What Dreams May Come
Sherrilyn Kenyon, Robin D. Owens, Rebecca York

Excerpt

THE ROAD OF ADVENTURE by Robin D. Owens

Chapter 1

He was the ugliest cat Jake had ever seen. The black and white tom had an aura of maleness surrounding him, even as he licked his paw and eyed Jake with disdain. One of Jake’s ex-girlfriends had used that aura of maleness phrase to describe him, and he’d thought it was crap, now he knew what she’d meant.

The cat set down his paw and sniffed. "I knew you’d come here."

Jake must be dreaming. Cats sure as hell didn’t talk. The surroundings hadn’t tipped Jake off. He spent a lot of time in the gym locker room. He shifted. The bench seemed solid and hard for a dream.

He looked back at the cat and choked. Now it sat on what looked to be a small, ancient Greek pillar, like Jake had seen while watching the Olympics. Behind the cat wasn’t the opposite wall of lockers, but a temple that showed bright blue sky between fluted pillars.

Jake swallowed. Definitely a dream, though since he’d never had a cat, he wondered what the thing was doing in his dream. He narrowed his eyes. That cat! The battered tom looked familiar. Didn’t he have a run-in or two....

"I am not a thing or an it."

Great, now the cat was reading Jake’s mind. He wouldn't let a cat correct him. "You got balls?" asked Jake, pretty sure the tom didn’t.

The cat lifted a pink nose with a black spot and sent Jake an icy stare. Jake’s cop instincts rang loud and clear that something was very, very wrong. But what could be too wrong in a dream? He looked down. Yep, fully clothed. He wouldn't walk into the Captain’s office naked.

The cat hissed. "My name is Borisssssssss."

"Huh," said Jake. He stood and stretched, all his muscles worked fine. Some called him an endorphin-adrenaline junkie, but he just liked the way his body felt when he was in shape. Though he was thirty-two, he wasn't slowing down at all. Looking around his side of the room, everything was comfortingly familiar, the dull green lockers, the bench, the tile floor. But it changed in the middle of the room, becoming marble slabs.

"Boris, huh?" Jake tested reality by strolling over to the cat and looking down on him. This side of the room remained a Greek temple. Jake could sneer too. "I think we’ve met."

He stepped back as the pillar grew until it loomed over him.

"You don’t remember ME?" Boris hunkered down, his already horizontal ears flattened even more.

How the cat could speak and growl at the same time eluded Jake. He shrugged. He was dreaming.

Boris stretched out a paw and sharp, curved claws sprang out. Oh, yeah. Jake remembered those claws. He’d tangled with the tom on the front porch of a house and gotten scratched. Badly enough that he’d had to get a tetanus shot, and that made his arm ache so he couldn’t work out for a day. Yeah, the cat had cost him. Hadn’t it also pissed....

His stare latched onto the cat’s paw where a bloody spot marked the side of the cat’s white foreleg, like where a vein had been opened or a needle inserted.... Jake’s heart started to pound in his ears.

"No," said the cat. "Your heart...." He sheathed his claws and tapped Jake’s chest.

Jake saw it now, the big, dark stain on the chest of his uniform. Fear lanced through him. Woozy, he retreated to the locker room bench. He didn’t want to think about stains. He wanted to wake up. Now!

Nothing happened except the cat lifted its leg to groom. Jake was right, Boris had been fixed.

Boris growled.

Jake couldn't help from rubbing his hand up and down over the stiff, dark spot, hoping it would go away. If it didn't.... Out, out damned spot! What was that from? Bugs Bunny?

"Shakespeare, his play Macbeth." The cat smirked.

Jake could really dislike this cat.

A door opened on his left. Jake blinked. There wasn't a door there in the locker room. Oh, yeah, he had a really bad feeling about this.

Boris jumped from his pillar and swaggered to the small, balding man in a gray rumpled suit who stepped through the door.

"Hello, Boris," the guy said. The cat rumbled a purr, then trotted into the next room.

The threshold looked ordinary. The man pinned Jake with eyes as gray as his clothing. Such colorless eyes shouldn’t have had an effect on Jake but he couldn't move.

He’d faced down plenty of tough customers and won. His guts twisted. He should be the one in charge. He could lift this guy with one hand. He tried to speak and couldn't.

"Come in, Jake Forbes. You can call me Gray." The man turned and stepped across the threshold.

Finally Jake found his voice. "Whatever," he croaked. He wanted to swagger like Boris, Jake could swagger with the best of them, but his feet dragged until he reached the door and looked in.

