DEN OF TYGERS

27 FEBRUARY, SATURDAY, AFTERNOON

Just after polishing off pizza cake and coke, I started feeling that weird sluggish feeling again. Yes, it was the same one as when we first got back from fighting the Warlock Fount, and Bell turning Tyger.

My limbs started feeling heavy and molten and my head felt like it needed something to help me prop it up. A pillow would be nice right about now...

Should I be worried? Was I going to turn into a ghost again? I hoped not. Last thing I wanted was for my wolves to spirit bind me and wire me up to Roy's mad invention.

Maybe I ate too much pizza and all the blood had gone down to my stomach to help with the digestion work.

Dropping off my container in the sink and grabbing another can of coke up to my room, it felt a little like the stairs took a little more work to climb than usual. I made my way up step by step at my new sluggish pace. Why was my room all the way up at the top of the tower? I mean, it was cool when I was fine, but not so good for slugs.

By the time I got upstairs, I was convinced that it wasn't just the after lunch slump. It wasn't just that I was moving like a toy on its last leg of batteries.

My heart hurt. Like a sudden sharp twist of pain as if I pulled a muscle. It was only for a short while, but I had to stop and grab the banister. Wth.

Luckily, I just made it to the top of the stairs - all three floors of it. Why had I never noticed that three floors was an effort up? Next time, I want my room on the ground floor.

My heart did that twisty thing again and I nearly fell over opening my door. Where was a healer when you needed one?

Oh right, mindlink! I'll mindlink Ki... No wait, if I mindlinked something like, "Help! Ki! My heart hurts!" That would sound weird.

How about, "Help! There's something wrong with me?" No. Too vague. He wouldn't know if was a medical emergency.

I know, "Help! I might die!"

Wait, no. That was even worse. For one thing, it would be terribly embaressing if it turned out to be something dumb, like heart burn.

For another, if I fell asleep, and I sorely wanted my bed, they might think something terrible had happened and do something drastic.

Okay, calm down Sam. I climbed onto my bed. Think!

I probably won't die. I was linked to Bell's life line. So it might just be heartburn.

So sleepy...

No one was home yet, which was a little disappointing. I would have liked to see someone before going back to bed. I crawled between my sheets and snuggled Lilibutt. Just a little nap won't hurt right?

My heart hurt! The last (and only) time I had heartburn, Bell had nearly died from the curse in his arm, cutting it off, and whatever the Lorents did to regrow a new one.

Oh. Did something happen to Bell? Could it be that our linked life force wasn't draining out from me but from him?

{Mate! ~❤️ }

At this moment, I can't say if it were from a particularly bad heart pang, or just the fact that I was lying comfortably in bed, I fell asleep.

The next moment, I opened my eyes and found myself sleeping on a red love seat facing a large fireplace.

This fireplace was so large that it had several blue fires lined up in it. I sat up, wondering if I were at Heller's castle in the Colored Mountains, but looking around the room, it appeared I was somewhere quite different.

For one thing, the room I was in didn't look like any of the rooms I had seen in Heller's castle. This room was cavernous - it quite literally looked like I was in a large cave. Most of the walls were lined with towering bookcases, and right above that, the exposed rock curved up to join with the ceiling looked very much like how a real cave's ceiling might look, but with chandeliers installed.

It was weird even by Color Mountain standards.

Oh, but the books! There were bookcases crammed with books. It made the collection of magic books that we found in Fount's Tower look paltry. It made the school libraries look shoddy. These books, each one radiating immense amounts of magic, lined the shelves of the cave as far as I could see. I got up and followed the curve of the room only to find more bookcases. I didn't touch anything - I knew better than to randomly though magical items like books. Who knew what might happen?

More than once had a book cast a curse of sucked someone into it. Yes, I know these things only happened in Lycan legends, but with the way things had been going lately, you can't blame me for being careful.

But I could look, right? As long as I followed Mum's "Look but not touch" rule, it should be alright to explore a bit.

Let's call this place the Cave Library. After walking through it for a while, I realized that the Cave Library had no windows or doors - which would have been bad, except that I knew I was dream traveling, so I wasn't trapped.

This.was.amazing.

The books were so dense with magic that even the air around the bookcases caused the hairs on my arms to prick up. We had to be somewhere in the Colored Mountains, because this place was impossible.

Besides the books in the bookcases, there were also gold items just standing around. Bowls of fruit and flowers sitting on the few reading tables, tall vases, some as tall as Sabre, just standing in the dusty corners, or left fallen on the ground, goblets, pitchers - everything encrusted in jewels. And there were jewels too, just sitting in little piles and big piles.

Was that a shield? Were those swords? They looked expensive, but they had been chucked to the corner like unwanted umbrellas.

Ornate carpets laid about haphazardly, covering sections of the rough cave floor - I felt really sure we were in a cave now, I can't explain the bookcases of magic books or anything else here really, but besides the treasures left around, and the immense library crammed up against every square foot of wall, we were in a large and rather natural cave, or rather a cluster of irregularly shaped caverns meshed together so that it was full of nooks and crannies, and treasures stuffed in every one of them.

Furniture too, antique armchairs with ornately carved frames, pillows with tassels... It was like everywhere I looked, I'd find some interesting trinket. There were toys too, a golden ball with a bell inside sorely tempted me, but I refrained. I shouldn't touch.

In many a lycan legend, treasures seemingly left haphazardly about were more often than not, temptations by the wayside. And if this wasn't the Colored Mountains, I don't know what was.

So it came as no surprise to me when I found Heller by the fireplace after I came a full circle around the various caverns in the cave library. Heller, on the other hand, was totally shocked to see me.

