had been a part of me for as long as I could remember, something I could rely on more than any of my other senses because it had never been wrong. Thinking Owen’s shield was similar must have allowed me to trust it so much, but knowing now that magic lay behind it all…that we trusted our lives with something out of fairy tales…it was just a lot to try to accept in one day.
I could almost feel Vanessa’s eyes boring into us, whether she could actually see us or not. I didn’t see how Mom and Rina would ever get past her. I didn’t know why they would even want to try. They weren’t reckless by nature…which meant they did trust Owen’s magical capabilities. And if they could, I needed to. I really had no choice right now anyway.
I took a few calming breaths, trying to blow the anxiety out of my body. At least, the anxiety about Mom and Rina. I still had this task in front of me. Literally sitting in front of me, her eyes wide and her lower lip trembling.
“Let’s just focus on this,” I said. I looked into Sheree’s terror-filled eyes. “We already know it’s going to hurt. Tell us if you can’t handle it. If you wait until it’s too much and you do something harmful—to me or anyone else, including yourself—I don’t know what these guys will do to you, but I’m sure it won’t be good. Understand?”
She nodded and her voice came out in a rough whisper. “Just help me or kill me. That’s all I ask.”
I inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. Then I lifted both hands toward her. Just as I was in reach, an electric current shot out of my left hand. I hopped backward on my butt. Sheree had nowhere to go, her back already pressed against the railing, but she shrank away as far as possible.
“Sorry,” I muttered, scooting back toward her.
Tristan stepped right behind me, placing a foot on each side of my hips and standing over me. His forearm came into my vision, over my head, his palm facing Sheree. “This is a really bad idea.”
“You already said that,” I said.
“And I still think it is.” The words came out as a snarl. “There are better solutions—like waiting.”
I twisted my head to look up at him. “Haven’t we learned that the best solution is not always the right solution?”
He tugged his eyes from Sheree to look at me. The green bands were dark and the gold sparkles dim as his eyes held mine, filled with concern. He exhaled a surrendering sigh and nodded just slightly. Then he looked back to Sheree, his body coiling, ready for action.
I raised just my right hand this time, reaching out toward Sheree. She hesitated. Then she lifted her own hand and clasped her fingers around mine.
Piercing needles of pain shot through my hand. A toe-curling scream wailed from both of our mouths. Her hand was glacial and it felt as if my own froze in her grasp. My blood went cold, ice traveling through my arm, up to my shoulder, into the bones. But we held on tightly to each other.
Owen dropped to his knees next to Sheree, his hands moving around her but not on her, as if afraid to touch her. Tristan stood over me, his palm still facing Sheree. He was prepared to shoot her if and when necessary. I almost begged him for the warmth a fiery ball would provide as the icy sensation continued rushing through my blood. The bitter hatred from the other night started overcoming me again, turning my vision red. My throat felt like I swallowed sandpaper and I realized I still screamed. I clamped my jaw shut, forcing myself to stop.
Various images popped into my head, like the slideshow of my dreams before Tristan’s return. But these weren’t familiar visions. They were Sheree’s memories.
I felt her painful transition into a tiger the first time she’d shifted and saw the full, white moon in a clear sky. She had no idea what happened to her and terror overwhelmed her. Then appeared an unfamiliar face talking to her, his mouth moving, but I couldn’t hear the words. Then she was traveling and I knew we were seeing through tiger eyes. The perspective seemed lower than it would be from her height, but taller than if she crawled, just a little taller than me.
We stalked through the woods, the stranger beside us. Tall pines reached for the night sky. A lake in front of us reflected a full moon. A couple sat by the water’s edge. Our stomach growled with an emptiness as if we hadn’t eaten for days. The man slid a collar off our neck and hissed. The sound incited something within us. We ran for the couple, letting out a roar just as we attacked.
I screamed out loud. Sheree let out a mournful sob.
An image of frozen terrain flashed and then we were in caves. My heart settled its frantic pace. This image I knew. I’d just envisioned it yesterday, when Tristan told me about his imprisonment and escape. How had I pictured this place so perfectly?
“Because it’s home. Your other home,” a voice inside my head whispered. “Your real home.”
The voice didn’t belong to Sheree. Not to Owen or to Tristan. It belonged to me. It was the cold, evil one I’d heard before Tristan’s return. The one I thought had disappeared when my own sanity returned. Evil Alexis.
No! I silently protested, shutting that voice down. I know it from Tristan.
Then I realized that was exactly why the image had been so accurate. I hadn’t imagined the caves when Tristan told me about them. I’d actually seen what he saw in his mind’s eye as he told me. I just hadn’t known I could read minds then. Just yesterday. And now here I was, seeing Sheree’s visual memories.
As she remembered, she unintentionally shared with me the dark caves where she was free to roam inside, but could never leave. We went to Tristan’s space. Various images of him in there over time—sometimes sitting, sometimes standing, sometimes pacing and sometimes curled into a ball—flashed across my vision. She’d been watching him.
The scene abruptly changed to Key West and I saw myself walking down the alley, from her perspective. The image changed again. The time must have been later. Vanessa, her brother and their friends were back, kicking Sheree in her human form, then throwing her around, as if they played a game of hot potato. I saw the wall coming toward us. I heard her thought, “I’m not going to shift. I won’t be like them,” just before slamming against the wall. Then blackness. Then Owen’s face. The cold voice inside me hissed.
A new vision popped into my head. I saw through Sheree’s tiger eyes again. But this wasn’t a memory. This image had a different quality, a different texture to it. Her current thoughts flooded my mind and I almost pulled away from her. She stalked toward me in her mind, just as she’d done with that couple by the lake. And then she jumped at me. Her sharp claws dug diagonally across my face.
“No!” I said aloud. “Stop it!”
“What?” Sheree wailed. “I can’t stop anything!”
“I want it. I want it so bad,” she thought. “I want to rip your throat out. I want to taste your sweet blood, devour your tender meat.”
But her hand remained tightly clasped around mine as she fought the urge.
“You want it, too. You know you do,” my own cold voice said. “You want to fight her. You want to kill her.”
“No!” I cried. “No, no, no!”
My whole body suddenly went frigid. I started trembling all over.
“Yes, yes, YES! Fight her! Kill her! Watch the life force drain from her eyes.”
I could no longer tell the difference between Sheree’s inner voice and my own. They both taunted for a killing match.
“Find out what it’s like! You want to. Admit it. JUST DO IT!”
Sheree’s body vibrated, her edges becoming a blur.
“Don’t do it,” Owen warned with a low, firm voice breaking into the internal argument. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder. His face contorted with his own pain. But Sheree calmed down. She gained control over the shift.
Evil energy coursed through my body, as if it had been pent up there forever and was now finally free. Free to take control. I squeezed my eyes shut but the images filled my mind. My own visions of lashing out, hurting, killing these very people around me.
No! I won’t! This isn’t me. Don’t let it take me.
But that other part of me gained more control. The slideshow played again, but now it was my own—yet not the one I’d dreamed. These were all the horrible images. Tristan leaving the safe house and twitching his hand to shut the door behind him, closing me in. The battle on the mansion’s lawn. Tristan disappearing. His body writhing in agony on the cavern floor. Figures—some human, some not so much—beating him. And suddenly my fists