The office had bare dingy white walls, utilitarian furniture and gray linoleum. Hell, the Captain had a nicer office than this.

Dull inside, but golden sunshine streamed through a window high in the opposite wall. Two doors in that wall framed a scarred wooden desk where Gray sat. Each of the other walls had two doors also. Jake didn’t like the set up. Too many options and potential for danger coming through those doors—or going out through them. A chill feathered down his spine.

Gray raised a thin eyebrow. "Problem?" he asked with just enough patronization to challenge any guy. Jake sucked in a breath and stepped into the room. Nothing earth-shaking happened. With a pen, the man pointed to a standard wooden office chair with arms. A couple of yellow aspen leaves were on the seat and Jake brushed them off and sat. One of the chair legs wobbled. Jake cursed under his breath.

Boris sat four feet away, acting as if he were a king, but his seat was a raggedy carpeted post with long hanks of unwoven rug hanging around it. And it was pink.

Jake grinned.

Boris looked supremely uncaring. Of course, cats couldn’t see colors, probably not even in dreams. The cat batted at a twig of yellow aspen leaves.

The man squared a stack of papers on his desk and placed his pen at an exact angle. He folded his hands and shot Jake another look. "This isn’t a dream, Jake. Accept that and it will make all our decisions quicker and easier. You’re dead. Boris is dead." He waved a boney hand around the room. "Consider this the atrium to a change, a new existence."

Breath whooshed from Jake’s chest. He felt his heart beating, his lungs working, the guy couldn’t be right. Jake hooked his thumbs into the loops of his jeans and angled his head. He wanted to tilt the chair back, but didn’t trust the wobbly leg. "So, you’re what? An angel?"

The man pinched the skin above his nose. "A facilitator."

"Yeah right." Jake curled one side of his mouth.

"Jake, you’re a jerk. Look at yourself."

Gray’s words punched Jake. Jake the jerk. Jake the jerk. More than one of his father’s "ladies" had called him that—and more than one of his mother’s men. Even his Ma—he nipped the thought, as always. Heat rose from his feet to his face, a flush reddened his neck along the line of his t-shirt. He’d worked hard to make sure no one ever called him that again. Developed a smooth and charming manner. Jake the jerk.

T-shirt. Jeans. He looked down at himself. The police uniform he’d taken so much pride in had vanished. He was in his off-duty clothes of white t-shirt and jeans. The t-shirt had a hole over his heart and a red stain. Pure shock froze him.

"Boris," the facilitator said sharply. "You failed in your mission in this life. You were to bring Jake and Shauna together. The opportunities were there and you refused them."

A cat shrug rippled down Boris’ back. "Not time yet," he said.

"Untrue. The truth is that you wanted no other male," Gray glanced at Jake, "no male of superior strength in Shauna’s life. You wanted to be the male of the house. You wanted to be the only male she loved. You knew she’d love and bond with Jake more than she could ever love and bond with you."

Boris sniffed. "He’s human and ugly. I’m beautiful. I know this and Shauna said so. She is human and ugly too, but she is Mine."

Boris had serious problems. He was ugly even for a cat.

"Jake's not good inside, either," Boris sounded triumphant.

Jake shifted. He was a good cop with plenty of friends.

"Men friends," Boris turned his head, eyes like lambent jade. "You have men acquaintances. Only."

Jake shrugged, grinned. "Women aren’t made for friendship."

"Wrong," both Boris and Gray said.

Gray tapped his pen on his desk, frowning. The hollowness Jake always tried to deny yawned wider inside him. He covered it with a flashing grin. "You want me to be friends with a woman, I’ll give it a try." He winked. "But we won’t be friends long."

"See!" Boris yowled. "I am better than he. He doesn’t deserve to be in Shauna’s life. He would not love her like I do, cherish her, protect her."

Jake snapped his teeth together, inhaled and counted to ten. "That’s enough. I’m a good cop. I serve and protect."

Gray’s sigh seemed to shiver the room. "Jake, I’m afraid you didn’t progress emotionally and spiritually in the manner anticipated. That’s a concern."

Boris slurped as he washed his ear. "So I get My Crown, and My Temple, and when I am bored, My Road of Great Adventure."

The man frowned. "No. Your task was to introduce Jake and Shauna. You ignored the task."

The cat stopped washing and sat straight up, glaring. "He does not deserve—"

"That was not your judgment to make. People can change, especially in a loving relationship," Gray said.

