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  I should be stumbling backwards, desperately trying to reverse my momentum before I got too far away from the grate to stop him from shifting forms and coming through.

  Only I wasn't.

  Something tugged me forward and I finally realized that Dream Stealer had hold of my shoulder with his claws. It shouldn't have been possible, but he'd somehow made his arm stretch at the last second. The claws on the end of his fingers were gripping my shoulder blade like it was some kind of dinner plate, while the claw on his thumb had punched right through my upper chest. I could feel the razor-sharp edge of his thumb claw slicing through my flesh, but I couldn't feel anything at all from my left shoulder down. No pain, no pressure, no sensation at all.

  He'd severed the nerve. He'd said I could be killed here in the dream…did that mean that the paralysis was going to be permanent as well? I pushed the worry out of my mind. It didn't matter; I was probably going to bleed to death before I ever got a chance to find out. Really, even that was a stretch given how fast he was pulling me towards the opening in the grate.

  I wanted to give into the despair, to beg for mercy, but that wasn't an option. Someone like Dream Stealer had to have been born without mercy to have fallen so far, and I'd already given into despair once since Alec had been shot. I wasn't going to do that again—I wasn't going to go down without a fight.

  I tried to slice my sword upward through his body—tried to take him with me—but I only had the one hand and the leverage was all wrong. Contrary to what you see in the movies, it takes a lot of force to cut through flesh—and to get at anything vital I was going to have to go through more than just muscle.

  Dream Stealer was still pulling me forward and I used that to shove my sword deeper into his stomach. My blade was angled upwards, but I was still pretty sure there wasn't anything important in its path. My suspicions were confirmed when I felt the tip of my weapon grind to a halt between two of the ribs in his back.

  I pushed harder against my sword, trying now that it was stuck against his ribs, to use it to keep my distance, but it was wasted effort. He just kept up the pressure on my shoulder and I was faced with a choice between moving toward him or having him slowly rip my arm off of my body.

  I needed a miracle. I needed the rules to change in my favor…except that was actually possible in this place. I'd been envisioning Alec's sword when I'd conjured my sword out of thin air, but his sword wasn't the perfect weapon I'd initially thought it was. I needed something even sharper…something so sharp that even a puny human girl could use it to slice through a hybrid—even if she could only use one hand to wield it.

  What I needed formed in my mind. It was identical in all respects to the sword I already had except the edge narrowed down to something sharper than anything could possibly be. I'd heard some of the geeks back in Minnesota talking about a monofilament knife, a weapon that had an edge that was only a single atom across. I envisioned my sword slimming down like that and then forced my desires to become reality.

  I felt the welcome, painful catch in the back of my mind and then a pulse of light shot down the thread that connected me to my weapon and I felt it shudder slightly in my hand. This time as I pulled up on it—using the point, which was still stuck on Dream Stealer's ribs, as a fulcrum—it started slicing effortlessly upward.

  The slight shudder as my blade had changed must have alerted Dream Stealer; that was the only explanation for how quickly he sprang away from me. I felt ribs part as my blade applied the slightest of pressure on them, but then Dream Stealer was off of my blade and I was falling backwards now that he wasn't pulling me toward him.

  I had just enough presence of mind to make sure that my sword was well out to the side, far enough away from my body that there wasn't any chance that I would cut myself, and then I crashed to the ground, only it was a much softer ground than I'd been expecting. I turned my head and found that I'd landed on Alec.

  His eyes were starting to go a little glassy from blood loss, but he managed a smile for me just before my whole world went dark.

  Chapter 12

  Adriana Paige

  Interstate 70

  Just west of St. Louis, Missouri

  It took longer than normal for my awareness to return. At first I thought maybe that was because I was dead, but as I slowly started to register the amount of pain I was in I decided that couldn't be the case. My skin felt like it had been rubbed off with a cheese grater and I was sporting a truly world-class headache, but I was pretty sure I was still alive—and that made all of the pain nothing more than a secondary concern.

