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9

AUbrEY

T he dream comes like it always does. In fragments. In blood and screams and blinding-white snow.

I’m running through a forest of skeletal trees, their branches clawing at my face, my arms. My breath saws in and out of my lungs, visceral clouds of fear.

Something’s chasing me.

Something hungry.

A root snags my foot, sending me sprawling. The snow is deep, cold as it seeps through my jeans. Cold as the grave.

I scramble to my feet, but I’m not fast enough. It’s on me, snarling, all teeth and claws and milky, sightless eyes.

No. Not it.

Her.

Lainey.

She has a baby swaddled against her chest, but it makes no sound. Doesn’t squirm. Just stares with eyes like bottomless pits, its skin gray and waxy.

Lainey’s teeth snap inches from my face, black spittle flying. Her fingers dig into my arms, nails cracked and caked with dirt. Or is it dirt? It smells coppery, thick. Like old blood.

I scream, kicking, flailing. But she’s stronger than she should be. Stronger than any living thing could be.

“The curse,” she hisses, voice like cracking ice. “You can’t escape it, sister. Can’t escape the hunger.”

I claw at her, at the monstrous baby, desperate to escape. But my hands sink into rotten flesh, into oozing, putrid softness. The stench fills my nostrils, my mouth.

Lainey lunges, teeth closing around my throat, hot and sharp. I feel my skin split, feel the blood gushing, staining the snow crimson.

And still, the baby watches.

Still and cold and knowing.

Eyes the color of ice.

I wake with a scream trapped behind my teeth, heart pounding a staccato beat against my ribs. For a moment, I’m still there, caught in those eerie, blood-soaked woods.

Then reality filters in. The soft quilt tangled around my legs. The creak of the cottage settling. The wind, moaning through the eaves, rattling the windowpanes.

I sit up, pushing sweat-damp hair from my face. My pajama top clings to my back, clammy and cold.

Outside, the storm batters noisily. I pad to the front room on shaky legs, peeking through the curtains.

The world is a swirl of white—snow!—the trees bending and swaying like drunken dancers. I can barely make out the shape of the main house through the driving snow. Is it normal to get snow this early in the year? Will it melt in time for us to leave?

A shiver wracks through me that has nothing to do with the chill. The dream clings like cobwebs, sticky and cloying.

I need air. Need to breathe something that doesn’t smell of phantom blood.

I crack the window, letting the wind whip away the last tendrils of the nightmare. It smells clean, sharp. Cleansing. Even the cold feels nice, reminding me that I’m awake and alive.

I don’t dare go back to sleep.

I close the window, then use the washroom and wrap a cozy bathrobe with the MG monogram on the chest, the same branding I’ve seen around the ranch, over my pajamas before grabbing the bottle of whiskey and pouring myself another glass. The drink burns, adding warmth, and I go to the fireplace. If I’m too afraid to go back to sleep, then the next best thing is to start a fire and drink myself to a dreamless state.

Of course, I’m much more of a city girl than I’d care to admit and it takes a long time to try and start a fire. In fact, I’m a few glasses of whiskey in before I decide to give up all together. The most I’ve done is let a few logs smolder, filling the cabin with smoke.

I head over to the door to air out the cabin, stumbling slightly as I walk, which makes me realize I’m more drunk than I thought. The moment I open it the wind hits me hard, snow swirling over me, sobering me only a little.

I should close it, keep the storm out.

But something makes me pause.

I swear I hear my name being whispered on the wind.

A chill runs down my spine, but it’s not from the blowing snow.

It’s that the whisper sounds like…Lainey.

I shake my head, my hand trembling at the knob. I’m just drunk. I’m just drunk and the vestiges of the dream are sticking to me. But that was a dream and this is reality and Lainey isn’t out there in the storm.

But what if she is? a voice says to me. What if somehow she is?

Like I have no control of my body, I turn and grab my boots from beside the door, leaning against the doorframe as I slip them on. Then I step out onto the frosted porch, shutting the door behind me.

I’m being ridiculous. I’m being impulsive and dangerous and ridiculous.

And yet I can’t stop myself.

I walk out into the snowstorm, which thankfully is only a dusting on the ground so far. I tighten my robe, my hair whipping around, trying to listen above the whine of the wind.

Aubrey.

I stop dead in my tracks. There it is again. I swear it’s my name, and I swear it’s Lainey’s voice.

Is there something really out here or am I losing my mind?

