Chapter Notes: Ava-Rain's POV

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- 'Come raise the dead, I'm dreaming of the end. . .' -

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It's dark and I'm terrified, running through the forest and not daring to look behind me. The adrenaline burning through my veins is greatly aiding in my escape, pushing me to run faster and harder. I can't remember how long I have been running, when I had started or what I'm even running from. I only know that I can't stop.

     All around me, the trees are nothing more than a blur as I pass them by. The sounds of breaking branches beneath my feet along with my heavy breaths fill my ears. I want to stop, the burning sensation in my chest should have been enough to stop me in my tracks, but I don't. My legs are threatening to give out, but still I run.

     I can't stop. I can't because I'm not in control of myself. Something else is leading me. Pulling me. Guiding me.

     I'm being called. Summoned.

     And so I continue to run. I run until the pain is non-existent. Until silence fills the air around me. Until the chase comes to an end. Until the hunt is over.

     I stop right inside the clearing in the middle of the forest where he is waiting for me. The wolf. Bathed in moonlight, he stands rooted in the grass. His amber eyes are focused solely on me, his glossy, black fur rustling in the wind that I cannot feel.

     I go to him, only this time my feet move by my own will. He doesn't move, he simply waits for me to come to him. But when I am half way there, he releases a threatening growl that stills me in my tracks. His tail begins to thrash around violently, his mouth curls back into a snarl. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as a shiver runs down my spine. My heart begins to pound furiously as I stare directly at the big black wolf that looks seconds away from tearing me apart.

     I take a step closer. Then another. And another. Even as the growls become louder, even as the rage radiates off of the wolf, I continue to approach.

     One cannot evade death. And death is summoning me. So, I go.

     The wolf lets out a mighty howl and all around us the forest erupts into fire.

     'Wake!' A voice deep inside of me shouts.

     I'm forced down onto my knees by an invisible force. The earth beneath me is rough and beginning to split as if to swallow me whole. I can feel the almost unbearable heat radiating from the burning trees all over my skin. My nose fills with the scent of smoke, of burning wood and grass.

     'Wake!' The voice shouts again.

     I look up to find my wolf circling me, its amber eyes glowing as bright as the fire around us. He doesn't care that I am struggling to breathe or that my body is shutting down second by second as the smoke invades my lungs. He watches me as I am dying. Waiting for my death. Anticipating it. Expecting it.

     'Wake!' The voice roars. Demands.

     Inside of me, I feel something trying to claw its way out, but when I scream out in pain there is no sound. My insides are being torn apart. Underneath my skin, I feel it crawling. Searching. Tears blur my vision, but when they fall, it is not drops of water that soak the splitting earth beneath me but drops of blood. Another jolt of pain soars through me, robbing what little air I have left right out of my lungs.

     'Wake!'

     I cannot breathe.

     Wake!

     I cannot see.

     Wake!

     I can only feel. And I feel it. Feel the shackles breaking. Feel it as it takes its first breath. I feel it awaken.

     'Wake!'

* * *

     My eyes snapped open, though the nightmare continued to play over and over in my head, refusing to release my mind from its clutches. One of my hands immediately flew to my chest as I tried to calm my frazzled nerves.

     What the hell was that?

     I couldn't even tell you the last time that I had a nightmare, but I could say with absolute certainty that I had never had one as terrifying as that one.

     I scanned the room around me. I was, of course, in Caleb's room at the condo. The room was surrounded by darkness, which meant it was either still night or very early in the morning. Too lazy to reach out to grab my phone from the bedside nightstand to confirm the time, I sat up on the bed instead. I threw the blankets off of me and swung my legs over the edge of the bed before sliding down to stand on the floor. My bare feet immediately felt the cold sting but it wasn't too uncomfortable.

     My body knew where it was going without having to think about it. I opened the bedroom door, travelled down the familiar hallway and headed straight for the living area, where Caleb laid asleep on the couch. Smiling to myself, I thought that he couldn't possibly be comfortable at all. His body was far too big for the three cushion leather couch. At one end, his head was propped up against the arm rest at such a weird angle, I was certain he would have a stiff neck come morning. But, for whatever reason, he had insisted on taking the couch while I took the bed.

