Southern Shifters: Bearly Dreaming (Kindle Worlds Novella) (3 page)

My jaw fell. “How do you know this stuff?”

She shrugged. “I had a friend in school whose brother was deaf, and I remember a few things he taught me. Please and thank you were some of the first signs I learned along with the alphabet. Sort of a basic way of communicating.” Her eyes grew as big as mine had to be as we put the pieces of the puzzle together. “That’s why your mystery woman acts like she doesn’t hear you and doesn’t speak. She’s deaf.”

I nodded, searching my memory for more symbols. I held my hands with two fingers extended, tapping my right on my left at the knuckles. “What about this?”

“I don’t know that one.” She jumped up and ran to the front wall of the shop. “Hang on, I think I have a book that might help us up here somewhere. If not, we can fire up the computer and head on out to the Internet for some research, though the satellite connection tends to suck at this time of day. God, what I wouldn’t give for my old cable Internet.”

I jumped up and grabbed her notepad off the counter. I was writing notes and drawing pictures, trying to remember every letter and symbol I could from the night before, when Audrey squealed. I spun just in time to see her rushing over with a large, blue book.

“Ta-fucking-da. Go ahead, tell me how helpful I am.” She slammed the book down, gesturing over it like some kind of red-haired Vanna White. The first word I saw on the cover was Dictionary. The second and third Sign and Language.

“Audrey, if you weren’t my brother’s mate and about the closest thing I’ve ever had to a sister, I’d kiss you.”

She grinned and raised an eyebrow. “And then I’d slug you.”

“Fair enough.” I grabbed the book and flipped through the pages, looking at drawings of hand gestures and finger placement for each word listed. Reading, watching, learning, all as an idea formed for a way to communicate with her. If she couldn’t hear me, I’d just have to find another way.

I had never in my life been more excited to go home and study so I could go to bed early.

Early morning visits from my mother were never a good thing. Early morning visits from my mother with news from the Council were even worse.

“Nyla, you’re running out of time.” Her hands moved quickly through the words, signing hard and fast. Every inch of her emotional and intense.

I bit my cheek, arms crossed tight over my chest. Defensive. I knew better than she did how little time I had left. I knew what needed to get done. Her nagging me about it wasn’t going to make things any easier.

She waited me out, though, staring, refusing to let me ignore the conversation. She was my mother after all, and she’d seen the very worst of my stubbornness. She could out-stubborn me any day of the week.

Finally, I sighed and threw my hands in the air before signing, “What do you want me to tell you?”

“I want you to tell me you’ll consider a voluntary secondary match. I want you to tell me you understand my fears and won’t put yourself in a position where the Council will have to step in because your Tallan has left you a danger to the clan. I want you to tell me you’ll live through your mating call so I don’t lose my only daughter.”

Damn it.
All my frustration melted away. She’d pulled the mom card on me, the one of endless unconditional love, the one that caused more guilt than any other in a mom’s arsenal of weapons against her children.

My face fell, and my hands slowed. “I want my true mate.”

“Honey, you have to come to the realization that you might not find your true mate, and the Council won’t approve a mating outside the clan. Let us help you pick someone from the clan. Liam has already come asking for you. He’s a nice man with a good family behind him. He won’t abuse the Tallan.”

I grimaced. Sure, Liam was a nice enough guy, and we’d been friends since childhood. Had I not been successful at finding my way to a dark little cabin, I would have considered a match with him. But Liam wasn’t my burly man. He wasn’t the one I wanted. He didn’t have my heart.

And he never would.

“Give me time, Mom. Let me find my true mate.”

She looked outside, no longer meeting my eyes as she said something she knew I couldn’t see or hear.

Frustration and exhaustion created a volatile emotional compound, boiling over and igniting my temper. To disrespect me that way—to turn and speak purposely, blocking me from her words and refusing to meet my eyes—was something she knew would hurt my feelings. I stomped my foot and signed fast and hard. Yelling at her the only way I could.

