Weaver of Dreams (22 page)

Maggie had demanded the truth, and the Great Spirits help him, he wanted to give it to her. She deserved no less and if they were to have a future together, she would have to be told sometime.

Zane took a deep breath, blowing it from his lips in an ominous cloud. He leveled his gaze on her, allowing her to see all his emotions there.

“I’m a Dream Weaver.” Zane reached for her hand, intending to give her hand a comforting squeeze.

Maggie disappeared before his eyes . . .

Maggie’s eyes snapped open. The image of the man lying next to her filled her vision. The sun shone through her bedroom window, bathing him in a soft light. His lids slid open, his azure stare pinned her where she lay.

She tried to roll away from him, wanted—no needed some space. His arms tightened around her like bands of steel, holding her to him. God help her, he seemed even stronger today than he had last night.

“Don’t run, Maggie.”

She struggled against his hold. “Let me go, Zane, if that’s your real name.”

“It is my name.”

She wiggled harder. “Sure it is. Let. Me. Go.”

Anger fueled her struggles. She didn’t like being trapped, ever, but especially not by a man who had deceived her.

What exactly did she know about the man next to her? She remembered he had been in many of her dreams. She remembered feeling like she had known him. He seemed familiar, but yet not. Like someone she had conjured from a dream.

Had
she conjured him from a dream? Maybe he wasn’t real. Could she have finally lost her mind and now lived in a dream? Maybe she sat comatose in some insane asylum imagining him, imagining everything.

It had a certain logic to it. Normal people didn’t have car chases through the city or have a stalker shoot at them. Maybe she’d imagined all of the events.

Maybe I’m insane!

Terror gripped her with its sharp talons. Pain wrenched her heart in her chest.

“You aren’t real,” she accused, pushing against his hard chest. The hurt look on his handsome face was almost enough to make her stop her struggles. Almost.

“I am when I’m with you.”

His statement made a spear of panic pierce her heart. She had been right. He was not really a man. He had all but just admitted it.

His steely stare leveled on her, branding her with the wealth of emotion she saw there. “There is an explanation, Maggie, if you’ll give me a chance to clarify.”

“I don’t want to hear it.” She couldn’t. Whatever he had to say wouldn’t make sense. This was all some terrible, cruel hallucination. Her dream man had come to life just to turn into a nightmare.

Tears pushed at the backs of her eyes. How cruel could life be? What had she done to Karma to make it so upset? Time after time, just as things were looking up, life kicked her in the gut—beat her down.

Was it too much to ask that a decent guy be in her life to share it?

Apparently, yes
, her mind answered.

Zane’s grip on her eased as her struggles ceased. It would be so easy to give into this hallucination. She was tempted to find solace in his arms, settle for a dream man. Live in a fantasy.

But that was not her way. She faced her problems head on, no matter how awful they were. She deserved someone real, who would help shoulder her pain. She deserved to live life, not hide from it in a hallucination.

She rolled away, surprised to find he allowed her freedom. As she came to her feet, so did he, on the opposite side of the bed with his hands up in surrender. He stood between her and the door.

“Move,” she said with more bravado than she actually felt.

“Talk to me, Maggie. Tell me what’s going through your mind.”

“My mind?” She laughed at the absurdity of his statement. “What’s going through my mind—or what’s left of it—is that this is just a nightmare. A stupid dream I will wake from any minute now.”

Zane shook his head. “This isn’t a dream, sweetheart. This is real. You’re real. I’m real.”

“When you’re with me,” she spat at him, throwing his earlier words in his face.

Zane pushed his fingers through his sandy brown hair. “Remember what I told you in our dream just before you woke up?”

Maggie searched her memory, replayed the dream. She was at Zion, then Zane appeared. Suddenly it was snowing. They went in a horse drawn sleigh to a castle made of ice. She questioned him about being from another world. He said . . . he called himself a . . .

Maggie reached for the hazy memory of her dream. When, at last, she recalled his words, she braced her hands on her hips and exhaled a rough sigh. “What the hell is a Dream Weaver?”

