Finally, with my continued efforts, to hold onto some semblance of the reality I knew, even in a dream state, I was able to will my hand back toward him as he moved closer. I ran my hand over his side, but felt nothing, and his wolf’s eyes grew sadder if possible, the colors in them changing, the gold growing darker, dimming.
His head seemed to hang, to be weighted and suspended. I welcomed the sensation of being in this world as my mind cried out for him. With my gratitude around us like the faint glimmer of a light, my internal power, this time when he moved, he went to curl up around me, as he had done so many times before. Only this time, in the glow of my magic, our magic, I finally began to feel his warmth. Reaching out again, I felt his fur fluttered through my fingers, more like feathers at first. With all I was here, all I had at my disposal, I concentrated, and found that finally I could pet him. Only, this act of comfort, of me giving to him myself, it wrought a horrendous moan from his throat.
This sound, an inhuman fog horn blended with the anguished cry of one abandoned, seemed to spark something in him, or maybe, more to the point, it extinguished his magic. My second guess had to be more on the mark, because he turned human as his groaning continued on. The solid strength of his wolf, even battered, vanished along with the fur, until he became flesh and bone. I watched this transformation in his eyes. While bigger, the golden eyes of his wolf with amber flecks changed to his smaller, human, amber eyes with the matching gold flecks. Sadly, they didn’t sparkle at all now.
The man I had fallen in love with laid there now, suspended in this darkness, motionless save for a low vibration in his chest. His mournful breathing continued, making me feel, finally, gratefully, even more real, a human myself, with each seep of grief the sound brought about in this still mostly invisible me. His amber eyes were dark and stormy, an almost black now against the blood that had dried on his face. These dried drops and smears had come from a still seeping wound on his head. His hair looked darker, more like tar, since it had stiffened with the blood. As I looked down over his bulging form, his strong muscles were bruised, leaving his skin more green and purple than flesh-colored.
More blood oozed a blackish crimson from gapping wounds all over him as I inspected farther. Arms and legs showed cuts and scrapes, bumps and dents, even open gouges. He should have been healing by now. I wasn’t aware of exactly how much time had passed since I’d last seen him, but it had to be enough that he should have begun to heal. Like the last time he’d battled in my apartment and I’d thought him dead, the other wolves had told me that as long as his heartbeat, he would heal. And, he had. In an instant, once it had started, I’d almost been able to watch wounds grow back together, and bruises fade. This wolf, this version of my Lex, looked worse than when I’d left him. Instead of looking better, on the mend, however long it had been since the battle on the dirt road, he appeared to just be laying there dying.
It didn’t make sense, but at least in my dream, the appropriate feelings started to come. In an instant, I moved beyond panic to life-turning hysteria and all-out horror. Even the pain in my own body returned with a vengeance. My leg, probably broken, started to burn and throb, actually robbing me of some of my thoughts. My own head bumped and bruised, ached to maddening, the dried blood what I assumed to be making my skin pinch and burn. Here, in this state, whatever the vampires had done to protect me from emotions and pain had worn off, or gone away. In this brutal but real moment, I felt it all, my agony mixed with his.
I worried that his time grew short. What I felt of him, our connection... it was being snuffed out like a candle, struggling to keep a flame, smoldering and smoking, failing to light the encroaching darkness as it grew heavier and thicker around us. But, he was alive, at least for now. I knew I had to gather my strength for him. Maybe this had been a warning, a dream or a vision, either way, a lesson to tell me to fight, to get better.
It clicked then, that through our connection, he’d appeared to me. This was his grave state. For whatever reason, he wasn’t healing. The other pack’s sorcerer could be prohibiting his animal’s ability to heal, stifling his magic to a degree, but not enough to kill him. I vowed to heed this grim message.
I’d take a chance on these vampire people. They’d saved me and not killed me yet. I was at their mercy anyway, so what else could I do but listen and hopefully heal? Once I had my wits about me, I could gather more information. If my luck held, maybe they had a way to save Lex and me. I had to find a way to get to him, to save him, as he had me so many times. I owed it to him, and to myself. I couldn’t live without him. I’d lost a lot in my life, but this time, with our unique connection, I wouldn’t survive the loss. This I knew with absolute certainty.