Jake doubted that. He’d seen plenty of broken marriages, bad domestic crises, didn’t even think there was such a thing as love between a woman and a man. Sex. Lust. Some tenderness, maybe. That was it.

"Boris, you didn’t complete your task, so you don’t get your Crown, Temple, or Road of Great Adventure. You don’t even get wings to become a lower angel."

Boris hopped to his feet and arched his back. "No wingssss! I was good. I was the best. You know what I had to put up with from those other cats! You know my bad life before Shauna! You know my sick-hurt and death! I should get wings."

Gray’s face softened. Maybe the guy had some compassion and mercy after all. Jake began to think he’d need it.

"You’re very close to wings, Boris, but haven’t achieved them. We have several options available for you." Gray took a sheet of paper from the pile and Jake blinked. He couldn’t read it, but there were bullet squares, most with checkmarks, and at the bottom some paragraphs in fancy lettering, each gleaming in a different color: red, blue, gold.

He narrowed his eyes at the rest of the stack. Cramped handwriting in dull brown. Sheets with empty squares and only a couple of checkmarks. Looked like a performance review. Were those about him? His gut tightened. He’d always done well in reviews. Before. What did the papers say about him, his life—hell, he started to think this whole crazy thing wasn’t a dream.

Shaking his head, Gray stared at Jake. "You followed the path of least resistence. What happened to that ideal you had about a good family life? A loving wife, children?"

Jake scowled, trying to remember, but couldn’t pinpoint when he’d lost that dream, abandoned the goal as unattainable.

"You could have had that ideal, Jake. If you wanted it enough to work for it and work at a relationship instead of using women and letting them use you. You had a destined mate in this lifetime. A woman who would have helped you grow as you would have helped her. You just didn’t believe in yourself enough."

Fear spiked. "Bulls—" Jake shoved the chair back and stood—at least he meant to. Nothing happened. He was stuck sitting, couldn’t move. Couldn’t even speak.

Gray waved a hand. "You worked hard on honing your body, a charming manner, but you neglected your intellect, allowed your finer emotions to wither, ignored any spirituality that entered your life." He tapped his pen. "Didn’t relate well to women. You would never have received that Captaincy you wanted because you wouldn’t have enough respect from others."

Jake’s gut clenched. Respect from his peers was the most important thing in his life. "I was a good cop!" But his voice cracked. Geeze, he was talking in the past tense. A very bad sign. He gripped the arms of his chair until his knuckles whitened. Sweat gathered at the small of his back.

"Yes, you were a good cop."

Jake relaxed a little.

"Honorable, believing in the motto to serve and protect. But you substituted the general public for individuals. Easier than being intimate with someone, isn’t it? You didn’t even like being touched."

Smiling weakly with the most sincere smile he’d felt on his lips for a long time, Jake said, "A good cop should get wings?"

A flash of amusement showed on Gray’s face. "I’m afraid the standards for human wings are higher than for cats."

Alarm jolted through Jake, his mouth dropped. "I can live without wings. I mean— Uh, I don’t have to be a cat, do I? I don’t want to be a cat!"

Emerging from his sulk, Boris hissed.

Soft chimes wafted through the room. Gray tilted his head toward the room they'd come from. His expression folded into dismay and sadness. "I was afraid of this. Sometimes destiny can’t be denied."

Jake didn’t see Gray move, but the guy was at the door and through it before Jake could turn his head.

In the other room Gray said, "Come in, my dear Shauna, I’m sorry to see you. I’d hoped to avoid this." His mellifluous voice had the range and depth of an orchestra. "Welcome to the Atrium."

He drew a woman of about twenty-eight into the room, holding the tips of her fingers with exquisite gentleness, his manner one of old-fashioned respect and courtesy. With a gesture, he indicated a deeply-cushioned chair of green plush velvet patterned with golden aspen leaves that solidified between Boris and Jake.

"You’re very beautiful," she said in awe, looking at Gray.

Jake frowned. The guy seemed to glow and was taller. Jake shook his head and the man appeared the same. Beautiful? Ha. If this was the Shauna woman Boris and Gray had talked about, she’d called Boris beautiful, too. Obviously she had no taste.

She looked at Jake and he was caught by her lovely eyes—a deep amber with gold and green flecks and a rim of brown around the irises. They were soft with emotion that matched the sweet curve of her lips. She smiled at him with warmth and sympathy and—yearning?

Those eyes drew him to his feet. Words tore from him, "I know you. We met beyond those doors. Our last time together was far too short, mere days. . . ."

"I know you, too," Shauna said. The sun lit her blond hair.

