Buried and Shadowed (Branded Packs #3)(26)

Because this was only a reprieve in the darkness.

Something was coming.

And it was coming soon.





Chapter 8


The dream came quickly. Oliver braced himself for the onslaught, yet did his best to remember every detail, every ounce of pain. The darkness slammed into him, an ever-present entity that told him that what happened next wasn’t going to be easy, wasn’t going to be pretty.

He let out a breath, focusing on what mattered—the vision.

They were standing in a group of trees, though he couldn’t tell if it was night or day because the branches made a canopy, only letting in some light. If he’d been awake in truth, he’d have felt the sun’s warmth or perhaps the moon’s pull, but for now, he only knew that what happened would be in this small patch of forest.

Growls sounded in front of him, and he moved forward. From the murky darkness, two figures emerged, this time not in wolf form. Gibson and Mandy stood back-to-back, cuts covering their body. A large, jagged gash marked Gibson’s torso. Blood seeped through Gibson’s shirt and ran down his pants to mix with the dirt on the ground. The Omega was pale, his body shutting down from the mortal wound.

Mandy clawed at her attacker, a dark shadow he couldn’t quite place, her face scrunched even as her eyes filled with fear.

Oliver threw his head back and roared. The hump on the back of his neck grew as he began to shift into his grizzly form. The need to save them, even in a dream that was no dream, took over, and he put all sense of reality out of his mind.

He would not allow these two to die.

Not when he’d just found them.

He tackled the dark shadow in front of Gibson as the male wolf fell to his knees, his eyes wide and vacant. Mandy turned toward them, screaming their lover’s name as Gibson hit the ground. Oliver reached out with a large paw to bring her close, but couldn’t get to her in time. Instead, a shadow jumped onto her back and clawed her neck. Blood poured from the gash, and she reached up to staunch the flow.

But it wouldn’t be enough.

It never was.

Oliver covered their bodies with his own, swiping at the shadows but never making contact. He clawed, bit, and roared; yet nothing worked. The shadows used their fangs and claws to attack his body, digging through his fur down to the flesh.

His blood covered the ground below him, and he knew this would be the end.

This was how he would die.

And if he didn’t move from the vision, he might die for real, as well. Because sometimes, whatever happened in the vision, also happened to his unconscious body.

He couldn’t let his life end like this, couldn’t let Gibson and Mandy die at the hands of the unknown.

Oliver pulled away, his body shaking, his vision going gray. As he closed his eyes, his breath growing ragged, another wolf emerged from the darkness, his eyes intent.

Theo.

But what would Theo be doing here?

Theo growled over Mandy’s body, and Oliver opened his mouth to roar back, but the darkness took him again.

He woke up in a pool of his own sweat, his sheets tangled around his hips and chest, heaving as he fought to catch his breath. With a lurch, he turned on his front and emptied the contents of his stomach into the empty trashcan he kept near his bed for situations just like this.

Once he could breathe again, Oliver stood on shaky legs and went to clean up his mess and toss his sheets in the washer. As he got in the shower, he stood under the spray, leaning on one hand against the wall so he could figure out what he was going to do with this new vision.

Just because Theo had shown up in the dream right when the shadows had disappeared didn’t mean he had anything to do with Gibson and Mandy’s deaths. In fact, it could have been something completely different, yet Oliver couldn’t shake that Theo had something to do with what would come.

And possibly with what had already happened.

Theo wasn’t happy with Mandy for choosing Oliver and Gibson over him, but that didn’t mean he would be responsible for their deaths. In fact, Theo had spent most of his life making sure Mandy was safe and secure, even within the walls of their confinement. But Gibson had been attacked—even if it had been before Mandy had come to them both. Perhaps Theo had known before even Oliver did of Mandy’s choice. And Claire…Claire had hurt Mandy.

He knew he was reaching at this point, but he didn’t know what else to think. Theo had been part of his vision, and this particular dream had felt more real than anything else he’d dreamt before.

Something was coming, he knew that, and perhaps Theo would be part of it.

What made this whole thing worse was that Oliver shouldn’t have had a vision like that at all. Something was wrong with him, his visions, his powers. He shouldn’t have visions of those closest to him, those he loved. Because, damn it, he loved Gibson and Mandy. He may not have had them in his life for long, but they were his. So he shouldn’t have had a vision about them.

And no Foreseer he had ever heard of had dreamt of their own death.

That just didn’t happen.

Whatever was off, he would find a way to fix it, but he knew it wouldn’t be easy. He sighed once more and turned off the water before getting out to dry himself. He’d promised he’d meet Gibson and Mandy in the den center for breakfast, and he knew he was already running late.

He didn’t sleep much thanks to the visions, but apparently, his body had decided that a dream where he had died would be the one that kept him unconscious for far longer than usual.