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  “Dace, do wolves really mate for life like you said?” I had to be sure.

  “Yes.” He frowned, looking worried that maybe the wolf had done some serious damage to my brain.

  “I think …” I cleared my throat. “Do you believe in reincarnation?” A silly question given what we’d discussed before, but I had to hear his answer anyway.

  “Yes,” he said, still frowning at me like I’d lost my mind or had been knocked senseless when I hit the table. His thoughts echoed his concern.

  I didn’t think I imagined the connection though. No, I knew I didn’t. The sense of certainty I felt overwhelmed me. “I do, too. I always have. It’s never made much sense”—he opened his mouth, but I rushed on before he protested—”that souls are created and then judged after one short life. How can you send the average person to heaven or hell for all eternity after one life? That’s like grounding a newborn for pulling your hair. It doesn’t make sense.”

  He stared at me, his mouth still open and his eyes narrowing. “What are you saying?”

  “I think that maybe …” I struggled to say the words, knowing how they would sound, and what he would think once they were out there. “That maybe you were right about who I was before. I think, well, I think the wolf and I were mates in a past life.”

  I did sound crazy, but I knew I was right and for a million different reasons. That instant shock of recognition when I first saw Dace across the quad. His desire to protect me from the very beginning. My willingness to accept what he told me about things that shouldn’t rightly be possible. How much more he struggled to control the wolf when he touched me. My desire to rip out Ronan’s throat. Buka’s instant acceptance of me, her statement that I smelled like kin, that I smelled familiar. Perhaps even why the tame wolf showed up at my mom’s funeral weeks ago.

  “No.” Dace shook his head, his face falling into a hard mask. “No.”

  He rose to his feet then paced away from me.

  “Why not?” I asked quietly. “Why can’t it be possible?”

  “It just can’t,” he snapped, his hands clenched at his sides.

  “It can,” I argued, climbing from the table and walking toward him. I stopped a few paces behind him. “Do you know what the wolf is thinking right now, Dace?”

  He didn’t answer, and that was answer enough. He still didn’t know what the wolf thought. I did.

  “I hear him,” I whispered.

  “No.” He swung around to face me, his expression livid, furious. He closed the distance between us in two short steps, but didn’t touch me. “No,” he said again.

  I wanted to touch him, to comfort him as his emotions filtered into my mind. I clenched my hands at my sides instead. I didn’t think the wolf would hurt me. Actually, I knew he would make every effort not to hurt me. But touching Dace right now was not a good idea because I needed to think, and I couldn’t do that with his hands on me or mine on him.

  “I’m right,” I whispered, meeting his furious gaze. “You know I am.”

  “No, you aren’t,” he whispered back, more sad than angry. “You can’t be.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because …” He did touch me then, stroking one finger down my cheek. “You can’t belong to him.” The fear in his eyes and in his mind broke my heart into little pieces.

  I understood what he meant, what he thought. If I belonged to the wolf, I couldn’t belong to him. I wasn’t so sure it worked that way though. In fact, I was certain it didn’t. Whatever Dace said about the wolf being different, whatever he believed about what it wanted from him, he and the wolf were the same, or they were supposed to be. The truth of that reality pulsed brightly in the wolf’s thoughts.

  They were two sides of the same soul, or person. Separated somehow and distinct because of that separation, but they belonged together as much as I belonged to both of them. Dace couldn’t accept that though because he wasn’t ready to face what that would mean for him.

  He’d spent his entire life scared to let out the wolf, scared the animal would take control. That it would hurt someone. And then I burst into his life and ripped all of that apart with no explanation either of us could find. We may have felt as though we’d known one another our entire lives, but we hadn’t. Having your entire life suddenly reorder itself wasn’t easy. I was a walking, talking testament to that fact, and if he accepted he and the wolf were one and the same, everything he’d always believed would crumble. He’d have to let the wolf out of its cage.

  And that possibility truly terrified him.