     A part of me thought that maybe it had to do with this 'punishment' of his—in which we refrained from indulging in the red and taking things too far physically—but another part of me knew it had something to do with whatever it was that still haunted Caleb. We had only stayed at the den for a couple of days like he said, but since our return to the condo, it was hard not to notice that Caleb had become distant. For the most part of our stay at the mansion, I had been kept occupied either by the twins, the other deltas or left on my own. His parents had left to return to their home the same day that Caleb had told me the story about the first heirs of the four and their human slash hunter mates. Again, pack matters typically stayed between pack members, but I was certain their departure was earlier than expected and had everything to do with Angelie's unexpected arrival.

     He didn' t have to say it in order for me to put two and two together. I had witnessed his torment that very day as he spoke: 'I've tried and it did not work. I failed. No such power exists. Not for me.' Caleb had obviously lost somebody close to him, somebody he had tried to save without success, and it was plainly obvious that he had been carrying the guilt over it since. But as much as I wished he would let me in, I knew that it was something he had to tell me, like his mother had said, in his own time.

     But did he really have to put himself through such torture as sleeping on that couch?

     My accelerated heartbeat had already returned to normal, but there was still an uneasy feeling clouding my thoughts thanks to that stupid nightmare. Quietly, I walked up to Caleb's sleeping body. His bottom half was covered in jeans, while his upper body was completely exposed. I never thought of myself as a creeper, but standing in the darkness of the living room and staring down at Caleb's half naked body was far too great an opportunity to pass up.

     So I looked.

     My eyes travelled along his well defined abs and up over his smooth chest. Then they drifted higher over the spot between his neck and shoulder, where my mind instantly replayed the countless times I had buried my head there, either to inhale his earthy scent or press my mouth to the warm soft skin. Higher, my eyes went to the defined jaw he inherited from his father, then to his full and slightly parted lips, the very ones that could turn a good girl bad. My gaze travelled up and over his broad-tipped nose, and higher over his eye lids and ridiculously unfair full lashes.

     My gosh, even when he was sleeping he looked perfect.

     Although my fingers itched to run through his blond locks, I managed to maintain some sort of control and instead reached out to grab the throw blanket on the back of the couch and covered him. It was his warmth that I had sought out and hoped to enjoy, but he looked far too peaceful to disturb. If this was the only time of the day that he could be at peace, to be without guilt and fear, to not be haunted by past memories or feel the overwhelming feelings of inferiority or worry for his pack or for me, then who was I to take that away from him?

      After one final glance, I turned to head back to the bedroom. After climbing back into the huge bed, I got under the blankets and laid back down. I was far too wired to fall back asleep right away so I just laid there. I tried to think of anything other than the nightmare, even though a part of me already knew the real reason as to why I didn't want to entertain it in my thoughts. The rational part of me knew that what happened in the nightmare was impossible. Trees did not just catch fire by the command of a wolf's howl; the ground did not just split without cause; it was impossible to cry blood. But the irrational part of me, the part that thrived off of tormenting me and extracted its power from my insecurities and fears, knew better. That part of me was working its damned hardest to remind me of the last dream I had and tried to deny. The very dream that prophesied Caleb and I finding each other.

     For months, I never once believed it would have come true. Dreams were nothing more than dreams. Or, at least, that was what you were told to believe. That they were nothing more than images evoking emotions from thoughts and ideas from one's own mind. But I did find Caleb or, rather, we both found each other. That dream did come true. So was this new dream—this nightmare—simply just a result of my restless mind? Maybe an after effect of the story of Chayton and Chogan and their mates, Amitola and Huyana? Did it implant a fear within my subconscious I had not even realized until now? Was the story something I should have feared?