“What did you say? Why didn’t you look at me when you said it? That’s the stuff
they
do, the clansmen who think I’m worthless because I can’t hear them. Not you. My mother doesn’t treat me like that.”

She shook her head and put her hands up, surrendering. Resigned.

“I’m sorry,” she said, eyes wide and staring into mine as she both spoke and signed the words. “I said we didn’t have time, which I stand by. But I wasn’t thinking when I spoke, and I didn’t mean to hurt you by turning away like that. I’m sorry for that, but I’m terrified for you, which is distracting me. I need to make sure you know your chances and have a backup plan.”

“I don’t need a backup plan. I’m going to find my mate. My
true
mate. I’m not going to settle because you think I’m less.”

“No, baby. You’re wrong.” Her face showed her seriousness, her hands moving fast and clean. “I don’t think you’re less.”

I held my hands up, pausing, making sure I had her utmost attention. “You think no one will want me because I’m deaf, and that I should take Liam up on his offer because he’s the only one who would even try.”

“No, never.” Eyes fierce, she slammed the symbol into the air, her anger at my statement obvious. “I have never thought you were less. Not once. I worry that the men here are too ignorant to see how special you are and will take your lack of hearing as a weakness. Not a single man on this planet is good enough for you, Nyla. But the fact of the matter is, your mating call has come, and that gives us very little time to find a match for you before the clan leaders step in. They will cage you like a wild animal and force you to submit to their whims. I won’t let that happen. If that means I have to pick the best man I can find to become your mate because you refuse to see the writing on the walls, I will. I cannot watch my daughter die.”

Hours after my mother left, her words wouldn’t let me go. I knew I was running out of time—already, the hallucinations had started, mild and easy to see through but glossing over reality a bit more with each one. They would only grow stronger in the coming weeks, though. If I made it that long. It could be just days before the power bleed of my mating call left me in a state of delusion too strong to escape. I could wake up in the morning in a cave, forced to mate with a man I didn’t want for the rest of my life or being prepared for an execution if the clan leaders thought I was a danger to the secret of our existence.

I needed to act.

But frustration and fear did not make for a calming emotional state, so falling asleep wasn’t as easy as I would have liked. If my Tallan were stronger, I could have pushed myself into my mate’s psyche from a distance, seen his memories while awake. But my power was not that strong. I could only use my gift in sleep. The Council believed it was because of my deafness; they saw me as damaged and weak. And though they claimed to look after “the best interests of the clan,” I knew the truth. If they had their chance, either they’d saddle me with a secondary mate who would completely overpower me and steal my will, or they’d kill me.

Perhaps a dead psychic was better than a weak one in their eyes.

I tossed and turned for hours before the familiar drop-off into the land of my dreams happened. I didn’t linger, choosing to launch myself toward my mate right away, blasting through the darkness as fast as I could. I couldn’t waste a single second.

The dark passed quickly this time, the white haze barely a blip before I stood in his cabin once more. Not as dark as last night, the room glowed merrily, lit by the fire and two small lamps. I searched his memories, catching small flickers of him moving them from the opposite side of the cabin. He’d tested to make sure they’d add light to the right space. To where I’d been standing. He wanted to see me better, a thought that made my stomach tighten and my cheeks burn.

Office supplies, also new, lay near his bed—markers, note cards, and a large white poster board. A book lay open on the nightstand, one with images that made my heart soar. Gestures laid out in pictures, explained with arrows and words. The very basic information on the language I’d learned as a child.

Had he figured it out?

I tried to push for more memories, more visions through his eyes, but I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. Flashes of the cabin, of household chores, mixed with images of a snowy forest. Dark shoes on the lighter wood changing to cream on white, to something else. Something outside of my realm. I liked the images, but my power was already pushed to the limits of my abilities. Putting them in context would have to wait for another night.

Minutes passed in the warm cabin, time dragging as I called to him. As I waited for the best part of my day. And then he was there, directly in front of me, grinning so brightly, my own lips turned up simply under the power of his.