I look around the swirling white, seeing lights on in the barn and the main house, which makes me feel slightly less scared. I should go back inside and get my gun. Or hell, just go back inside, lock the door, and go back to sleep because at least nightmares can’t physically harm you.

But I keep walking, heading toward the pen, toward the sound of my name that I don’t think is there at all, just a trick of the wind and snow howling off the mountains.

Before I know what I’m doing, I’m ducking between the fence planks into the pen, walking out to the middle of it, my ears straining to hear more, my eyes scouring the dark pines that wave back and forth, black silhouettes against the white.

Then something catches my eye.

Makes me come to a halt.

At first it’s just a feeling, like something very bad has suddenly appeared. I can’t see it or smell it, but I can feel it. It’s the gooseflesh rippling over my skin, every hair standing on end. A feeling of heaviness in my bones, making movement seem impossible.

It is dread.

Pure fucking dread.

I’d say there’s no rhyme or reason to it, but then I see it.

There’s something by the trees on the other side of the pen. Something large and black, darker than anything else. It moves slowly with a predator’s grace, but it’s tall.

I swallow hard, my throat drying out in fear.

Is it a bear? No, too thin. A cougar or wolf? Too tall.

An abrasive snort sounds out.

It’s either a cow or a horse, and yet…it doesn’t move like either of those.

It wants to harm you . An alarm bell goes off inside me, making my breath hitch.

It wants to eat you.

I need to head back. The longer I stand here staring, trying to figure out what it is, the less safe I am. I need to run back to the cottage, lock the doors and?—

Suddenly a terribly whinny sounds, sounding both like a horse and something monstrous.

The black creature leaps over the fence with a burst of raw power.

It’s in the pen with me.

I open my mouth to scream but it’s strangled in my throat, choking me.

“Aubrey!”

It’s my name again, this time coming from Jensen.

I turn my head slightly to see him running toward me from the barn but when I look back to the horse, it’s almost at me now, galloping fast, head down low, white teeth bared and eyes a haunting shade of ice blue.

Like the baby’s eyes from the dream.

I yelp again and try to move but the horse is upon me, cold eyes locked with mine.

It’s going to kill me.

The horse’s mouth snaps open and shut with a gurgling, growling sound, and lunges for me. I twist around just in time for it to bite at my side, teeth going through the robe and clamping over the skin beneath my ribs.

I scream but it’s carried by the wind and I fall to the earth in a heap, rolling out of the way just before the horse rears and stamps its hooves near my head. I stare up at it, the cold blue eyes meeting mine and I know this is it, it will stomp the life out of me.

But suddenly it snorts and pivots and starts running off in the direction it came.

“Aubrey!” Jensen yells again and suddenly he’s kneeling at my side. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” I manage to say as he wraps his arms around me and hauls me up to my feet. “No. Maybe.” I look up at him, pressed against his warm chest as he quickly looks me over before his attention goes back to the trees. “What the fuck just happened?”

He gives his head a shake. “Feral horse.”

“More like rabid fucking horse,” I tell him. “He bit me.”

Jensen’s gaze is sharp as it returns to mine, his eyes widening slightly in fear. “Bit you? Where?”

“My side.”

“Fuck,” he swears. “Come on, let’s get you looked at.”

He keeps his arm around me as he leads me toward the barn. I want to tell him I’m fine, that I can walk, but there’s something about the strength of his arm that makes me think he might be holding me together.

We get to the barn and he leads me into the office, flicking on the lights and standing me against the wall for balance. He goes to a drawer and takes out a first aid kit, putting it down on the desk, then comes back to me.

“Take off your shirt,” he says.

I stare at him, my face scrunched up in confusion and pain. “What?”

“I need to see the wound. Take off your shirt.” His voice is as gruff as ever, his expression grave.

I shrug, not really caring in the moment, and pull my shirt over my head, tossing it to the ground.

I’m not wearing a bra.

I’m completely bare, my breasts on display, nipples automatically hardening in the cold air.

And under his gaze.

He still looks just as serious as before, but now there’s heat in his eyes, and a certain way his stance changes, like he’s trying to make himself more comfortable.

He clears his throat and walks toward me, boots echoing in the room despite the roar of the storm outside. My heart is thumping hard against my chest, though I don’t think it’s because I was attacked by a wild horse.

“You’re bruised,” he says thickly. He stops right in front of me and reaches out with tentative fingers.