  The faint, steady rumble of the RV's engine underneath me was a welcome reassurance that I'd made it back to the real world, but it was still several minutes before my brain was working well enough for everything that had happened to come back to me.

  My first thought was of Alec, but my eyelids refused to respond when I tried to open them. For one terrifying moment I thought I was blind, but then I realized that the problem really was my eyelids. They were sealed shut. I could feel the eyelashes pulling against each other. It was still a concern, but I forced myself to remain calm.

  Even groping blindly it only took a second to find Alec with my right hand. He was warm and still breathing. A wave of relief crashed through me, but it wasn't enough. I needed to know whether or not he'd managed to escape with me.

  It took me a couple of tries to get my voice to work. "Alec, are you awake? Please tell me that you're okay."

  For one agonizing second he didn't respond, but then his hand closed around mine. "I thought I was still dreaming. I didn't want to open my eyes and have to go back to that hell."

  I started to shake as I realized that we'd done it. We'd beaten Dream Stealer at his own game. Alec was free—he was going to be okay.

  Alec groaned as he slowly rolled up onto his side. I heard his breath catch as he got his first good look at me.

  "Adri, what happened to you? Your eyes are bloody and you look like you haven't eaten anything in days…"

  "I'm not sure. I think I remember my eyes bleeding at one point there at the end of the dream. I guess some things transfer between that reality and this one."

  "You told me that you were having a hard time, but you didn't say that you'd stopped eating."

  "I didn't stop. I've been eating—I mean I think I've been eating. Everything is a little blurry."

  I let go of Alec's hand and ran my hand over my stomach. He was right, I could feel my ribs. Actually that had been the case for a while, but they were much more prominent now than they'd been when I'd fallen asleep—my hips too.

  "How are you feeling, Alec? Are you up to helping me to the bathroom? I want to clean up my eyes."

  "Weak. I feel really weak, and my chest and shoulder hurt, but I think I can manage to roll out of bed if I'm careful."

  I shook my head. "No, don't risk it. I'll call for Donovan, I'm sure he's close enough to hear me if I yell."

  I took a deep breath, but before I could get anything out a tremendous commotion broke out on the other side of the wall.

  "Where am I? Kaleb! What's happening?"

  It took me a second to place the voice—it wasn't one that I'd heard very often before—and even once I recognized it, I still had a hard time believing that I was really hearing Alec's mom. She didn't sound anything at all like the foggy, only marginally attentive woman I'd interacted with the few times that our paths had crossed since I'd first visited Graves Manor.

  "Mother?"

  I felt Alec move like he was going to get out of bed, but I grabbed at his arm, desperate to keep him from moving.

  "Please, Alec. You had a hypervelocity bullet pass within centimeters of your heart. The shock wave should have killed you and Donovan is still worried that your heart may have suffered permanent damage. You have to hold still or you could trigger a heart attack."

  Whatever Alec might have said was preempted by the bedroom door being thrown open. I could only assume it was Samanth
a I heard gasp.

  "Who are you and why did you call out for me? Why do I feel like I should know you?"

  "Samantha? Have you really returned to us?"

  Donovan's voice had a reverent quality that I'd never heard before from him, but that was nothing compared to what I heard in Addison's voice.

  "Please let it be so! What do you remember?"

  "Donovan? Addison? What has happened to the two of you? You look different—Addison, you look like it hurts to walk. Where is Kaleb and where are my children?"

  "She doesn't know."

  Donovan's voice was filled with such regret that I knew he wasn't going to be able to tell her. I would have waited and let Alec or Addison tell her, but I wasn't sure that Addison would be able to bring herself to break the bad news either and I didn't want Samantha's first memory of Alec as a man to be him telling her that she'd lost her husband and the last two decades of her life.

  I didn't want to be the one to tell her either, but if she was going to hate someone, better me than one of the last few links she had to her deceased husband and the life she'd lost.

