Claimed (The Lair of the Wolven 1)

He was breathing even harder now. “Mom … Mom … Mom … where are you?”

Lydia squeezed her eyes shut.

“I can see her … her head is bobbing … I’m swimming to her. Mom! Mom, I’m coming for you … oh, God, my arms are tired, but I’m swimming as fast as I can—Mom!”

Lydia stroked his hair and murmured her empathy as the story rolled out. It was all she could do, even if it wasn’t good enough. Nothing would be good enough.

“She’s not … oh, Jesus … she’s not …”

As he seemed to get stuck, she whispered, “She’s not what, Daniel.”

“She’s facedown. She’s not … she’s floating facedown in the river …” He let out a groan of pain. “I’ve got her, I’ve turned her over … I’m pulling her toward the shore, I’m swimming against the current … Mom, I’ve got you … I’m trying to get you … help … help … I can’t hold her … I’m trying … to … Mom!”

Abruptly, the shaking stopped.

And she was not surprised as he jerked against her—and then pulled away.

“What are you—Lydia?” he said. “Are you okay?”

YOU WERE DREAMING,” Lydia said in a thin, worried voice. “I came in … because you were dreaming and you called out.”

In the light streaming past a partially open door, Daniel tried to get his bearings: The body against his own was very feminine, and there was the smell of fresh shampoo in his nose. The room he was in was a bedroom he wasn’t familiar with—but he knew who was with him. Lydia was beside him.

Which was not good news.

One look at the shock on her face and he thought, Fuck. What story had come out of him? What had he told her in his sleep?

There were things she couldn’t know about him. When you lived in two worlds, and straddled the incompatible … you had to watch what came out of your mouth. Even in your fucking sleep.

Maybe especially in your sleep.

Daniel moved away from her, rolling onto his back and bringing his legs up. He’d kept his jeans on, and he pushed his palms into his thighs and moved the denim off his hips.

“Sorry I woke you with my noise.” He tried to keep his voice light, casual. “I talk in my sleep sometimes. I should have warned you—in the future, just ignore me.”

Stop talking so fast, he told himself.

As she pushed her hair out of her face and sat up higher also, he had a thought that this is what she’d look like after he made love to her. Well, except for the expression on her face.

Which was more like after someone had been in a car accident. Or maybe the victim of a robbery.

“You weren’t talking, Daniel.” She cleared her throat. “At least not at the beginning.”

“Sorry.” Goddamn it. “So, ah, what was I babbling on about.”

“It was your mom.”

Daniel’s breath caught. “What about her.”

“She was … in the water.”

All at once, his lungs froze in his rib cage and his torso became a slab of granite. But he told himself it was good. It was better than so many other options that could really have complicated things.

Rubbing his chest—you know, just so that he could separate being in that cold river from where he actually was on this totally-dry-land mattress—he shook his head.

“Wow. Been a while since I’ve gone there.”

“I just wanted to … help you,” she said. “That’s why I came in.”

“I appreciate it, but like I told you, if it happens again, just ignore me.” He forced his mouth into a smile. “And listen, if you want, I can go back out into the woods—”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Annnnnnnd then it was cue the awkward silence. Lydia was obviously too polite, too respectful, to pry, and he didn’t want to ever go back there under any circumstances ever again. But he felt like he owed her an explanation. Or a context. Or …

“So …” The words would not come out of his mouth. “How ’bout those Mets?”

When she didn’t crack a smile and just stared down the bed, the sadness in her was so tangible, it changed the temperature in the room.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” he said—and almost kept the roughness out of his voice.

“I should go.”

And yet leaving seemed to be for her the same thing as him telling her she should head back to her room: An intention that had no energy behind it.

Daniel cracked his knuckles one by one. And when he’d finished with the thumb on his left hand, he took a deep breath—and felt like he was breathing in nothing at all.

“My mom jumped, okay? Off a bridge, into the Ohio River.” He shook his head. “It was no big deal, all right? People jump off of bridges all the time.”

Her dumbfounded expression was totally understandable, but he wasn’t going to take the words back.