Ouachita Mated(15)

“Oh shit,” she whispered. “I screwed up, didn’t I?”

Eagan nodded, but that was the only answer.

Silence descended on the kitchen as Josie waited for her food.

Oh, she’d talk to Bethany all right. If there was a troublemaker at the lodge that wasn’t her, she needed to know about it.

Josie eyed Clara.

And maybe befriend it.

She grinned. Troublemakers unite!





Chapter Five



It was the thing that made him dread sleep. It was the thing that made him wish morning could be an all day occurrence. That made him toss and twist, trying to escape something he could never forget. The thing that drenched him in sweat even while his blood went cold and his chest seized in agony.

A dream. It was a dream.

One he’d been trying to avoid for as many years as his mate was gone.

She was there, smiling and happy. In the dream, she loved him. She didn’t doubt him. In the dream, she hadn’t given up on them. Left him.

It was all different, yet it was the same.

He loved seeing her happy. Hated what was coming next.

Always, he tried to wake. His animal knew this wasn’t real, knew he dreamt of a ghost. A lost one. The smiles were lies, her lips curving into something Magic couldn’t relate to. The laughter was lies, the sound causing his ears to ache to the point of busting. The only relief was that she never touched him. Not once did Mandi ever touch him in his dreams, and for that he could thank the Creator.

If the good part of the dream was hard to get through, the bad part was living breathing hell.

He never knew when it would happen, but in a blink, things would shift. Her lying smiles turned to frowns, her deceiving laughter turned to tears. The sun that shone bright in the sky turned dark as night. The calm breeze became a blustery wind, picking up speed the harder she cried. She was spun up in a whirlwind of darkness, her hands floundering to find purchase.

Magic used to reach for her. He used to be desperate to hold her, keep her, anything to make it stop. The sadness, hers and his. The guilt, his. But she was forever just out of reach.

Now he despised her. Not the real Mandi who lived and breathed and was his life for a very short span of time, but the dream Mandi who refused to let him rest no matter how sorry he was or how powerful his regrets. It didn’t matter that he’d give anything to undo what had happened to them.

But that power wasn’t in his hands. Never had been. She’d chosen this.

So she spun in the dark tornado of the dream, while he watched on, able to do nothing more than pull at his hair uselessly. This was his punishment for not dying along with her as he should have.

She never asked for help, not that he could do shit for her. In fact, she never said a word because just as she opened her mouth to speak his animal roared forward to save him.

Or condemn him.

There was never any indication which, but he’d wake, and leave the dream behind to torture him another night.

Except tonight that didn’t happen.

Mandi’s lips parted and a single word came out. “Magic.”

His name.

No. He couldn’t bear to hear her call his name when he could do nothing to save her.

Except it wasn’t a cry for help. It wasn’t desperate. It was sad. Resigned. Apologetic. In fact, she almost looked relieved, swirling in her darkness. As if she’d broken through some barrier.

She opened her mouth to speak again, this time looking urgent. She had something to tell him. Something important, going by the expression on her pale face. Why had he never listened before?

Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, taap-pa-tap.

Magic jerked his head in the direction of the sound, and Mandi did too. But the noise was from outside the dream. He listened closely as the thumping continued.

Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, taap-pa-tap.

Wrong thing to do, because in an instant he was pulled from the dream. His eyelids flew open to the dimness of his room, breath heaving with confused emotions. Curiosity and heartbreak from the dream. Anger and frustration from whatever had awakened him.

Magic tossed off his covers and sat on the edge of the bed, raking his hands through his hair and trying to steady his breath.

It was only a dream. Just a damn dream. His subconscious was doing what it had always done, hanging on to Mandi for all he was worth. But for what purpose? They were over. In the most permanent way possible.

The only reason to hold on to a ghost so tightly was guilt. He felt responsible for what she’d done. If he could have given her his oath that he’d never take another female, she would have stayed. But he hadn’t done that, not even when she’d begged. Instead, he’d played with fire, hanging out at Cleaver’s, just tempting fate.

If she could have seen inside his heart, the love he’d had for her, she would’ve seen him push females away. She would have seen him choose her, over and over.