Chapter 5

Ch. 5: Julian

As I sit in the car, impatiently awaiting Dane's return, I have to admit that he's right: I'm in no condition to go waltzing up to a crime scene after the roughest 'reading' I've done in a long time.

I hadn't lied to him, of course—I really am fine, as far as I can tell—but the truth is it hadn't felt like a 'reading' at all. It had felt as if someone had tried to download a library's worth of knowledge directly into my brain, and my circuits blew.

Rubbing my temples, I shut my eyes and lean back in my seat, fighting a growing headache and the need to sleep. The last thing I want is for Dane to come back and find me 'passed out' again. A few deep breaths and calming techniques later, and I feel a little more in control.

At least, that's what I think until I open my eyes and find myself somewhere else entirely.

I'm standing in a forest at night. The full moon shines down through a black lace of leaves, and when I inhale, the familiar rich scent of the woods after a rain fills my lungs. A sense of deep peace rises in my heart, and somehow I know that I'm home.

In Faerie.

'Julian.'

I turn at the sound of my name and find myself face to face with a man who looks a lot like me. His hair is a rich dark-chocolate brown, his skin is pale as the moon, and his eyes are bright as amethysts. His features are masculine yet beautiful—more beautiful than I ever consider myself to be—and he's a little older and a little taller than me.

As he looks down at me and smiles, a memory from a very long time ago resurfaces.

'Dad?'

***

I gasp and startle awake, heart racing, and look around wildly as I reorient myself.

Dane's car. Crime scene. Downtown Spring Lakes at 8:45 a.m. on a Wednesday in September.

Earth.

I must have drifted off for a moment, and with my mind all jumbled after whatever the sign had done to me, I'd had a weird dream.

A dream that had felt incredibly real.

I startle again as the driver's side door opens and Dane climbs in, rocking the car with his weight.

"Sorry. That took longer than I thought." He takes in my wide eyes and the hand pressed to my chest, and his brows pinch with fresh concern. "Jules?"

"I'm fine," I say, willing myself to relax and smile. "I think I just... fell asleep for a minute. What did you find out?"

He stares at me, blinks, and wipes his hand over his face.

"Jeffrey Lagrange, the bike store guy. He's, uh... he's dead"

"What?" I sit up, then wince as my head throbs. "How?"

Dane glances away, and I can tell there's something he's not telling me.

"Dane—how?"

He sighs. "It's too soon to say for certain, but Coleridge is thinking he confronted the thief."

"Coleridge is there?" I frown. The chief of police doesn't usually come to crime scenes in person.

"My guess is, they're concerned this might signal an escalation—burglary to murder. It may have been an accident, or his death may be completely unrelated. The last doesn't seem too likely, though."

"Why not?"

Again, I see a trace of hesitation on his face, but he pulls out his phone and shows me a picture.

"Coleridge says they found this near the body."

I study it. "Another mark? You think it's related to his death?"

"It's possible."

"Dane, I don't think the mark 'attacked me.' It's more like it was trying to tell me something—like there was an 'impression' to read, but it was too strong for me to handle, so my brain just shut off to protect itself. Besides, how would it affect Lagrange, anyway? Was he psychic?"

Dane sighs. "I don't know, Julian. I'll send both pictures to Noah for analysis."

"Hey, who'd have thought having a rune-obsessed linguist for a brother would actually turn out handy?"

He shoots me a look and I clear my throat.

"Anyway, what now?"

Facing forward, he starts the car and puts it in gear. "Now we go home, and we leave this one to the cops."

I bite my lip as he pulls out onto the street, debating whether to tell him the other thing I'd noticed about the mark—that it was familiar; and given the strange little dream I'd just had, I'm pretty sure I know where I've seen it before.

I decide against it. It's just the sort of thing that makes Dane worry. If I'm right, Noah will find the marks familiar, too; and with any luck, he'll even know what they mean.

***

The sound of sizzling food and the smell of curry greet my return to consciousness. Momentarily confused, it takes me a minute to remember why I'm sleeping on the couch in the middle of the afternoon.

