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  Seething water took them deeper. When they reached the ocean’s floor, there was no panic this time. No fight to escape.

  “What drew you to this place?” he asked.

  Sarah turned to him finally. And in her vision’s reality the man beside her was once again her patient teacher. The hero who’d saved her mind. The kindred spirit she’d trusted to bring her back to life.

  “Rick?”

  It was Rick that she’d secretly needed when there was no place else to fall and the ocean was closing in.

  “Focus on the memories,” he said, “not me. There’s another voice besides Trinity’s here. We have to know what it’s saying. How it convinced you to stay. You’d already given up when Madeline entered the dream. Why aren’t you fighting your way back to the surface or the door?”

  The sea’s currents shifted around them.

  Angry.

  Closing in.

  Richard fought to keep the vision and Sarah focused.

  “The water wanted me here,” she said, seeing and hearing through his experience now, not just hers.

  “Yes.” A rush of current obscured his image, then he came back into focus.

  “The cries,” she said as the ocean grew colder. “Trinity was behind the door, but I couldn’t help her. I’d failed. And the voice said I belonged here instead. I was so tired of trying to reach her.”

  “Yes.” Richard winced as Trinity’s screams grew louder—a child’s fear and a little girl’s pain and a woman’s betrayal.

  “I’ve heard them before . . .” Sarah couldn’t stop shivering. “I’ve been hearing them forever, and I just left her there. I abandoned her. I gave up.”

  Shame seethed around them. It would have sucked Sarah away, except for Richard’s grip still wrapped around her wrist.

  “The voice is only a memory,” he reminded her. “It can’t reach you here. The ocean can’t have you. Tell me who was waiting for you at the bottom of the ocean. Who didn’t want you to return to the door?”

  She pressed her free hand to her temple, feeling his touch there, too, from beyond the memory. The ocean’s voice grew more and more familiar, the longer Richard’s control was there to help her.

  “The wolf!” Sarah clung to the burst of clarity and to Richard. The ocean churned around them. “Tad Ruebens was the ocean’s voice. I abandoned Trinity to let the currents take me straight to his wolf. God, what if he’s what I’ve been searching for all along? What if he’s the one who called me to Lenox, so he could turn me against you and the rest of the team?”

  “Ruebens is dead. He’s not real outside the dream.”

  “But he’s still calling me.” Even though the consciousness she’d connected with in the house had seemed more familiar than the nightmare’s voice, it had been the same darkness calling her. The same destruction.

  “The nightmare’s matrix is calling you.” Richard’s logic knifed through her panic, creating a pool of warm, calm water around them. “Whoever’s triggering your projections is playing on your fear of Ruebens’s symbol. But the wolf is dead.”

  “I saw him in my vision in my bedroom. I—”

  “My men killed him. Believe that whenever he appears in a projection. See only what’s really here.”

  “I can’t . . .” The water roared around them. It was inside her again. Filling her. Taking control.

  “Focus only on the vision’s images, not your fear of them.” Richard tucked her head beneath his chin, his gentleness a long-forgotten memory. “Feel only our connection. You and me, not the dream’s hold. You can breathe now, Sarah. Your lungs are clear. We’re separate from the memories we’re seeing. Show me what the ocean was hiding from you down here in the darkness. What couldn’t you see before? Show me the hidden secrets in your dream.”

  Sarah didn’t want the memories anymore. She didn’t want either of them to see. But there it was, reaching for her. What she’d needed to hide from most. What she’d promised never to return to. Her need for Richard—Rick—to find her, comfort her, and never let her go.

  And he was there now. Their hearts were beating together. Her hands were locked around his powerful arms. Her breath was mingling with his energy. Her lips were hovering just beneath his.

  Every dream and longing and desire she’d given up because she couldn’t have him were just inches away. All Richard had to do was say that he wanted her again. That he’d always wanted her. That nothing would ever feel more real than holding her in his arms.

