[Stephanie]
Like the woman in the red cloak, this man covered his entire face with the hood of the cloak. However, unlike the woman, he was surrounded by a black aura that I felt was dangerous.
"Who are you? Why are you manipulating my mind?" I asked, looking up and watching the man slowly fall from mid-air to the ground like a leaky balloon. He looked less than five feet.
"He's targeting you. Steph, don't approach him." Arthur tightened his grip on my hand and took another step forward, his robust body shielding me.
But I didn't understand why the man was targeting me. I was just a normal female shifter, well, even though I could somehow craft some strange bloody weapons.
"Is that what you want, Gavin? To awaken the two of them?" The red-haired woman said, stepping to my right, red aura surrounding her.
Where's Patrick? As the woman spoke, I turned back to look for Patrick. But I didn't find him. Also, Carl, who had fallen in a pool of blood, was gone.
"Shh~, Steph, don't panic. Patrick's soul should be protected by Lassie." Arthur sensed my movement and answered my question before I asked it.
Wait, the woman in the red cloak was Witch Lassie, Arthur's trustworthy friend? And why Patrick's soul? The Patrick I saw wasn't real?
"I didn't think we'd be reunited in the dream world. Dear Lassie, how long have we not seen each other? 1 year? Or 2 years, maybe, if you want to add the previous world's 1 year." The man named Gavin had his hands behind his back and wasn't about to take the cloak off his head.
The dream world? Was I in a dream? So, I didn't kill Carl and Freya with Patrick? I stared at the man, trying to hear more helpful information from his mouth, but he was clearly unwilling to go on.
"That's impossible. How did you get to this world?" Lassie's voice sounded shaky.
"Over 100 years of magic, enough vitality, and Phoenix blood," Gavin extended three fingers and grunted again, seemingly laughing. "These three conditions are easier for me to obtain than getting eternal life. Lassie, do you underestimate my abilities a bit?"
The conversation between the two of them only made my questions multiply. For example, they were talking about 'magic power', 'life force', and 'eternal life' things that I hadn't heard of at all. But at least I had guessed that the man named Gavin was a wizard who wanted eternal life, so he was also reborn back into the world a year ago.
"You're right. I may have underestimated how crazy you are about your ugly desires. But after you show up in the dream world in this form, I notice one thing..." Lassie opened her fist, and the red aura surrounding her formed a dozen sharp red spikes.
"... That is, your magic power is weak now!" The spikes around her were already flying at Gavin when Lassie finished adding the words.
"Alpha boy, right now," Lassie shouted to Arthur and tossed him a glowing glass bottle.
"Hey, honey, are you ready?" Arthur squeezed my palm after he caught the glass bottle.
"Ready for what?" I asked. My instincts told me Arthur would take me away, but I still had a ton of unanswered questions.
"To wake up. "Arthur pulled a golden whistle from his pocket.
The ear-piercing whistle sounded, and I opened my eyes, covering my ears, amazed at what I saw. Almost two-thirds of the sky was colored red. The red and blue sky looked like a painting that had been splashed with red paint.
I stood up to look around and found that I was standing in an endless snowfield. The red of the sky had dyed the snow on the ground light red. But I didn't feel the cold and terrified. There was nothing here, after all.
"Where am I?" I mumbled.
"Where's Steph?"
"I swear it's none of my business! I don't know why we haven't changed back yet!" I heard Rose and Arthur's voices in the distance. Then two huge eye-shaped windows suddenly appeared in the sky, allowing me to see Arthur's face and the constantly waving hand that was my hand.
What the hell! Was Rose controlling my body?
"Art!" I shouted at the two eye-shaped windows.
"Wait! I hear Steph's voice." Rose reached out my left hand to stop Arthur, pacing back and forth.
"Shift now." It was a very childish voice, and Rose's view shifted to a little redheaded girl who looked about five or six years old.
I had no free time to think about who the little girl was because my world also fell into darkness after Rose closed her eyes. I had no idea how long it took, maybe only 0.1 seconds. When I opened my eyes again, I was leaning into Arthur's arm.
I returned to my body.
"Welcome back," said Arthur with a smile, his forehead pressed against my face.
I was once again surrounded by the familiar scent of fir, so reassuring to me.
I had memorized his appearance, but I had never stared into his eyes so greedily as I did now. Perhaps this was the only way I could carve these eyes filled with his deep love for me into my soul.
I touched the bit of hard beard stubble on his chin and brushed my thumb across his lips, pressing mine to them.
"Ahem. Have you forgotten I'm still here?"
The tender toddler voice made me reluctantly leave Arthur's warm lips. It took me a moment to notice a little redheaded girl sitting on her heels to my left.
I left Arthur's embrace with a little embarrassment and sat down to look at that cute little girl. The shoulder-length red hair was a little curly. Bright eyes seemed to be hiding a pair of golden brown amber, except that her pale cheeks and lips made her look less than energetic.
Inexplicably, this little girl made me feel familiar. Besides, the off-white dress she was wearing didn't suit her. I eyed her beautiful red hair and pondered whether I could suggest they change a red dress for this Little Red Riding Hood-like girl if I was lucky enough to meet her parents.
Speaking of Little Red Riding Hood, I suddenly remembered Witch Lassie wearing a red hooded cloak in the dream. Still, the witch in the dream world was only about two inches shorter than me. This little girl in front of me was at most 4 feet. So maybe this little girl was Witch Lassie's daughter?
I looked back at Arthur, and he nodded to me as if to confirm my guess.
My eyes moved to the little girl's face again. This time, her eyes were red, and tears slid down her cheeks to her chin. Her pale lips were slightly parted and trembling. Although this was the first time I had seen her, the look of her tears made me feel an urge to cry with her.
I assumed she was a little scared because it was her first time seeing me.
A few years ago, Patrick and I would occasionally play with children in our pack, and I had some experience dealing with small children who were crying.
"Hey, sweet, I'm Stephanie. My mate is your mom's close friend. You can call me Auntie Steph," I said, showing her my best grin and putting my hands on the little girl's shoulders.
Arthur sniggered, and even though he had covered his mouth with his hand when I glared back at him, I caught him laughing at me for handling the child.
What's worse, the little girl suddenly jumped into my arms, hugged my shoulders, and bawled.
"I... I miss you so much." The little girl loudly expressed her misses for me with a sobbing voice, her thin shoulders twitching.
I was stunned by this sudden hug. But the moment she hugged me, I smelled a fragrance that I knew very well - the aroma of rosebud tea.
When we were little, Patrick and I used to sit on my father's lap and listen to him tell us about our mother. There was no picture of my mom in the house because my father said that my mom's community didn't allow the members to show their real faces to others, which meant that they couldn't appear in any photos or videos. So Patrick and I had to rely on my father's words to imagine our mother.
However, my father's description of what my mother looked like was vague. He said she often changed her hair color and sometimes wore different colored contact lenses. But only one thing remained constant, and that was the fragrance of her body.
[It was an aroma like sun-dried rosebud tea. Sweet and comforting.]