He looked up from the fire at my approach and startled, "Blue Alpha! How...how did you get here?"

"I dream travelled." I answered, honestly, it was nice to see a familiar face, "Where are we? Are we near your castle?"

Heller only looked confused, "I don't understand, how did you get in?"

"I just woke up here." I said. Why was Heller sounding so flustered?

"Oh." Heller seemed to have figured it out, "It looks like you've found a new treasure Blue Alpha."

I touched the point where he was looking at. Oh. Bell's red heart stone. I forgot I was wearing it, gold chain and all. I did feel a little silly, but then I remembered Heller's mate, Meredith, wore a tiarra with her nightgown so I guess a fancy necklace wasn't that big a deal.

"Why do you have a Tyger's heart?" Heller asked me cautiously, "Where did you get it from?"

"My mate gave it to me." I answered.

"Your mate is a Tyger?" Heller asked.

Yes? But why was Heller asking me so carefully? It's like he found a live bomb and was trying to work out if he should try to cut the red wire or the blue wire.

Well, I've swum with one or two sharks before. I knew how to fish for information too, "Nevermind that, Heller. What are you doing here?"

Heller didn't even bat a lash, "I'm meeting Haku here."

And then in the same breath, he muttered, "Speak of the devil."

And it did seem like the devil himself was making an appearance! For just next to the fireplace, a black rectangular void appeared. I'm not sure how else to explain it. It was like a solid rectangular piece of darkness about the size of a door. It stood there perfectly silent and then a black curse leaked through, and with it stepped in Haku.

He looked very surprised to see me, "Why, it's the Blue Alpha!"

Haku managed a smile, "I wonder what brings you here?"

He looked at Heller as if asking, "Why is she here?"

Who knows? Maybe he was mindlinking that. Could they mindlink? I had always assumed they couldn't. Sort of like Henry and me, good friends but both alphas of their own pack.

But I had to remember I wasn't in the plains anymore. I had to readjust my expectations based on Colored Mountains standard - which meant that every single amazing legend I had ever read or heard was possible!

This.was.amazing!

Suddenly, my heart had another pang. I had to remember to breath.

"Blue Alpha?" Heller asked, immediately worried.

"Pardon me, Blue Alpha." Haku's hand glowed as he touched me on my shoulder. The pain lifted.

"What happened?" Heller asked. He was frowning.

"It's fine. It sometimes happens." I waved it off quickly, "Thanks Haku."

Now it was Haku's turn to frown, "You mean to say it happened before? Blue Alpha, it's quite serious. Your soul mate just died."

What? My hair flared at that. I shook my head, "No way!"

I was grabbing at the stone around my neck. It burned cold in my hand - weird, I know, but the unnatural feeling reassured me that Bell was well.

Oh yes, and my mating bond. It was still intact. I sighed a breath of relief.

"It's probably just heartburn." I tried to explain.

Neither man looked convinced.

"I promise you, my mate is alive!" I said. My bond was completely intact - the wall he had set up to block it was just as intact. See, everything was normal!

"He was ressurected." Haku deduced. He sounded really confident. Plus he was the Healer wolf from the Colored Packlands... Surely he knew what he was talking about!

"Are you sure?" I asked. Although, arguably, shouldn't I know if my mate just died?

"Quite." Haku nodded.

My heart suddenly twisted again. Arugh!

"I wish he'd stop doing that then!" I complained. Haku touched my shoulder again with a polite, "Pardon."

The pain lifted immediately.

"I can only nullify the pain in such cases." Haku informed me apologetically.

Actually, pain nullification was pretty neat. Mum had ever said Healers could only alleviate. But we were in the Colored Mountains so this was yet another example of why I had to readjust my expectations while I was here.

And then a third time. Dammit! Was Bell dying and resurrecting repeatedly?

Heller who had calmed down and was thinking properly again spoke up now, "I have a feeling her mate and the new Tyger in our midst is one and the same person. Shall we go over to the sparring pit to see?"

"We did come here to meet him." Haku agreed amiably.

Okay! But... I looked around, "Where's the door?"

At this, Heller laughed, "Blue Alpha, where Tygers go, there need be no doors."

And then another black void rectangle appeared.

"Please take my hand, Blue Alpha." Heller smiled, an otherworldly smile, the same one Bell had been proffering recently. He was also sporting the same black fumes too. Omo

I had always known that Heller wasn't a normal wolf! But I had assumed it was because he was a Colored Mountain wolf.

The sparkly amber stone in his earring, the blue fire in his castle. Yes, he married Meredith, who was a formling, but since she was a formling, she definitely didn't take her fire. So who did?

"You're a tyger!" The words left my lips in a whisper. And then I looked at Haku, he sported a green stone in his ear. I mean, I noticed it the first time we had met, but I had assumed it was something princes or powerful wolves wore. Or even just the trending fashion statement.

But now I realized it was the control stone. Like Fount's blue earring that River was now wearing, and Bell's red stoned one. It was the control stone.

I figetted with the red heart stone Bell had told me to keep for him. So their heart stones were with their mates...

Oh wait. Alpha Gunter wore such a earring too. It was a pale lavender stone. I remembered it because it was so light, I had thought it was clear, except I had noticed it was purplish under the sun.

Oh s***. It has come to my awareness that I was currently in the Tygers' den.

"Trust me." Heller smiled as he raised his open hand for me to take, "I'll bring you to your mate."

{Mate!❤️ }

Part of me worried about another heart pang. What if Bell didn't ressurect at the next one?

I had to go protect him. So despite all the times my mother had warned me about following unfamiliar adults, I took Heller's hand and stepped into the black doorway.

{Bell, be safe!}