  The town passed in blurs on the way home, trees little more than dark spots in obscuring shadow. Dace did not speak, driving instead in complete silence. I didn’t know what to say to pull him out of himself, to get him talking. He felt responsible for the lovely bump on my head. He wasn’t at fault, but telling him that would get me nowhere. I’d already tried once, and he’d merely glared. He didn’t trust the wolf, and nothing I said would change his mind.

  I decided to try a different approach to the whole talking thing. “What is Gage?”

  “Nephil,” he said, his voice remote.

  “Nephil?” The word was sharper than I intended. “You mean he’s an angel?”

  Dace glanced in my direction, his eyes dark, distracted. “Not exactly. Fallen angels mated with humans a millennia ago, birthing the Nephilim race. Gage is one of those offspring, two thousand years or so removed.”

  “Well, that explains it then.” I felt faint.

  Nephilim. The descendant of an angel. Unbelievable.

  “Explains what?” Dace asked after a minute, less distracted by his own thoughts now.

  “Why he’s so light,” I said. “He radiates goodness. I suppose all of the other myths are true too? Vampires? Elves? Faeries?”

  “Virtually every creature of myth has some basis in reality. No vampires though. Those are a lot of myth combined with some of the horrible things ordinary people have done throughout the centuries.” He stopped the Jeep in front of the house.

  Dad hadn’t made it home yet, thank goodness. I didn’t want to have to lie to him if he asked where I’d gone, but telling him I’d gone to converse with wolves in the woods probably wasn’t the best idea. He still worried about me, and Dani’s death was bound to make his concern worse. No need to add to that, especially not by telling him where I’d been all evening.

  “What about werewolves? Are they real?” I turned around in the seat and faced Dace.

  “In a way.” He turned off the Jeep and leaned his head back against his seat, his eyes closed. “Werewolves are descendants of shifters, I suppose you could say. Not reincarnations, but direct descendants. The gene or blood or whatever it is that allows the ability is weakened. It’s strongest during the full moon. Some of them are capable of shifting during that period, some aren’t.”

  Maybe that’s what I was? I decided not to even go there. “And fairies?”

  “Nymphs, satyrs and their relations. The creatures of nature are all real, and all but gone now. Too much destruction,” he said, sounding as if the loss of nature wounded him as much as the loss of its protectors did.

  I hesitated to bring up the question I wanted to ask. He’d avoided it the last time I mentioned it, and that made me even more curious. I suspected Dace didn’t do anything without reason.

  “And Ronan?” I barely whispered Ronan’s name, shuddering at the memory of him invading my mind. I still didn’t understand how he did it, and I didn’t want to. If I never saw him again, it would be too soon.

  “Ronan.” Dace’s lip curled in distaste, but surprisingly, he did answer me. “I don’t know what he is.”

  “He’s not human. Or not fully human,” I amended when Dace growled.

  “No, he’s not. But whatever he is, I can’t get a fix on him. All I know is that the wolf is more out of control when he’s around, like it is with you. When we felt him prowling through your mind”—he snarled, his grip on the steering wheel tightening as he
did so—”we wanted to kill him for that.”

  Yeah, me too. “He scares me.”

  “He should,” Dace said after a minute. “He’s dangerous. Do me a favor?” He unclenched his hands and turned toward me, meeting my gaze for the first time since the picnic table incident. “Stay away from him. Please?”

  “How do you do that?” I grumbled, breathless.

  “Do what?” His brow furrowed.

  “Put so much meaning into that single word, like your entire world hinges upon my agreement,” I said, truly mystified. He made it so, so hard to say no to him when he did that.

  “Because it does,” he said, staring at me so intently I couldn’t doubt his sincerity.

  Oh. Well, then. I shook my head, my eyes wide.

  “I’ll stay away from him.” I had no trouble making that promise. I’d have happily stayed far away even if Dace didn’t make refusing impossible.

  “Thank you.” He reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Now, please go inside and lock the doors.”

  “Will you stay?” I knew he wouldn’t, but I had to ask.

