Free The Alpha's Desire 3 by Willow Brooks

time, no woods, glorious and otherworldly or otherwise, were there as a backdrop. Rather, he stood beside me while the two of us were surrounded by a stifling darkness, as if in the middle of nothing at all. There was no temperature to feel, and no shadows or even shades of grey to see. I couldn’t hear so much as white noise outside of the sound of his breathing or mine; which one, I wasn’t quite sure. There existed only the two of us in this place, only I couldn’t see or feel myself. Nothing touched me, and I touched nothing. That sense seemed not dulled, but turned off, as if I only observed, was only a consciousness at first.
     
    Regardless, or most importantly, I could see him, and from the look of love in his eyes, he could see me in this dreamy haze of pitch. My emotional reaction came back into my awareness first, bringing me back into the body I still couldn’t see in my view of things. His fear hit me like a wooden stick against a tight drum, me being the head hit, of course. The tightness of his body, his rush of emotions, made my body vibrate and then shiver, resonating his anxieties and dread. Even together in this state, I reached out for him with a hand I wasn’t exactly sure existed. A blur of flesh color, my hand I surmised, slipped right through the mirage of his body when I gave the act my best attempt. This just made things worse for us both. I don’t know how or why, but it did.
     
    All my life, when I was scared or in need, my wolf would appear in my dreams and curl around me, a physical and warm shield against the world. He would feed to me, through our connected psyches, the ideas of protection and being loved, cherished, making me feel as if I mattered in this world, had a purpose, as if there were indeed a point to my suffering, and something I could eventually offer back to those who suffered like me. Being of use to others had always been important to me, and as both a motherless child and then an adult orphan, with no family, that basic, everyday usefulness often could be hard to come by on a steady basis.
     
    Now, maybe because I was not in peril, at least not any that the vampires would let me feel anyway, he came to me, and I couldn’t touch him. I could only feel his rising panic, and the tightness it rendered in my core. I couldn’t take or offer, only witness, and I hadn’t a need for that. I needed answers, hopefully ones that brought about reassurances as to his state of being in this world. Simply, all I needed was to know for sure that he was alive, also healing from his injuries.
     
    I kept trying, urging him to come closer, even if only in my mind, as the silence of this dark world grew as deafening as the white noise that didn’t exist. It made no sense, but I ached to hear something beyond this rush of breath, and strained my ears, in fact. They hurt, though for the most part, I couldn’t feel my body, not really, though I sensed it was there, and had moments of physical response to emotions, but it all was too fleeting to be real, if that made sense at all. I couldn’t describe it even to myself, this state.
     
    Finally, with my continued efforts, to hold onto some semblance of the reality I knew, even in a dream state, I was able to will my hand back toward him as he moved closer. I ran my hand over his side, but felt nothing, and his wolf’s eyes grew sadder if possible, the colors in them changing, the gold growing darker, dimming.
     
    His head seemed to hang, to be weighted and suspended. I welcomed the sensation of being in this world as my mind cried out for him. With my gratitude around us like the faint glimmer of a light, my internal power, this time when he moved, he went to curl up around me, as he had done so many times before. Only this time, in the glow of my magic, our magic, I finally began to feel his warmth. Reaching out again, I felt his fur fluttered through my fingers, more like feathers at first. With all I was here, all I had at my