Connor stood up and bent over Adne, listening as she spoke in a quiet, breathless tone.
“Ren . . . Ren . . . Don’t let him take me. Please. Don’t let him take me. Ren.”
Connor dropped Adne’s hand and took a few steps back.
The despair he’d been feeling gave way to dread.
“Do you understand what she means?” the healer asked.
Connor didn’t want to answer.
It’s nothing. Of course she’d be having nightmares about her brother. Bad dreams. Hallucinations after exposure. That’s all it is.
Rational as his excuses were, Connor knew they were lies.
“Oh God, Adne.” Sabine halted in the doorway, gazing at her friend. Tess and Ethan stood in the hall just behind Sabine.
Clearing his throat, Connor could only manage to mimic the healer. “She’s out of immediate danger.”
Sabine crossed the room and took up Connor’s abandoned post, kneeling beside Adne and taking her hand. At Sabine’s touch, Adne grew restless again, mumbling.
Frowning, Sabine leaned closer. Connor had to stop himself from grabbing Sabine and hauling her away.
After a moment, Sabine pulled back and looked over her shoulder at Connor. “Is she saying what I think she’s saying?”
Connor ground his teeth, wishing he could deny it. Sweat broke out on his brow and his pulse became frenzied by panic. He felt utterly helpless and he couldn’t bear it.
Tess came into the room and whispered quietly to the healer. The robed woman nodded and quickly left them, closing the door behind her.
“Tell me why you’re so upset, Connor.” Tess gave him a measured look.
With a rough laugh, Connor gestured to Adne. “I’d say it’s obvious.”
“That’s not it,” Tess replied.
“You’d better fess up,” Ethan told Connor. “She’s the boss of us now.”
“What?” Connor frowned at him.
Sabine sat on the edge of the bed. “Tess is our Guide now.”
“Since when?” Connor threw a startled glance at Tess.
“Since this morning,” Tess answered. “So if you don’t mind . . .”
Connor hesitated, looking quickly at Shiloh. The new Striker hadn’t uttered a word since they’d arrived in Adne’s sickroom. Not that he seemed ever likely to be a big talker.
“Shiloh is part of the team,” Tess said, following Connor’s gaze.
“One big happy family, are we?” Connor muttered. When Tess gave him a withering look, he held up his hands in surrender. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to repeat Adne’s words. “Sabine heard it too. She can tell you.”
Tess lifted her eyebrows, turning to Sabine.
“It sounded like she thought she was talking to Ren.” Sabine shrugged. “She’s been saying his name.”
A shadow passed through Sabine’s eyes. “But there’s something else.”
“What’s that?” Ethan asked, frowning at Sabine’s worried expression.
“‘Don’t let him take me,’” Sabine answered. “She also says, ‘Don’t let him take me.’”
“Who?” Ethan shifted his weight, uneasy.
Sabine shook her head, looking to Connor.
“I don’t know,” Connor said. “I have no idea what she’s talking about.”
“Tell him about the tracks,” Tess said to Sabine.
“What tracks?” Connor looked at Sabine sharply.
“Odd as it seems,” Sabine told him, “it looks like a wolf dragged Adne from the middle of the garden to the back door of the mansion.”
“A wolf?”
“There were wolf tracks in the snow alongside the drag marks,” Ethan said.
Connor felt worse by the minute. “Are you trying to tell me that Adne was out in the garden in this weather, she passed out, and a wolf brought her back? Was it Shay? You mean Sarah Doran really saw him?”
“None of us know what really happened, Connor.” Sabine managed a pretty wolf-like snarl. “But there were wolf tracks in the snow.”
“But they weren’t Ren’s tracks.” Ethan crossed his arms defensively when they all fixed him with incredulous stares. “I’m just putting it out there. There were wolf tracks and now Adne’s talking about her brother.”
“Renier Laroche is dead.” Sabine’s voice was brittle. “Emile killed him. We saw it happen.”
Tess nodded and said gently, “I’m sure that if a wolf somehow came to Adne’s aid, then in whatever state of confusion she experienced, it might have dredged up memories of her brother.”
Though Connor didn’t find much reassurance in the image of a wolf clamping its jaws around Adne and pulling her through the snow, it was at least helpful that Tess’s explanation about why Adne would be saying Ren’s name made sense.
“Connor.” Sabine looked at Adne, who’d gone still again. “I know you’ve been worried about her. Is there anything else we should know?”
Connor tensed, reluctant to speak about Adne without her knowledge. It felt like a betrayal.
“If you want us to help her, we need to know what’s really going on,” Sabine said. “If there is something else going on.”
Dropping into a chair as the weight of his fears took over, Connor said, “She’s been having nightmares. Nightmares and headaches.”
“Nightmares about what?” Tess asked.
Connor shook his head. “She doesn’t like to talk about them. I’ve always assumed they were about Ren and Monroe. About their deaths. But now I’m not so sure.”
“I’m surprised she won’t tell you about them,” Sabine said. “That’s not like her.”
“I know.” Connor rested his head in his hands. Sabine had said what he’d been afraid to: Adne had never held anything back from him. Not ever. But now he felt like he barely glimpsed what she was thinking and feeling.
“Maybe she feels guilty.”
They all looked at Shiloh in surprise.
“I don’t mean to intrude,” he said, uncomfortable with their sudden focus on him.
“You aren’t,” Tess told him. “Please go on.”
Shiloh threw an apologetic glance at Connor. “I don’t know Ariadne, but from what you’ve said, she sounds very loyal. Maybe her nightmares make her feel disloyal and she’s afraid to tell you that.”