Page 13 of The Right to Bear Claws
"Better," she said, surprised to find it was true. "More rested."
"Good." He hesitated, like he wanted to say more but wasn't sure how. "I was thinking, if you're up for it, maybe we could take another walk around town this evening. There are a few places I didn't show you yesterday."
"I'd like that." She felt heat rise in her cheeks again.
Maeve cleared her throat loudly. "Well, this has been enlightening, but I should probably get back to work. Kaia, it was a pleasure meeting you. Don't be a stranger."
As the lioness shifter disappeared back into the kitchen, Elias slid into the vacated seat across from Kaia. "What did she want?"
"I think she was checking me out." Kaia said vaguely, knowing it wasn’t entirely false or true. She knew the bar owner had been checking her out for reasons that involved Elias, trying to tell her he was into her and she couldn’t deny her growing affection toward the man that she barley knew.
He didn’t press anymore, just asked her about her day in general, keeping the conversation casual. But even then in the tavern sitting across someone who made her feel more than safe, she could feel the familiar tug of approaching dreams, darker and more insistent than before. Whatever was hunting her wasn't finished, and she had the sinking feeling that her growing connection to Elias and Hollow Oak was only making her a more tempting target.
7
ELIAS
The Council archives smelled like dust, old leather, and secrets that had been buried for good reason.
Elias followed Lucien through the narrow corridors beneath the public library, their footsteps echoing off stone walls that predated Hollow Oak's official founding by at least two centuries. The panther shifter navigated the maze-like passages with familiar ease, leading them deeper into the underground repository where the town's most sensitive supernatural knowledge was stored.
"Here," Lucien said, stopping beside a shelf lined with volumes that looked older than civilization. "Dream magic, consciousness manipulation, and related phenomena. Most of it's theoretical, but there are a few case studies that might be relevant."
Elias pulled down a leather-bound tome, wincing as the binding cracked under his fingers. The pages were yellowed with age, covered in cramped handwriting that seemed to shift and blur when he tried to focus on it directly.
"Protective enchantments on the text," Lucien explained, settling cross-legged on the floor with his own stack of books."Keeps casual readers from accessing information that could drive them insane. Your mate bond should provide enough supernatural connection to bypass the worst of it."
The words on the page gradually sharpened into legibility, revealing accounts of dreamwalkers throughout history. Most of the stories ended badly. Madness, possession, or simply vanishing into the dream realm never to return. The few who learned to control their abilities became powerful allies or dangerous enemies, depending on their intentions.
"Jesus," Elias muttered, reading about a dreamwalker in 1847 who'd accidentally trapped an entire village in a shared nightmare for three days. "No wonder they're so rare. Most don't survive long enough to reproduce."
"The ones who do survive tend to be incredibly powerful," Lucien said, not looking up from his own research. "There's an account here of a dreamwalker who single-handedly ended a supernatural war by giving the opposing army's leaders prophetic dreams about their inevitable defeat. They surrendered rather than face the futures she showed them."
Elias's bear paced restlessly as he absorbed the information. Every page reinforced what he'd already suspected: Kaia was extraordinary, but that same gift made her a target for things that fed on power and fear. Worse, most of the protective measures described in the texts required cooperation from the dreamwalker herself, and Kaia barely understood what she was capable of.
"Found something," Lucien said, his voice tight with concern. "Listen to this: 'The greatest danger to untrained dreamwalkers comes not from external threats, but from entities that exist within the collective unconscious. These shadow beings, sometimes called Nightmare Feeders, are drawn to powerful dreamwalkers like moths to flame. They cannot existin the waking world without an anchor, but once they claim a dreamwalker as host...'"
"What?" Elias demanded when his friend trailed off.
"'They gain the ability to manifest physical form during sleep cycles, feeding on the fears and nightmares of everyone within a significant radius. In extreme cases, entire communities have been consumed by shared terror, their population driven to madness or death.'"
The book suddenly felt heavy in Elias's hands. "How do you stop something like that?"
"According to this, you don't. Once a Nightmare Feeder claims a host, the only solution is..." Lucien's jaw tightened. "Destroying the dreamwalker before the entity can fully manifest."
"Like hell." The growl that escaped Elias's throat was pure bear, reverberating off the stone walls. "There has to be another way."
"Maybe." Lucien flipped through several more pages. "Some texts mention binding rituals, ways to anchor a dreamwalker to the physical world so strongly that shadow entities can't claim them. But the details are vague, and most require..." He paused, reading more carefully.
"What?"
"A supernatural mate bond. Apparently, the emotional and spiritual connection provides enough anchor to the waking world that dream entities can't fully possess the dreamwalker." Lucien looked up with something that might have been relief. "Your timing might be better than you know."
“Why is it always a mate bond?” Elias asked with a heavy sigh.
“Becasue, they are the most powerful bonds in supernatural elements. In the world I would think, for any being. Having theother half of your soul is something nothing can withstand if they go against you.”
Elias took a breath and focused on the positive, feeling some of the tension ease from his shoulders. "So the mate bond can protect her?"
