LOGINOdessa:I sat up gasping, clutching my neck, beating my fists into the being that was wrapped around me. I wouldn’t be taken without a fight. “Odessa! It’s me, it’s Reign, you’re safe my lonan.” Reign pulled me against his chest as I sobbed, clinging to him like a child clinging to their favorite blanket. “Shh. I’ve got you.” He soothed, rocking me, brushing the hair from my sweating face. As Reign soothed me, I heard Isla in my mind huffing and puffing like she had just ran a marathon. Then finally, she spoke, and the chaos and the fear that had me in a chokehold began to ease a fraction. “What I just showed you is called weaving,” She said between ragged breaths.Our world, the other dimensions, the above and below places, it is all connected to an end, like threads on a loom. What you just saw, that was the thread that was connected to putting more men on border patrols instead of doing the plan I showed you. Now, get up, girl. Look at the drawing. “What the hell was that?” Za
Odessa:“I do not believe border patrols will be beneficial. Not when there is a traitor amongst our people.” Isla grumbled, frustrated with our plans. “Why?” I asked her using that silent link between our minds.“I just told you, girl. The traitor is among us. That means those patrolling the border are at risk for an attack from the outside, and those inside are at risk of being attacked from inside Solaris’s gates. There has to be a better security strategy than this.” She huffed, shaking out her fur in the back of my mind. I pinched the place between my eyebrows, wishing that the ache there would go away. I grabbed my mug of coffee and took a deep drink of the bittersweet savior. Then, just as I placed the mug back on the table, Reign looked at me. “What’s wrong?” He asked, either noting the ache in my head or the fact that Isla had made a point that I didn’t know how to bring up. “Nothing,” I answered quickly, and both Reign and Zander just looked at me, as if they were expect
Reign:We both sat in silence, scarfing the food the cook had prepared for us. I remember stabbing my fork through a slice of melon; I remember my last drink of water to chase down the sweetness of the maple syrup. But I don’t remember the trip upstairs, or crawling into bed next to Odessa, pulling her into my side so close that a sheet of paper couldn’t fit between us.Goddess, she fits so perfectly at my side.“Goodnight, my lonan.” I barely muttered those three words, but I felt them everywhere. “Goodnight,” She yawned from the crook of my arm. We slept through the setting sun, slept through the next sunrise, and only when the sun began piercing the room that morning did either of us begin to stir. When those first shards of light leaked across the floor into my eyes, I slowly came to. Odessa was right where she fell asleep, on my arm where she belongs. Her hand was splayed across my chest, our legs were intertwined, and her slow, steady breathing nearly lulled me back to sleep.
Odessa:Lub-dub…Lub-dub…Lub-dub…“Shhh,” I tried to whisper through the pounding of my head. Whatever the sound was, it was loud… beautiful, like a favorite song, but harsh as if it were turned up way too loud.The sound never quieted, but instead, another beat was added to the music. Another rhythm beating to the same tune as the first, but this one, I could listen to forever. I recognized it instantly. It was Reign’s heartbeat, the sound of it soothing the ache behind my eyes.“Reign?” I asked, unable to open my eyes. I could smell the damp earth, feel a cool breeze, I could feel the pull of the moon overhead, and somewhere in the near distance I could hear the cricket’s night song. My eyes felt like weighted lead when I tried to open them, but slowly they began to crack. It was then that I noticed we were outside. I saw six feet right in front of me, and knew from their shoes it was Reign, Zander, and Abner in front of me. I blinked heavily as if I were hung over and looked up
Reign:My breathing came in shattered gasps; it was as if I had been underwater for far too long and I had finally broken the surface and found air. My lungs ached, and my heart raced wildly, but I only wanted her. I reached for Odessa; I couldn’t hear her through the chaos in my body, but I knew she was here in the room with me. Her heart was like a wildfire, mirroring my own in perfect synchronicity.“Odessa,” I had never panicked in my life, but as my memories of the dream came flooding back- images of Odessa, the goddess, and the wolf- this retched panic rose in my body like a tsunami crashing into the edges of my very being. For the first time in my life, as far back as I could remember, I was truly scared. The minute my hand touched her side, I thought I would calm down, but then I felt the heat. She was so hot, like she was burning from the inside out.“Reign,” Her whimper shattered the sleep from my mind; the panic began to ebb and flow through my veins like a storm hell-ben
Odessa:I thought I was long gone; I thought I was a puppet to my exhaustion… I thought I was sleeping… but I don’t know if I was.One minute, I was wrapped in a silken nest with the steam of Reign’s shower filling the room; the next, there was something soft beneath my feet. Was it… grass?I opened my eyes to find silver grass that stretched in every direction; the breeze moved it gently beneath a sky so dark it seemed endless. Above me hung a massive moon, brighter than any moon I had ever seen, its light spilling across the field until everything around me seemed like it had been painted in silver.Where am I?“Hello?” I called to the vast, endlessness of night; my voice seemed so small in this place, still I was surprised when no one answered. My heart tried to escape my body when the sound of large footsteps started coming at me. I spun around, my hand on my heart as if the comfort of my palm against my chest would keep my heart from escaping its cage.A few yards away was Reig