     Perhaps I was, as always, overanalyzing everything. Maybe it was my subconscious' way of rejecting this new world, rejecting this new life and rejecting Caleb? Well, if it was, then obviously my traitorous subconscious needed to be slapped for ever suggesting that Caleb would play any part in my demise. That was a low and dirty trick because I had never ever once thought or believed that Caleb would ever harm me. But the subconscious was only an extension of the conscious, was it not? It lived in the dark but remained alive and intact because of its kin. On some level, some very small conscious level, I was rejecting Caleb and this new world. And although it was damn microscopic small, that little bit of rejection, I guess, was enough to cause the stupid nightmare of my death.

     Wolves and mysterious gorgeous boys will both tear you to shreds.

     My mantra repeated over and over inside of my head until I was able to fall asleep once again.

* * *

     Was it possible to not only hear silence but feel it as well? Well, that was exactly how I felt when I awoke, like my entire being had been silenced. Content. At peace. Balanced. My mind was vacant of anything terrifying or traumatizing. My earlier fear and anxiety had vanished and I was pretty certain it had a little something to do with the arm around my waist and the warm body I was firmly held against.

     Caleb.

     A soft smile escaped my lips. As slowly and as gently as possible in case he was asleep, I turned around in his arms to bring us face to face. To my surprise, he was awake and the look of worry on his face put me under the impression that he had probably been awake for quite some time. His grey eyes immediately sought out mine, holding them and conveying what words would only have failed to deliver. He knew that I needed him and so he had come.

     "Good morning," he whispered and offered a smile.

     "I'm pretty certain that there is absolutely nothing good about mornings." I reached out to brush some of his blond locks out of his face before settling that same hand on his bare chest. I only let it linger there for a couple of moments before letting it fall to the bed. "How'd you sleep?"

     "Pretty well," he replied nonchalantly.

     "Yeah, I'm sure that couch out there is amazing to sleep on." I remembered the sight of his sleeping body when I went to look for him in the middle of night. "You can have your bed back, Caleb. Really. I won't mind sleeping out there. I'm much smaller than you are."

     "I like having you in my bed," he smirked.

     "Well, it's your bed and I'm just saying. . .you can have it back." I turned, giving him my back. My eyes closed, not because I had hoped to fall back asleep but because it was easier to pretend that I didn't see what was obviously in front of me if, well, I couldn't see it.

     I had promised. A promise to try. To give him space. To let him tell me things in his own time. But that didn't make being kept at arms length hurt any less.

     "Ava-Rain, what's wrong?"

     "Nothing. I'm fine."

     "If that were true, then I wouldn't have woken up hours ago with the overwhelming urge and need to protect you. So, let's try this again. What's wrong?"

     Well, besides the fact that I had a nightmare of me dying, and that you stood by in wolf form and watched it happen? Besides the fact that you've been pushing me away for days and only came running because you felt like I needed you? How exactly do I tell you that I don't want you to be there for me only when I need you? Why can't you just be there always? Because although I want to tell you all of these things, I can't because I promised. To try. To give you space. To be what you needed.

     "Like I said, I'm fine." So much for the peaceful feeling I had felt when I woke up, because, at that point, I was feeling anything but peace.

     "Okay." I felt his lips when they pressed against my shoulder. His arm tightened around my body as he tucked his head in between my neck and shoulder. Not even I could deny that it felt good to be the little spoon to his big spoon, as cheesy as that may have sounded. "For now," he sighed, "okay." That time, he didn't bother to hide the trace of defeat in his voice.

     "You don't have to stay." Though I really wanted him to.

     He laughed, and because his head was still buried in my neck, I felt his breaths against my skin. "Is that your polite way of sending me to the dog house?"

     A laugh of my own escaped. "No, I'm just saying that you don't have to stay."

     In the next second, I was turned over onto my back with Caleb hovered over my body. The hair that I had brushed back from his face had fallen back down over his eyes. "I'm sorry, but what part of me telling you that I woke up with a strong need to protect you did you not understand?"

     "Exactly. You're here because I need you." Losing the battle, I reached up to, once again, brush back his silky blond locks, but Caleb intercepted my hand before contact could be made and held it up to his lips.

     "And that's 'girl code' for. . .?"