Then it comes back to me: Dane had taken me home and taken care of me. He'd made me lie down, got me some juice and some painkillers, and told me to rest. I'd obeyed, for once, and now—except for a slight, lingering headache—it seems I've recovered from the morning's ordeal.

In the kitchen, Dane stands before the stove, talking quietly with Ingrid, who sits perched on the counter with her legs dangling. Seeing me awake, Dane covers the pan and comes over as I get to my feet, sliding his arms around my waist and kissing me between the eyes.

"Hey, beautiful. Feeling better?" he asks.

"Much."

"Dinner's almost ready."

"Smells good; I'm starving."

Curry is among my favorite foods; cooking it for me is just another way he shows his care.

After a moment, he releases me and I look up at him.

"Did you contact Noah yet?"

"I left a voicemail and texted him the pictures. Probably won't hear back for a while. He's busy these days. Got a book coming out soon, I think."

"He does?"

"Yeah. Something about words."

I hide a smile. Noah is the most accomplished academic in Dane's family, but Dane is just as smart in his own way; he just doesn't let it show. People often underestimate his intelligence as a result, but he's used that to his advantage more than once—revealing crucial breaks in a case and implicit bias in one go.

"So, what's our next move?" I ask. "Another stakeout? Revisit all the shops and check for more signs?"

He shakes his head. "Julian, this is a murder investigation now. The cops will be all over it."

I frown. "We're not dropping the case, are we?"

Rubbing the back of his neck, he glances at Ingrid. "Can we talk about this later?"

Reluctantly, I agree, and help him keep the mood light over dinner. Afterwards, we watch some TV and a movie, and then Ingrid begs Dane to take her for a Run, claiming her inner Wolf wants out. He agrees, but I insist we talk first, and lead him to our bedroom by the hand.

"What about the case?" I ask once he's shut the door after us. "Don't you think we should at least look around while the scene is fresh?"

"Actually, I think we should step back a bit," he says as he undresses to prepare for his Shift.

"What?"

He glances at me over his shoulder as he works at his belt. "Look—the thief warned us off the case, and now Lagrange is dead. Like I said, the cops will be all over it now—at least for the next few weeks. In the meantime, I say we let the thief think he succeeded. Lie low and let him make the next move. Either the cops will catch him, or he'll wait until they lose interest. When he feels safe, maybe he'll get sloppy and make a mistake."

I eye him warily. It sounds like a lot of 'maybes,' and the passive approach isn't Dane's style.

"This isn't about what happened today, is it?" I ask. "Because I really am fine."

Frowning, he lifts his shirt over his head without answering, exposing a broad expanse of muscled shoulders and ridged abs, and a memory surfaces as arousal and annoyance mingle in my mind.

"Hey, remember when we'd just met, and I read the body by the river?"

He tosses his shirt aside. "Of course."

"Remember how you thought I was having a seizure or something, and then I almost puked on your shoes, and then I fell asleep in your car, and you forgot me for five hours? I was fine then, too."

He fixes me with an amber stare. "I didn't forget."

His voice is deep and a little rough, and I hear a trace of Wolf in it, as if he'd already begun his Shift.

"What?"

My smile fades as he steps towards me, pinning me in place with the force of his full attention. He stops when we're so close I feel the heat coming off him and rests his hand on the center of my chest.

"Before I brought you to that scene, you told me something, Julian. You told me you couldn't drive after a reading like that, and if I wanted you to read the victim, you'd be my responsibility afterward. Wolves take responsibility very seriously. I didn't forget you. I was worried."

My eyes go wide and my face flushes with warmth. All this time, I'd thought he was such a jerk that day, when really...

"Even then?" I whisper.

He nods. "Yes. I was worried, and already a little bit in love with you, even then."

"Shit." I blink, wipe my eyes, and laugh to break the tension. "I knew I was a lucky guy, but..."

"You're not lucky," he says, smiling at last as he lifts his hand from my chest and cups the sides of my face. "I'm lucky. I count my blessings every day: the first is always that I met you, and the second that I have you as my own."