A sad smile raised one corner of his lips. “Good. You remember.”

“Remember what?”

“That I’m a Dream Weaver.”

He said it just as plain as you like, as if she knew what the hell a Dream Weaver was. As though every day someone came up to her and announced they were a Dream Weaver.

“Fine. I’ll play for now.” Maybe she could find a way out of this nightmare. “What the hell is a Dream Weaver?”

His heated gaze swept over her body. “Let’s get dressed and then we can talk.”

In all the excitement she had completely forgotten she’d gone to bed naked. The realization made her feel vulnerable. Maggie grabbed a robe out of her closet, and tied the sash round her tightly as she meandered back into the room to discover Zane had donned his jeans.

He moved toward her with his hand outstretched, but Maggie took an involuntary step back. His hand dropped to his side, and Zane’s face bleached of color. He looked very much like he might throw up. Well that was just fine, because she had a feeling she might just be sick too.

“Let’s go out to the living room, Maggie. I’ll make you some coffee and we’ll talk.”

“And you won’t touch me?” Maggie asked. His eyes flashed to hers, glistening with an emotion she could not name before he looked away.

“I won’t touch you. Just please let me explain.”

“Fine.” Maggie marched past him without a sideward glance, her hand clutching the halves of her robe closed at her throat. Instead of stopping when she got to the living room, she continued into the kitchen and began the coffee, not trusting him to make it. He might lace it with a hallucinogen to keep her in this nightmare.

Wait. That wasn’t right.

If she was hallucinating then taking something in the dream wouldn’t keep her stoned. Or would it? This was becoming a little too much like a sci-fi movie-of-the-week. Take this pill and wake up, or take this other pill and keep living the hallucination. Hell, she didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t anymore.

And wasn’t that the very definition of being insane?

To weary to grind the beans, she pulled her backup tin out of the cabinet. After slamming the cabinet door shut, she put the ground coffee down on the countertop with more force than was necessary. As she went through the automatic motions associated with her task, she glanced out into the living room.

Zane sat on her couch looking utterly defeated. His confident demeanor replaced by subjugation. With shoulders hunched, his handsome face hid in his hands.

Well good, at least someone besides her was having a bad day.

Maggie watched the liquid caffeine pour through the machine into the waiting pot below. She concentrated on the flow of the coffee, imagining it turning into an entire river that would course through her kitchen. Having always been able to manipulate her dreams before, she half expected the river to appear, cutting a path through her linoleum floor.

She tried to make it snow in the living room, pictured the wet slush pouring over Zane. Imagined the air growing colder, heavy. Any minute now it would start to snow.

Wait for it. Wait. Concentrate, Maggie. Cold. Snow
. She concentrated on changing the home, not exactly sure how she felt when it did not change from her thoughts. It wasn’t the first time she had tried to change a nightmare and failed.

Maybe if she heard what he wanted to say, this bad dream would play out and she’d wake up. It was worth a shot. At least he wasn’t trying to hurt her, like had happened in so many of her nightmares in the past months.

Maggie poured a cup of coffee and joined him in the living room, sitting in the recliner rather than next to him on the couch. She took a sip of coffee before she spoke, eyeing him over the lip of the cup. “All right, Zane. Tell your story.”

The fanciful tale he wove could be described as interesting, she’d give him that. By the time the story came to completion, she had downed the entire pot of coffee. She felt antsy, but she still hadn’t awakened from the nightmare.

“Let’s say I believe you,” Maggie said.

“Do you?” Zane sounded hopeful.

“Not really, but let’s just pretend I do for a minute.” Maggie crossed her legs, readjusting her robe as his face dropped. “Let’s say I believe you are from another dimension. And let’s say I believe you rescued me from this . . . stalker, was it?”

“That’s correct. Amnon was the Dream Stalker who gave you the horrific nightmares.”

He looked like he expected her to be grateful he had supposedly saved her from this Amnon. “And let’s say I believe you love me enough to want to be with me.”

“I do,” Zane vowed, sounding rather sincere.

