Heart of Stone - Book 1: Fighting Fate

Stone knew he was dreaming. He knew because his heightened senses were muted, making him feel vulnerable and weak, like a newborn pup.

It had been a long time since his last dream. Most of his dreams were of nothing but an empty, black abyss. He was always wandering through nothingness, finding nothing and feeling nothing but the emptiness in his soul.

Since finding Aubree, that had changed. Glimpses of her face appeared in his dreams and he knew it was her soul reaching out to him.

This time, the endless sea of nothingness led him through a forest, one that he recognized from long ago.

His heart began to race as he picked up his feet—no, paws—and ran through the dense woodland known as Schwarzwald, the Black Forest of the Holy Roman Empire, or Renaissance Germany.

The Germanic tribes for centuries feared the forest for it was silva nigra—dark, murky, and almost impenetrable. Many tales told of werewolves, vampires, and sorcerers living in the woods—all of which were true and founded from first-hand experiences, despite the twists that had been added after years of being passed down from generation to generation.

The humans feared the woods, as they should because it belonged to the creatures of the night. Creatures like him and her.

Roots snaked out of the earth, tangled together in twisted knots as low gnarled branches reached down to brush against his shoulder. His long arms and legs enabled him to run at breathtaking speeds with huge claw-like hands to dig into the soil, grip roots, and make sharp turns without so much as slowing down.

He was fast, but his strength was unmatched in the lands of the Holy Roman Empire and southern Denmark for a lycan under five hundred years of age.

In his heart, he knew that he would find her here and it leaped with joy, even if it was a dream. For this was the same forest that he had first met her.

Adelaide.

He couldn’t smell her, not like he had some four hundred years ago, but he could feel her. The pull was so magnetically strong that he pushed himself as fast as his long legs could carry him. His mind raced with only one word repeated over and over.

Mate.

He knew she was near and he tumbled to the forest floor where there was a narrow strip of tall grass along a winding creek. The sun shone down through the gap in the trees, making the ripples in the creek and the morning dew on the grass sparkle. A gentle breeze blew the cattails that lined the riverbed as small swarms of insects hummed soft minnesang over the gentle trickle of the water between rocks.

Or perhaps it wasn’t the insects humming the love song, but rather it was her nearby? He thought he could make out the words under her breath.

Dû bist mîn, ich bin dîn:

des solt dû gewis sîn.

Dû bist beslozzen

in mînem Herzen.

Verlorn ist das Slüzzelîn:

dû muost immer drinne sîn.

You are mine, I am yours:

thereof you may be certain.

You’re locked away

within my heart.

Lost is the little key:

and you must ever be therein.

He had shifted back to his human form without noticing. Such was the nature of the dream world, but he didn’t mind. He knew it was because his mate was near.

It was as he remembered it all these years later.

Hot and thirsty from his long run, he bent down along the creek’s edge and washed the dirt from his hands. His long blond hair fell over his shoulders and in his face. Brushing it back, he proceeded to splash the cold water on his hot face. Scooping water up into his large hands, he heard a rustle in the bushes across the creek as he drank. He froze as the water dribbled between his fingers, his heart pounding in anticipation because he knew it was her.

He glimpsed the top of her head, a bob of rich brown, through the cattails as she crept down low toward the creek’s edge. He couldn’t sense it in the dream, but he remembered the anxious feeling he got from her, like she knew he was there and she was nervous about what she would find on the other side.

They were both naked, having previously been in their lycan wolf forms. It always happened that way. When mates approached each other for the first time, they shifted into their weaker forms.

Nakedness was more natural to them than wearing clothing. There was no shame in it. In the days of old, they never wore clothing. It was only when the humans became more numerous and began living closer to lycan territory that the lycans donned clothing in order to conceal their identities and walk among them.

Unabashed, he grinned as he inhaled deeply, rising to his feet and running his wet hands through his long blond locks. His toes curled into the pebbles as he rose to his full height of six foot five.

He could feel her eyes on him and when he found them, he couldn’t unlock his hold on them.

She slowly rose to her feet, her long brown tresses tumbling over her shoulders and bare breasts. She was petite for a lycan female but was still roughly the same height as a human male. At five feet and eight inches tall, thick sinewy muscles, and wide hips, she would have intimidated most humans she came in contact with if it were not for the abundance of clothing they wore.

Large brown eyes adorned her sun-kissed, heart-shaped face that never faltered in their hold with his.

He struggled to breathe, reliving this moment again as his heart filled with so much love and longing that he could barely hold back the tears that threatened to break free.

"Ya eta temona,” he said, holding both of his hands out to her, palms up in greeting.

I am yours, he told her in their ancient language, Lykostroya, to which there was only one response.

He waited, as her smile locked, but her eyes grew sad.

His eyes widened in horror as dread set in.

This wasn’t how it happened. She had accepted him as her mate. She had taken his hands in hers, entwined their fingers together, and uttered the accepted response.

The sounds of the running water faded away, and the only thing he could hear was the sound of his heart pounding in his chest.

"Adelaide?"

His voice was like that of a frog’s and he reached out to her, to touch her, but to his dismay, the gap between them widened. She just stood there, motionless, as the space between them increased and the forest darkened until there was nothing but blackness around them.

He was struggling to breathe now, gasping for air, refusing to give up on her as he chased after her. ”Adelaide!"

Like the forest that surrounded them, she too began to fade away into nothingness.

Falling to his knees, he cried out her name once more and beat his fist against the black ground.

Even in his dreams, he could not have her back. How could the Goddess tempt him so? How could she be so cruel?

Rage built up inside him as he gritted his teeth. He vowed to kill every one of those filthy bloodsuckers for what they’d done to his beloved and his family. They would pay. He would not rest until he had wiped the world free of their lecherous species.

He closed his eyes in an attempt to calm himself down. When he opened them, he saw a figure in the distance.

Hoping that the Goddess had shown him mercy and granted him another glimpse of his deceased mate, he jumped to his feet and ran forward.

He called out her name again. ”Adelaide!"

As he got closer, he could see her dressed in a little white sundress—no, it was a short spaghetti strap nightie—her hair falling in gentle wisps of light brown down to the middle of her back.

He paused, taken aback, as she turned around and hazel eyes met his blue ones.

Gaping at him, her eyes took in his broad shoulders, thick arms, and traveled down to his abs before she snapped her mouth shut and quickly returned her gaze to his face. Her cheeks reddened and she opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

He gritted his teeth together in anger, feeling betrayed by the Goddess’ lack of mercy and cruel sense of humor by replacing his Adelaide with a human.

Aubree was not his Adelaide. She could never be his Adelaide.

His lips curled back in a snarl as he growled, ”I cannot accept you.”