The Wild Moon by Riley Storm

Chapter Ten

I was awake.

Except I wasn’t awake.

It was strange. One moment I wasn’t there, then the next I was present. I was even standing. That’s how I knew I wasn’t awake. Nobody suddenly comes to while standing up. Except I felt like I was awake. There was no odd haze like in dreamland.

But where was I?

“Hello?” I called tentatively, looking around.

It was a dark place. Not black, just dark. The sky above me was black and cloudy, the slightly lighter clouds visible against the inky backdrop. They were moving fast, roiling hard into the distance, a constantly moving scene.

Yet, I felt no breeze.

In the distance, lightning flickered, then went dark. A second later, sheet lightning tore across the sky. I shivered at the display of power from the angry storm. Seconds later, the rumble of thunder arrived, bringing goosebumps to the skin along my spine and down my arms. It was cool here, but that’s not why I felt so weird.

Everywhere I looked, the landscape was desolate. The land was rocky and broken, the ground so black it nearly blended in with the sky. No signs of life. Nothing moved. There was no noise except for the rumbles of thunder. This was a lifeless place. Broken rock and little more. No plant life, no insects. Nothing.

Except me.

“Hello?” I called again, a little louder this time. “Is anyone there?”

Where the hell had Lars taken me? There was nowhere like this near Seguin, that was for sure. How long had I been out? It couldn’t have been that long. My shifter healing meant it was probably minutes at most. Unless he’d drugged me.

Was I hallucinating? Maybe that was it. I reached out and pinched my arm. I felt the pain. That was odd and definitely didn’t happen in dreamland. So, I definitely was awake. Except I wasn’t.

I took a step forward, determined to figure out what was going on. Beneath my foot—I was wearing shoes now. Interesting—rock crunched and ground into dust. Even the ground was so devoid of life it crumbled at the slightest touch.

Ahead of me was a hill covered in black, crumbling rock. I tried to scale it. From the top, I could get a good view of the world around me. Perhaps I could find where I was or learn where I should go.

The eerie silence gave me the heebie-jeebies as I climbed, crushing rock underfoot with every step. Some places, I sunk to my knee, the black material of my pants warding off minor cuts from the sharp bits poking me.

Nice pants, too, I observed, wondering where I had gotten them. Can I keep them when I wake up? They fit perfectly.

Definitely dreamland of some sort.

I finally reached the top of the hill—it was a lot taller than it looked—and took in the view of the other side.

“What is this place?” I whispered, staring at the stunning sight in the distance.

Far off—I didn’t know how far. There was nothing to help judge distance—a towering stone wall rose into the sky. It had to be the height of a short skyscraper, hundreds of feet high. It stretched from horizon to horizon as far as I could see. But most imposing of all were the giant gates set into the wall straight ahead.

They were made of stone, too, and clearly designed to open. The stone was a slightly lighter color than the black of the rest of the wall, and I swore if I squinted, I could see an arc of tracks in the ground where the gates’ edges would swing open.

“What the hell…” I breathed, awed into submission by the sheer scale of it all.

Nothing like this existed on Earth, I was sure of it. The Great Wall would come up to this thing’s shins at absolute best.

So, why the hell was I dreaming of it? I’d never had any crazy dreams like this before. Only normal ones. You know, like swimming through an underground shipwreck that happened also to be my father’s Wal-Mart, while sitting in first grade listening to my teacher drone on, before looking to my left to see the heartthrob of my teen years taking off his shirt to reveal the first set of abs I’d ever seen in person and then waking up.

Yeah, normal dreams.

I stiffened in alarm as the hairs on my neck rose. This was no eerie landscape goosebumps. This was my wolf trying to tell me something very important.

I was no longer alone.

Closing my eyes, I took in a deep breath. I had no idea who or what I would find here in not-dreamland dreamland, and I knew I had to be ready to fight. Somehow, this was real without being real, and I definitely did not want to find out what happened if I was hurt, or worse, if I died while here. It was possible the entity that had crept up behind me was friendly, but if so, why hadn’t it announced its presence?

I knew it was there, though. I could feel its presence behind me like a weight, pressing down on my shoulders. Turning slowly, I readied myself for a confrontation. I looked up as I turned.

Way up.

Like, craning my neck up. Whoever it was, they stood not two feet away and towered over me.

Tall, imposing, and, shockingly, almost impossibly sexy, he stood there, staring down at me with eyes of the royalist blue drilling right through me. His hair was blacker than mine and fell in gloriously untidy waves to his shoulders. He had it pulled back from his head, giving me a perfect look at the precise symmetry of his face, including a pair of lips compressed into an unimpressed line.

“What are you doing here?”

I stared. His voice was hot. Like, throw myself to my knees and rip his pants off kind of hot. Like I would let him do anything to me he wanted, just as long as he kept talking kind of hot. I quivered in my boots. Yes, apparently, it’s actually a thing because I did it. My fake dream pants should have been turning to ash from the heat my crotch was exuding.

“Who are you?” I asked, staring at his angular, stubble-covered jaw for a moment.

He regarded me curiously, his eyes burning with a fire I couldn’t explain. Dressed in a long black shirt that clung tightly to an impressively shredded form, he too wore black pants and black boots. Just like me. It was apparently the outfit of choice for this place.

I’d hate to see their fashion shows.

“How did you get here?” he repeated, his voice flowing over me a second time, turning my need-to-fuck meter up to eleven. This guy was sex on wheels. Or black boots. Whatever.

“I’ve been asking myself the same damn question,” I said back. “Sorry, don’t have an answer for you. Your turn. Who are you, and where am I? What is this place?”

The giant being stared down at me, and I swear he was considering crushing me right then and there. I’d have died a happy woman to go out with his hands around me. Which just goes to show that I had to be dreaming because who the fuck thought that in reality?

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.

“Tell me about it,” I agreed. “Just point me in the direction of Seguin, and I’ll be on my way. I promise. Or maybe you can help me wake up. See, being that I’m unconscious and all, when this dream ends, I can wake up.”

He shook his head, black hair bouncing as he did, before settling down into a perfect frame of his sharp face. It was like it was alive. Maybe it was. What did I know about this place?

“Dream?” he repeated. “This is no dream.”

“Right,” I drawled. “Listen, I’ve had some pretty good sex dreams before, but nothing like this, okay? I certainly couldn’t have dreamed up this place and you. Not in one night, at least. But I am dreaming because I can’t be here. So, I know it’s weird for you, too, but you’re gonna have to accept it. You’re in my head.”

Mr. Mysterious stared at me without speaking.

Then he opened his mouth, and a surge of water came forth, splashing all over me.