Free Daybreak by Ellen Connor Page A

full-fledged lunatic.
    Who else would follow gut instinct and voices on the wind?
    Who else would dream of a rope ladder leading into the trees and awaken shivering, cold, crying?
    I gave you my all, love. I did, I did.
    She shook away the remains of her old, ghostly nightmare—the same she’d repeated since her teen years, when her powers had pulsed like a wild wind storm under her skin.
    Old insecurities aside, she should’ve been startled at the sound of Tru’s quiet words. Instead, she’d already known he was awake, too. That magic tickle behind her ears might as well have been his fingertips. Or his tongue. Tasting her as he tasted the air, searching for whatever he desired.
    “Something woke me.” She didn’t speak much above a whisper, unwilling to disturb Adrian’s sleep.
    “Bad dream?”
    “Would you care?”
    “Depends on if I was in it. And if you’re prescient.”
    Nope. Just crazy.
    The faint predawn light did little to illuminate his face. He lay on the ground with only his blanket beneath him, arms behind his head. The pose stretched his body, lean and long. The hem of his shirt had ridden up, revealing his pale stomach. Thoughts of tasting him trickled into her mind. She would lick him there. One day. And he would shiver.
    Pen wanted to close her eyes against that sudden flash of desire. She wasn’t prescient. At least she hoped not. Just one hideous dream that left her quaking and praying it never came true. Because frankly, insanity held more appeal than the abject grief that always accompanied her nightmare. Why a rope ladder? And why those forlorn words? To love so intensely . . . and to lose it. She shivered.
    “It’s not a talent of mine, no. And as for last night, I can’t remember specifics.” She certainly didn’t want to try to explain something that seemed so completely irrational.
    “Then I must not have been in it.”
    “Why, because I’d have been sure to remember?”
    His chuckle was impossibly quiet, like thunder a thousand kilometers away. She would’ve felt it, though, had her head lain against his chest. “Something like that. Good or bad, Penelope, I’m memorable.”
    Damn, but he was. How many times had she thought of him through the years, wondering what had become of him? She liked to think it was because of the Change. Everyone she’d known from Before was dead. Simple fact. Hard fact. The people she’d come to know since—really come to know, rather than meet in passing—were so few. Jenna and Mason. Dr. Chris. Tru. They came to her as hopes and bittersweet memories, often all at once, when her loneliness and isolation hit hardest.
    The Orchid walked a different path.
    Jenna and Mason would live happily until, one day, they went down fighting. That, too, seemed such a clear, clean fact. Chris . . . Sometimes she dreamed of a dark-haired woman and a tiny town in the desert. Pen would never know for sure, but she felt certain that Chris was there—safe and happy and loved.
    And Tru. There he was, smirking at her in the gathering daylight. Over the years, she’d thought of him most of all. Which probably explained the depth of her disappointment.
    Only, that wasn’t fair either. The shock of his initial behavior had softened. He was simply Tru again, a more potent version of the boy she’d known. Faults and all. And his faults had always been most entertaining. Irreverent. Cynical. Still charming as only a bad boy could be, the kind no mama ever wanted her daughter to notice.
    Her stomach made a loud cry for food. Tru’s chuckle sounded again. “There’s just more gator, I’m afraid. But even if we had venison, I don’t suppose you’d want to eat it raw anyway.”
    She didn’t smile. Only pulled the cloak tighter around her shoulders. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
    “Oh?”
    How did he manage to make no noise, even as a human? He sat up, stretched, and joined her. Just sitting. Shoulder to shoulder.
    “Is this my invitation to open up