  “Sarah . . .” His fingers tangled with her hair. “You don’t want this.”

  “No.”

  She clung to him shamelessly. It was freezing again, the water bitterly cold. Her lips nuzzled his neck no matter how hard she fought to stop. His warmth, the answering desire raging through his mind, tempted her to taste him, kiss him, make him respond even more.

  “Please . . . ,” she said. “Don’t let me go.”

  And then he was kissing her back and it was everything she’d dreamed it would be. His mouth opened, and with a groan he was demanding, devouring, needing the touch and the feel of her, of them, that they’d never shared. He was encouraging her instead of holding back. Feasting on her. Demanding that she leave the darkness behind.

  At the bottom of the nightmare’s ocean, she could have this. She could have Rick back, and she’d never be alone again. A part of her knew it wasn’t real. But it felt too good, threading her fingers through his dark hair and arching into his strength. Wrapping her passion around his and setting them both free. Until they existed only in this timeless moment where they were beyond the damage and the betrayal and the guilt. Nothing mattered here but her fantasy to make him hers, and his answering compulsion to keep her forever.

  Richard’s hands roamed her body, his fingers clenching on her bottom with just enough bite to make her want more. He lifted her until she was plastered against him, his need raging to bind her to him until being safe and unemotional and in control would never be possible again.

  Her nails scraped down the hard muscles of his chest, then up again, searing him.

  “This is where you’ve wanted him all along,” whispered the wolf’s voice.

  Then, suddenly, the sea’s currents were caressing her, too. Encouraging her. Directing her. Outside of her. Terrifying her, because she couldn’t stop herself from responding.

  The vision darkened as her compulsion grew to distract the man in her arms, seduce him, lure him closer. She could barely see Richard’s face. She framed it with her hands.

  “Slowly,” the wolf whispered. “Gain his trust slowly.”

  Sarah shook her head.

  She tried to break free of the vision.

  Her fingers fumbled with Richard’s shirt. She couldn’t stop herself from lifting it over his head, revealing his Watcher’s Creed branded into his right shoulder.

  Specto. Tego. Asservo.

  Watch. Defend. Preserve.

  “Rick?” She strained to make out his expression. To warn him about the dream’s intent. “Help me . . .”

  He was fighting, too, she realized. Responding to her fear, trying to push her away. But she could feel him not being able to stop kissing her. Touching her.

  The nightmare had taken control.

  Richard’s fingers feathered along the hem of her sweatshirt. Then he was sliding the material up her body, his mouth claiming the sensitive skin swelling above her bra. Their vision vibrated with the erotic sizzle of his tongue stroking and his teeth biting and his lips promising her ecstasy.

  “He’s yours now,” the voice chanted. “You have him right where you’ve always wanted him.”

  And right where the nightmare’s ocean had needed him—out of control and primed for the attack Sarah could feel building within her, programmed behavior she wouldn’t be able to hold back for long.

  Revenge. She could finally have her revenge, the vision was promising. Her nails dug into Richard’s thighs. She fought the emotions driving her. Her hatred, and the nigh
tmare’s, too. The darkness that had drawn her in with promises of saving Trinity, then dragged her to her dream’s barren floor and the command to—

  “Kill me?” Richard said, finding his voice. His hungry gaze hardened at the rage building inside Sarah.

  Talons closed around her arms. He’d transformed into an avenging raven, staring down at her with death flickering in his midnight eyes.

  “Kill him!” the ocean screamed. “Before he destroys you.”

  “No.” The still-sane part of Sarah clung to the knowledge that his dream image was there to protect her.

  Hesitating sent pain streaking through them both. Trinity’s cries sliced through Sarah. She would have collapsed, if the raven weren’t holding her. He caught her close, lifting her into the safety of his wings. Sarah gazed into his fierce expression and saw the darkness of her own soul. But there was understanding there, too. Acceptance of the truth they’d come for. She was evil, but he’d never let her go. Just as he’d promised.

