Chapter 24

Ch. 24: Julian

"Julian, are you certain?" Halloran asks, leaning over me with a hand on my shoulder. "Are you certain it was the Shadowlands you saw?"

I raise my head just enough to glare at him and immediately regret the effort as pain lances my eyes.

"No, I'm not certain," I groan, rubbing my temples. "I only know it wasn't anywhere earthlike, and it didn't look like Faerie either—what I've seen of it, anyway."

"Can you describe it?"

With a sigh, I dredge up a few words to convey the impressions I'd received.

"It was... gray."

"Gray?" Halloran frowns. "What was gray?"

"Everything." I sigh again and lean into Dane, who sits at my side on the picnic bench. "It was like a... perpetual twilight, beneath these huge trees. Some were as wide as buildings at the base, and so tall I couldn't see the tops. They were endless—just a wall of gray in every direction. The ground was gray, too—choked with fallen logs and dead branches and big... rocks."

I gesture with my hands, trying to convey a sense of scale.

"Boulders?" Dane suggests.

"Yeah, boulders. It was really dark under the trees, and I got the sense that there were... things... watching me."

A shudder convulses my body, and Dane rubs his hand up and down my back.

Halloran nods. "That sounds like the Shadowlands, all right. Anything else?"

I shake my head. "Just that Stephanie had been there a while. She was... starving, and terrified. But she was more afraid of him than anything else. She knew swimming through the tunnel was risky—he'd told her there was no way out—but she had to try. She'd rather die than stay there another minute, waiting for him to come back and..."

The memory of horror clouds my mind, and I bolt to my feet as nausea chokes my throat and makes my salivary glands sting. Staggering to the nearest clump of shrubs, I bend over and puke.

Dane catches me before I faceplant in my own vomit, and holds me up as he murmurs soothing promises of the bottled water waiting for me in the car.

"Lords. Is it always this bad?" Halloran asks, standing back a bit with a look of mild disgust.

Dane answers for me while I continue to cough and retch. "No. Only when the impressions he gets are especially unpleasant or intense."

"And you say the, er, 'fainting' is new?"

"Yeah."

"Interesting. I wonder if it's the Fae connection, or..."

Ignoring him for the moment, Dane turns his attention to me. "Can you walk?"

I nod, and we set off through the trees towards the car. My stomach is still unsettled, and the taste of sickness lingers in my mouth. At the car, Dane gets me settled and grabs my kit from the back seat. It's just a small black bag packed with a blanket, bottled water, painkillers, dark glasses, and a protein bar, but it's been my standard psychic after-care package for years.

Dane hands me a bottle of water with the cap off, and I rinse out my mouth before taking a few careful sips. When I'm sure I can keep it down, I swallow the single aspirin Dane places in my palm.

As he slips the dark glasses over my eyes and drapes the blanket around my shoulders, I grumble half-heartedly.

"I took care of myself perfectly well before I met you, you know."

"Says who? I've heard the stories."

I shut my eyes and lean my head against the seat, too tired to argue for the moment. A cool hand touches the side of my throat, too light and slender to be Dane's, and Halloran's voice sounds distant and muffled in my ears.

"Don't go to sleep yet, Julian," he says, and then speaks a string of words I don't understand. Even so, I get a sense of meaning, and a measure of alertness returns.

Opening my eyes, I find Halloran watching me with a line of worry pinched between his brows.

"That's better," he says, his expression easing. "I think you're alright, now, but it's important you tell me everything you can while the impressions are still fresh in your mind. Is there anything else you recall? Even a tiny detail might tell us something useful."

I frown, but take a deep breath and cast my mind over the memories again: from the glimpse of the Shadowlands, to the plunge into cold water, to the moment Stephanie realized something was wrong, and that she hadn't come out under the shops.

There'd been a sharp, awful pain as her eardrums burst from the pressure, followed by darkness, confusion, and panic. Finally, she'd oriented herself and shot for the surface, but by then, it was too late. She was out of breath, and even as she saw the sparkle of light another few meters above, despair, a searing pain, and a rush of cold water brought the darkness that ended everything.

I try to focus on what had happened in the moments before she made the final decision and took the plunge—on what she thought and felt, and on any other impressions I had gleaned. There's something there—like a shadow I can see in the corner of my eye, but which vanishes the moment I look directly at it. After trying too hard makes my headache worse, I shut my eyes and sigh.

"I'm sorry. There's something, but..."

"Never mind," Dane says with gentle gruffness. "It'll be clearer once you've rested."

I nod with my palms pressed to my eyes. It's true that I need some time to process impressions. Maybe in a few hours, the scrambled images and emotions flooding my brain—someone else's final thoughts and feelings—would make more sense.

"Can we go home now?" I groan.

"Sure we can, sweetheart. Just as soon as I'm sure you're okay."

Halloran sighs. "He's not in any real danger—never was. Let him sleep it off and he'll be fine. Meanwhile, let's make a bargain, Hunter. Call me if Julian remembers anything else, and I'll let you know what we find here. Provided the chief doesn't send me packing back to Ireland, that is."

"That was a risky stunt you pulled," Dane says. "Someone could've been hurt."

"But no one was," Halloran replies. "That's the important thing."

Dane shakes his head. "You got a lecture on expensive equipment and taxpayer dollars coming. Coleridge takes that shit seriously."

"As she should," Halloran agrees. "But lives are worth more than money, in my book, and I want to stop this monster before he takes another one."

