Instead the Brandon of his dream, took the blade in his own hand and laughed. His voice cracked on a sob as the metal clanged across the mountain top. He dropped to his knees. “They are all dead Kail. I just....felt the last of them die.....Now I guess peace will rain....Come brother....finish the slaughter.” The phantom Brandon sobbed.

A sharp knife of agony split Brandon’s heart apart as he watched the dream phantom of himself scream and claw the earth.

“WHY!! Why did you do this to us?” Kail’s blade clanged into the earth...and with a broken scream he collapsed into the mountains soil. Kail put a hand to his head and bowed down as if he were in agony. “My people.....My Clan....Their sorrow is unimaginable. We....never wanted to betray our own...!” Kail said.

But Brandon’s dream phantom simply laughed. “They couldn’t allow Acaris to fall into our hands.” He said. “They needed it to rule the world.....but with our deaths.....I know you will stand against them Brother. Even when I am gone...”

A small gasp escaped and when Kail looked at Brandon’s phantom his eyes.....were glowing bright silver. Something unnatural. Something powerful. “You.....you monster!” Kail screamed. “You planned this....You scarified....everything. You forsook everyone! To protect the secrets of the Acris!? You would bloody my hands with your essence and the sin of thousands!”

“That blood is mine alone to carry....” Brandon shouted back. Suddenly the haggard Brandon of his dream looked off to the left....and a sad smile came across his face.

“Now it’s up to you.....” Suddenly a cloud of black wind slammed into the phantoms body. The earth turned upside down. The wind became like solid steel. Brandon’s phantom screamed as plunged across the edge of the mountain to his death. The last thing Brandon saw was Kail’s face as he screamed his name.

But As the Darkness engulfed him.....Brandon was horrified to find that the dream was not at an end. Brandon blinked in the darkness. He felt the world spinning around him.....

Until swiftly bright white lights struck him in the face and everything stopped moving. Walls as white as the clouds shot up all around him.

Suddenly Brandon realized that he was sitting....kneeling on the ground. The beautiful, but sad mountain ranges all around him had disappeared. No sunlight kissed his bloody skin. There were no swords.....and yet.....the floor beneath him was soaking in warm fluids.

A sever ache in the back of his head and across his body felt almost real as Brandon slowly came to the realization that he was in a room. An empty white room.....and that he was clutching a small, soft body against his own.

Every fiber of Brandon’s body began to scream.

He couldn’t look.

He refused....Until a small elegant, blood stained hand reached up and tapped his cheek. Brandon jumped and looked down and felt a part of his heart crumble.

The beautiful woman was laying across his lap. Her body drenched in blood.....his blood. The woman was only small in height, but she had a round body, a head full of black hair, eyes as white as crystal...and the soft grace of a rose or a humming bird. She was beautiful....even in the throws of death. “You’re sad Brandon.....Why....?” She asked him.....before she closed her eyes. “You had to eat...”

The woman coughed and blood sprayed up and across her delicate features. Brandon flinched and went to touch her....

“It hurts...” she whispered. Her beautiful white eyes slowly fading of life.

Then the woman went still. Dead....and in seconds her delicate weight floated away....reminding Brandon that this was nothing more then a dream...it was a memory.

This was a moment in his life he had never wanted to see again.

“Noooo! NORA! ” Brandon screamed as he tore away from the warm body and clawed at his head. He tore at his arms, he scrubbed and ripped. “NO! NO! No!”

Suddenly a part of the wall opened up....it was a door....and in the door stood....men in bright white suits. Some men had on thick padding and gear. They held weapons in their fingers pointed into the room. And at the head of the group was one man....with bright golden hair, pale skin, features sharp enough to cut glass...long black gloves on his hands and a look of horror on his face that made Brandon’s heart want to stop in his chest.

“Filthy beast! Kill him! KILL HIM!!!” The man screamed. But no shots rang out. Instead the mans face degraded into that of a malicious storm....or demon. The palm man ripped off his gloves and black lights danced across his body....across his hands. Brandon screamed and collapsed into a small ball sobbing. He felt so lost. So alone. So confused. He didn’t want to see these things anymore. He didn’t want to remember THEM....or Their faces.

His friends. His enemies. His monsters.

“Please....Please! I’m sorry. IM SORRY!!! NORA!”

“Lil one...just stop this...”

The calm baritone took all fear....and pain and dashed it away.

Brandon didn’t think twice he reached out and was instantly taken in the embrace of the one man he couldn’t forget. The beast that hunted him. That Shifter....that he knew in the past.

The phantom body that engulfed him in his dreams was hard and large....and so welcome that Brandon started to sob. In real life he knew that this body was lost to him. But for a second.....in this dream. Jacob embraced him.

Jacob....was once his everything.

Jacob was a curse and a blessing. A angel...and a demon.

Jacob had short black hair....and a long face, with a prominent nose...and strong cheeks and chin. The man was gorgeous....in the sense that that everything about him was rugged....and yet refined. His entire being was as tight as guitar and more relaxed then a lazy breeze. Jacob had changed over the years....but in Brandon’s dreams....this was how he remember him the best. Jacob took him into his embrace and locked him there, his heavy body taking in the sounds of distress. Giving comfort as the Jacob of the past would have....

Until the Jacob of his dreams gasped and pulled back. Brandon was forced to turn and there in a puddle of blood.....once more there laid the beautiful corpse of Nora.

Brandon started crying harder, He pulled and jerked on Jacobs’s hands. “Jacob....I didn’t mean to....”

“Lil one.....what have you done...!?” The handsome man shouted and jerked him up to his feet. His actions were painful. Brandon screamed in fear. All feelings of lover or joy melting as the reality formed over the dream.

“I’ll fucking kill you for this!!” Jacob screamed as he snarled.

The touch of his hands became a vice. The soft timber of his voice became an unnatural roar.

The eyes blead from black and turned into a fresh golden light. The eyes of a Shifter. Fangs shot out at Brandon as the handsome man lunged for his throat and spilled his blood across the floor.

The screams and the pain.....bled across to the shifting of a warm hard body...the hard restraints of hands on his arms and the soft baritone of someone screaming his name. The real world shot into focus with a sharp clarity. Ezekiel had him pushed down into an unfamiliar bed on his back.

“Brandon look at me....Brandon Wake Up!” Ezekiel screamed in his face.

Brandon collapsed back into the bed on a ragged sob of relief.

“Hey! Are you okay? What happened!?” Ezekiel asked, his hands still gripping Brandon’s shoulders, which were shaking with his cries.

Horrified his twisted tongue seemed to choke the words from him. He couldn’t speak....he couldn’t do anything but cry. Brandon knew he should have tried to get a hold of himself. He knew Ezekiel didn’t need to see any of this, but when Ezekiel took him and held him against his chest Brandon cried ever harder. The Leopard shushed him and rocked him back and forth...

Eventually Brandon cried so hard that before he knew it he was asleep once more and his heart was too weak to summon any memories.

*So dear readers what do you think so far? Any preditions of who Brandon is dreaming about and just what it all means?