  Her hands came up.

  Her fingers circled his neck.

  The compulsion to strangle him grew stronger, but her raven merely watched, trust in his gaze and his thoughts and his relaxed hold.

  “I can’t stop,” she said. “He wants me to kill you.”

  “Take him,” the wolf’s voice demanded. “Take him before he destroys us.”

  “She won’t kill for you here,” her raven screeched into the roaring ocean. “She’s not your weapon anymore.”

  Then he was suddenly Richard again—Rick—and he was using all his telepathic strength to regain control of the vision. He swallowed against her grip.

  “You won’t allow the voice to make you kill,” he insisted. “That’s why you pushed Maddie away and tried to make her leave. It’s why you didn’t want her in the dream helping you. Subconsciously, you sensed the danger here. You’re not a killer, Sarah.”

  But she had been. She’d been too weak to save too many precious lives. The ocean was right. The voices had always been right. Darkness, not Trinity’s light, was where Sarah belonged. There, at the bottom of an empty ocean, where she’d never hurt anyone again.

  “Kill him!” the wolf demanded.

  “Let the vision go,” Richard insisted. “We’ve found what we needed. You don’t want to kill. It’s Dream Weaver programming that we can reverse, now that we know.”

  Before Sarah could respond, the ocean wrenched them back to the image of a blood-soaked door.

  “You’re hurting her,” the wolf said. “Kill him, so she can be free.”

  Trinity begged for help behind the door. Richard held Sarah tighter, to keep her from killing herself to get to a child.

  “Let me go.” Her nails tore at the skin on his arms and face. “I’ll kill you if you don’t let me go. I have to open the door. I have to—”

  “Break the link,” he demanded. “You have to break free.”

  The water surged, dragging them down again.

  “Release the memories, Alpha. Let me bring you back. Release!”

  His command, calling her Alpha, ripped at the vision, returning Sarah piece by piece to a reality outside the nightmare’s warped demands. Until everything in the vision rushed to black, and then she was—

  Awake.

  Stunned.

  Back in the lab’s gym.

  In Richard’s shaking arms.

  He was holding her against his chest, both of them sprawled on the gym’s mat, his body braced behind her. His broken breathing rumbled beneath her ear. Sarah crawled, stumbled to her feet, then ran across the gym.

  Her mind was spinning. She couldn’t remember anything clearly except the craving to kill and her willingness to do whatever the nightmare wanted, to stop the screams still ringing through her mind. Revulsion, self-loathing, sent her to her knees. Her muscle control dissolved into convulsions. Richard was beside her. He reached for the pouch of medication he carried with him everywhere, then inserted a needle into her left arm, pushing one of his recovery meds into a vein.

  “Let this circulate through your system,” he said. “It will take care of the worst of the side effects.”

  “Get away from me.”

  She couldn’t stop shivering. He held her head while she lost the contents of her stomach.

  “I don’t—” she started to say.

  “You don’t want me here.” He brushed her hair out of her eyes and studied her pupils. “I know. But I’m all you’ve got tonight.”

  He’d made sure they were alone, she remembered. He’d forced her to fight him so she’d lose control. Then both their mental barriers had evaporated in the dream, and they’d given in to the need for one another they’d both been denying. Only it had been the nightmare driving them to that perfect moment.

  It had consumed their vision. Her memories of the dream had taken on a life of their own. And they’d wanted Richard dead. Again.

  She could still feel her hands around his neck. The command to kill still ruled a part of her that wasn’t completely back. Meanwhile, her lips were tingling from his kisses and the passion that had consumed them. Sarah wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Richard’s gaze followed the movement. He closed his eyes. Then he stood and walked to the other side of the gym.

  Her breathing and pulse settled as her bloodstream metabolized more of the medication he’d injected. She pushed back until she was sitting. Richard didn’t move. His shields were locked back into place. It was unsettling, not being able to sense what he was thinking again after their minds had merged so deeply.

  But she didn’t have to know.

