Hunched over, with ebony hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, the regal but dainty woman must have been Jae's mother. She had no lines on her face—but it was from her stern and unsmiling disposition, not from her age.
“Have you cut the beefsteak, Ahn-Jae?”
“Yes, Omma.”
The rhythmic sounds of Jae's mother washing the starchy rice were comforting. The small boy was barely taller than the countertops. His vivid violet eyes were so unnatural that they were always the first thing that caught my attention. Set in a cherubic face with floppy hair, the same color as his mother’s.
I stepped forward. My fingers brushed against the sticky plastic of the cheap card table, with two rickety chairs on either side. Young Ahn-Jae Lee came up to my hip as he stood at the countertop and arranged the ingredients for his mother. She hurried around the kitchen, a petite maelstrom, only stopping to question Jae when she required something.
I hovered, an unwilling but curious spectator to the activity. Mother and child moved with familiarity, decidedly separate, as they orbited around each other. I had observed few parental relationships, but there was a cold indifference that lurked on the air and within Ms. Lee. I did not know what it meant.
“Mara!” Ms. Lee snapped. “Get the Kimchee. Ahn-Jae, get the eggs.”
The beauty of dream logic. No one ever turned to a stranger in a dream and asked why they were there. No one questioned the floating nightmare. Instead, I was swallowed by the dream and expected to participate.
Jae opened the fridge and took out a carton of eggs. He turned towards his mother and began to walk across the kitchen. His knuckles were white around the container. The leg of the chair seemed to move on its own, slamming into the young boy's shins. He dropped the eggs. Each one smashed, like gooey fireworks on the checked tile. He winced with every sound.
Ms. Lee stiffened by did not turn around to the source of the sound. She made no noise as she reached to her left and picked up a wooden spoon, set apart from the other utensils. The curved wood at the top had a large crack down the center, stained brown at the top with something I could not identify.
“Ahn-Jae Lee.” Mrs Lee said delicately and without emotion.
Dream-Jae had shifted, becoming his adult self. Still wearing the same Danger-mouse t-shirt that his younger self had been wearing. His face had drained of color as he stared down at the shattered eggs and refused to look up.
“One for every egg, Ahn-Jae?”
“Yes, Omma.”
Jae moved to the spindly kitchen chair and gripped the back. He tilted at the waist, his mother’s arm drew back as she moved to strike her son. One hit for every egg. I closed my eyes, unable to move. Unable to put myself between them.
Useless.
When I opened my eyes, there was nothing but a wall of trees. Their shapes were a silhouette in the darkness. The only sounds were the panting breaths of a man, and the cracking twigs and rustling bracken as the forest floor gave way to his clumsy footfalls.
Callum Hart broke through the space between two towering redwoods. Naked from the waist up, strips of blood across his torso as if he had been clawed by a dozen animals. His hair was shorn close to his skull, his orange eyes darted furtively. Surveying everything quietly, as if he expected someone to jump out and attack. I had never released that part of Hart's silence was because he was always on guard.
Wolves howled in the distance.
I followed after Hart as he took off at a sprint. Only on the cusp of his teenage years, his body was large but without muscle. All awkward angles.
Hart staggered and fell into the undergrowth. His knees gave out. He slammed his fist into the soft rotting leaves.
“Shift!” He snarled at himself, hitting the ground. Hart's shoulders began to tremble. “Shift!” His voice broke. “Dammit. Why won't you come?! Why is my wolf so fucking weak!” I pressed my back against the rough bark of the nearest tree, as I watched Callum Hart, stoic and silent, break down. He curled into a ball, shivering and bloodied. Tears mixed with snot as they ran down his face.
The wolves grew closer, their hungry snarls were loud and feral. Hart's pack. His family. They were hunting him.
The scrawny teenager had changed into his adult self. Shoulder length russet hair, bulky with every muscle honed for strength. He had changed so much, but in his dream, he was still a little boy. Cowering from his own pack because he was defective.
I opened my mouth and stepped forward.
The Balance stood in my way. Her head cocked to the side.
“You have chosen damaged men.” She observed, her language was formal, but her expression was curious in the same way that a child's would be. “Do you plan to fix them?”
My fists clenched. “They don't need to be fixed. There is nothing wrong with them.”
The Balance waved her hand towards the curled up man on the forest floor and quirked a brow as if to say 'see?’.
“Everyone has a past,” I said.
“And you?” The Balance cocked her head to the side. “Can you put yours away, and become what you need to be? Like they have?”
I didn’t have a chance to answer before I jerked awake.
My heart pounded, residue from the nightmares.
“Stupid god’s and their stupid riddles.” I punched my lumpy pillow to rearrange the down inside and laid back down. Hugo's heat seeped into my skin, and I found myself relaxing against the incubus.
I stared into the darkness, thinking until the sun leaked through the floral curtains, and Hugo woke up. I smiled brightly as if I had slept peacefully. The lie fell easy off my tongue.
I wondered why the Universe's empty platitudes filled me with dread.
At breakfast, Momma G rushed around, making pancakes and bacon for everyone. She asked Jae to fetch the eggs from the fridge. I watched as he did as she asked without a hint of the past trauma that he had endured in his mother’s kitchen.
The Balance had been wrong. My men weren’t damaged.
If there was hope for them, there was hope for me.
Chapter 18
The next morning, the drive to the compound was made in silence. My thoughts raced around my head and stole my ability to speak. I didn’t even have the heart to tease Jae and Hart for their loud sex the night before.
I didn’t want to admit it but seeing the guard booth, and then the Lego block buildings nestled in between the trees, felt like coming home.
My nails dug into my palms, as I wondered how my Bonds with Remi and Hugo would endure once I went back to NYC.
I had met The Balance twice, and I hadn’t been called like the other Hunters. Why would the most powerful force in existence want a Drude on their side? Every Hunter I had met had something to offer, even the humans. What could I offer?
My skills included borrowing bodies, being able to taste random hidden ingredients in gourmet food, the attention span of a toddler on sugar (I could admit that about myself, but Hell would fall before I would let someone else say that about me), and a talent for fleeing to save my own skin.
Hugo reached over and linked our fingers when we got out of the car. Jae and Hart walked ahead, with a few backward glances that told me that both men had noticed that my mood had plummeted.
“Are you okay?” Hugo's ice-blue eyes were worried. “Did our conversation last night upset you?”
I shook my head, my teeth worried my bottom lip. “It’s nothing.”
“Because I can wait,” Hugo assured me. “I belong to you.”