“Then how long can you remain here?”

“I do not know.”

“A week? A year? And you said you are immortal, well I hate to break it to you, but I’m not. So while I grow old, where will you be?”

“By your side . . . if possible.”

Maggie narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “You love me enough to take care of me when I’m old.”

Zane leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs and waited until their gaze met before he spoke. “I will love you forever, Maggie. Old. Young. It doesn’t matter, as long as I have you.”

“You say that now.”

“I speak the truth. I’ve told you the whole truth, even though I could get in serious trouble with the Ruling Council for doing so.”

“Why take the risk?”

“If you don’t take extraordinary risks, you’ll lead an ordinary life. I’ll willingly risk their wrath, if it means I can be with you.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you, Margret Shea O’Connell.”

“How do you know my full name?” Maggie watched an emotion pass over his features. Concern, despair, she couldn’t be sure which.

“I pulled it from you during a shared dream.”

Her brow furrowed in suspicion. “What else did you glean from my dreams?”

Colorful curses flowed through his head. How was he supposed to answer that one without earning more of her ire?

The sound of a gunshot kept him from having to answer when the bullet buzzed through the door of her home. Zane dove from the couch, catching Maggie around the waist. His momentum toppled the recliner, spilling their bodies onto the floor in a heap of limbs.

Zane pushed her down as he peer over the toppled chair and witnessed the door explode into the house. His eyes widened in recognition, when the man wearing a gray hoodie pushed his way through the wreckage.

The man’s eyes were crazed; it was the only way to describe them. They were wide and bloodshot, like he had not slept in days.
Perhaps months
.

His body looked spectrally thin. His clothes hung from him as he looked around the room. His boney hand held a gun that looked identical to the one from the previous day. When the man swung it in their direction, Zane leapt into action, bounding over the chair.

He grabbed the man about his waist in a fierce bear hug, sending the two of them stumbling backwards out of the door. They fell down the steps to Maggie’s home, and the gun went off when they landed on the concrete walkway below.

The man squirmed in Zane’s hold, like a worm unearthed from the ground. With more effort than he thought it would take, he straddled the man, feeling the sharp outline of his ribs through their clothes. Zane focused on the gun still held by the flailing man. His large hands lashed out, reaching for the arm holding the gun. He grasped the man’s wrist in a crushing grip, and used both hands to pin the man’s forearm and gun to the ground.

Pain shot through Zane’s left temple and he turned to find the cause just as the man was about to deliver a second blow with the large rock held in his opposite hand.

Zane had no choice, but to release one of his hands to block the blow. When he did, the man managed to wiggle his gun hand free and got off another round, while he struggled with Zane for dominance.

The man fought like the third gorilla on Noah’s ark—ruthlessly and without mercy—surprisingly strong for one so thin and scrawny.

Zane shook the rock out of the man’s hand and pinned it to the grass. He leaned most of his weight against the downed arm which set his body off balance. His opponent twisted and raised his hips, bucking wildly to dislodge Zane.

Using the fighting dexterity he’d honed over the centuries, Zane tucked into a roll, coming to a stop on the balls of his feet and rose to his full height in a fighter’s stance.

The man threw a fist full of grass and dirt in Zane’s eyes. Temporarily blinded, he heard a shot and a scream. His blood went cold.

Wiping the debris down his face, he forced opened his eyes. They stung from the dirt, but he had to see. The man in the gray hoodie had turned sideways, his gun pointed at the house.

Zane’s gaze flew to the home. Maggie stood on the steps of her home hugging her side. The warrior watched Maggie sway, his eyes registering the wells of blood rising through her spread fingers. Panic gripped him in its suffocating hold, making it difficult to draw air into his lungs.

But the panic was short-lived, for it quickly turned to anger—an anger he channeled into his muscles to give them strength. Rage rolled through him, soliciting a roar from his throat as he bound toward their assailant.

Forsaking all form in his pursuit of retribution, Zane charged. Bullets ricocheted around him. Something hot bit into his stomach, but he didn’t spare it a second’s thought.