  She could guess what was coming, no matter what he’d promised.

  “Just say it.” Betrayal hurt even worse the second time around. “You’re already halfway out the door. Tell me I’m too fucked-up to risk your position to back me. You were right. Trinity’s not real. Her cries and whatever that was I saw in Lenox were just another way for the center to control me until I lured a prime target into the nightmare’s trap. Go report to your leaders. Let’s get this over with.”

  Richard crossed the room in a blur. He pulled Sarah to her feet and held her suspended off the ground so they were eye to eye.

  She’d wanted to face his desertion with the same defiance that had saved her at the center. But the secret place inside her that his dream touch had warmed was aching now. Bleeding. Sarah was bleeding, tiny drops of emptiness filling the heart his protection and fierce belief in her within the vision had split wide open again.

  And now, there he was. Rick. Working up the courage to tell her once again that his duty to his brotherhood had always been more important than her.

  “You’re not getting off that easy,” he said instead. “Not until you tell me exactly how long Ruebens’s wolf has been in your dream, telling you to kill.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Talk to me.” Richard made himself put Sarah down and move away.

  Keeping his hands and his emotions to himself after the passion that had just consumed them was impossible. But he’d do it somehow. The tactical significance of their vision had to stay his focus, not the compulsion to drag Sarah back to the exercise mat and make love to her until she was screaming for him, proving that it had been more than her Dream Weaver programming binding her to Richard.

  “I just tried to kill you,” Sarah said to the empty space over his shoulder, “because a nightmare told me to. Trinity doesn’t exist. She never has. What else is there to talk about?”

  Her rapid recovery from their vision, even quicker than from the previous two projections, was as shocking as the rest of what had happened. Her psychic stamina was escalating as rapidly as her programming’s hold. It wouldn’t be long before Richard would lose his ability to guide Sarah’s projections. Soon, it would be her choice alone what her legacy became.

  “Let’s start with what it’s going to take to convince the council that this was a successful exercise rather than a reason to neutralize your legacy.”
/>   Her attention snapped back to him. “You . . . you’re going to lobby your elders to keep playing with this insanity?”

  “We are.” He could still hear a child’s voice calling to Sarah through the lab’s psychic buffers. And a man’s deep, unintelligible command. He could feel Sarah’s mind struggling not to be absorbed by them.

  She stiffened, sensing his awareness. “Not trusting you isn’t losing my nerve. It’s self-preservation.”

  “Not when I’m your only shot to find Trinity.”

  “She isn’t real.” Her eyes filled with the kind of loss that destroyed souls. “I must have realized that when I couldn’t open that door in the nightmare. That’s why I couldn’t connect with whatever we found in my parents’ house. Trinity’s never been real.”

  “You won’t know for sure until you and your sister and I get back into your nightmare and dig for the truth.”

  “The elders aren’t going to let me go back.” She sounded almost relieved. “What if I try to kill someone again?”

  Her fear of losing control, her fear of herself, filled their link. There wasn’t a flicker of the malice or revenge that the nightmare had triggered.

  “Then you’ll pull back,” he said. “Just like you have twice now. You’ve developed the control you need to find Trinity. As long as you take the help you need with you, you’ll succeed next time.”

  Her darker impulses would remain a threat, but Richard had sensed the truth in her mind. The vision’s homicidal commands weren’t a product of her own thoughts—she’d fought them too hard.

  She was staring at Richard as if he were the one losing his mind. And maybe he was. Jeff wouldn’t understand the risk he was about to insist she take with him.

  “The ocean told you to kill me,” he pressed, “but I’m still here. Your mind is not the threat the Brotherhood should be worried about. The council needs your nightmare to get to the bottom of whatever the center’s doing, as much as you need Watcher support to find Trinity. And if I have my say, it won’t be a vision or a lab exercise this time. Once we sell the council on it, your next dream will be a sanctioned reconnaissance mission, just like the trip to Lenox.”