fighting off images of Kian in the cave. He’d show up in a corner at any moment, sneering, rebuking me with his expression, and sometimes signing words that stabbed me right in the heart.

Broken.

Unworthy.

Weak.

I tried to fight those delusions back. As each one appeared, I pushed past, clinging to the final threads of my sanity with both hands. Even though my grip was slipping. Deep down, I knew Kian wanted me. Knew he didn’t see me as broken simply because I couldn’t hear. He’d been so excited to find a way to communicate, even learning the language of signing for me. He’d held me, teased me, and touched me with such care. There was no way he didn’t want me. And yet…

For two nights, I searched and failed. After that, I stopped sleeping.

On what I guessed was day four, my mother was allowed to visit. Her face showed her horror at my situation far better than any words she could have found to say. I turned away from her pity, fighting back my tears. She wouldn’t allow me to hide, though, grabbing me by the shoulders and forcing me to face her instead.

“I’ve given permission for Secor to claim you today,” she said, her hands fumbling the words, her eyes red-rimmed. “It’s not what you want, but sometimes we have to accept the fate handed to us. I know you think you found your true mate, but he’s not here, and we’re out of time.”

My tears burned as they fell, hopelessness a heavy shroud. “He said he was coming.”

Her face crumpled, and my heart broke to see the truth laid out so plainly. She didn’t believe me. Or maybe, she didn’t believe what Kian had told me. Hell, maybe she didn’t believe he existed. She might have thought he was a figment of my imagination, a vision caused by the power bleed of my mating call.

And the worst part was that being locked in a cell for four days with my delusions had left me wondering if maybe, just maybe, she was right.

“Mom,” I signed, my hands shaky and my tears falling freely. “I won’t let him claim me. I can’t.”

She clutched at me, her own tears falling freely. “I can’t watch you die, Nyla.”

“If you make me take Secor as a secondary mate, you will still watch me die, but slowly. Being mated to someone I can’t love will drain the life from me.”

“Please, baby. You need to accept him. He’s not your choice, but he’s promised to be good to you. Don’t make a rash decision. For me.” Her eyes widened and her lip trembled, but before she could sign anything else, she spun toward the entrance to the cave. I grabbed her arm, turning her to face me, questioning with my eyes.

“There are people to see you outside.”

People. Not one. Not just a guard bringing me food or Secor coming with his daily reminder of his offer. No,
people
. Which probably meant the Council elders were coming to relay their final decision. And though I knew we were all to believe they worked in the best interest of the clan, I doubted. Because the best interest of the clan was probably to let me go…to kill me as a weak link. But they wouldn’t, not with a man as powerful as Secor petitioning for the right to take me to his bed. I was as good as his because a group of old men who didn’t know me saw his request as more important than my wishes.

“Mom.” I forced the word through my lips. She turned to me, surprised. Not since I’d fully embraced the fact that I would never hear again had I spoken to her or even tried. She spoke to me when she signed, and I’d become quite adept at reading lips, but when it was my turn, I only signed. Until that moment.

“Nyla?”

“I love you.”

She pursed her lips, fighting to stay strong. “I love you, too, baby.”

As the men walked into the cave, lining up outside my cell, I wiped the tears from my cheeks. Head back, chin up, ready for anything. A glimpse of Kian in the corner, a flash of him out of the corner of my eye, almost broke my spirit, but I held on. Before the men could start the official meeting, I caught my mother’s eye, letting one last tear fall as I signed to her so no one else could see.

“I really thought he’d come for me.”

She grabbed me, pulling me into her arms as my tears fell anew. I sobbed in her arms, my heart broken. My soul shattered. This was it. My moment of fate. Did I choose to live in a loveless union with a man I barely knew just to stay alive or let the elders exact an ancient and barbaric custom of killing off unstable Tallan users? Either way, there would be no more happiness. No more hope. No more Nyla.

Kian was not coming for me.

“I swear, if you don’t put your foot down on that pedal, I’m going to kick your ever-loving ass.”

Whit snorted, taking a turn far faster than was probably safe but not nearly fast enough for me. “Well, aren’t you a chipper son of a bitch? Why don’t you just sit there and be a passenger, yeah? I’ve got the driving covered.”

“Fuck.” I grabbed the oh-shit handle as he slid through another turn, the truck shaking its resistance. My body ached with exhaustion, but I pushed through it for this final leg. Had to. For four days, Whit, Audrey, and I had driven down through Canada and into the lower forty-eight. We’d taken shifts, refusing to stop for anything but the most vital necessities. Four straight days of driving hell-for-leather from Alaska, and we were almost there.

Whit was tackling the road known as the Dragon.

Thank fuck we’d been able to track down a shifter along the way who knew this place. He couldn’t give us directions to Nyla, but he gave us a map to the neutral territory around Deals Gap and the borders of the land belonging to the MacDonald clan. Of course, I’d still have to find my mate, admit I could shift into a polar bear without her thinking I was insane, prove my worth as a partner, and convince her to come back to Alaska with me. But that was all secondary—first, we had to survive this crazy road and get to Deals Gap. Then we could ask around for Nyla before breaking clan law and entering psy territory uninvited.

Hell, I’d shift to my bear form and find her by scent if I had to, let all those other shifters and psy see a real hunter in action.

I clenched my fist, growling, my bear ready to explode from under my skin. I was almost completely out of control, at risk of shifting at any moment. The stress of the trip and my worry for Nyla overriding everything else, making me weaker, making me susceptible to an unplanned shift. It didn’t help that I’d barely slept in four days.

