Nightmares and Daydreams (The Blood Falls Book 4)

I was late, but time really wasn’t that meaningful anyway. Besides, Rain probably reached out and already knew where I had been and why I was there.

“Sorry I’m late.”

Rain—Rhiannon of the House of Gatlin, the most powerful psychic born in generations—looked up with a sad smile. “How’s Gigi?” As usual, she styled her thick, dark hair in a massive braid. She wore a skirt and a cute top paired with black boots.

“Not good. She’s not getting the rest she needs. Ryddyck says it has something to do with our state of consciousness and how we use sleeping or something. I honestly don’t understand most of what he says, even when I think I do.”

Rain’s frown deepened. “Her dreams aren’t dreams.”

“You know what he’s talking about?”

“A little. Yes. I might be able to help her.”

“That’s amazing. I’m sure she’ll be grateful for any help she can get.” Especially if it did not involve Ryddyck.

Punch, thrust, breathe. Shift. Punch.

The thoughts flitted through my mind unbidden along with a fuzzy image of Bo, shirtless and sweaty, countering each move.

“It happened again?” Rain asked softly.

I shook my head, pushing Dray out. “Yep. Training is going well. Apparently.” Neither of us had any control over the shared thoughts. The first one came after he shifted into his dragon half to fight Rain’s uncle, Rhine. I almost didn’t get him back that time. Dray was so overcome by his dragon instincts that it took both me and Rain to get him to shift back to his samhain form. The more we trained, the more frequently the dreams and thoughts came.

Rain’s eyes narrowed. “It has to be the psychic connection you share. Maybe the more you use the channel the easier it is to access?”

“Channel? Like a television channel?” I could be down for a remote control to switch what frequencies Dray had access to.

“Yes, like a television channel. That’s how I see the psychic lines that connect us, and us to the Plane. With practice you can switch between them, turn them on and off. If that’s what this is.”

It made sense to me. “This is what it’s like for you, isn’t it? All the time? Hearing other people’s thoughts.”

She nodded slightly. Just enough for me to get the message. “That’s intense.”

She tried to smile and shrugged. “It used to be so intense I couldn’t do anything. But I’ve learned to manage it and now it’s not so bad.”

Well that was promising news. “How about we get going? We don’t have much time before the library gets crowded.”

“All right.”

We got comfortable, Rain doing her thing and me doing mine. Our gifts were different but strikingly similar, which was why we teamed up. There were things happening on the Plane that only so many of us could see, let alone do anything about. First and foremost to me was communicating with my not dead, but not quite alive, mother. There was also the problem of banshees trying to kill us.

And that wasn’t even all of it.

When I reached out to the Plane I felt nothing at first. Just a cold sliver as the connection was established. Then the shimmering of another reality. And then I was standing on what my mind imagined were railroad tracks. The timeline stretching before and behind me. And over all of it, the all-consuming black blanket that divided the future that was from the war that now loomed. The shadow had been small and distant the first time I saw it. Now it was everything.

Only a small amount of the future was known. A shrinking amount. Destiny was here, just like Ryddyck said. I couldn’t ignore it any longer.

“Mom?” I called out, my words echoing and vibrating differently than they would in the air of Earth.

My mother suddenly appeared in front of me. Sometimes she was very samhain, very coherent. Other times…well, she wasn’t. Today was one of those days. Visually she appeared and vanished. And when I could see her she was everywhere. Looking, touching, jerking.

“Rhysa.” She suddenly looked left, shivering. “Where’s Rain?”

“She should be close.”

“Good.” Marhysa nodded over and over. “Good. I’m getting closer. It’s making more sense. The timeline has the answers.”

“For the banshees and all their power?” I pushed. It was kind of critical we understood how all that worked. Especially if we needed it for the war.

“Yes. But also the Severing. The Severing.” Another jerk in the opposite direction. It was as if she saw things that I couldn’t. Like Ryddyck.

“What about the Severing of Destiny, Mom?”

Suddenly she was in my face. “The answers! Why, Rhysa? Why did all this have to happen? Why must I be here and you there? Why Draygus Wren? Why Georgiahana?”

Okay, so she was more coherent than I thought. Most of the time she couldn’t remember anyone’s names, just how they were connected. “And Rain?”

“Especially Rhiannon. She makes the least sense. The most sense. I’m confused.”

Well that made all of us. “I don’t have long, Mom. What can you tell me?” And where the heck did Rain go?

Her head suddenly cocked, like she was listening to something that was hard to hear. “The Planes are merging. You’re not ready, but you have to be.” She got back in my face. “The dreams aren’t dreams. They are thoughts. They are reality. You have to go there with Dray and you have to learn to be safe there. Destiny demands it!”

