Marked Read Free

turned my head enough to see the pile of books on the
far end of the bed.
    "Wow,
I'm lucky I didn't get brained by one of them."
    "Yeah.
In hindsight maybe it wasn't the best idea to mount a shelf above the
bed like that. I was worried you were going to break the other one as
well so I immobilized your arms. I've been trying to wake you up for
nearly five minutes. Bad dream?"
    "Yeah,
I guess."
    "You
want to talk about it?"
    "Actually
I do, but I don't seem to remember much about it. I think something
was chasing me, but that's about all that stuck with me."
    "You're
sure there's nothing else?"
    "I
don't know…maybe the sense that it wasn't a normal dream, but
I couldn't tell you for sure what made it special. I'm sure exhausted
though. I feel like I've been running for hours—I was less
tired than this when I went to bed."
    "There's
a lot of that going around."
    It
was the kind of casual remark that I'd caught Alec making from time
to time lately. I wasn't even sure he was aware of what he was doing,
but it almost seemed like he was trying to give those around him a
heads up without actually coming right out and saying point blank
that there was a problem with something.
    It
was the kind of thing that could be problematic in a leader if he
wasn't doing it on purpose, but I hadn't been able to bring myself to
point it out to him. Most everyone else didn't know him well enough
for it to be a problem and I was reluctant to make him any more of a
closed book than he already was.
    I
opened my mouth and then decided once again against saying anything.
Instead I turned in his arms so I was facing him. It was a calculated
risk. There was always a chance that he'd take my moving as a reason
to let go of me and sit up, but I kept his right arm trapped
underneath my body and this time he didn't move.
    Looking
into his eyes was like entering an entirely new universe, one where I
was completely happy. Alec could fake a lot of emotions on those
occasions where it became necessary, but he couldn't fake the level
of love and commitment that I saw reflected back at me in the quiet
moments when it was just the two of us.
    If
his comment had been the slightest bit less concerning I would have
just sat there gazing into his eyes for as long as he was willing to
remain in one place, but I knew there was something important he
wasn't telling me.
    "What's
going on, Alec?"
    "This
isn't general knowledge, so don't say anything to Donovan or the
others, but it doesn't look like Dream Stealer has lost interest in
Kristin. All the signs point to him having singled her out as the
weak link in the pack."
    "What
does that mean? I know a little bit about Dream Stealer, but
obviously not enough."
    "It
means he's torturing her every night in her sleep in an effort to
break her. He doesn't do it often, but he's taken down entire packs
this way. He picks out a target, either someone he thinks is weaker
than the rest of the pack or someone who's got access to something
particularly important, and then he makes every night hell until they
finally snap. Once that happens they'll do anything to get him to
stop hurting them.
    "For
someone who's been through that, there's no secret they won't
disclose, no ally they won't betray, no murder they won't commit.
Sometimes he only has to break one person, sometimes he has to break
half the pack, but in the end he's always managed to achieve his
goal."
    "That's…well,
it's beyond terrible. Are you sure he's targeted Kristin?"
    "Yeah.
Ash says that she's thrashing around in her sleep every night and
she's so tired that she drops off to sleep as soon as she stops
moving. It was questionable before, but it's become pretty clear
lately that she's his target."
    I
closed my eyes to stop them from tearing up. Kristin wasn't my
favorite person. She was a little too pushy for the two of us to ever
be close friends, but she didn't deserve to be put through what Alec
was describing.
    "She
mentioned that she was having issues with