Savage Awakening

Turning away, he saw that the rest of the casino had vanished. Blinking, he spun back to Rowan—but she wasn’t there anymore, either. Shit!

“Rowan? Hey!”

Confused, he started to run… and stepped off into empty air.

Fell.

And jolted awake, safe in his own bed. Pulse thrumming in his throat, he glanced around, seeing that nothing had changed. His bedroom. His things.

“God, it did seem real.”

His body certainly thought it was, too. A glance at his lap and the sheet confirmed they were drenched in come, his erection still at half-mast. Some dream. Only, what if it wasn’t?

Running a hand down his sweaty face, he became aware of how very hot it was in the room. Or maybe the room was fine and he was the one overheated, after the mind-blowing encounter he’d just had. Whichever, the temperature was unbearable, so he got up and ran a cold shower.

He washed, and stood under the spray until he no longer felt like he was about to spontaneously combust, then got out and dried off. Better. But was his face still a little warm? He couldn’t tell, and was too tired to think about the dream or anything else right now. But he had to change the sheets.

Stumbling to the bed, he stripped off the dirty bedding, balled it up, and tossed it into a corner. He stared at the mattress, bare except for the fitted pad, and decided he just couldn’t be bothered to deal with making it up. Later.

He took only a couple of seconds to yank on a clean pair of boxers and flopped across the bed.

This time, when he slept, it was deep and dark.

And dreamless.

Seven

Rowan awoke from her nap gradually, her body still humming from the awesome dream she’d had, with Aric in the starring role.

Tentatively, she touched between her legs and even found herself moist with her own come. When in the hell had she ever had such a vivid dream of sex with a man? Never. Hadn’t known it was possible, not to that degree of detail.

She could still smell him on her skin, musky and male. She envisioned exactly how he’d pierced her with those striking green eyes as he’d eaten her out, and the satisfaction on his face as he’d fucked her into next week, that glorious auburn hair falling over his chest and the swirling tattoo.

As she’d told him, too bad it wasn’t real.

Surely it wasn’t. She was no Dreamwalker, at least not one of much talent if she couldn’t find her brother and reach out to him in his mental prison. If she couldn’t help anyone, what good was a gift? Better to stick with what she knew and could see. Guns and bullets, flesh and blood. And yes, monsters of all kinds. What was tangible could be dealt with.

Which was why she was so lost in regard to Micah.

She’d left him alone too long. It wasn’t easy to get moving, since the nap hadn’t really been restful and her head still hurt some. If he was calm and his vitals were good, she might turn in early tonight and get a fresh start in the morning.

Cleaning up quickly, she decided to wear the same jeans she’d had on, and a different shirt. Ready, she slipped into the hallway and became aware of some sort of commotion at the end. Already headed that way, she made out a small group of people standing outside a door. Dr. Mallory was knocking, and raising her voice for whoever was inside to answer it. She didn’t sound happy.

Rowan’s footsteps slowed as she approached. Nick stood to the left of the doctor, Jax on the right. Mallory waved a hand at Nick in agitation.

“Use your pass code. I need in there to see if that stubborn idiot has set his recovery back by leaving the infirmary too soon.”

“Micah left?” Rowan blurted, alarmed. “How?”

The doctor glanced at her, shaking her head. “Not your brother. Aric.”

“Oh.” Instead of relief, a sense of fear invaded, shaking her to the core. Aric being in trouble was no more acceptable than if it had been Micah. Helplessly, she watched as Nick blocked the keypad with his body and punched in the code. Then the group streamed inside, calling for their friend.

After hesitating, Rowan trailed them. Nobody had ordered her to stay out, and Aric was already becoming a friend, of sorts. She hoped he would be, anyway, and she didn’t want anything bad to happen to him.

Rowan recognized the layout and guessed all the apartments must be pretty much the same. They hurried through the living room and down the short hallway to his bedroom. She heard Nick and Jax calling their friend’s name, and then cursing just as she stepped inside. Oddly, Aric was lying on the bare mattress, curled on his side, wearing only a pair of boxers.

Nick was kneeling on the bed, shaking Aric’s shoulder. “Aric, wake up! Shit, what’s wrong with him?”

“Let me take his pulse,” the doctor said briskly. “Move.”

Both men wasted no time getting out of her way, though they paced anxiously. Rowan moved closer, hand over her mouth as Mallory dropped his wrist, shaking her head.

“It’s too fast, and he’s hotter than hell.” Removing a white strip from her pocket, she peeled off the back and stuck it to his forehead. Within moments she got a reading and removed the strip as Aric remained unaware. “One-oh-six.”

“That’s impossible,” she breathed.

Mallory answered. “Not for Aric. Remember, he’s not human, and he’s a Firestarter on top of that. His normal temp is around one-oh-two, but this is too high. He needs to wake up.”

Firestarter? God. “What’s wrong with him?”

“That’s the million-dollar question.” She fixed Rowan with a strange look, then turned back to her patient.

That was twice now with the look. What was up with that woman?

“Nothin’ wrong with me,” Aric muttered, opening his eyes to frown at the group. “Can’t a man get some sleep? Think I’ve earned it, for fuck’s sake.”

“We’re worried about you, asshole.” Jax crossed his arms over his chest.

“Really?” Aric’s voice dripped with nasty sarcasm as he sat up and came fully awake, shoving hair from his face. “See, now I’ve an entirely different take on how much you’re worried about whether I’m dead or alive. My viewpoint was from the inside of a helicopter as it took off and I was carried away to be tortured for weeks!”

Jax’s face paled and he looked like he’d been punched. “You don’t know how sorry I am about that,” he rasped. “But I only had one chance to save my mate, and I took it. You’re both alive, and—”

“But my survival wasn’t a certainty, was it?” Aric asked in a deceptively quiet voice. Like he was a time bomb about to blow. “I was left to be picked apart by vultures, especially Beryl, the bitch. She always—” The man cut himself off and clamped his lips shut, stark torment replacing the anger of seconds ago.

The cop in Rowan went on alert, and she wondered what he’d been about to say. What he might be hiding about the “bitch” in question.

Nick, too, studied him for a few tense moments, but didn’t pursue the subject of Aric’s torture or the woman responsible. “We came for you as soon as we had a location. You had to know we would.”

“But whether I’d be alive—did you know for sure?”

“I felt you would be, yes.”

“What a comfort.”

“I’m so sorry,” Jax told him in anguish.

Rowan’s chest hurt. Friends who were as close as brothers shouldn’t be tearing one another apart over terrible events that neither would likely do differently if given a second chance. Aric was hurting, but not for a