Lucien held his eyes and replied, “A hybrid.” Callum felt his brows go up and Lucien nodded. “Werewolf, vampire hybrid. The first of his kind.”
This was news.
Lucien kept speaking. “It’s important we form an alliance and, when they’re discovered, we ally with them.”
Callum thought no truer words were spoken.
“Absolutely,” he agreed.
“Therefore, you should know about Leah.” Callum’s eyes moved to Lucien’s bride but Lucien kept speaking, explaining simply, “She dreams.”
Callum’s gaze sliced back to the vampire as his body grew taut.
“Dreams?” he used that word to persuade the vampire to go on.
“I dream,” Leah put in. “They’re better now but, well…” she trailed off and looked up at her mate.
“She dreams the future,” Lucien continued for her. “Vividly. So vividly the dream can take hold in real life to the point that what’s happening in her subconscious can happen to her physically.”
“Curious,” Callum muttered and watched Lucien’s mouth tighten in irritation.
“She dreamed of The Sentence,” he declared and at that it was Callum’s mouth that grew tight.
The Sentence was what, centuries ago, vampires carried out against their own who had human mates who they refused to denounce. A ruthless verdict which included the vampire tied to a stake and set alight in front of the human so she could see her mate’s imminent death. Then the human was hung in front of the vampire so he could watch his mate swing before his own life was extinguished.
At the thought of Lucien’s stunning mate dreaming that into reality, Callum bit out, “Christ.”
At that, Lucien shared, “She nearly strangled by hanging while doing nothing but lying in bed.”
Callum looked to Leah and murmured, with feeling, “I’m truly sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she whispered.
But it wasn’t.
He could see the memory of her fear hadn’t faded and Lucien was no longer blanking his reactions. This had shaken him and he showed it visibly.
Another surprise for Callum and an indication of trust from Lucien.
It was Lucien’s turn to change the subject. “She has other abilities.”
Callum almost couldn’t control his reaction to another trait Lucien’s mate shared with his but he did it.
“And those are?”
“The most important one, considering The Prophesies,” Lucien answered, “She can sense danger.”
Interesting, Callum thought.
But he asked, “Heightened senses? Hearing, smell, sight?”
“Not quite,” Lucien answered, watching him closely. Correctly, Callum knew, assuming from Callum’s earlier warning that Sonia had these gifts. “She simply can sense a threat in enough time to prepare should a situation be uncertain.”
“That’s fortunate,” Callum remarked.
“It’s more than fortunate,” Lucien returned. “And it would help matters greatly if all the prophesied lifemates shared these abilities.”
Callum decided to ease both their minds and disclosed, “Sonia dreams. She’s done it all her life. She dreamed of me repeatedly years before she met me.” He glanced at Leah and then to Lucien. “Leah knows of my people?”
Lucien nodded. “She knows.”
This was surprising as well.
Werewolves, unlike most of the other immortals, shared their secrets with humans. However only with those they trusted implicitly, for instance, if their mate was human or they’d formed a friendship bond with someone they could trust. They were far more careful of sharing about other immortal cultures. In fact it was rare if they did because all of them guarded their own secrets, as well as the knowledge of other immortal beings, obsessively.
Vampires also interacted with humans, for obvious reasons, but did so under tight strictures until recently. As with other immortals, however, if a vampire shared the knowledge of other immortal races, the vampire and the human would be hunted and put to death.
Simple as that.
Cold-blooded.
And, to Callum’s thinking, totally f**king insane.
Callum jerked his chin at Leah before he continued, “Sonia met me as wolf when she was a child. She dreams of me as wolf too.”
“Has she dreamed of danger?” Leah asked softly and Callum could thankfully shake his head.
“No,” he replied.
Leah leaned slightly toward him. “I think, and Lucien agrees, as he mentioned before that these dreams tell the future. They don’t tell what it is. They tell what it could be. For me, it was a warning which thankfully we were able to avoid. Now,” her smile grew partly fond but mostly intimate, “I dream of something else. For Sonia,” her smile changed, the intimacy left it and it became friendly, “well, obviously, she was dreaming of her future but,” Leah’s smile faded, “now that has occurred, they might become something else.”
Callum’s teeth clenched as Lucien took up the conversation. “You should know, shortly after Leah and I connected, I started to have her dreams.”
“Fucking hell,” Callum muttered but it wasn’t with displeasure.
He’d f**king love to know what Sonia was dreaming when she dreamed of him.
Lucien carried on, “It was vivid. It told a version of the future but it wasn’t connected to me in a physical way where it could harm me like Leah. It was just a further warning.”
“This is good,” Callum declared.
“It is,” Lucien concurred on a small smile. “But, we’ll need to monitor and share these dreams, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Callum agreed.
Leah turned to look at her mate and observed, “Sonia seems pretty settled here and it’s safe for her. Perhaps she’s had no need to exhibit abilities to sense danger.”
“She has abilities,” Callum announced and both Leah and Lucien turned to him. “Not like yours,” he told Leah but carried on, “she has the sensory capabilities of wolf as human.”
Callum heard Lucien pull in a breath.
Leah just stared at him blankly so Callum explained, “Heightened hearing, sight and smell. She can also sense danger and, unfortunately, has had the opportunity to do so. But for Sonia, it’s more. As it’s nearly wolf, she has instincts. She can sense menace but she can also sense anything even if a presence is close but not a threat.”
“Fucking excellent,” Lucien murmured for tactically it would be should The Prophesies unfold.