“Hi,” he mouthed. I nodded, unable to look away, not wanting him to disappear. He turned to grab his board and marker, still smiling as he wrote something in the blank space. Brows drawn, he concentrated on the letters as I waited impatiently, writing slowly and with conviction. And then he turned it around.

My name is Kian Prescott.

Simple block-printed letters. Nothing fancy, no cursive or script writing. Just black words on a white background, the letters standing about two inches high. Crooked strokes and off-center circles printed at an angle, rising toward the end, and yet that sign was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.

My fingers moved of their own volition, signing the proper response, spelling out my name. He shook his head, though, halting me. Still smiling, he reached for the book. I tangled my fingers together, bouncing on the balls of my feet, too excited to stand still. He turned the book so I could see the page he’d marked, eyebrows raised in a question. Every person who learned to communicate through any form of signing had probably seen the same chart in one book or another. It was a simple alphabet, finger placement and hand movements shown in drawings above each letter. And it was beautiful.

He set the book beside him and pointed to the large chair, which he must have pulled closer to his bed. I sat lightly on the edge, impatient. Ready to finally communicate with the man. With a charming, almost shy smile, he wrote on the poster board again and showed it to me.

Slow. I’m learning.

His words made my heart beat so fast, it practically sang. I nodded, grinning, and his smile grew. His dark hair fell in his eyes as he pulled the book onto his lap, sliding his glasses on, making sure he was ready. I made one letter at a time, slow and patient, letting him look from my hands to the book and back again as many times as he needed. When he got the letter right, he’d write it on the poster board while I clapped and laughed. It took far too long, but when he finally grinned and spun to look at me with the happiest eyes I’d ever seen, I knew all that time was worth it.

His fingers traced the letters as he mouthed the words.

My name is Nyla MacDonald.

Looking at that book and that board, seeing his obvious pride in learning how to talk to me, I found myself grateful for the chance to even meet him. Not many people would have gone to the trouble of finding a book and buying those supplies to talk to a stranger in their dream. Hell, few would even attempt such a thing, assuming the dreamwalker was a figment of their imagination or not a real person. But he made the effort, and our first conversation, as short and stilted as it was, would never be forgotten.

And even as the white haze pulled me back, as I lost my grip on his dream and headed back to mine, I was happy. For the first time in a long time, I knew what hope felt like.

“Are you serious?” Boomer, the local grizzly shifter and our main bush pilot, looked at me as if I’d grown an extra head. For most of the year, there were no traversable roads and the trains didn’t come this far north. That’s why we’d chosen the spot we had—complete privacy from humans who didn’t need to see us shift into our animal forms. But that privacy brought with it complications, like no phones, no strong Internet service, and no easy way to get supplies like books and videos when you needed them. And I needed them.

“Yeah,” I mumbled, flipping pages and making notes in the outdated American Sign Language dictionary Audrey had lent me. “You guys go fishing without me. I’ve got too much shit to do today.”

“If you say so.” Boomer walked out, grumbling something under his breath about the flowery scent of my place, but I had no time for him and his rambling. I had roughly fourteen hours to learn a new language, one spoken with my hands instead of my mouth. I had to concentrate. I wanted to see her smile again tonight like she had last night when I showed her what I’d learned.

God, the glow of her smile when she read the sign with my name on it was probably one of the best moments of my life. She was so glorious and bright. So damned pretty, I lost my breath. I wanted to put that smile on her face every night, but that meant study time for me. I needed to learn sign language.

Unfortunately, I quickly discovered American Sign Language was an intricate and complicated system of communicating. One with a different word placement and sentence structure than the spoken English I’d been using my entire life. I worked on the alphabet first, figuring that was a tedious but effective way to get our words across. My plan wasn’t perfect, but it was definitely a start. Unfortunately, a couple of the symbols for letters contained arrows. I assumed those arrows meant movements, but the explanation was unclear, and I wasn’t sure if I was getting them right.