Free Dream Warrior: (Dark Warrior Alliance Book 1) by Brenda Trim, Tami Julka Page B

close to her. Now, he was pacing his rooms, waiting for an update. When his frayed nerves were ready to snap, his cell phone rang.
    He snatched it off the coffee table and slid his finger across the screen to answer Orlando’s call. “Where is she now? What’s going on? Is she alright? Does she need anything?” His breathing was erratic with his anxiety. Anxiety. Another emotion he had not experienced before yesterday. The past twenty-four hours had proven to be a rollercoaster of varying emotions. It was exhilarating.
    “Liege, she is fine. She just dropped her sister off at the airport. Talk to me. I don’t understand why you are so hung up on this human. Sure we need to get a handle on SOVA, but this seems like there is something more,” Orlando said.
    Zander heard the hustle and bustle of the airport through the phone. He took a deep breath. This wasn’t something he wanted to share over the phone. “Get back to Zeum. I’m calling a meeting in thirty and I need everyone here.”
    He may not be able to tell the realm, but he had to inform his siblings and warriors. He’d need their help keeping his mate safe until they mated. Any apprehensions he had about her heritage and questionable pastime, he would mate with her. She carried part of his soul as he did hers and he would finally be whole. And, Goddess willing, love would develop over time.
    *****
    Elsie watched her sister rush through the automatic doors of the Southwest terminal at Sea-Tac. She missed her already. She swore she was not going to call her sister more than once a day and she absolutely wasn’t calling her to come back before her graduation in June. She had been a burden for Cailyn for too long now. Her pain wasn’t something she shared with Mack or the others at SOVA. They all shared the bond of surviving a vampire attack, but the pain of loss was hers alone.
    Put your big girl panties on and do what needs to be done , she told herself. She looked over her shoulder and signaled before she pulled away from the curb. A man in an SUV wasn’t paying attention and cut over from the outer lane at the same time, nearly hitting her. She slammed on her brakes and swerved. Her palm slammed down on the horn and it blared as she cursed the man who continued on as if she didn’t exist. Her car shuddered as she pressed the gas. “No, no, no, you piece of shit,” she cursed her car and heaved a sigh of relief when the clunker picked up speed rather than dying on the freeway. One crisis averted.
    That brought her around to the disaster she had created in her dreams. Maybe that was a bit dramatic, but she did feel guilt and shame for her desires. She wasn’t a fool. That was her subconscious at work acting out what her body began craving the moment she laid eyes on Zander.
    There was no denying she felt a connection to him. He was easy to talk to and was a great listener. It wasn’t only the fierce lust, either. Zander was a friend now. In fact, she had opened up to him and Orlando in ways she had only done with Dalton and Cailyn. Friend with benefits, her inner-sex-fiend purred. Her black hole grew talons and pierced her chest wall. She was a mess.
    Their relationship would remain purely platonic. It was all she had room for.
     

CHAPTER EIGHT

    Zander turned away from the maps he had been pouring over as his warriors joined him in the war room. He looked them over as they each took a seat at the large wooden conference table. They were dressed in their typical head-to-toe black leather. Each of them exuded a deadly aura that could crush any being under their combat boots before they knew what hit them. Determination rode the warriors hard. They wanted to do their job and eliminate the risk to the realm. That was far more complicated now than it had been before.
    He pulled his shirt off and turned his back to them. Ever since his mate mark had appeared it had been a minor irritant on his back. That discomfort had only increased since his dream with