  I still couldn't see anything, but I forced myself to roll onto my side and then worked myself into a sitting position. It was harder than I'd expected it to be—my left arm seemed to have fallen asleep—but I managed and then once I was sitting, I turned so I was facing the door to the bedroom.

  "Mistress Paige, your eyes…"

  Donovan's voice was so full of concern that I wanted to reach out and give him a hug, but instead I held up my good hand to cut him off.

  "I'm very sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, Mrs. Graves, but your husband, Kaleb Graves, is dead. He died almost twenty years ago in a fight against Agony. You've spent the intervening years in a state of disassociation due to the effects of having the Ja'tell bond severed.

  "The young man behind me is your son Alec. He was recently shot during a fight against Coun'hij forces in Idaho. Your daughter Rachel disappeared a week or two ago about the same time that Graves Manor was destroyed by a Coun'hij strike force consisting of hybrids and werewolves.

  "Alec's power has finally manifested and it is a doozy, which has caused him to directly oppose the Coun'hij. So far Alec has managed to kill Agony and a number of the Coun'hij's enforcers, but we've been unable to find their home base and we don't currently have a good counter to Puppeteer's ability to throw werewolves at us.

  "You're currently in an RV located somewhere in the Midwest and you've spent most of the last week unconscious for unknown reasons which I suspect relate to the fact that Alec has been under psychic attacks from Dream Stealer."

  My voice had gone hoarse by the time I finished, but I forced myself not to wilt under the pressure of all the eyes I could feel resting on me. Once I was done, there was silence for several seconds before Samantha Graves finally broke it.

  "And who are you whom I just found in my son's bed, who orders my staff around as though they are hers, and who presumes to tell me what I need to know?"

  My chin came up in response to the derision in her voice. "My name is Adriana Paige."

  "She's my fiancée, Mother, and we would have been married before now if not for the attack that destroyed the manor. What's more, she's the glue that has held everything together while I've been injured and unconscious."

  "It hasn't been just me; Donovan and Mallory have done most of the real work."

  Donovan cleared his throat. "I'm sorry to contradict you, Mistress Paige, but neither Mallory nor I could have accomplished anything of significance without you. I feel it important to add that the two of you have been introduced prior to this and you were welcomed into the house by Mistress Samantha, albeit in the same distracted fashion that has been her way during these many long years since Master Kaleb was taken from us."

  I got the feeling Samantha still wasn't happy, that in some way Donovan sticking up for me just fanned the flames of her anger, but Alec resumed talking before she could say anything.

  "Adri is the reason that I'm able to talk to you right now, Mother. She's not a shape shifter, but she's got a dream walking ability that is very similar to what Dream Stealer is able to do. She came in after me and nearly killed Dream Stealer on his own turf. She is due every respect as my future wife, but more than that, she's due every respect many times over as a result of what she's accomplished all by herself. Donovan, please help Adri to the bathroom so that she can wash the blood away from her eyes. I'd do it myself, but she said that my heart may still have some residual damage from that second bullet."

  "Indeed, Master Alec, it would be best for you to avoid any kind of activity. Right this way, Mistress Paige."

  A moment later Donovan was at my side, helping me to my feet. He was a solid, reassuring presence that went a long way towards balancing out the unfriendly stare I could feel coming from Alec's mother.

  With Donovan's help I managed to make it to the RV's tiny bathroom without stumbling, but it was more of a challenge than I'd expected it to be. My left arm was nothing more than dead weight and that threw off my balance by a significant factor.

  Washing the blood out of my eyes with only one hand seemed to take forever. The process felt even more awkward because nobody said a word the entire time I was in the bathroom.

  Despite the brave front I'd tried to put on for Alec, I'd actually been more than a little worried about my vision. I was shaking by the time the last of the clotted blood came free of my eyelashes, but I opened them to a wonderful world full of all of the colors and details that I'd been worried might be lost to me forever.