Gray’s voice came distantly. "Hmmmm. Recognition, rather easy here, harder during physical lifetimes. However, probable that once both accept recognition, the knowledge will always be there, in every future life. Interesting." His pen scritched.

Boris yowled. Shauna jerked. She hurried to Boris and picked him up as if he were delicate china, clasping him close.

Jake felt the loss of her attention like an absence of the sun’s warmth. Stupid.

The sense of recognition faded. He’d never met her. She wore a floaty dress in blue that concealed her body, but he thought her breasts were nice handfuls and her hips good and round, even if she was a little plump.

Boris purred, opened one eye and smirked at Jake.

When he heard her sniffling and saw tears rolling down her cheeks, he stood. He had an overwhelming urge to comfort her—but he’d have to brave the damn cat. He scowled and glanced at Gray who smirked at Jake, too. Jake wished he could growl.

"Oh, Boris, it’s so good to see you! It was so hard to put you to sleep, but I couldn’t stand watching you die by inches. Say you forgive me."

God, the dramatics. Jake sat down. Gray frowned.

"I am fine," Boris said. "Except I don’t have My wings or My Crown or My Temple or My Road of Great Adventure." He sniffed. "Perhaps you can speak with—"

"That’s not how things are done here," Gray said.

Shauna looked at the man behind the desk and blinked. Tears caught on her lashes and Jake was transfixed at how pretty she looked.

"No intercession accepted?" She smiled.

Gray actually hesitated. Jake couldn’t believe it.

She shrugged. "I don’t have anyone to intervene for me, but if I can help Boris—" Her brow furrowed. "What about my other cats? Who’ll take care of them? What of the feral ones I feed?" She whirled to face the door. "They won’t be put to sleep and come here, too, will they?" Pain laced her voice.

As she’d turned, Jake got an eyeful of the deep, bloody indentation on the side of her skull, round and as big as his palm. He swallowed.

"Sit, Shauna, that tumble down the stairs was hard on you," Gray soothed. "There is no true security even in your home."

"I’m sorry," she sank into the soft chair. Jake became aware of the hard wood under his own ass. When she looked at him, he forgot discomfort. "Sorry to bore you with my tears."

He flushed, shrugged. "No problem."

She smiled again, then set her shoulders and looked at Gray.

The guy tried to appear stern, but Jake could tell it was a facade. A paper edged with gold with a gold seal in the shape of an aspen leaf and gold ribbons floated to him. "We will review Shauna's life first."

Gray tensed.

"Shauna, you learned most of your life-lessons."

Jake wondered if she’d get wings. He gritted his teeth and examined the doors again. Jake was sure he didn’t want to open a couple of them.

Gray went on. "But you didn’t take advantage of the greatest opportunity we sent you." One big checkbox was blank.

"I was considering it!" she shot back, then slumped in her chair, petting Boris. "No, you’re right. I probably wouldn’t have taken the chance. Too cautious." Her gaze slid Jake’s way. "Too repressed." She sighed.

Oddly, Jake didn’t believe that for a minute. He judged she was as intense and passionate about everything as she was about her damn cat. Ex-cat? Ghost cat? Geeze, his brain hurt.

As Gray gazed at them, the only sound was Boris’s buzz-saw purr. Jake wanted to squirm, but sat at attention. Shauna leaned back, face composed, as if she didn’t care which of the doors she’d leave by. His nerves jittered. Which door would be the worst?

Gray sighed. "We have a Situation here. Please put Boris on his stand," the facilitator said very gently. "He has his decision to make, as do you. You should not influence him."

Shauna rose and stood regally, with a straight spine—a pretty spine above a heart-shaped ass Jake would have recalled if they’d ever met. Thinking he knew her was another mind trick.

"Yes, Boris must be free to chose what’s best for him," she said, setting Boris down. "Oh, Boris, that nasty tower." All she did was look at it and it became pristine quilted blue velveteen. Jake choked at the thought that Boris was now more comfortable than he. Shauna gazed at him with raised eyebrows.

Jake nodded at her and said to Gray, "What’s the deal?" His voice came out rougher than expected.

"Had you, Jake Forbes, and she, Shauna Russell, met as was intended," Gray looked at Boris, who lifted his nose. "You would not be here. Even if you hadn’t stayed together as lovers or helpmeets, your lives would not have ended. As for Boris, he might or might not be here."

"So?" asked Jake.

"So, it’s first up to Shauna to decide whether she wishes to go on or go back."

"Go back? We could go back?" Jake jumped from his chair and the longer leg clattered behind him.