Suddenly I was falling backward. Through darkness and space. Like a free fall off a cliff. Everything moved faster. Wind, sound, light. And then with a thud I was back on the couch beside Rain.

I gasped and shot up to my feet, trying to get my heart rate down and my breath under control.

“Uh, Rhysa.” Leena Wren sounded worried. “Was Rain with you?”

I spun around and saw Rain laying on the couch looking very much asleep. Her skin was pale though and she had sweat on her brow.

That wasn’t good.

“No. She never met up with me.”

“Then where is she now?”

I panicked. Actually, I was freaking the fuck out as I launched myself at Rain, taking her hand in mine and trying to connect with her in any way I could. Then I threw myself back towards the Plane, trying to trace her connection.

I failed miserably. “I can’t. There are no footprints to follow.”

“Let me.” Leena did her psychic thing and put her hands around my head, amplifying all of my abilities. The Plane lit up like a technicolor movie. A little funny looking, but also much brighter. On the edges of my consciousness I felt Kris, her Mate and Dray’s brother, come roaring into the room.

“What the fuck is happening?” He had a connection to Rain as her Shield. They were every bit as linked as Dray and I were.

I pushed him, Leena, and everything else into the background. I had to focus on Rain, not their emotional states. I followed the waves of light that glimmered and vibrated differently than the rest. Here there were no railroad tracks or shadowy blankets. Leena’s amplification powers allowed me to see the Plane from a different angle.

And it led me right to a bubble.

“Rain?” I called out, touching the bubble of psychic energy, feeling the warm vibrations it put out. I looked around when she didn’t answer me or let me in. I had no idea where I was or how I got here, which wasn’t very comforting. I was way far off from the territory I knew. “Rain? I’m getting worried and freaked out.”

I moved around the bubble. I really, really didn’t know where I was. Everything here was colder. It felt different.

The realization hit me slowly, mostly because I didn’t want it to be true.

This wasn’t the Plane. At least not the one I knew.

“Rain! Rain! We need to get out of here!”

The bubble came at me. Pushing me. It was like getting hit by a roller coaster and plastered to the front car. I lost what breath I had and all sense of up or down, until, for the second time today, I wound up back on the couch gasping for air.

“What the mother of all get out just happened?”

Rain jumped to her feet, shaking like a leaf. Kris scooped her up and held her tight while she babbled something about pocket dimensions and the other side.

Dray crouched beside me, frowning hard. He probably came running in right after Kris. “Are you okay?”

The real answer was no. I was not even a little bit okay, but saying that to Dray would be counterproductive. I went with a milder approach. “I’m not hurt. Is Rain okay?”

He grunted and threw a glance across the room. “I think so. Kris isn’t tearing down the house.”

Well that was good news at least, but I kind of wanted to tear down the walls to get answers to why the hell Rain did what she did. “She went somewhere I’ve never been before,” I whispered to him.

Dray tensed. “Do you need anything? Water? Blood?”

I shook him off. I didn’t want or need anything until I understood what happened. Rain and I were supposed to stay together. It was just light research when we were alone. Nothing else. Otherwise we had Kris and Dray with us. At the very least Leena. It wasn’t safe to go it alone without backup of some kind, and this was a perfect example of why.

“I’m so sorry, Rhysa!” Rain sagged against Kris. “I didn’t mean for any of that to happen. I should have known better.”

“What did happen?”

Kris let her sit back on the couch, moving behind her so that his hands remained on her shoulders. He glared at everyone.

Rain sighed. “Just as I was connecting with the Plane, I let myself think about the psychic bubbles and how they might be useful in rifts. As protection against the effect of another Plane.”

“Something that would have kept Rever safe when he was taken.”

“Exactly. And that’s all it took. One thought in the process and I was there. Somewhere else entirely.”

Well at least she hadn’t done it all on purpose. “Were you stuck? Why didn’t you come back?”

She ran her teeth over her lip and looked around nervously. “I did.”

I shook my head. “No, you were gone even longer than I was.”

“You remember that Rever experienced time differently in the rift. I think I did too.”

“So you accidentally went there, looked around, and got the hell out?”

She nodded. “Sure did. To me it was a minute, maybe two.”

“You were gone for at least an hour,” Leena said quietly.

“Damn it,” Rain whispered. “I really didn’t want to test that time theory yet.”

“Yeah, well, it happened.” Dray brought himself up to full height, his attention on Leena. “Get Rever here now.”