  “No, I have to go back and make sure no one is out hunting yet. I may be the only one able to hold them off, though Edwards went to try.”

  “Edwards?” My jaw slackened. “You mean Professor Edwards? He’s a shifter?”

  “He isn’t.” Dace grinned, no doubt amused by the screeching quality of that last word. “His wife is though.”

  “His wife?” My mouth hung wide open. I’d assumed the shifters were all young. It hadn’t crossed my mind that they might not be, or that they might be married and have families.

  “Does that surprise you?”

  “I guess so,” I admitted, my cheeks heating. “I don’t know why though. Everything that’s happened since I got here … .” Fate, Chelle had said. Every day, doubting her explanation got a little bit more difficult.

  “It gets easier,” he said.

  “I hope so,” I grumbled as I pulled open the door to the Jeep and jumped down to the ground. “Will I see you on campus tomorrow?”

  Dace shook his head. “Classes will be cancelled until after … I’ll see you soon though.” He smiled at me, seeming sad and hopeful at once. “As soon as I can.”

  I nodded and closed the door behind me, the reminder of why classes would be cancelled taking center stage in my thoughts. I climbed the steps to the front door, dug the key from my pocket, then stepped into the house. Only when the door closed behind me did I hear Dace start the Jeep and drive away.

  I walked into the living room and sank down onto the couch I’d vacated what seemed like days ago. In reality, it’d only been a few hours, but so much changed since. The world kept on changing, taking me with it. I really did feel like a stranger, not at all the same person I was before Mom died. The part of me that thought I should flee into the night felt like the only side left, and not even that part sat in the driver’s seat. The old me kicked back in the passenger seat and dispassionately pointed out the obvious.

  I reached up and prodded gently at the lump on my head, all the reasons why that didn’t bother me as much as it probably should running through my mind.

  I really was in deep.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The wolf dreams came that night, flooding through my sleeping mind in a kaleidoscope of confusing images. Kalei and the unnamed wolf in the woods, energetic Buka and her silky fur … . I dreamed of wolves fighting alongside men, of men trembling, shaking, and dropping to all fours, and of wolves trembling and shaking before shifting into men. Each scene seemed without end, stretching on for millennia, as familiar to me as Dace.

  I dreamed of him, too. His wolf stood guard over me, watching me with those beautiful, emerald eyes. They shone with devotion and pride as he stared at me. I knew the same reflected in my eyes as I stared back. Each time he appeared in wolf form, I ached with a piercing sense of familiarity and longing.

  I felt the same every time two great wolves came forward, walking alongside a man. I couldn’t see any of the three clearly, but I knew the wolves were ancient and fearsome. I didn’t fear them though. I feared for them, and when they ran, I wanted to run with them. Even in my sleep, the part lying deep inside me ached. Sorrow, longing … . I woke with tears drying on my cheeks more than once.

  But those dreams were easy. Others were not.

  Coal-black twin wolves raced after something, snapping at the air. Their growls haunted me, seeming full of warnings I could not understand. I couldn’t see what they chased either, but every time they got close, fear ran through me like an electric current. I knew if they ever caught their prey in reality, we were all doomed.

  A massive black wolf snapped a thin chain wound around its neck and leapt from the bowels of the Earth. Every time he burst free, fire exploded into the skies and rain poured like tears, drowning us all. I couldn’t let that happen. That knowledge bubbled up from the same place as the wolf inside me and lingered long after the sun burned away the shadows of night.

  Throughout each and every scene playing through my mind, Dace protected me, offering me comfort from the disturbing images flitting through my subconscious. Nothing made sense, and even asleep, I knew everything should. That those images were important for some reason, and the sooner I unraveled the mystery cloaked within, the better off we’d all be.

  One thing did become clear: The task before me, whatever fate had in store for me, was as monumental as I suspected it might be. And it wasn’t my task alone. Dace and I were bound together, meant to face this thing side by side.