The first two nights, I was too worried to sleep. I’d instead spent the time driving, focusing on the miles between Nyla and me, running on pure adrenaline. After that, I slept at odd times, staying up all night to drive with Whit since Audrey couldn’t see as well in the dark. She drove during the day, which I also stayed up for, afraid her human reflexes wouldn’t be able to handle such harsh terrain. Even when the road was flat and open, I stayed up. Watching. Impatiently waiting. Pushing her and Whit to drive faster, go farther. The lost sleep exhausted me, stressed my body, and put me massively on edge since it meant I’d lost contact with Nyla. Even when I did sleep, she didn’t come to me. I hadn’t seen or felt her for four days, but I knew something was wrong. I was just too far away to know what. Until today.

“Almost there,” Whit said as the road opened up a bit. We flew into a small town, the kind of place you missed if you happened to blink at the wrong time. There wasn’t much around—some kind of business with a ton of motorcycles outside it and a sheriff’s office about the only things notable. Well, that and a tree.

“What the hell is that?” Audrey asked as we climbed out of the truck.

I shrugged, staring at the sign above my head. “The Tree of Shame.”

The tree stood almost as a memorial, parts and pieces of what looked like busted-up motorcycles all over it. Hundreds of items hung from the branches, evidence of some kind of offering. One I had no interest in learning about.

“God, I can almost
feel
her.” I spun, taking in the place. A man walked out of the sheriff’s office at that moment, so I pounced.

“Excuse me, do you know a woman named Nyla? She’s about” —I held my hand up to the spot where her head had rested so many days ago— “with dark hair and light eyes.”

The man shook his head and mumbled a quiet no before speeding across the street. Running away from me.

“Kian,” Whit said, grabbing my arm. “You need to calm down. You’re scaring people.”

“I don’t give a fuck,” I growled, yanking my arm from his hold. “I can feel her—do you get that? She’s close, but I can’t pinpoint where and I can’t exactly make the shift to hunt her down.”

“Bro. Do you smell that? There are humans and other shifters here. Wolves and cats of some kind. We need to settle the fuck down. We don’t know shifter law down here.”

“I don’t care about other shifters.” I yanked on my hair, pulling hard as all the hope I’d had on the road evaporated. “She’s close, but something’s wrong. I can feel it. I need to find her. I need to find my Nyla.”

“Who are you, and what the hell do you want with Nyla?”

I spun, coming face-to-face with a light-haired man. Young but not overly so, he was probably a full foot shorter than me, but he looked fierce and ready for a fight. A man defending someone he cared about. That thought made my stomach drop as my bear growled in my head. It was a reminder that, though Nyla was my mate, I didn’t know her. Didn’t know her life. Jealousy was a bitter pill to swallow as I wondered how well this guy did.

“You know Nyla?” I asked, almost afraid to know the answer.

He nodded, waiting, giving me nothing.

I glanced at Audrey, who looked from me to him, waiting. No help.

“We, uh…we met…online—”

“Nope.” He turned as if to walk away. “You’re going to have to do better than that, stranger.”

“Please,” I said, jumping in front of him. I glanced around, making sure no one could overhear, then leaned in. Fuck, I was probably breaking some kind of clan laws by admitting what I was about to, but I had to try. She needed me. I could feel it. “She came to me in my dreams. We’ve been talking—”

He scowled and turned to leave again. “Nope.”

I panicked, not knowing what to say to convince him. Desperate and clinging to my last drop of hope, I caught Audrey’s eye again. She held up her hands, making symbols, exaggerating the motions of her hands to remind me.

“I learned to sign the alphabet for her,” I yelled to his back.

He stopped, turning to face me, his eyes wide. And I knew. He finally believed me.

“Please,” I said, not above begging at that point. “We found a way to communicate. She said I needed to hurry, and I did. I came as fast as I could without having to be stuffed into a tin can and shot through the sky. I need to find her.”

He looked me over, frowning. For what felt like hours, he stared as I held his gaze, refusing to back down, letting him know I was telling the truth.

“So you’re the one, eh?”

I nodded, my mouth too dry to speak.

“Took you long enough.”

I glanced at my brother, whose eyes had gone wide. “Uh, it was a long drive.”

“Next time, try flying.”

He turned, walking away again, leaving me behind with no more knowledge of where to find Nyla than I’d had when I arrived. My heart sank, my hope fading.

But then he stopped beside our truck.

“You coming?” he asked, looking over his shoulder. I nodded and ran to catch up, Whit and Audrey close behind me.

“It’s too far into MacDonald clan territory to walk, but I’ll get you there.” He hopped into the truck, the rest of us following. Whit pulled out of the spot and followed the man’s directions as I sat in the back seat with Audrey, my eyes glued to the road.

“You’re really late. They got her in the cave already,” he said as Whit parked the truck along some dirt road in the middle of a stand of trees.

I jumped out of the truck almost before it stopped moving, ready to find her, knowing she was close. “What cave?”

He paused, eyes wide. “She didn’t tell you?”

“We didn’t have a lot of time.”

“Hell, no wonder you thought it’d be okay to drive.” He led the way to a trail leading into the woods, his steps fast and sure. “The women of the MacDonald clan are all born with the gift of the Tallan, the ability to see through others’ eyes, hear their thoughts, and dreamwalk with them. The power to do those things is immense, and it comes on strong when the woman matures. When her mating call begins.”

He took a sharp turn onto another path almost hidden behind the trees, climbing upward through the mountain at a steep incline. “Without a strong man to balance the power within her, she’ll go insane. When a MacDonald psy starts to go insane, the Council steps in.”

“How do they step in?” Audrey asked, echoing my thoughts.