     I rolled my eyes and attempted to roll away but was pinned underneath his body. "It's not 'girl code' for anything. Get off!" I tried to push him off but it was literally like trying to push a cement wall. He wasn't uncomfortably heavy, nor was he cutting off my air supply by any means, I just didn't feel like participating in whatever game I knew he was going to start in order to extract the truth from me.

     "Well, clearly you're trying to tell me something, right?" When, I assume, he grew tired of my half-hearted attempts to get him off of me, he grabbed both of my hands in one of his and pinned them above my head. "Tell me."

     "There's nothing to tell," I replied, trying to squirm out of his hold.

     The glimmer of mischief that flashed in his now darkened gaze was hard to miss. "I'm only here because you need me translates into. . .?" Slowly, his head began to descend, but just when I thought his lips would make a crash landing onto my own, they changed the course of their destination and settled on my neck instead.

     Of course he wasn't going to play fair.

     I felt my desire ignite as soon as his mouth made contact with my skin. The heat on my neck where his mouth was pressed was hard to deny. I don't know if he was too distracted to notice, but my hands were easily able to break free from his hold at that point, and once they did, they immediately found their way to his body. Of their own free will, my hands roamed up and down his back, but it was much more than just skin against skin. If his cursing was any indication, I was pretty damned certain that I had just evened out the playing field, matching fire with fire.

     But I knew that even if Caleb were to become distracted, once he had a goal in mind and a task to complete he could never be deterred for very long. "You're getting way too good at this, I see." He lifted his head to look at me. "Shall we turn the heat up a notch?"

     He didn't wait for my reply—I'm sure it was probably a rhetorical question anyway—before claiming my mouth and sending us both into the flames of desire. I basked in his kiss and allowed myself to be engulfed entirely by the passion consuming us both. I felt his hands roam down my body, underneath the covers and over my cotton pajama shorts before settling on my bare thighs.

     "What's bothering you?" He asked with his mouth still pressed against mine.

     "Nothing," I replied, not even sure if it came out or not. Had something been bothering me? I couldn't remember because my entire attention and focus had been coerced to the fire burning through my veins. My hands snuck their way up into his hair, gently tugging on the strands and enticing more curses out of Caleb. For now, at least, I was holding my own in this battle.

     When air was deemed necessary, he broke the kiss, only to plant a series of pecks along my cheek instead. Before I knew it, when I was so close I could feel victory, my body was no longer pinned underneath Caleb, but I was now on top of him. The speed in which he was able to move should have been impossible. He was seated on top of the bed with me straddling his lap and his mouth raining kisses all over my neck. He had his arms securely wrapped around me, and, soon, my own found their way around his neck.

     "Tell me," he said softly, but the demand for submission was obvious.

     I threw my head back in pure bliss. This was ridiculous. Whatever it was that he was doing to me with that damned wicked mouth of his was freaking ridiculous. "Tell you what?"

     His hands chose in that moment to sneak underneath the hem of my shirt. At first, he just kept them placed flat against my sides, allowing the warmth to grow and spread underneath his touch. But a minute or so later, he tore his hands away from underneath my shirt and placed them on my back, then they travelled higher along the back of my neck before settling on either side of my head. "Why are you mad at me? Tell me." His mouth returned to my neck, and one of my hands held the back of his head, not wanting him to desert the spot he was marking as his for any reason.

     "I'm not mad. I just. . ." When his mouth nipped at the skin just above my collar bone, I was certain I was going to be a goner. He was going to get what he wanted. The battle I was surely going to lose.

     I felt his fingers in my hair, baffled by how they managed to break through the unruly, curly mane so easily. "You just what?" His fingers began to slightly graze my scalp, and before I knew it, my head was filled with the desire to admit what was on my mind.

     "Sometimes I feel like you're pushing me away. Like you don't really want me anymore." The truth slipped past my lips without pause or interference on my part. It just flowed through my mind, out of my thoughts and from my mouth like a breeze. In my mind one second and gone in the next.

     When Caleb finally got what he wanted out of me—when he, as always, proved victorious—I felt the connection of our desire slowly recede.

     Game over.

     My eyes opened, only to stare directly into Caleb's awaiting gaze. "That was totally not fair! Tell me you did not just—" I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself self down.

