Dire Needs: A Novel of the Eternal Wolf Clan Read Free Page B

would come out of it—and how he would be when he did—remained to be seen.
    Rogue’s mind was a terrifying blank, and Rifter couldn’t get inside, no matter how hard he tried.
    And then there was the one they rarely spoke of: Harm—aka Harmony—the Dire who could calm the masses or incite riots with his singing, who’d gone out on his own thousands of years earlier and most recently made a name for himself as the unpredictable superstar singer of a rock band and who now lived as a recluse. Rifter would rip his fucking head off if he ever found the man—rip it off every day for the rest of his miserable life for the danger he’d put all of them in.
    Along with the six of them were the Weres they’d let into their Dire pack, mainly those who’d gone rogue from their own packs because they were too mean or rowdy or didn’t follow direction well… or they were still moon crazed, like the young twins Jinx had taken under his wing.
    They listened to the Dires. Had their backs. The Weres weren’t nearly as strong as the Dires, but they were formidable powers in their own right.
    And oh yeah, no female Dires, because there were none.
    The female Weres they hung with as part of their group were cool, and they could handle the Dires moderately well, sexually and otherwise, if they weren’t newly shifted. It took a hell of a lot for a Dire to be with a human. Rifter couldn’t remember the last time he’d let that happen but suspected it was right after he’d shifted for the first time, the moon craze making him goddamned insane with lust and hunger, and Brother Wolf hadn’t had any measure of control either. Slowly, the two of them pulled back, got some form of measured control and agreed to keep their shit together.
    Brother Wolf tugged—rightfully so, because Rifter was encroaching on his time—but he couldn’t leave Gwen now. She was still twitching, a restless combination of sleep and unconsciousness, and nowhere near peaceful. He remained firmly rooted in reality, not attempting to enter her dreams like he itched to.
    The dreamwalking had become worse in the months leading up to his capture. Since Rogue’s coma, it had only gone downhill. Rifter had always been able to control it, but lately, his own dreams had been stranger. He’d wake up speaking the old language, unable to remember where he’d been.
    The dreams were draining him. He wasn’t scared of anything, but they freaked him the fuck out.
    Jinx did what he could to help keep the dreams at bay, which included the use of Native American dream catchers, while Rifter actively tried not to sleep. Much. And even though he’d promised Jinx and the others that he wouldn’t do this because they couldn’t be sure the new dreams weren’tthe insidious work of Seb and his witches, Rifter pulled off the dream-catcher necklace and put it around Gwen’s neck instead. Then he prepared to put himself in a danger he’d sworn not to.
    He closed his eyes, her hand in his large one, her skin soft and smooth and cool, and goddamn, it would feel good on his cock. But this wasn’t about him, and he had nothing but time, so he could afford to be magnanimous.
    He settled into a light sleep. The push into her subconscious wasn’t effortless, which was strange, because in her state, there should have been no resistance.
    But very few could resist him for long, especially humans.
    Finally he broke through and began the dreamwalk—a combination of actually walking through the person’s dreams and then influencing said dreams. A handy skill. Inside Gwen’s dreams, he got sucked into a swirling mass of terror and confusion and… hope. Strange enough, there was more of that than anything.
    Rifter didn’t know how the hell it all worked, but somehow, with the dreamwalk, he was both by Gwen’s side physically while his dream self walked with Gwen inside her mind.
    In that dream state—suspended from the reality of her world—he took her away from the pain and fear