Page 2 of Storm Dragon
“Sick and tired,” the Bobcat Princess with whom she shared her soul chuckled. “Momma’s favorite thing to say was that tired always followed sick, and boy howdy was she right, especially in your case, my girl.”
Ignoring her alter ego for the sake of her sanity, Tamsyn returned to her conversation and deadpanned, “Yeah, this is not a news flash, Luke. Like I said, we are old, and I should know because our birthdays are ten days apart.”
Ignoring her insistence about their age, Luke kept right on going just like he always did. “Then you know that I know better than almost anyone that you hate, that’s capital H-A-T-E, mornings as much as you despise kale salads and ranch dressing made with fat-free mayonnaise and skim milk.”
“Whatever.”
“Okay, yeah, whatever,” Luke huffed. “You also loathe with a capital L when I’m right, but I’ll leave that argument for another day. I fear you’re about to get out the claws and start hissing.”
“Says the dude who just called attention to the very fact that he’s not going to argue about.” “I’m ignoring you,” the Black Bear teasingly singsonged.
“Nothing new there,” she mimicked.
“All I’m gonna say is, go on and keep your secrets. We both know I’ll figure it out one way or another. I may not have your extra special brainiac mind melding power, but I have my ways.”
“Lucas James Murphy, do not…”
“Bye, Tams.” The pitch of his voice got higher, and he just barely held back his laughter as he added, “See ya’ in a few. Love ya’ more than honey buns and butterfingers,” then hung up before she could think of a good comeback.
“One day, I’mma gonna…” Blowing out an exasperated breath, the Queen of the Ryder Bobcat Pounce and oldest daughter of Virgil and Virginia Ryder plopped her phone down on the tabletop, let her chin fall to her chest, and returned her gaze to the cold coffee in her favorite mug. “You know damn good and well you’re not gonna do anything, Tamsyn Ryder,” she murmured to the empty room. “Because A) You refuse to let him get your goat, and B) You love that goofy, old bear like the brother you never had.” With a slow shake of her head, she kept right on going, “Besides, gettin’ mad at Luke won’t do a damn bit of good, Tams, my girl, and you know it. You’ll just grumble and growl, then forgive him the second he walks through the dang door with that silly grin and one of the worst jokes you’ve ever heard that makes you laugh, no matter how hard you try not to.”
Sliding the cup a few inches forward, then back, she watched the ripples slowly fade to the edges as Luke’s words echoed in her brain… “Still havin’ trouble sleepin’?”
Another exhale, and she gave the coffee a stir, then stared into the center of the tiny whirlpool. It wasn’t a crystal ball or a deck of Tarot cards, but it was all she had at the moment, and as her momma used to say, beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“But that’s not really true, is it?” Her voice trailed off to a whisper, and her inner monologue gained steam.
Tamsyn wasn’t precisely a beggar. She wasn’t without resources. There were other avenues she could take to get the answers she thought she needed. She could have talked to Grandma Emma, but then she would have to explain why she wanted to know if there was ‘anything out of the ordinary comin’ her way’. One thing would lead to another, and her great-great-great-grandmother on her mother’s side would turn her special, Magical, Mystical Intuition on and point it right at Tamsyn’s aura.
No, it wouldn’t be painful…not physically, or in any other way, other than her ego. It wasn’t that Grandma Emma would pry past any of the mental blocks she’d put into place. Nor would she ask any uncomfortable questions. Nope, that wasn’t the oldest living member of her Family’s way. She was kind, considerate, and very giving with all her time and talents.
However, she always knew what was up first—a trait that had caused problems since the Bobcat Queen was five and planning a super-secret treehouse sleepover with her daddy. That woman just seemed to ‘know without knowing’ everything, and the older Tams got, the more she hated relying on anyone, even her Family.
She’d always been hardheaded and secretive. Dad blamed it on them being Feline Shifters. Mom said it was because they were Royal Felines. Maybe it had something to do with the Bobcat Princess she shared her soul with, but Bridgette refused to comment and would always change the subject.
Nevertheless, on that night when she was five years old, it had only taken one look from her grandma, the Bobcat Seer with golden eyes, and everybody and their brother knew that Tamsyn was keeping a secret and more than likely planning something she knew she shouldn’t. Thank the Heavens that over the years, the younger Bobcat Shifter had gotten better at shielding and keeping her thoughts to herself.
No, that didn’t mean that there weren’t a couple of centuries where Tamsyn spent more time in trouble than out of it. Not to mention the three decades she spent in Texas with the Sampson Pack, who were not only Wolves but good friends of her parents and the Ryder Pounce. If she was honest, and she always was, Bonnie and Maggie Mae were more than friends; they were Family. They were sisters-of-the-heart, and she would forever be grateful for the time she’d spent with them.
But all that was in the past, and bygones were bygones and all that happy horseshit. In the last hundred years, the only time Grandma Emma Thunderpaw had been able to see Tamsyn’s future was when she allowed it or asked for it.
And Tamsyn wasn’t about to let all that hard work go to waste.
Yes, there was no doubt in her mind that something than a hurricane was headed her way. Yes, it was keeping her up at night, making her cranky, and pretty much disrupting every area of her life. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t figure it out for herself or needed help. No. No way. No how. Nope, not gonna do it. She was not going to ask her grandma for a ‘forecast’. She would figure it out all by herself. She would stare at her coffee for a month of Sundays if that’s what it took.
“And it looks like it might take even longer,” she sighed to the empty room.
Picking up the teaspoon from the napkin where she’s placed it, Tamsyn dipped it back into the coffee and gave the brown liquid a single stir for what seemed like the umpteenth time. Letting the teaspoon drop from her fingertips, she exhaled when the gentle ting-a-ling of silver hitting ceramic filled the kitchen of the Grand Hall. With her gaze following the swirling java, her thoughts wandered to the previous night. More specifically, she zeroed in on the sleepless hours during which she’d mopped the kitchen floor, refolded all the towels, sheets, and blankets in both linen closets in her house, watched reruns of her favorite sitcoms from the seventies until she was sure her eyes would bleed and she couldn’t stop singing Welcome Back, and basically did everything in her power not to give into the irresistible draw of sleep-to and including rearranging everything in the kitchen cabinets.
Sure, she was tired. More to the point, she was absolutely exhausted, but she couldn’t take a chance that once asleep, she would dream. She just couldn’t do it. Not until she understood why ‘it’ kept happening. Why did she keep dreaming of an absolutely drop-dead gorgeous man with long red hair and gorgeous Emerald eyes? It didn’t matter that he was covered in dried mud and needed a shower and a shave; it was the fact that he begged her for help as if she was all that stood between him and certain death.
Drenched in feelings of dread and hopelessness she instantly knew were not her own, tears had filled her eyes as his deep, rumbling brogue beseeched, “Please, Mo gràidh. Please.”
Flipping her long, brown braid over her shoulder, Tamsyn mentally walked back through the last dream she’d had… The one from three nights before, when she hadn’t been able to stay awake… The one that had been so powerful, so heartbreaking, that when she woke up, she was on the deck behind her house, putting on her mud boots, and all she had on was her daddy’s old football T-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts.
“Sleepwalking,” she huffed under her breath.
“The last time you did that was three days after your thirteenth birthday, which just happened to be twenty-four hours before your first Shift,” Bridgette, the Bobcat Queen with whom she shared her soul, chimed in. “And I had yet to be called into action. Since I’ve been around, your nights have been pretty uneventful, much to my chagrin.”