Then stops, inches away.

“You can touch me, you know,” I tell him, emboldened by the liquor, made reckless by the adrenaline.

He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and reaches out again. I raise my arm slightly as he gently touches the area near my ribs where the horse tried to take a chunk out of me.

“Is this normal?” I ask, craning my head to get a better look. The mark is bright red, with purple in spots, and it stings like a bitch.

“Women taking their shirt off in the barn? Yeah. A little.”

I glare at him, while internally glaring at myself for feeling the tiniest bit jealous.

You’re a fucking mess, Wells.

“But wild horses attacking and biting you?” he goes on. “No.”

“Why would it do that?”

“I don’t know,” he says, his voice even lower now, gruff enough to tickle my spine. “Something must have spooked him.”

“Spooked him? It was like he was hunting me.”

He brings his fingers down slightly and pauses, giving me a look I can’t read. A haunted one.

“Does it hurt when I do this?”

“Yes.”

He swallows again, eyes flicking down. “Didn’t break the skin though. That’s good.”

“You’re worried about infection?”

“Something like that.”

The air in the barn crackles between us and it’s not lost on me that I’m still standing here, breasts in his face. From the intensity of his gaze, I don’t think it’s lost on him either.

Without thinking I reach out and grab his hand. It’s warm against my palm, his palm warm against my skin. I slowly bring his hand up and up, over my ribs then over my breast, until he’s cupping it.

His breath hitches sharply and I have to stifle a moan. I’m acting fucking crazy but given the events of the evening, perhaps this isn’t the craziest thing to happen.

It has felt kind of inevitable.

“Aubrey,” he says, his voice barely a whisper.

I can only stare at him, lips parting, wanting it, wondering if he wants it too, wants it enough.

He does.

He grabs my breast, squeezing hard as his lips meet mine.

Kissing me with a rawness that feels like something unleashed, that wild horse of lust now running free. He presses me back against the wall, and I gasp into his mouth as pain meets pleasure in a dizzying mix.

“You sure about this?” he asks, voice rough, breath hot against my lips.

“Yes,” I whisper, before pulling his mouth back to mine.

With his other hand, he slides his palm over my stomach, down under the waistband of my pajama pants. His fingers graze the skin just above my panties, and I gasp against his mouth. He kisses me like he’s starved for it, like if he doesn’t devour me now, he never will. I’m breathless, dizzy from the force of it all, from the way his hand keeps inching lower, lower…

I press myself into him, urging him on with whimpers and sighs. He slips his hand beneath the fabric and then further still, until his fingers are exactly where I need them to be.

“Yes,” I moan, arching into him, losing myself completely.

I’m already wet, already aching for him. He groans against my mouth, deep and low, like something primal is being ripped out of him. His thumb brushes against my clit and I feel the world tilt, feel the barn around us disappear in a hazy cloud of sensation.

My hands are on him too, not nearly as deft but just as eager, snaking under his shirt, feeling the warmth of his skin, the hard muscle underneath. He shudders when I touch him, and I want to memorize every reaction, every sound he makes.

“Jensen,” I gasp as he presses into me harder, rough fingers working magic, deeper and deeper. My head falls back against the wall and it’s all I can do to keep my legs from giving out entirely.

He bites down on my neck gently—thankfully not as hard as the horse—and then pulls back to look at me. His eyes are wild and dark, his pupils so blown out they’re almost black. My heart does a stupid little flip at seeing him like this—hungry and raw and mine for this moment.

“I’ve underestimated you,” he says, voice rough and ragged as he pushes his fingers deeper, searching, wanting.

“You won’t make that mistake again, will you?” I groan.

He crushes his mouth back to mine just as I come apart around him. My nails dig into his shoulders and I try not to scream because there are other people on the ranch who don’t need to know exactly what we’re doing in here.

I come so fucking hard .

Slowly, so slowly, the world comes back into focus—the sound of the storm outside the barn, the smell of hay and leather—and Jensen is still kissing me like he never wants to stop. His hand finally slips out of my pants and wraps around my waist instead, pulling me close enough that I can feel how hard he is through his jeans.

I run my tongue along his lower lip and feel him twitch against me. It’s satisfying as hell knowing I have the same effect on him that he has on me.

Then suddenly it’s as if the lights in his eyes go out. The heated haze is replaced by something dark, something sharp.

The kind of clarity I don’t posses at the moment.

It’s a look like…regret.