  I grabbed the sink with my right hand to steady myself as a tsunami of relief crashed through me. The feeling passed after only a second and then I looked up and caught my reflection in the mirror for the first time since I'd come back from Alec's dream. I looked…disturbing.

  The whites of my eyes had turned a dark crimson that I'd never seen on anyone else before in my life. I looked like I'd been possessed—that or beaten nearly to the point of death. My left arm, still hanging limply at my side, didn't do anything to combat the illusion that I'd been through hell and back recently.

  I stepped out of the bathroom to find that Donovan had gone to Alec's side and had his stethoscope pressed up against Alec's bare chest. Ruby was driving again, James and Dominic were sitting on the couch, Andrew was sitting at the desk, and Addison was standing in the doorway, looking at Samantha with an air of reverence.

  It was Samantha who looked over at me first, and while her gasp wasn't entirely surprising, it still stung.

  "What happened to you?"

  "I was injured while fighting Dream Stealer."

  "What about your arm? Was that the result of your fight with Dream Stealer as well?"

  That made me pause, but I still answered before my mind had finished picking at the fragment of memory that was trying to surface.

  "No, I must have just slept on it funny. I think it just fell asleep."

  Alec looked up at me with a concerned expression on his face. "That doesn't sound right, Adri. I seem to remember something happening during the fight…didn't Dream Stealer stab you?"

  "Maybe. Now that you mention it I think you're right."

  Donovan crossed the distance between him and me in a flash and prodded my arm. "Can you feel this, Mistress Paige?"

  I shook my head. "No, like I said, it's asleep."

  "Do you feel pins and needles yet?"

  "No, but I haven't been up for very long."

  Donovan met my eyes with a concerned look. "Enough time has passed that you should be able to feel something. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I think the nerve damage is permanent. I'm afraid your arm has been paralyzed."

  Chapter 13

  Adriana Paige

  Interstate 70

  Just west of St. Louis, Missouri

  Alec lurched out of his bed, desperate to get to my side, heedless of the possible consequences of stressing his heart. He only made it ha
lf a step before his legs gave out on him. It was a good thing that his mother was already in the room.

  Samantha wasn't anywhere close to being strong enough to support Alec's full weight, but she managed to slow his fall and pull him just far enough to the side to stop him from slamming his head into the small bedside table just to his left.

  I made it to Alec's side a split second before his head would have hit the floor and managed to help cushion his fall.

  "Alec, you can't take those kinds of risks!"

  He'd gone a concerning shade of white, but he managed a smile as he shook his head at me. "I didn't even think about the fact that I might not make it to your side. That doesn't matter—what are we going to do about your arm, Adri? It's my fault you got hurt."

  I shook my head as his words brought the end of my dream back to my memory. It was all I could do to tear myself away from reliving the moment when I'd been paralyzed. "We don't know that the paralysis is permanent, but even if it is, this wasn't your fault. Dream Stealer is the one who did this, but it's a small price to pay in order to get you back."

  Alec grimaced as Donovan lifted him back onto his bed and began checking his vitals. "You're right, maybe it's just temporary, but either way it was far too dear of a price to be required of you."

  "Master Alec, please be still. I'm attempting to diagnose things that normally require very large pieces of equipment that we don't have access to. Unless you are prepared to take the risk of visiting a real hospital I'm going to need your cooperation."

  Alec's mom took me by the arm, the one that still worked, and pulled me out of the room. "What are you?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Don't you? I saw you move just now. You made it to Alec before Donovan even got turned around. No normal human could move that fast. I don't know how you've managed to trick Alec and the rest into believing your lies, but I'm not going to let you get away with it."

  I suddenly felt incredibly tired. It wasn't just the days of poor sleep or the night I'd just spent doing battle with Dream Stealer—although both of those were part of what I was feeling. My exhaustion also had to do with the fact that even with everything else that was going on, I was still having to deal with all of the usual problems of normal life.