The Cursed Shifters - Mateless

Just A Dream

                                The next two days were nothing more then a blur of nerves for Shiloh. They passed without any issue, training, meals, nights tossing and turning reliving those flashes the Goddess had sent her. The problem was her own mind tormenting her, she knew this mission would be difficult, that it could cost lives, and that she was taking her team in almost blind. She dreaded the day that they were to leave, approaching fast, at the same time she wanted it done with. The Vareese issue was slowing them down, delaying the more important issue they needed to be focused on. A meeting with Terry about the other packs revealed the corruption was spreading, festering, growing into something dangerous. The number of packs still clinging to who they were before was dwindling, those that could be called upon to defend their species and way of life were almost gone. A handful of packs had reinstated breeding, taking shifters of age to breed with their fighters in an attempt to keep their ranks filled with boys to fight as the men went mad. Shiloh’s stomach had roiled and rebelled at the news, swallowing time and again trying to keep her coffee down as Terry told her what he had learned of the heinous tradition. The royals had banned such a thing long ago but were being conspicuously quiet on the matter as they had been on basically everything since they apparently banned mention of the curse upon shifters. Shiloh took ever name mentioned in that meeting and made a list, pack she would pay a visit when her other work was done, she scratched the royals to the bottom of the list, they two would deal with her, account for their lack of leadership and help.

                                Vanessa had not spoken to her again through the two days, but Shiloh often felt her eyes on her and would sometimes overhear her and the “twins” whispering as she passed, trouble was brewing there, she knew it but lacked the energy to care. Lunch with Cal had been pleasant, he was clearly trying to figure her out, but it seemed to be due to genuine interest not whatever scheme Vanessa was concocting. He had apologized to Shiloh about Vanessa chasing her down the hallway, he obviously knew from that conversation what Vanessa was really like and Shiloh used his openness and desire for her to find out what she could without raising suspicion. Terry had also apologized for the girl, but he tensed up too much for Shiloh to ask him anything, something unpleasant had transpired there with Vanessa at the core and Terry did not want to tell her about it. Vanessa was going to be a problem, she knew it, she had known it from the first night the woman strolled into the packhouse, but she was a minor problem, one that could be left on the back burner while other things were handled. Perhaps it would resolve itself if they were successful in returning mates to the shifters, Terry would find his and give her the boot.

                                The last night in her bed before heading out to fight Vareese again and Shiloh couldn’t find sleep, she lay in bed gazing at the ceiling mulling over everything she knew, everything she didn’t, and all she had to do. She begged her brain to be quiet and allow her sleep, as she begged she saw dark brown eyes heated and molten and the darkest brown lightly curling hair, the face smiled, pulling the corners of lips to full to belong to a man. Shiloh shot upright in her bed, that dream, the one that had followed her meeting with the Goddess, it was the man from it she saw now. The dream had been completely forgotten, dismissed as a fairytale the Goddess had given her for peace and rest. “Could it be more?” She asked Fayrah quietly.

                                “Mate.” Simple, one word, full of longing and a measure of ownership. Could it be? Had the Goddess shown her the mate she could find if she broke the curse she wondered? Shiloh held those brown eyes forefront in her mind and drifted to sleep, sleep filled with those eyes. Shiloh dreamed of the man, fierce and strong, leading a group of rogues, someone had killed some of their men and he sought revenge. She saw him conversing with an old crone of a woman with a country accent so thick Shiloh could barely understand her. The woman seemed to have a maternal sort of connection to the man and spoke to him as if he were her child despite the fact that he towered above her and radiated immovable strength. She watched as he played with the children in the group, chasing them, wrestling with the ones that attempted to tackle him, he didn’t fall to the ground as if they had won like Shiloh did for the kids in her pack, but he would turn them upside down or throw them over his shoulder and run. The children squealed and laughed, Shiloh smiled broadly, she could feel it on her face, knew it reached her eyes unlike all her other smiles, she could feel a measure of light inside her, joy. Then she saw him, the boy running at the man grinning as broadly as she was, he looked just like the man she had been watching, her eyes went between the two of them three times then looked beyond the boy to the woman looking bored and annoyed.  Shiloh took her in and returned her eyes to the man now stooped down before the child with a pained longing look on his face as he locked eyes with the irritated woman. Pain sliced through Shiloh’s heart, and she lurched upright in her bed, gasping, and rubbing circles on her chest. She climbed out of bed to retrieve the watermelon vodka she kept stashed in her room and turned the bottle up before speaking to Fayrah. “What the heck, it was a perfectly nice dream and then BAM!” Shiloh took another long drink, praying the burn in her throat would numb the ache in her chest. Fayrah was whimpering in her mind, the dream had hurt her too. “How can something that isn’t real hurt like that? We don’t even know the man and he is likely nothing to us beyond being nice to look at.”

                                JT was deep in sleep when he felt something stir in his mind and his wolf Dante began to pace frustrated circles. It seemed as though someone was sifting through his memory of the day’s events; he reached for the feeling and followed the thread he found there. At the other end of that thread a dream began, a dream made up of images and brief scenes. He saw a child with red hair running barefoot between trees, light and agile, full of joy until a hand shot out and knocked her to the ground. Three children a bit bigger than her stepped out from behind the tree and spewing ugly hateful words began to kick her. The scene dissolved and one of a female wolf speaking to the redhead appeared, he realized it must be her mother who was speaking to a now shifting age girl, the girl had bruises scattered about her face and body, her lip was busted and a gash on her knee oozed blood. “Remember never to show them your strength, they can’t know how strong you are, they can not see your wolf or the Alpha will come for us.” The girl, eyes glassy with tears nodded and the scene dissolved again this time into the girl a teen in a depressed heap on the floor, two large males a little older than her burst into the room offering her revenge on the rogues that killed her mother. Dante growled low when she broke from her daze and responded to the men, JT felt jealousy spread seeing her inch back toward life at their urging. The room vanished into scene after scene of her as a grown woman, sometimes alone, sometimes with a group of three males and another female fighting against vampires, crazed shifter males, and other ilk of the world. He saw her beaten a bruised but always standing, always walking away.

                                JT awoke slowly, rubbing his face, confused and disoriented. Had he really followed a thread into someone else’s mind, or had he had some crazy dream born of the threat of the redheaded wolf that he now hunted? Rubbing his face again he sat up on his cot, long legs almost under his chin. “Has to be tha workin’s of an over exhausted mind, too much time spent lookin’ for whisper of the she wolf.” Speaking allowed to convince himself but softly enough not to disturb his son sleeping across the tent. “All tha fightin’ I saw fits the narrative of the mysterious redheaded wolf, goes with the whispers of ‘er accomplishments. It aint a leap for my head to give ‘er a face or even a backstory.”

                                Dante paced, agitated, but had said nothing as JT mulled over what his mind had concocted. JT could feel it though, his wolf was drawn to the woman his imagination had cooked up, he understood, the woman was beautiful and strong in his imagination, resilient; but she was not what he preferred, too small, too petite. No sooner then he had started dissecting the things about her that did not suit his preferences Dante growled an angry protective growl that rang through JT’s mind like a gong. “She is perfect, your obsession with physical attributes is meaningless!” The words held a viscous bite that shocked JT, he had heard it before directed at other people but never himself, he and Dante had always gotten along well.

                                “It was jus’ a dream Dante, the real she wolf with the red hair probably looks nothin’ like that and definitely won’ have the same story to tell.” A deep breath as his hand raked over his face again as Dante growled again. “We’ll find out soon enough, I purty sure she’s comin’ back, and I’ll have men watching everywhere.”