Chapter 36

That night, Aubrey found her way into Eric’s dream but instead of pinpointing his location through his nightly visions, she found herself in the woods on a sunny day, watching Eric and his sister, Erin, run around, playing tag. The siblings were cubs, chasing each other through the greenery and laughing joyously. Their parents sat nearby under a pine tree, watching their offspring play.

Aubrey suspected that the dream was a memory from Eric’s childhood and could mean that he was in such a terrible state wherever he was that he’d resorted to happy memories to cope with his distress.

The dream sequence changed, and she found herself looking at her and Eric after they’d made love in the dark woods on the night of the Full Moon Feast. In the dream, instead of lashing out at each other verbally, Eric was professing his love for her, and she was responding in kind. Watching this scene made Aubrey’s heart squeeze, and she longed to have that moment play out in reality. If only she could find Eric, her mate.

“Where are you, Eric?” she asked him.

Her dream self turned around to look in her direction. “Did you hear that?”

Eric looked in Aubrey’s direction. “I could have sworn it was you who spoke,” he said. “But I don’t see anyone in the shadows.”

“Did we imagine it?” her dream self asked, puzzled.

Eric gave her an amused look. “I didn’t know mates could share imaginations too. What other mate features have we not discovered?”

Her dream self smiled at him. “Maybe we can read each other’s thoughts too.”

“That could be problematic,” Eric laughed.

Aubrey was so captivated by the banter between her dream self and Eric that she had momentarily forgotten her mission in his dream.

“Eric, listen to me,” she said to him. “I need to know where you are. I need to find you so that Daddy and the other werewolves can rescue you. Where are you?”

“I’m right here,” he said to Aubrey’s dream self who looked back at him with an empty expression.

“No, you’re not,” Aubrey replied to him from the shadows. “Tell me where you are. Where are you being held? Who are your captors?”

“I don’t know,” Eric said, looking towards the shadow where Aubrey stood, hidden from his view.

“I need you to focus. Where are you?”

The dream changed and Aubrey saw Eric sitting on a chair in a dark room. His hands and legs were tied and there was a dark hole on his left thigh from which blood poured out.

“I will kill you,” a sinister voice said behind Aubrey.

She gasped in shock and woke up. Her heart was pounding fast, and she was drenched in sweat even though the breeze blowing in from her open window was chilly.

“I’m going to find you, Eric,” she whispered. “I am going to find you, even if it is the last thing I do.”