Dane grunts. "On that, at least, we agree."

The mention of a book reminds me why I was already tired before I even got close to the body, and I tug on Dane's sleeve.

"Rhiannon," I murmur, and nod at Halloran. "Tell him."

He frowns at me, clearly unhappy, but obeys and relates Rhiannon's midnight visitation and theft of the runic book.

Halloran listens with a curious and troubled expression, and shakes his head when Dane asks if his sister is mute.

"Not the last time I spoke with her, no; but that was many years ago. It may be the result of an injury, or simple trauma. Who knows what might have happened to her in the Shadowlands? It's not the most pleasant place, you know."

As the shadow of what I'd seen flickers in the corners of my mind again, I shiver and have to agree.

It is not a pleasant place, at all.

***

Back at home, I brush my teeth, shower, and crawl into bed, passing out the instant I shut my eyes.

When I wake again, it's evening, and Dane is sitting in a chair beside the bed. I have no doubt he's been there the whole time, watching me breathe. It should be cute, but instead it's mildly irritating, and I scowl a bit as I sit up and rub the grit from my eyes.

My head still hurts, my throat is parched, and I'm starving—none of which are ingredients for a good mood.

"Hey, beautiful," Dane says, smiling with obvious relief. "How you feel?"

"Hungry," I grumble. "What time is it?"

"A bit past five."

"I want pizza."

"Ingrid made soup."

I glower, then sigh. Pizza on an empty stomach is a bad idea, anyway.

He hovers as I rise, dress, and make my way to the kitchen for a glass of water. There, I find Ingrid at the stove, stirring a pot. She looks up and grins widely, popping out an earbud so she can hear better.

"Juju, you're alive!" She laughs. "Dane made it sound like I needed to buy clothes for your funeral."

"Ingrid!"

The snap in Dane's voice makes both me and Ingrid jump, and her smile vanishes as her eyes go wide.

"Whoa. Take it easy, Dane. It was just a—"

"It's not a joke, and it's not funny," he interrupts, still with a wolfish snarl at the base of his voice that makes the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.

Ingrid flinches. "I'm sorry, okay?"

A few tense seconds tick by, and then Dane releases his breath and rubs his brow. "No, I'm sorry for snapping like that. Just bad timing, yeah?"

"Yeah," Ingrid nods, still eying him warily. "Sure."

She carries the soup to the table and we sit as she serves everyone.

"Chicken and wild rice," she says, filling my bowl. "It's Grace's recipe, but I made it."

"It's delicious," I say, and that's no lie. I force myself to eat slowly but my bowl is empty within minutes nonetheless, and the hot food goes a long way towards improving my mood.

I roll my head from side to side, easing the tension in my neck as Ingrid happily serves me seconds.

"Any word from Halloran?" I ask.

"Not yet," Dane says. He's barely taken his eyes off me long enough to enjoy his own meal.

"Hey, you can stop worrying now," I say, giving him a tired smile. "I'm fine."

With no change in his expression, he slowly shakes his head. "Julian, I need you to promise not to do that again. I need you to promise me you won't read any more runes, or dead bodies, or... or anything."

"What? But Halloran said—"

"I want you to stay away from Halloran, too. He's too good at disguises, and I don't trust him. I'd bet my tail there's something he's not telling us."

I frown, tamping down on my initial reaction, which is annoyance.

"I don't completely trust him, either," I allow carefully, "but all he's done is help, so far. And I know my abilities upset you, but you can't ask me to stop using them any more than I can ask you to stop being a Wolf."

"It's not the same," he says sharply. "Being a Wolf doesn't kill me."

"Neither do my abilities!"

"Coulda fooled me."

"Dane—"

"No. Listen to me, Julian—I'm not asking. No more Fae shit. Understand?"

Now thoroughly annoyed, I shake my head. "No—you listen. I know it scares you, and yeah—the passing out thing is new. But I've been dealing with this my whole life. You think this shit is fun? It's not. But using my ability is my choice, and—"

"I said, no!"

Ingrid gasps and I go still as a strange sensation prickles my skin. It takes me a moment to realize what just happened.

"Did you just try to Alpha me?" I ask, blinking at him.

The flicker of guilt in his eyes gives me my answer.

I push my chair out and stand.

"Dane, I love you," I say, keeping my voice as level and free of anger as I can. "And I know you love me. But don't ever do that again. I'm not a Wolf, and if 'the Fae shit' bothers you that much, then maybe you shouldn't have chosen a Fae for a mate."

The instant the words leave me, I regret them, but it's too late to stop the hurt that flashes across Dane's face. An emotionless mask replaces it, and he rises slowly to his full height, surpassing mine by a good head.

I hold his gaze, undaunted. I might regret the phrasing, but I meant what I said; I appreciate the care and love, and I don't mind being fussed over a little, but I also want to be trusted to bear my share of the load, and to know myself well enough not to be doubted every time I say I can handle something.

A loud pop breaks the tension, and all three of us startle as we realize a fourth person has joined us undetected.

Freya Hunter leans in the doorway with her arms crossed, chewing bubblegum and watching us with raised brows. Nearly as tall as Dane, with long black curls tipped with gold, and dressed in black leather motorcycle gear, she looks like some kind of superhero.

"Sorry. Door was open," she says. "Y'all must be in it pretty deep not to hear me come in. So, who died?"