She moved slightly on her pillow, but didn’t wake up. Did her neck arch as well, even in her sleep? Her lips parted and she bobbed her c
hin a couple of times. It was a very wolf-like gesture, a preparation for a responsive howl.
Awareness rained down on him, drenching him. Kiara, a witch, had alpha-mate capacity. She could bond with him and serve Caldion as the alpha female of his pack.
He took a step backward, then another.
Braden, also an alpha, had recently bonded himself to a witch, so it wasn’t unheard of. Even Fergus had taken a fae to be his bond-mate and she’d made an exemplary female alpha.
His fingers went to the left side of his face and scalp, to the deep grooved scars that had marred him almost from the beginning of his time in Five Bridges. A witch had done this to him.
Kiara’s kind couldn’t be trusted. He’d experienced it first-hand. Even if she meant no harm, her powers could do damage without her even knowing what she was doing.
In his case, the witch who had poisoned him had been his wife, Tonya. She’d only been in Elegance a week when she’d created the paste in her spellroom. She was soon diagnosed with a disease called alter dementia. She’d lived for the past eight years in an insane asylum in Revel, the Five Bridges Territory where fae alters resided.
He still couldn’t think about it without experiencing a painful sinking sensation in his gut. Somehow, the terrible incident had come to represent all that he hated about Elegance Territory: The deception, the ability to hide and to disguise, the use of spells to hurt others.
Yet here a witch lay, sleeping peacefully in a very wolf-like burrow. The fantasy storm he’d created had been one of the most powerful experiences of his life.
He knew as well that if he took her to bed again, he’d be able to replicate the experience.
He could sense her abilities as though they were his own. She had levels of innate power he’d never seen before which made her even more dangerous.
He knew that given her beauty and the kindness of her nature, as well as his intense craving to make her his alpha-mate, he should disengage with her, the sooner the better.
Chapter Four
Kiara didn’t understand what she was looking at. She was in a dark pine forest. She could hardly see. In the distance was a figure in red, a woman with long blond hair.
She remembered now. This woman chased her in her dreams. Repeatedly.
No. Not again.
Fear bolted through her. She turned and started to run. The path was narrow. Her bare feet hit a thick matting of pine needles.
Cold fingers touched her shoulder. Kiara ran faster trying to escape the freezing touch. It felt like death. Leave him alone. You’ll kill him.
Somehow, she knew the woman was talking about Warren. No. I care about Warren. I would never hurt him.
You’ll get him killed. You’re a selfish woman. You need to leave Savage.
The forest turned to brambles that sliced at her and forced her to stop running. Vines grabbed her arms, held her tight then spun her around.
The ghost floated in the air. She wore a red dress. She had large blue eyes and her blond hair swirled around her shoulders. She was beautiful, but wore a pained expression.
She opened her mouth as though trying to speak. Then suddenly her neck arched, and black smoke poured from her mouth.
The sight was so horrifying, Kiara awoke from the nightmare and sat up. She put a hand to her throat. She looked at her arms to see if she’d been cut, but it had only been a dream. A terrifying dream.
She lay back down staring up at her burrow ceiling. She’d needed not to feel as though she lay in a cave, so she’d had part of the rock framed with a diagonal collection of reclaimed wood. Somehow it eased her to let her eye follow the three-inch strips of different colored planks.
Her heart was still rocketing. She put a palm between her breasts. She should be used to Five Bridges by now having lived here for three years.
She may have been caught in a dream but parts of it had been real. The woman was a ghost and ghosts often visited alter people in dreams.
She’d never told anyone, but this was a recurring experience, one she’d had several times since she’d recovered from the poisoned torture at Veyda’s hands. This ghost had come to her repeatedly, always intent on frightening her and warning her away from Warren and Savage.
She turned her head on her pillow. Warren lay to her right, on his side and facing away from her. The sheet only covered him up to his waist, so she had a view of his extraordinary back. She noticed this about wolves, males especially, that they had powerful shoulders and heavily muscled arms and backs. She supposed it was from shifting, leaping and running the way they loved to do.