  When my eyes popped open at eight the following Thursday morning, that truth did not abate. Dace and I were destined to do something extraordinary, something important. A sense of familiarity tickled the back of my mind as I lay there sorting through my dreams, trying to find answers. I’d seen the images before, heard the stories they contained. I should have known what they meant, but I didn’t.

  Frustration bubbled up. Frustration at myself for not knowing what my dreams were telling me, and frustration at the situation for being so damn frustrating. I didn’t have time to waste on cryptic dreams. Things were happening, bad things, and they weren’t going to wait for me and Dace to figure them out. We were stumbling, half blind, when we should have been running.

  Dad tapped on the door to my bedroom before I could work myself up from frustration to outright irritation. I sat up, pulling the comforter up with me and called for him to come in.

  He poked his head around the doorframe but didn’t enter. “Sorry to bother you so early,” he said, “but I wanted to let you know I’m headed out for a while. Will you be okay by yourself today?”

  “I’ll be fine, Dad,” I assured him, running a hand through my tangled hair. Auburn strands caught in my fingers, forcing me to tug them free.

  Dad hung around the house the last few days, keeping me company. I think maybe he expected me to fall apart beneath the weight of my grief over my mom and Dani, and he wanted to be there when I did. I hadn’t yet, but I wasn’t sure how long my tenuous hold on strength would last.

  Dace had not come to see me since our meeting with Kalei and Buka, and I felt stretched tight. As if everything inside of me had grown too big to fit properly. I called him every day, but talking on the phone didn’t help. He was shutting me out, keeping me at a distance, and I could do nothing to stop him.

  “I’ll have my phone with me if you need anything,” Dad said. He started to slide back out of the room and then stopped and turned toward me. “Be careful if you go out, okay?”

  ”Is something wrong?” Or more wrong than it has been? Everyone knew about Dani’s murder, and they were restless. Dace said the shifters were trying to keep everyone calm, but his attempts weren’t going as well as he’d hoped. People were frightened.

  How long would it be until the wolves were no longer safe? A day? Two?

  Dad hesitated and then frowned a little. “I thought I saw one of those wolves lurking
out there when I went out for the paper this morning. I’m sure it’s nothing, though. Probably just a dog.”

  One of the wolves was outside the house? “Oh,” I murmured.

  Dad’s eyes widened, and I cringed internally. I guess that hadn’t sounded anywhere near nervous enough for him. The wolves no longer frightened me though. Besides, I figured the wolf Dad saw was Buka, probably protecting me from afar. I appreciated the thought, even if hanging around did put her in danger. We were going to have to figure something else out, because I didn’t want her to get hurt. I would not let anything happen because of me.

  “Dad?” I called as he retreated into the hall.

  He turned back to me, a question in his brown eyes.

  “How much do you know about Dace?”

  His expression froze. For a full two count, he didn’t so much as breathe, and then he exhaled sharply.

  His reaction confirmed enough. Dad knew.

  “How long have you known?” I shifted on the bed. “Were you ever going to tell me that you knew?” The question came out sounding angry, and I guess I was. I’d told Dad that Dace and I were dating, and he’d said nothing. Not one single word. That bothered me because everyone was doing the same thing lately. Everyone kept things from me, refused to let me in. I hated it. How the hell was I supposed to make decisions and be an adult if everyone treated me like a child?

  I had a broken heart. But grief didn’t make me an idiot. I resented that everyone kept treating me like one. Dad and Dace told me that I was supposed to cry and be sad. But when it came right down to it, every time I cried, or got scared, or had a bad day, I felt like I only proved to them that I couldn’t handle any of this, and that didn’t seem fair because I tried my best.

  Yes, I felt overwhelmed. Yes, I hurt. Yes, I got scared. And yes, the things happening to me were confusing. But I was trying to cope, and every time I didn’t deal perfectly, every time I wondered why I wasn’t running for my life, and every time I cried, they treated me with kid gloves. I felt like trying wasn’t good enough. Everyone kept waiting for me to fall apart instead of acknowledging that I’d been holding on and doing a damn good job of it.