I stare at him, a little breathless with the unexpected depth of honesty, and laugh again just to lighten the mood.

"Wow. If we weren't already mated, I'd expect a ring or something."

He lifts a brow. "That could be arranged."

"Alright, smooth talker." I laugh, resting my hands on his chest in turn. "You win. For now."

"Just for now, huh?"

"Enjoy it while you can."

He slips his hand around the back of my neck and kisses me with a deep and possessive heat that leaves me a little breathless and weak.

"I plan to," he says, and then he's gone, leaving me wanting more.

He got his way this time, but that's okay. I'm not so stubborn that I can't give in now and then. Besides, I have my own angle on the case.

***

I haven't thought about my dad in months, which isn't saying much. Before last year, I hardly thought about him at all. I was a little kid when he died, but I barely remembered him and growing up without a dad hadn't bothered me all that much. I'd believed what my mom believed—what she still believed: that he'd suffered from a mental illness, and that he'd wanted nothing to do with me or my mom.

In fact, he'd sent us away to keep us safe when Henry Foley—the same man who would one day hunt me—had come after him.

Unlike me, though, he hadn't had werewolves and Shifters and Fae warriors to fight at his side, and he'd been driven to an impossible choice. Rather than let a twisted monster take his heart and consume his power, he'd taken his own life, and taken his secrets with him to the grave.

All his secrets save one, that is. He'd left me a book, written in Fae runes, which I'd only received the year before. It had unlocked my Fae abilities and helped save my life when Henry came after me, hoping to take from me what my dad had denied him.

I'd 'read' the book with my ability, but I still couldn't read its rune-covered pages.

Dane's brother, Noah, could, though. He'd translated enough of it to tell me it was my father's mother's journal, and that she had been a leannan sídhe—a Fae bound to grant her lover his greatest desire, or else to die. He'd offered to translate the rest of it, but after what happened last year, I'd been eager to get back to 'normal' and I'd put it aside.

Maybe it was time to revisit it, because I'm pretty sure the symbols in Wong and Lagrange's shops are Fae letters of some kind.

I dig it out of the closet and sit on the bed, brushing my fingertips across the worn cover. It's small, pocket-diary sized, bound in leather and slim. Opening it, I run my fingers down the ink-covered pages, studying the runic lettering. It makes no sense to my eyes, so I shut them and open my mind.

***

It's dark, but a full moon rides high overhead, washing the world in its silver glare. A rushing sound fills my ears—water falling in great volumes from a height—and a fine mist hangs in veils. It fills my lungs with its damp sting and settles as a dusting of ice on my skin. I hug myself and shiver as my breath frosts the air.

I look down and see that I'm still in my nightclothes and that my feet are bare. Ahead of me, the pebbled surface of a rough cement walkway extends in a curving arc, like the top of a great wall. On my right, an expanse of moonlit water stretches away towards thickly forested shores. On my left is... nothing.

A dizzying drop falls away several hundred feet towards the boiling rapids below.

I know where I am: standing atop the dam at the bottom of the Spring Lakes reservoir.

Where my dad died.

I startle at a touch and turn. The same figure from the dream I'd had in Dane's car stands at my side: tall, pale, and beautiful, with a slight smile and a soft light in his amethyst eyes.

'Julian.'

He speaks without moving his lips, and I hear his voice like a whisper in my mind.

"Dad..."

I shake my head, at a loss for words.

Stepping a little closer to me, he raises his hand and touches the side of my face. I feel the warmth of his skin and wonder again at how real everything seems.

"Why are we here?" I ask.

He smiles.

To learn.

He turns his back on the lake and looks out over the long valley below. I turn with him and shiver at the vast expanse of open air before us, the river far below, and the lights of the town in the distance. After taking in the view and the gut-clenching drop at my feet, I look back at my dad.

"Learn what?"

He rests his hand on my shoulder.

'Have faith, Julian,' he says. 'You will know when you see.'

Then he pushes me.

I stumble forward into thin air, and for a heartbeat, I hang there, my mind blank with shock. Then, with a shrill scream of terror, I fall.