     It didn't work.

     "What the hell happened to 'I can't manipulate you into feelings things'? Does that mean you can manipulate me into saying things? Is that another hidden talent—some voodoo mind control?"

     As if what he had just done wasn't indication enough that he was getting on my nerves, he laughed to further seal the deal. "I can't and I didn't. And no, I cannot manipulate you into saying things. Your desire to tell me was already there. I just simply guided it out of you." When he could see that I was not buying what he was trying to sell, he continued. "Look, desire is a very complex thing, but once you master it, it's yours to control forever."

     Oh, must be nice, I thought sarcastically to myself.

     "I simply had the desire to get the truth out of you and was able to locate your desire to tell me. And so you did. And I don't have to play fair when it comes to you. I told you if you're going to challenge me, you better believe you have at least half a chance at winning. Shouldn't have thrown out the challenge if you didn't really want to win."

     "Yeah, well, keep that up and one day you'll find out something that you wish you never went searching for in the first place." I mumbled under my breath. "It wasn't a game, Caleb."

     "But wasn't it? You saying one thing and meaning another? Avoiding questions that you don't want to answer, but dropping hints for me to pick up on. Look, I get it. What I'm doing to you is not so different than what you're doing to me right now. Keeping stuff to yourself. Shutting me out. I get it. I really do. And I accept that because if I didn't, it would make me a hypocrite, wouldn't it? So I accept it, but it doesn't mean I have to like it either."

     "It's wasn't a game because you either desire me or you don't!" My response came out a lot more harsh than I anticipated. "You either want me or you don't." I moved off of his lap and, to my surprise, he didn't try and stop my attempts. I moved to the side of the bed and got underneath the blankets and laid back down with my back turned to him.

     Had it not just been made abundantly clear that he initiated that game of desire with the sole purpose to extract the truth from me, not because he desired me? He really did just seduce the truth out of me, am I right? Or was I just building something out of nothing? I mean, I understood the need to touch me in one minute then pushing me away in the next. But if I wanted that game of hot and cold then I would go back to my grandmother's house where that game of affection never ended.

     "In what world are you living in where you could ever possibly think, let alone believe, that I don't want you? That I don't desire you?"

     Ignoring his question, I released a deep sigh full of irritation and frustration. "What did she mean to you?" I know I had promised. I know I said I would let him tell me in his own time. But the question came flying out before I could even think about preventing it. "The person you lost. What did she mean to you?"

     I don't even know when I had come to the conclusion that the person Caleb had lost, the person he admitted he tried to save, was a female. I still wasn't even one hundred percent sure it was. But his silence only confirmed my suspicions.

     "Ever since that day you told me, you've been keeping your distance. And, since I don't know anything, what other choice do I have but to think that in those moments—when you're pushing me away—you must be thinking about her? This girl whose life you tried to save but couldn't."

     My earlier nightmare chose in that moment to pop up inside of my head. Perhaps that was what my subconscious was trying to tell me. That I, too, would end up like the person he lost. Maybe not in a literal sense, not physically, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually I was dying. Losing myself in this world that I just wasn't equipped to handle.

     "Ava-Rain—" He was cut off by the sound of a ringing phone. His phone, to be precise.

     I looked at the bedside table, where his phone laid next to mine. Reaching over, I picked it up, turned over on my back and handed it to Caleb. "Saved by the bell, I guess."

     He didn't immediately take it from my hand. Instead, he kept his eyes pinned on me and ignored the ringing. It was hard not to see the pain in his eyes, even harder to miss the fact that it wasn't me that was the source of his pain, but her, whoever she was.

     "It's fine, Caleb. Answer it." He hesitantly took the phone from my hand. "I'm going to go take a shower." Without acknowledging him any further, I got off of the bed and headed straight for the bathroom. After switching the light on and closing the door, I pressed my back against it, slid down to the cold tiled floor and listened as Caleb exited the room and closed the door behind him.

     "You've got five minutes to just sit there and sulk, Ava-Rain," I whispered to myself. "Five minutes. And then you're going to pull yourself up, dust yourself off and get it together."